18 July 2006

Why I will go to heaven

My studies are progressing. It’s a tough call, studying evenings and weekends, and easily 20 hours a week outside working hours, but so far I have only skipped study due to a few days of illness. Most of the time it is interesting, and often just fascinating. A lot less blabla than I feared, although some articles inspired me to set up a P.O.T.O (Ponting Out The Obvious) and even a BS (male bovine excrement) ranking. Furthermore there are limits to the volumes of reading on New Zealand’s health sector reforms (not such a great success if you ask me) one can stomach, but on the whole the material is very rich. It acquaints me with some absolutely fascinating issues, such as the cultural issues behind African governance issues (a polite way of saying: ‘why is Africa so corrupted’- oops sorry!). I used to think (let’s say 10-20 years ago, when I was still high up in the arcane fields of Classics and Ancient Philosophy (which I still long for, don’t get me wrong) that public administration (in Dutch: bestuurskunde, I guess) couldn’t possibly be interesting. I was wrong, as I was about economics. I now find that understanding the world one lives in through economics, political sciences, public management, etc., is just fascinating. It is ephemerous though: an article written 20 years ago must be very good indeed if it is not to be regarded as obsolete. When I was working on the PhD-thesis-that-I-never-finished-thank-you-for-reminding-me, one of my main sources was a book (Doxographi Graeci by Diels) published in 1870! At some point I will go back to it or something like it (Sanskrit, or Buddhist studies), but right now I enjoy studying and getting a bird's eye view on what I see and experience every day.
Africa figures a lot in this course. Small wonder: the continent seems to be one big ‘how not to’ guide to public management, although this means that there is a lot of scope for improvement too (not such a bad attempt at optimism, is it?). Perversely, it makes me kind of sceptical as to what we are doing in public finance reform here. If there’s one thing we haven’t taken into account it is the cultural factor, apart from more pressure and more tough talk on the ‘fight against corruption’. One fascinating insight I have learnt is that actually, whereas Westerners tend to see corruption (the abuse of one’s official position for personal gain) and nepotism as something immoral, for Africans it is absolutely immoral not to help your friends and family when you’re in a position to do so. It all depends on context. It is very dangerous not to look after your friends especially in fragile states, where one’s only basis to fall back on are the people you help and have helped. It is easy for us to be principled when there are massive safety nets to catch us when we fall. Right here you can simply die. When the President of this country declares his desire to fight corruption, while his relatives and friends are helping themselves lavishly to the country’s resources (diamonds mainly), he may not be completely faking it. He might actually have an idea of the bigger picture while having to keep an eye on his personal survival as well. As I have said before, we should perhaps not look at the issue of corruption from a strictly moral viewpoint (although most people here also agree that developing too big an ‘appetite’ is wrong) but mainly from the economic point of view: corruption and nepotism are economically inefficient, and are therefore to be fought against as ruthlessly as possible (excluding perhaps, at least for the time being, the Chinese option: public execution). Unless you don’t even buy into the maxim of economic equity, or the right of all not to live in poverty.

The above should have sufficed to bore you witless. However, should you still be reading this, I can inform you that Bernard, my diamond cutting and trading friend, was given back his diamonds and his diamond cutting factory was unsealed again. He didn’t have to pay his 1500 euro fine. Instead, they raised it to 6000 euros....

I listened to Bush’ glitch to Blair during the G8 meeting (remember I have ADSL now). They’re all taking about Bush’ comments, using the s- word. We knew that Bush was and is a straight talking hick of limited academic capacities (though no fool, far from that), and his blind support for Israel comes as no surprise whatsoever. His comments on Syria being able to stop Hezbollah in their tracks actually made sense, I think. However, I thought Blair’s grovelling and submissiveness were so much more embarassing, and the real revelation of this open mike incident.

The French have sent jet fighters to this country to help out with the fight against the rebellion in the North. Or so I thought, and so the Ministry of Defence declared. But apparently all they did was make a 20-minute detour from their flight from N’Djamena in Chad, where they are stationed. Last Friday they flew low over the capital making a lot of noise and messing up our electrical equiment, then flew back to N’Djamena. But hopefully the message hit home with some that the French will support the government.

I am in charge of the office for three weeks, the boss is on leave though he checks his e-mail twice a day. I decided last Friday not to go to the Quatorze juillet reception at the French Embassy to represent my employer, as I didn’t feel particularly well. Instead I went home, completely exhausted, and crashed for 6 hours straight, in a deep sleep full of unpleasant dreams. Work and studies taking their toll, plus being away from A. and the children. I hope there won’t be any fall-out from my absence at that reception, us being the biggest donor in town. But I just couldn’t bring myself to wait hours and hours in the sun doing small talk. The President had been invited, and that’s usually a guarantee for hours and hours of waiting. This time it wasn’t so bad apparently, he arrived only 40 minutes late, and the ceremony took only 1,5 hours longer than expected… I think I did the right thing, but I may not be the stuff true diplomats are made of.

The weekend wasn’t great. I continued to be tired, studied nevertheless, went for dinner Saturday night at a colleague’s place, had a very good time & too much of his Albanian’s father in law's homemade plum brandy & a hangover the next day. More study, pouring rain all day, missed A. and the children. Two more weeks to go. Then there were constant power cuts, and no running water – I went unshowered all day today, and I wasn’t the only one at work, as far as I could tell (and smell..).

As regards my self professed talent for writing nasty letters, there’s a big one coming up: our main interlocutor, Minister of Planning etc., keeps resisting a simple project management unit to help him, and us, in managing the major aid flows we’re trying to direct to this country. I have written a letter that, if approved by the boss, will lead us into a new fight. It was coming anyway, so better have it now. Raz-le-bol, plein le cul. Amazing how the bloated ego of one man can do so much damage to a country.
Now, as to why I will go to heaven:
  • I seem to have managed, indirectly, but by hammering on the issue internally, to force our security firm’s director to sort out his employers’ pension rights, on which he was cheating. One of our guards came to thank me personally for that.
  • Ever since I arrived I have always had a hunch that the belief in sorcery and witchcraft in this country is an enormous problem in terms of human rights, gender (mainly women are affected) and the rule of law (almost no proof required to get somebody in prison, hearsay suffices). I told a recent mission of judicial reform experts about my concerns (not shared by the boss, ‘qui a trente ans d’Afrique’, and doesn’t think this is something worth pursuing, Africa being what it is). But upon their return from the provinces they confirmed that in fact the witchcraft issue is one of the major problems in the country’s judicial system. They brough back some shocking stories, and pictures, of clearly mentally retarded people in prison having ‘confessed’ to having eaten their victims’ hearts etc. The experts said they were going to make a big deal of it in their final report, which will serve as a basis for judicial reforms in the near future in this country (or so we hope). I should have no illusions though: many of these women are better off even in the infernal conditions of the local prisons here: there are numerous and recent cases of villages where they buried such women alive…. But perhaps, just perhaps, it sets in motion an awareness, a doubt. If only we could get witchcraft out of the Penal Code, that would be a start. And I do believe that I have had a role of sorts in getting the issue on the agenda.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

The only way anyone can get to heaven is by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ who died for all our sins on the cross 2000 years ago,he was buried,and rose from the dead the third day,was seen of men,and went back up to heaven. If we repent of our sins against God our Creator and trust Christ as our God and Saviour he will give to us the gift of God which is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.He alone is the only way to miss hell fire forever at death.Only trust him today for new life in Christ.For more information,www.thegospelhour.org or www.AntrimFaithBaptistChurch.com,Thank You,George

June 18, 2009 11:59 PM  
Blogger George said...

Another good sites to look at would be www.HolyBible.com and read from the preserved word of God if you dont have a Bible. And www.FBNRadio.com , www.NaijaBlogVillage.com and touch on the religion section for more on Genesis and other Bible subjects.

January 30, 2010 8:38 PM  

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