Jill Rees: Welcome Press

The Green Belt Movement (GBM) Kenya is a civil society organisation for women, based in Kenya, advocating for human rights and supporting good governance and peaceful democratic change through the protection of the environment. The organisation addresses the challenges of deforestation, soil erosion and lack of water by advocating for and training women to plant trees. According to GBM Kenya, this activity empowers women by making them environmental champions and by providing them with income-generating activities. The tree planting activities are also supported by civic education and networking. GBM Kenya was started in 1977 by Dr. Wangari Maathai, the first African woman and the first environmentalist to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004. Educating a little person is a bit like tending to a tree. What I liked about the tree initiative is that the women who tended to the saplings naturally gave their children the tasks of watering them and checking the fencing and so on. This kind of thing enables young people to develop naturally in harmony with their environment. This idea of ‘natural human’ was very prominent during the development of democracy in the late 18th and 19th century and came to be known as romanticism. Most pertinent for us is Rousseau’s Emile, which became the blueprint for humanistic education. Because education in Europe was based on this humanistic philosophy, Dewey, Montessori, Steiner and also much of what is still in schools and the curriculum in the UK are great examples to us, as some of them were to Makiguchi. There is a lot of good work going on, the group work and pair work, as several contributors said, is part of that and is among the most important aspect of humanistic education isn’t it? Also it is vital to teach these ways to interact with others at the right stage of development. Certainly pre- and early teens should be beginning to think globally I would say. Thoreau believed that children at school should also take care of their own environment, as in the recycling scheme Christina wrote to us about. Wonderful! It always drives me mad in schools where the clocks don’t work and kids are learning electrics - repair the clocks!! A school I worked for in Somerset initiated a vegetable garden in its twin school in Zaire, which was then used to provide free school meals. A simple and sustainable solution. I would really like to emphasise at this point that because we are teaching a child and taking care about this one individual child’s developmental stage, that the way we teach is vital, and should itself be sustainable ie based on co-operation and creative leadership from the child and his or her peers. As work on sustainable education has shown us, if we begin to accidentally introduce authoritarian interaction into a classroom, we blow the whole thing. This is why we need careful and sustainable teaching methods, coherently interacting with the subjects we are using. We are not teaching the subject (although the child might well be learning it, hopefully anyway!), we are always teaching the child. There is a big difference between working together as in a tug of war, which is set up with each individual merely a component part, and group work used sustainably, where the group is egalitarian in its essence and based on the heightened development of each individual within the group. The purpose of the group is to encourage and support each individual within the group. This is human competition. When we work in groups and in peer settings, in a co-operative and student-led way, the output of every student is greatly enhanced, to the point of disbelief. The increase in ability according to every known method of measuring progress is so huge in sustainable education methods, that teachers are often questioned about their honesty in reporting the results! improvement of one of two levels however has been reported by systems teachers across the board, so it seems to be a universal result of using these child-centred methods. (Although the results improve, our aim must not be to improve results, as this would then corrupt the ’system’. The results improve as a result of increased confidence and support available as a result of being consulted as an individual about one’s own education and development. After a while, recording results would become irrelevant I suspect.) Some things seem to follow from Soka ideas of respect for life and the individual, such as being opposed to unnecessary animal testing. Because of this, we would want to teach subjects in a certain way, which would be ecological. For example, global history would be very different to the vastly differing versions of history we currently have to endure. Until now, sustainable education has been teaching in traditional authority-based classes about sustainable ideas, but this is unlikely to itself be enduring, unless we find a way to teach in a sustainable way. The emphasis is different, but important, and needs careful self-watching as we tend to fall back onto our own experience of education (or I do anyway) and careful and continuous planning. Also observing the individual children, and taking their lead. It’s quite a spiritual experience, as we feel our way being led by the child, and lose our own ego, and makes one feel very happy and fulfilled. The children do too!

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You would think that being out of the European football competition would make the English too upset to watch the tournament, but in fact quite the opposite has happened.

In England there is a brutal nationalism about international football,, stemming mainly from the fact that the team is very weak and demonstrates vividly how we are a very small insignificant nation deep down, and not the great Empire that exists now only in our imagination. Since England won the World Cup in 1966, its only victory, it has unfortunately come to believe that it can win again. This is patently not so. Even most of the players in our Premiership teams are from other countries, sadly ineligible to play for our national team. The English fans however refuse to accept the truth, and become exceedingly belligerent each tournament.

This is not helped by the fact that the UK also includes many Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish fans, whose teams rarely qualify. Since the days of George Best there have been calls for a British team, but the chances of obtaining agreement between these rivalling nations makes this unacceptable to all four nations. Although long since part of the UK, the other nations are patriotic about the Scottish, Welsh and Irish national teams. It is widely believed that the English would just want to get the best players from the other three nations, and make a larger ‘English’ team; for it is the English who have tended in the past to conquer and subsume other cultures, Wales and Ireland as well as the former colonies.

Such is the rivalry between the four British nations that they look very unfavourably at the idea of ‘playing for the English’. In the 1998 World Cup Scotland were knocked out in the early stages. When asked who they would be supporting Scottish fans said ‘Whoever is playing against the English’.

In World Cup competitions of course we are very lucky to have close connections with former British colonies and in the England/Jamaica matches the Scottish fans were out in force…..for Jamaica!

‘Our boys have done well’, they were heard to say. Most of the black population of the UK has its roots in Jamaica and the West Indies, so ‘our boys’ is happily applied to a people that the British are familiar with. Any remnants of racism against Jamaicans was wiped out in the rivalry with the dreaded ‘Sassenach’, an ancient Gaelic or Scottish word for ‘Saxon’ and what they now call those dreadful heathen south of the border.

In ancient times, the British Isles were populated by a mix of peoples now referred to as the ‘Celts’ although only a few were actually Celtic Europeans, many were Picts and other tribes from the east. The Britons themselves, who were there even before the eastern Celtic tribes, originate in North Africa and are closely related to the Berber people of Algeria and Morocco. Since official British History only begins with the Magna Carta, the British are thoroughly unaware of this, and any attempt by Nigerian visitors to explain that the British are really Africans will not go down well, just so you know!

The point is that England did not qualify for this European Championship, and peace reigns in the streets of the UK. The experience of watching the matches has reverted to the calm and happy times, beer in hand, that we remember from the beloved era when we was fab and before the football hooliganism of the eighties. Gentle comments of ‘Well played’, and ‘Good save, son’, are more like cricket than football, and the quiet half pint of bitter goes down better than twelve pints of cheap lager in this atmosphere. The English have become civilised again, and the British are united.

‘Who are you supporting?’ you may ask. Ah, well, therein lies a tale:

My family background is Welsh on my mother’s side and English on my father’s side. As the Welsh go by matriarchy, I am officially Welsh. On the other hand, the English go by patriarchy, which makes me officially English. At heart of course I am Nigerian, but they aren’t playing! Under normal circumstances, therefore, I support the Welsh, on the principal that the English are colonial imperialists, whereas the Welsh never did ‘no harm to nobody’. Wales, however, rarely qualify, although there was almost one glorious moment when we beat Italy 2-0, and we are still living off that victory nearly ten years later!

My parents come from Manchester, and have always supported Manchester United, so I decided to support whoever was first to beat them. This was back in 1968, when they were pretty much unbeatable, having just won the European Cup. Finally A.C. Milan beat them, and I have supported that Italian team ever since. There used to be a fantastic programme on TV called ‘Football Italia’ and British people who were fed up with the bullying and whingeing of the British teams at the time went over to the Italian side, with the grace and footie skills of the Italian players. Women liked watching it as well, for obvious reasons, so it brought couples together, at least until the men realised what was going on. Anyway this all meant that I have been supporting Italy.

This tournament, I find myself in Istanbul in Turkey, and Turkey have turned out to be amazing. They are a tough people, used to dealing with adversity, to taking hard knocks and getting back on their feet again. Twice they have come back from certain defeat to wrest stunning victories. When they win, they shout and toot their car horns, and have now taken to setting off fireworks and shooting guns up to the sky, even at the start of games. Football once again has elevated the hope of this split nation, half in half out of Europe, divided from Asia by the Bosphoros channel, which I spend my leisure time sailing across in a ferry boat saying,

‘Now I’m in Europe; Now I’m in Asia’.

Win or lose in the football, it’s only a game! And at the very least, Turkey have won the respect and admiration of those English fans now supporting their team, which may aid their desire to become accepted as a member of the European Union. After all, it is the European Championship.

1070 words

© Jill Rees

22 June 2008

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From the moment I got here I have been reminded of France. Just little things, kissing on both cheeks, obsession with meals, tall houses,tree-lined avenues, al fresco dining, cafe terraces, family picnics, little decorated sugar bowls, parking on pavements….. Finally it dawned on me, of course, the Moors lived in the southern half of France for several centuries, what we think of as French is actually Moorish/Ottoman. This photo of parking on the Asian side of the Bosphoros confirms it in my book.

On Sunday I was officially Shirley Valentine. I took the ferry from just across the way and crossed over the Bosphoros into Europe, which is grossly over-rated. From busy Besiktas,the number 25 bus zooms up under the Bosphoros Bridge to Arnavutkoy, a delightful little fishing village reminiscent of Venice (also once Moorish) with the boats coming right up to the wooden houses. To the call to prayer, I walked up the hill and round into the village, which apparently has the only African restaurant in Turkey.

Along the waterfront, the tough Turkish boys threw themselves into the currents of the strait, only just heaving each other to shore before the ferries chopped their heads off. The men were fishing and, as I walked up the sea front to Babek, where all the rich people live, and I must say St Tropez springs to mind here, the wives come down with the children and the men light up the barbecues and grill the fish. They eat fish and salad with tea of course and the sugar in tiny decorated Ottoman sugar bowls.

At Bebek, I crossed over again into Asia, to the ’sweet waters of Asia’, where people were picnicking, and walked along the road, spurning the many buses to walk under the Fatih bridge, which was not built by the British, ut is one of the longest suspension bridges in the world. I sat in a cafe by the water’s edge in Kamlica and ate yogurt, for which this town is famous, and felt like Shirley Valentine. The yogurt is served with icing sugar, and really tasted wonderful, the families were out for Sunday afternoon outings, and the bus back to Uzkadar was crowded. Back at the ferry port, the families picnicked together, eating from home or the cheap ubiquitous kebabs. Is this country paradise or what?

Work again, and the tea terrace afterwards again becomes a necessity. Here is one of the nicest young men I have ever met, young Eddie. We’re once again listening to the call for prayer.

After looking at the stalls with

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Martin, who was singularly unpersuaded by me and Catherine Morgan in Austria about the hospitality of the wonderful friendly Turkish people we met, summed up this evening, that the warmth and welcome he felt from the Turkish workers in Austria was absolutely true back here too, and not just a common feeling about being foreigners, as he had thought. It is true. Everything I have experienced about kindness, friendliness, warmth, honesty, courage and generosity, from meeting Turkish people around Europe, and their boasts that Turkey and Istanbul are wonderful welcoming places has turned out to be no exaggeration.

All seven of us teachers were invited out by another parent tonight, and ate the best meal I have ever had, no exaggeration, the wife is a wonderful cook. Stuffed peppers, spicy bulghar wheat rolls wrapped in lettuce, pot roast lamb, haricot beans in a light tomato sauce… endless other little things I don’t think we got to taste everything. The children were delightful and helped serve tea and honey cake thingy. More tea more tea. The guy is highly travelled and well-off businessman, who has been to over 50 countries in the world. Being a journo too, we had some heated conversations about the state of the world, the agenda of the West to moslems and how the image of countries like Turkey as portrayed in the western media is complete fabrication. The women and girls are bolshy enough, and the men respect their opinions quite openly and obviously. Our men teachers in fact think that women here manifest much more power and influence, and are very confident. I wouldn’t like to mud wrestle any of them either.

Here are our incredible gifts, a Turkish hand-made tea set with gold and crystal, and welcome to Istanbul books and DVD, best of all my book was a dialogue about making a global community!!!! In rhythm again (and on so little daimoku!!!) We were so moved. Even Martin suddenly and arbitrarily bringing up the subject of Mozart’s balls (Mozartkugeln) on the mention of almond paste couldn’t quite ruin the evening.

The children are really funny but also really tough. When they fall over they never cry. They are proud to take responsibility for being brave.
The attitude of the people, the pride and confidence they have, with no sense of apology for what they feel to be their weaknesses, some corruption in the government, not yet being in the EU for embarrassing reasons and so on, they perhaps have in common with those nations who have been great Empires and know their true worth in the world.

Our host’s son wants to be Prime Minister. Good. I will look for him in Brussels.

Photos from top: Uzkadur square;Istanbul from Calice hill; our gifts.

SEE PREVIOUS POST FOR UPDATED PHOTOS

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Makiguchi believed that, instead of education supporting the needs of society (currently as we discussed previously this means just forcefeeding children so they can be productive workers) society should support education. In other words, society is for the development of human beings. This seems logical, right?

A former KGB agent called Zinoviev wrote a book in the 1980s called ‘Homo sovietique’ or ‘Soviet Man’. (see http://www.zinoviev.ru/frz/index.html) Based on his experiences in high levels of government, he said that power corrupts people bit by bit until finally they are thinking and acting in a way which is psychotic. He meant this as literally a sort of mentally disturbed state in which the leaders are unable to think rationally. On occasion we have good leaders in our governments and in our societies, but all too often they are basing their actions on high levels of stress, and without any understanding of where we are heading, where we want to be going as a society, and what the nature of modern times is. In a democracy it seems to be even worse. Once you have voted for them they take this as carte blanche not to bother considering the needs or desires of people for another four years or whatever, and then only to exploit our lower life-states, our fears and hungers, for another of our votes. Our segregated and nationalistically based world at the moment seems almost upside down to me, serving the needs of a very few, and the wants of fewer still. Our children cannot be educated for this type of world without their becoming totally dysfunctional.

I have taken a step back this past year and thought, looking at myself as a person, wanting to be able to live as a whole person, what do I want my life to be like. I have this: I want to live as if I am living by my own set of values, with a feeling of harmony in my surroundings and a sense of peace because I am being true to myself.

When I teach in schools in the UK, the stress is indeed like Homo sovietique, everyone is in a highly psychotic state. I don’t want to be like this. I reject it, and try to speak to people in a respectful, calm and slow way. I stop and look them in the eye. Incredible as it seems, decisions are made quite literally ‘on the run’, headteachers have discussed complex arrangements and decisions for their school while running away, talking in broken staccato sentences. This is not the right way to access a situation, to make a wise choice, or to take stock of the other person’s talents and requirements. If they are running away from me, I stop talking. They come back, and always appreciate the extra care I make them take, because it saves them time in the long run. I know they are being crazy, because they achieve the opposite of what they want and need.

In school today (I am in Istanbul teaching English in a Turkish school) the very young children (8 years old) decided to take pity on us and teach us Turkish. We began to really have some genuine human exchanges. Our aim is to teach English language, communication skills, cultural differences and exchanges so that the children will grow into Euro-citizens for the new age Turkey optimistically awaits and is fighting for as part of the European Union. The local teachers expressed a lot of concern that the kids were getting us to speak Turkish, tho of course we only know a few words. Unlike the young people, we can only take in three or four words a day!!!! But the children are indeed responding in a person-to-person way, using excellent inter-personal skills and communicating effectively. This is precisely what we need to teach. Job well done. But it seems any sign of human interaction is viewed with suspicion nowadays.

There is a good definition of community on this site, and the most important thing to my mind is that the members of a community feel they are accepted as they are, and that they can contribute in their own way to the community. This is what I am seeking. To live according to my own values and to be accepted for what I truly am. This is a fight. In SGI even, it is a constant battle to remind others as well as myself that I am a Buddha. To me this means my little life is worth as much as everyone else’s. If I slow down, so that a headteacher has to look me in the eye and calm himself for a moment or two; if I explain to a parent that human interaction matters; that is my part and I have played it to the best of my ability. That’s fine.

Today we had a parent’s evening and I spoke with a Muslim mother about our children. My daughter is living with her boyfriend at 18 years old and I worry. In this area, it is almost unheard of for this to happen, but it is their stereotype of the decadent West. As mothers, I and this lady came together beyond whatever values because she was able to understand perfectly well my concern, and see that we are not any different in our feelings and our worries. We spoke about having a daughter, and the difference in our cultures was non-existent. Every human exchange is an opportunity for meaningful dialogue, and this is the goal of my entire life an everything I do. If I and others can live in this way, fulfilling their own kind of character and life choices, sharing honestly unashamedly and heart to heart with each other whatever our background, we are developing education as the aim of society. Our own depth of awareness and understanding is what determines how things are.

from Soka Educators International Network contribution June 2008

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Not only the comments in the guide book not to bother visiting Uzkudar on the Asian side of Istanbul, but the warnings about the obligations expected of women travellers in the Moslem society, have proved nonsense. in fact, we are all delirious with joy and singing the praises of this lovely country of Turkey, this delightful city, and the warm and wonderful people.

Most of the time when we aren’t teaching, we stroll round the shops and cafes, sampling grilled meat and the famous Turkish deserts, or sipping Cay, delicious red tea in the tiny backgammon tea-house terrace Eddie found by his Eddie-magic, and which we think he is now due to inherit as the owner adores him.

I can’t believe I’m really here, gazing out over the Bosphorus at the bridge built by British engineers. The bridge literally between the West and the East, between Europe and Asia, sinks into the smoky humidity of the channel linking the Aegean and the Black Seas. Since the earliest days, this place has been at the heart of humanity. The locals have the self-confidence and largeur d’esprit of those who know their nation is great.

As we ate our fresh fish with mixed salad, at, £1.20 watching the workers getting onto the bus at the end of their working day, bussing out to the suburbs and villages surrounding Istanbul, the stray cat purring by our table, and looking forward to our vanilla rice pudding, a subtle and melt-in-the-mouth taste you can hardly describe, a feeling of contentment overcame me. As the guys in the kebab shop in Bridgwater told us, Istanbul is friendly and beautiful.

After the sweet red tea, we went to buy water and oggle the dolmas. Dolma means stuffed, and yesterday I bought some vine leaves stuffed with rice and some green stuffed olives to eat in my hotel room.
The shop owner’s son spoke some English, and squirted fresh lemon over a dolma just for me to try. Even when they don’t speak any English, the people have no side, just gesture to try to help you understand.
The price they charge is local, with no bump-up for being a foreigner, which is nice.

Last night in the hotel, which overlooks European Istanbul and its Great Mosque, I fell asleep to the cries of joy and carhorns of Turkish football fans as their team came back from 2-0 at half time to win 3-2. I couldn’t believe the cheers, as I thought they were losing, but nothing would keep me awake, and not even the amplified squawking of the four local mosques woke me up over night, as I slept off the previous night on the floor of Luton airport.

It’s great being back with Martin, who I was with for four weeks in Austria in February. A previous photo shows him in the Kaffeehaus in Vienna, so as promised here he is again in a cafe beside the Bosphoros.

Meanwhile, I wait for Rees to visit, and the school have extended our invitation to a weekend of delights to him too.

photos are:Eddie’s tea place from the market square; Eddie himself; Bosphorus Bridge; Mosque view from the hotel window;Martin himself.

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‘As your Buddhist practise progresses and understanding grows, the three obstacles and four devils emerge in confusing form, vying with one another to interfere…One should be neither influenced nor frightened by them. If one falls under their influence, one will be led into the paths of evil. If one is frightened by them, one will be prevented from practising the correct teaching.’

Nichiren Daishonin, ‘On offering a mud pie’ Writings p501

Enlightenment, or Buddhahood, is inherent in our own life, and we bring this out in Soka Gakkai International by chanting Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo, the title of the Lotus Sutra. As well as our enlightened and positive self, which we want to manifest and base our actions on, is the equal and opposite reality, the negative side which we sometimes call ‘fundemental darkness’. As we chant and grow in our understanding of the reality of all phenomena in the universe, we begin to realise these negative aspects to our own life and that of those around us.

People react differently to the Buddha nature we find ourself manifesting. Some people understand quickly, perhaps most people respond to the humanity and respect for their life that Buddhists tend to show unconciously. Sometimes people who are filled with their own inner darkness and unhappiness can react negatively and aggressively. This is very hard to take, especially when they are people who have an influence over you, or people who you are close to in some way. It is hard too when it is other Buddhists, as we tend to expect a lot of people who are practising, when all we can reasonably expect is that they will work their way through it, as we must ourselves.

This negativity that we might begin to see only through our practise of Buddhism, isn’t something which is created by our chanting. If it causes us to stop chanting, or to weaken in any way, it might appear to go away, but it is still there. There is only one way to overcome fundemental darkness, and that is to use the ’strategy of the Lotus Sutra’, that is, to strengthen our faith more than ever.

The reason we chant is precisely so that we can manifest the strength of character we need to speak out against injustice, to speak up when we or others are being threatened, to fight the negativity which has appeared in our life as something or someone, but which is essentially in our own heart.

Shakyamuni Buddha was once victim of an angry arhat who verbally attacked and abused him, but the Buiddha calmly responded in this way:

‘If you receive a gift, which you don’t want,’ said the Buddha, ‘And you return it to the person who gave it to you, who does it now belong to?’

‘To the giver,’ replied the angry arhat.

‘Indeed,’ said the Buddha, ‘And this is so with the abuse you have offered me. I don’t want it and I am returning it to you. So who do the insults you have offered to me now belong to?’

By chanting, doing activities for positive change in society and studying Buddhism, we raise our lifestate to a point where we are impervious to attack. Because the negative occurrences stem from within our own life, they are only at the level we can deal with at this time. Later, when our faith is stronger, we will have much much more powerful enemies and more disastrous horrors to face. Then we will be able to raise our lifestate even more, and develop our own life to a so much greater extent. How wonderful!

It seems crazy when we are hurting so much, and so afraid, as I always am even as I chant with gratitude for these great problems, but this is the way we can grow, become strong, and fight for the world of justice happiness and truth that we so desire to become a reality.

Our Buddhist chums and seniors in faith are there to support us as we develop our strength to fight the obstacles before us. That is why we have this wonderful organisation SGI so that we can grow together as well as bounce off each other. See SGI-UK for the number to call for a connection with your local Buddhist leader.

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Every four and a half minutes someone in the world is scammed by a Nigerian!

Recently this was reported on the BBC, to the detriment perhaps of Nigerians everywhere. The Athenian George Nicolas is one victim of a scam, and now realises how foolish and naive he has been. ‘They seemed so intelligent,’ he said, ‘And so well educated.’ Perhaps this is the key to the success of the scams.

The popular image of Africans in Europe is far from an intelligent, literate, business-oriented internationalist. The European version is a poor, half-naked, ignorant and starving native with chattering teeth and speaking in clicks as he shakes his decorated spear. Europeans like to think they can help Africans by donating money and clothing for aid, or they think of the savage armies in Somalia and Zimbabwe.

The wily city-boys from Lagos are outside of their ideas, even when they are within their experience. However often Europeans meet large, muscley, handsome and charming gentlemen from Nigeria, men who have obviously never missed a healthy meal, they persist in this image of the starving African. This means that when they are approached by someone with an articulate request, they will tend not to be alerted, indeed not really to register that this is an African.

Of course our image of the nature of criminality plays its part. Despite the continuing fraudsters in a certain political party in the UK, who are usually Eton and Oxbridge educated, the public believes that criminals are lower-class dirty scum, drunken and homeless, wife-bashing no-goods who stupidly rob and murder. Of course this doesn’t make sense. The drunken man of fictional criminality is the man who has failed as a criminal. Clearly if they are successfully thieving, they are going to have plenty of money. It may be that a certain kind of pickpocket is indeed a poor kid, but if he is to succeed he’s got to wise up.

In the UK we have a fine tradition of the gentleman, and this is a concept without nationality. The Royal Family are friends with the King of Jordan, for example, and other ‘gentlemen’ from Arab nations in particular. Such is the romanticism of the Arab gentleman, taken perhaps from Lawrence of Arabia and fictions like Arabian Nights, that Princess Diana charmed rosy-cheeked English girls with her delightful romance with the dusky, wealthy and delightful Dodi Fayed.

Alongside our concept of the scruffy criminal and the wily Nigerian, stands the romantic vision of the dusky African lover. The Egyptian Omah Sharif has more or less made a career of his sexy and romantic Arab-ness, playing in Lawrence of Arabia and in the lead role in Dr Zhivago. We have our Eastern crumpet for the middle classes, the Indian Art Malik who, although persistently attempting to change his image by playing villains, is remembered and adored among English ladies of a certain age for his sexy portrayal of Hari Kumar in ‘The Jewel in the Crown’.

Although Omar Sharif converted to Islam, returned to Egypt and has gone completely Arab on us, we still adore him. He recently told George Bush that things would never work out in Iraq because ‘people of the East’ will never succumb to democracy, they just like to ‘go to the nearest Sheik’. ‘He didn’t believe me’ the disgruntled Sharif complained as Bush invaded Iraq anyway.

Sub-Saharan Africans are a bit shadier when it comes to desirability. On the one hand, they are known to have certain…….accruements which are greatly lauded by white women; on the other, they are thought to be somewhat fiery and volatile, and a little bit macho.

Some of this volatility was on display when a scam was traced to a Nigerian internet cafe owner in London, Ikon Bukeh, who replied to his accusers simply by shouting, ‘Get out of here!’ in the secure knowledge no doubt that it is very difficult to trace the scammers, but also completely oblivious to the effect he had on the image of Nigerians. A calm, polite and intelligent demeanour would have led to the TV and therefore the entire population of the UK to say, along with our victim George Nicolas, ‘Nigerians are so intelligent, and so well-educated,’ and by inference therefore cannot be criminals.

The good impression of Nigerian men will now have to wait for another opportunity to show the other side, the more positive side, to the national character that is true of the majority of Nigerians. Slowly, the drip-drip of fine upstanding gentlemen and ladies who don’t sell their own babies, as we observed previously with the case of the woman who tried to claim state benefit for a baby she had bought in Lagos, will get into the consciousness of British people and European people. This is necessary for the increased co-operation and interaction between Nigeria and the rest of the world which we all hope is to happen for Nigeria to become a major world player.

Of course, the ordinary upstanding citizen who minds their own business doesn’t tend to make headlines, and it can be frustrating to see poor examples impoverish the image of Nigerians, but in the case of image, the slow way is the best way. Whenever opportunity arises, the key is to make sure it is taken. China recently had an enormous amount of poor publicity to do with Tibet, much of which was unjustified. However, the moment their fantastic rescue services launched into action following the earthquake in Szechuan province, the image of China changed to a respect worthy modern state.

The longer Nigeria works as a democracy, and the more people notice excellence among Nigerians, the easier it will be for individual Nigerians to do business, and for public representatives to make inroads into projects for progress. The scams are probably the greatest enemy of Nigeria at the moment, in that they create such a poor image of the country.

994 words © Jill Rees 11 June 2008

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In the United States of America, in May 1961, black people began a campaign of ‘Freedom rides’. They boarded buses and trains in the northern states, and upon arriving at the segregated south, refused to give up their seats and move into non-white carriages and buses, which the racist divided southern states required them to do. When they refused, they were dragged from the carriages and beaten, at least one bus was burned. Black people had neither the vote, nor equal access to education, transport, public parks and seats, jobs, cafes and restaurants, nor any of the freedoms of which America boasted.

In August 1961 the US Department of Justice began talks with civil rights groups and foundations on beginning Voter Education Project. Barack Obama was born on the 4^th August in Hawaii to a Ann Dunham, a white American from Kansasr and a young overseas student Barack Obama, Sr., of Nyangoma-Kogelo, Siaya District, Kenya. In the southern states at this time, black men were hanged for even looking or whistling at a white woman. When young Barry, as he is called by his family, was 2 years old, his father moved back to Kenya. Obama went with his mother and her new husband to Indonesia, then sent back to Hawaii for his schooling.

In Hawaii, he was looked after by his grandmother, who he credits with ‘Making me the man I am’. He found it difficult to develop a sense of identity as a black American man, since for a long time he didn’t know any black people. At college, where he did well without really making much effort, he had quite a dalliance with drugs, seeming quite proud that he didn’t get on to heroin, although he was a regular user of marijuana and cocaine. When his best friend was arrested with heroin, he knuckled down and got a place in Harvard to study law, on the anti-discrimination package.

A friendly, polite young man, he did well at Harvard and went on to work as an assistant attorney in the poor areas of Chicago, before becoming a State Senator in 1996. By then he was married to Michele, with whom he has two young daughters. As a Senator, he received much acclaim for his consistent success on health and welfare reform bills, as well as death penalty reforms. In 2004, he ran for the national Senate, gaining over 70% of the votes, following his celebrtated keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July.

As a Senator, he continued to shine with immigration reform, de-commissioning of landmines, relief in the Congo, anti-corruption measures for politicians, pension funds, child health provision and other measures that now seem to have become central to his Presidential campaign. A pragmatist, Obama says ‘We should be guided by what works’. Despite his inspiring speeches, Obama has shown himself to be essentially a man of action.

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Maria sings the Welsh National Anthem. The rumour about what happens with the sheep isn’t really true - it’s just a genetic accident. Click here to listen and see something you will not forget in a long time.

If you’re missing the Rhonda, try this instead.

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