Kindness is borne on the wings of respect which again must percolate from the top to the bottom in this pyramidal structure, what with gravity and all.
I tell you, it’s a tough world we’re living in. Just imagine, reader, being robbed in a vehicle while you’re travelling from one town to another in this our Nigeria. I know it has happened to many of us, much of it going unreported. Well, it happened to me recently, and so close to Christmas too! Some unconscionable characters who… who… who just don’t know the meaning of the word kindness just take it into their heads to rebel against the society using you. I know it has happened to many people. Only one thought is going round my head now: why on earth will these people not read about kindness on PU?!
Seriously, though, our piece last on kindness (continued) drew some more reactions and its important I share one or two of them with you.
… I totally agree with you in the content of your write up…, especially when you summed it up about (how) Nigerians are being punished for being too kind to (their) politicians. (However) Good deeds are not punished but rewarded. Only evil deeds are punished. Hope you get my drift. O. A. 08023109035.
…Madam kindness Oyinkan. Your column on kindness with regards to you should be focused on service to humanity as your mother told you. Since you are not a bank the money you cannot forget don’t (lend) people because you are always complaining of not having much money. Be happy. Y. B. 09084859315
Thanks to the both of you, gentlemen, for sharing your thoughts on this topic. I quite agree with my first respondent that in an ideal world, only good deeds are rewarded and wickedness is punished. Thank you, sir, for pointing out my grave omission of that crucial sentence. However, the pun (and the fun) occurs when you interchange the conceptions and achieve an irony that scares you, especially when you remember that some acts of kindness do sometimes end in disaster. Try and recollect what happened the last time you lent someone your car, motorcycle, bicycle, book, boyfriend or brain. I can recollect some of the put-downs I have received in the course of writing PU. Don’t let me tell you stories. Thankfully, they have been countered by the very many encouraging words from my many more discerning readers.
I can assure you sir, Mr. Y. B., that I am focused on that lesson learned in my youth. I can’t say I have been a very good student but I think the fun has been in the learning and gathering of mosses along the way. You are quite right though to note that acts of kindness can sometimes be hampered by lack of funds, though I don’t recollect telling you that pertains to me exactly. I have often complained rather that people have this nasty habit of not putting my name on their lists when goodies are being distributed. If I appropriate some situations to myself, it is only because jokes fall flat and become insults when they are not directed at the self. Thanks anyhow and keep reading.
Yep, reader, kindness is still a hot topic around here as you can see and where better to illustrate it than in our own peculiar Nigerian corruption situation? The world is today marking the international anti-corruption day. I guess that means they’re focusing on us as the most corrupt nation in the world.
You see, at the heart of corruption is unkindness. Depriving a person or group of a service one is in charge of amounts to unkindness. Depriving a person or a group access to a fund meant for their use or to be used on their behalf also amounts to unkindness. It kills. Misusing a public facility placed in one’s charge amounts to unkindness. Kindness is such a little word but packs such a massive conception that its absence spells calamity.
During the week, I received a post sent by someone whose car burst into flames while on the highway. He was so impressed by the prompt and kind responses of Nigerians who sprang to his aid and put out the fire before even asking to know what tribe, creed or race the car’s owner was. I joined him in appreciating this alacritous kindness but I noted that some of the people who helped to put out the fire would as readily cut his throat in any business transaction. There is a saying that even a murderer helps a child to cross the road.
The regular Nigerian (as against the occasional bad egg) is the smiling, chatty petrol attendant whom you ask to please give you two thousand Naira fuel but who gives you one thousand, five hundred Naira worth and pockets the difference. At the airport, he/she is the nice official who tears your bags irreverently to pinch valuables. He/she is the helpful civil service official who keeps you sitting in the office until you call him or her aside for ‘settlement’. He/she is on the road strutting in the nation’s uniforms collecting ‘tings’ when not throwing their weight around.
The Nigerian is the person who welcomes you wearing a ‘come-to-our-crusade’ badge at the seaport services sector wearing any kind of religious garb and lets you know point blank that you cannot clear your goods until you pay a certain sum outside official charges. The Nigerian is the one who has learnt to deviously twist the morals of his or her position to weasel out extrajudicial advantages and/or payments from the people in very unkind acts that cut deep. Yep, the corrupt Nigerian is the one feeding on the person next to him or her. Unfortunately, he/she lives in you and I and everyone else.
My theory on corruption is this. Whether we agree or not, it started in Nigeria from the leadership which sat atop the social pyramid from the beginning. It took a while for the people to learn the tricks of it. That was why the 1960/70s were calm. However, it percolated slowly, gradually and gently down this pyramid until it reached the bottom rung, infecting everyone, scattering our public morality and taking off in the 1980s. Now, we notice that everyone is imbibing it, even the babe-in-arms (you try and give a new-born money!). Today, very few salespersons know the meaning of honesty. Yep, the theory of gravity still rules, ok!
I believe our leaders did not know what they were starting when they embarked on planting the tree of corruption. They had this… this… inability to respect the people, which in turn, engendered the various acts of unkindness we got from them. Hence, they ruled with deception, used the people for ritual sacrifices, set the dogs of war on the people, and deprived them of their very lives and livelihood. When the results are now coming in the form of boko haram, Niger Delta militancy, herdsmen killers, funds mismanagement, social disconnect, lawlessness and disorder, chaos and confusion, an individual thinking the state belongs to him and his family, etc., we are all looking stupid.
Kindness is borne on the wings of respect which again must percolate from the top to the bottom in this social pyramidal structure, what with gravity and all. Things will change when the leaders learn to respect the people and GIVE THEM good roads to drive on, electricity to do business with, factories to work in, good health systems, good social contract, accountability, probity, responsive and open governance, etc. Then, the people will learn to respect themselves and each other, and begin to show each other this little thing called kindness. Lack of kindness is at the heart of corruption; it stands to reason then that kindness to others is the fuel for the anti-corruption drive.
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