Tears & Cheers

Spring has been unusually late this year, so the strategy of hibernating in the tropics during the northern winter has not been wholly successful. Instead, we walked right into a barrage of chilling winds, sleet, snow and rain.

            But now, at last, thankfully, Nature is showing signs of reverting to its usual rhythm. The sun shines and warms the air to a pleasing 18C. Not before time. Time too, evidently, for a lady of iron to die in a stylish venue. Can’t imagine how or why she should have chosen to die at the Ritz Hotel in downtown London except, perhaps, that it was a final act of provocation towards the proletariat with whom she had those epic fights during her heyday.

            Even without her dying where she did, the old battle lines are still as fresh as they were thirty years ago, and some with appropriately long memories are showing little respect for the dead. One has often heard it said that “people will dance in the streets” when some controversial character (usually a family member) or the other dies, but it must be highly unusual to actually witness a literal execution. There was always the possibility, I suppose.

            These local wars are of course interesting, but where I was taken aback was to hear that Mrs Thatcher was a great anti-apartheid warrior who fought tirelessly to have the ANC unbanned, and for Nelson Mandela to be freed from prison so that he could lead his nation to a better place. 

             In 1996, the Independent newspaper reminded us of Mrs Thatcher and her party's attitude to justice in apartheid South Africa. It was not pretty:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/from-terrorist-to-tea-with-the-queen-1327902.html#

         

            So, I can’t imagine what the conversation would go like when, in the fullness of time, Mandela and Thatcher shall meet.

Tell Fren Tru

Compensation

There is a tiny little island some twenty miles up the Sierra Leone River. You would think, judging by its size, that this island would be of little importance, if any at all. But it is a hugely important site in the history of Sierra Leone.

Of course, on the scale of geological time, the history is a short one. Very short. But, in modern terms it is a long one. Three hundred years. In those three centuries, the island’s fortunes waxed and waned and waxed and waned again.

The basis of those fortunes was slaves. The island, Bunce Island, to keep to its modern name, is only 13 acres in size. But it was from this island that thousands of Sierra Leonean Africans were shipped to slavery in America and the Caribbean. To bring about this feat, European slavers built a structure, which they called a “factory” for processing the human crop, the merchandising of which was to create vast wealth for the participants in the trade.

And of course, in order to protect their assets, the slavers’ factory was also built as a fortified castle. That, however, did not prevent it from being attacked by rivals and it being razed to the ground from time to time. Think of the modern trafficker and his distaste for competition and you’ll get the picture. But, in the end, the Brits prevailed, as they often did in those good old superpower days.

       Britain prevailed also when it came to ending the evil trade in the early 19th century, and so Bunce Island entered its final phase of decline. But it has never ceased to capture the imagination and has become a must-see heritage site for visitors as well as Sierra Leoneans interested in remembering. So, it was not a surprise when the novelist, the late Graham Greene, visited the island when MI6, the British Intelligence outfit posted him to Sierra Leone during World War II. What was surprising to me is Greene’s recollection of his visit in which he had expressed sympathy for the slavers who had been buried in the “crumbling little cemeteries,” as he called them, on the island. It didn’t make sense at the time I read it. Here was this “liberal” man who should have been able to rise above the level of the European functionary exercising seigniorial rights in the land where his masters were pulling all the strings. All empathy for the perpetrators and none for the victims. It was puzzling.

          Seven decades on, the matter was to be clarified, now that it has been revealed that Greene’s family did own slaves up to the time of abolition in the 1830’s, when those who held slaves demanded, and got, substantial compensation from the British government for giving up their human possessions. Greene is of course among distinguished company, as the list of present day inheritors is a virtual Who’s Who of today’s British establishment: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/britains-colonial-shame-slaveowners-given-huge-payouts-after-abolition-8508358.html

But the question that remains a-begging in many minds is who, among the central players, are yet to be compensated?

For which, read “victims.”

Tell Fren Tru

Spot The Difference. If You Can

What is the difference between the Taliban and Boko Haram on the one hand and senior functionaries in Sierra Leone’s Ministry of Health and Sanitation on the other?

Well, for one thing, the Taliban and Boko Haram have a thing against immunizing children for diseases that maim and kill. They espouse a hopeless cause. For them, immunizing children holds not only doctrinal risks (against religion) but is also a plot hatched by western medicine to sterilize and infect with HIV in order to reduce the world’s population of believers.

It is difficult to wrap this sort of nonsense around the head, especially for something in which the science is so clear. The record of how polio has been virtually eliminated in the developed world is there for all to see, and it is something that sensible people would like to replicate everywhere. And smallpox too, that millennial scourge, has been eradicated. Before, if you had smallpox, it either killed you dead or disfigured you for the rest of your life. Now, you just don’t get it. The responsible virus has been wiped out. End of story. The list of other diseases which have been controlled by vaccination is long: Diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, measles, pneumonia, meningitis, yellow fever and even TB, killers all. And every day, new triumphs are recorded... Hepatitis, cervical cancer...

The record is without parallel in the saving of lives and the reduction of human suffering, but GAVI reckons that there are still 22 million children worldwide who do not have access to such lifesaving and life-enhancing prophylaxis. GAVI is a global alliance for vaccines and immunization that works towards reducing this access gap. It is a private-public partnership that provides vaccines at low cost and even at no cost at all to poor countries. They even give cash-money for infra-structure so that the vaccination process can proceed smoothly. They have had a big presence in Sierra Leone over the last decade and deploy their largesse through NGO’s and the Sierra Leone Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MoHS).

That ministry is staffed by a large number of professionals grounded in medicine, statistics, public health, economics, etc. You name it, they have the scientist for it. So, you would expect that the vaccine programme will be a breeze. But hold on a minute. Just in the last couple of days, we hear that ten senior officials in that ministry have been suspended from duty over allegations that money for infra-structure provided by GAVI has gone missing and that the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) are determined to get to the bottom of these allegations. The charge list includes the highest-ranking bureaucrat in the ministry, the Chief Medical Officer, whose professional oath requires him to “First, do no harm…"

Mind you, these are just allegations and we must wait for the findings of the ACC. But if confirmed, I ask you, “What is the difference between Sierra Leone Ministry of Health officials and the Taleban? And Boko Haram?”

Tell Fren Tru

Decisions, decisions...

New Year is the time for resolutions and the making of decisions that could, with some luck, improve your life.

Which Cup??

It is the time, supposedly, for a new beginning. But one eventually reaches the age when there may not be much room or time left for self-improvement. “Been there, seen it, done it...” is the kind of sentiment that runs through the mind. So one might be left wondering what more is there to be done. “But there has to be something,” the subconscious nags. “Try and decide before the year becomes too old and stale and the opportunity for self-betterment is lost for ever.”

So, over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been thinking about potential projects to embark on to make 2013, personally, a better year.  I have identified parameters within which such self-improvement schemes might operate: There should be nothing too strenuous or inconvenient, such as exercising more or cutting down on the foods and beverages that I enjoy eating and drinking. However, I reckon that whatever I might decide on will definitely not be too onerous, because the appetite for immoderate or excessive indulgence has waned somewhat, rendering a major course-correction unnecessary. In any case, when I was in full-time employment we used to talk about CQI, continuous quality improvement, that is, meaning that you should regard every action, every day, as an opportunity to make service-delivery better. CQI has followed me to these more leisurely times, so, even though I don’t have to deliver anything now, I do wake up every morning thinking of the little ways in which I can do better.  

I hope I am not sounding too perfect for some tastes, but incremental steps have been my guiding principle to the point that now, at the beginning of another year, I am completely unable to set myself a meaningful target.

But wait, there is something on which I need to make a decision: That is, whether or not to get myself some new wheels. My current motor is now 18 years old and alas, has not been subject to CQI. When I bought it in 1994, it was an elegant, sleek animal that purred, no -sighed- like the wind from the desert. But now, after only 100,000 km, it has become tired and exhausted, with an engine noise that is nearer to that of an attack of acute bronchitis than to the rustling of the desert breeze. It has a sorry hesitancy in traffic, exuding thick clouds of black smoke. And its fuel consumption. Well... that amounts to a regrettable massive, massive carbon footprint.

I hear you: “Get it fixed.” But there is not a mechanic in this town who has not had his chance (usually a “he.” Only one “she,” so far…) at assessing, fondling or otherwise tinkering with its innermost parts. But all to no avail. So, a decision now has to be made to get some new transport. But we love this car, and the two-car family is not an option. For now, we are stuck.

Tell Fren Tru