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domingo, 17 de novembro de 2013
I thought the US was the land of gold. Now I see it as rude and disrespectful | Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
World news and comment from the Guardian | theguardian.com
I thought the US was the land of gold. Now I see it as rude and disrespectful | Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
American foreign policy limits interactions with countries like Ghana. This leads to arrogant interactions and generalisations
"Is it all right to say that?" He said this looking at me questioning.
"Yeah, yeah it's all right", I responded – even though I hadn't quite heard what he had said.
"Ah. I was asking because Ghanaians can get very defensive." Now he had my full attention.
"Yes", I agreed. "We get defensive because people like you come here and just spend all your time criticizing us. If Ghana was such a bad place would you have come here?"
He responded: "This is exactly what I'm talking about. You're getting defensive now". The conversation fizzled to a stop, and the American man walked away.
While talking to Americans and other expatriates, I've found myself playing the role of the defensive Ghanaian – a role I hate being cast in – a few too many times for my liking. A few weeks ago an American woman I had recently met invited me to a girls night out. The venue was a private bar in one of Accra's recently constructed ultra-modern block of flats.
Before I entered the premises, the security guard had to call and make sure I was expected. I didn't blame him. I don't think anyone with the type of car I drive lives in a flat like that. The girls I ended up hanging out with that night were American and British. Somehow the conversation turned to a discussion about the attitudes of Ghanaian employees. As the only person in the group who was seen as "authentically Ghanaian", the others seemed to be looking to me as some sort of expert.
One American woman said, "there is no local talent. Companies are dying to hire local talent and they can't find anyone". I was shocked. I thought of all the "smart, local talent" in my networks and couldn't help but say, "Well you know people tend to hire people within their networks. Maybe you are just not plugged into the right networks". One or two other women nodded knowingly, and then another American woman said, "Well I think that we don't respect local talent. My company pays Ghanaians very little but the American expats get great salaries, with accommodation and other perks".
When I was in 6th form my dream was to attend an Ivy League university in the United States. That was also the dream of virtually every other student in my 6th form college. A few of us succeeded in making that dream come true.
Others made it to lesser-known colleges in the States, while a few others continued their education in other parts of the world. Needless to say, the word "privileged" was an accurate description of many of my schoolmates and I.
In my adult years, I've had several opportunities to visit the US – New York, Atlanta, Washington, Maryland, Florida and Massachusetts – and it didn't take me too long to realize that America wasn't the land with streets paved of gold that the 18-year-old me had thought it was. Some parts of America looked downright horrible. I didn't recall that being portrayed in any of the American movies I had seen at the time. And the one time I ventured to take public transport in Tampa, Florida, I had to wait over an hour for a bus, whereas in Ghana a trotro would have whizzed by every five minutes. Suddenly, America didn't seem "all that" to me, and definitely not the land of gold that I, and many Ghanaians, had grown up dreaming about.
Fast-forward to 2013 and Accra is now full of Americans (and other non-Ghanaians) who live in the posh parts of the city – Cantonments, Labone, Airport Residential – cheek by jowl with communities that border these rich areas including Nima and Labadi. Rent in Accra's exclusive residential communities are quoted in USD with landlords demanding at least a year's rent upfront.
Some of the Americans here are expatriates – they get paid in dollars, have their rent covered by their employers and get to fly home for holidays. Some have Ghanaian or African-American heritage. They are here to "discover" their roots, and are searching for a sense of belonging.
This latter group tends to "hustle" more than the expatriates – they also deal with "lights off" (electrical load shedding outages), "water shortage" and take trotros. Yet they also share commonalities with the expats – they don't understand the Ghanaian.
They look to Ghanaians like myself to translate the "ordinary Ghanaian" for them, and that drives me up the wall. I can sense that, to them, I am the "acceptable Ghanaian", the one who is well travelled and for that reason recognized as a "local talent".
There is an upside to having travelled, such as developing the ability to recognize the many sides of a prism. For me, this can mean seeing Americans not as the saviors of the world as the American movie industry – a prominent source for cultural perceptions of Americans – inevitably portrays, but as people who collectively exert incredible power and privilege in other parts of the world.
Part of this power is demonstrated in America's role as the "world's policeman". In this context the popular Ghanaian musician Wanlov, one half of the FOKN Bois who made the tongue in cheek song, "Help America", says:
Americans are being deceived. They are being told that they are the good guys, which is why they go into wars. But they do not fight wars in countries where there is no money to be made.
One has only to drive past the US Embassy in Cantonments, Accra, to see the disconnect from America's disconnect from the less-affluent world: with people sitting at a nearby roundabout on conveniently placed tree stumps, under Ghana's scorching sun.
These are invariably people waiting for their visa appointments – with visas costing $160 USD and upwards, virtually equal to the minimum wage of GHC 350. The vast majority of these visa applicants will be refused under Section 214b, part of the United States Immigration and Nationality Act which states:
Every alien shall be presumed to be an immigrant until he establishes to the satisfaction of the consular officer, at the time of application for admission, that he is entitled to a non-immigrant status …
Most Ghanaians are unable to prove their intention not to immigrate to the consular officers.
For many Ghanaians, especially those from lower socio-economic backgrounds who do not get the chance to travel far outside of their countries borders, consular officers and expatriates may be the only Americans who they directly interact with and determine what they think of the wider American populace: arrogant, rude and disrespectful. This is far from what foreigners tend to associate with their positive expectations of Ghanaians: "hospitable", "welcoming", and "friendly" – unless, of course, the Ghanaians stand up for themselves and their country, garnering the label "defensive".
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Out of Europe’s Jobs Crisis, Voices of the Young
NYT > World
Out of Europe’s Jobs Crisis, Voices of the Young
The New York Times asked young people in Europe to share their stories about how the crisis has affected their lives. Here is a selection of the responses.
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Exodus: Immigration and Multiculturalism in the 21st Century by Paul Collier – review
World news and comment from the Guardian | theguardian.com
Exodus: Immigration and Multiculturalism in the 21st Century by Paul Collier – review
Given the evidence, Paul Collier's lively study of mass migration paints a curiously bleak picture of the future
The migration of poor people to rich countries is a phenomenon overloaded with toxic associations, a subject politicised before it has been analysed. This is the starting point for Paul Collier's lively exploration of perhaps the most contentious issue of our age, one that he sees as a natural extension of his influential previous books on the bottom billion people on our planet.
The former World Bank economist, who now advises presidents and prime ministers, thinks people are focusing on the wrong question. He says the key issue is not whether the impact of immigration is good or bad – although if pressed, he would come down on the side of good. He argues, instead, that we should focus on how much migration there should be and, more interestingly, who it really helps.
It definitely boosts those making the move in search of a better life. Their pay and productivity soar, the latter a consequence of moving to a better organised society. They send home huge remittances – almost four times global aid flows at $400bn – that help those left at home through bad times and encourage the spread of improved governance. Yet there can be a psychological cost to what he calls "a decentralised aid programme".
This book underscores the superficiality of "brain drain" claims. Although some of the smartest people leave poor countries, overall educational standards can rise as parents invest in their children's schooling in the hope they might migrate one day. Many educated abroad return; one study found two-thirds of heads of governments in developing nations studied in foreign countries. Collier argues the danger comes in a small nation such as Haiti that has seen 85% of educated citizens leave, although in truth this is an unusual case of such a shattered country sitting so close to the world's richest nation.
He concludes migration is good for those left behind as well as the new host nation, while the only people who suffer economically are, he claims, previous immigrants. Yet drawing on cases such as Haiti, he frets about the damage of faster emigration. For at the centre of his thesis is the idea that migration has an inbuilt inclination to speed up. As a diaspora grows, it becomes easier for others from the same community to make the same move: they can find family members to provide beds, friends to give them work, familiar food.
This may well be true. Yet from this finding he paints a dark picture of dangerous growth and declining assimilation, a curious conclusion given much of the evidence he has compiled. The reality, as shown by countries such as Canada and the US and cities such as London – where one-third of residents are now foreign-born – is that even large, rapid waves of immigration fuel success with surprisingly little tension. It is not enough to talk of American exceptionalism or put forward straw man arguments revolving around uncontrolled immigration.
Collier's logic can lead him down strange paths. Previously, he has praised military coups to remove unpleasant regimes. Now he wants to reduce the rights of migrants to bring in close relatives. He also focuses on cultural differences but ignores class, so essential to understanding the success and failures of immigration to Britain. Yet for all these flaws, Exodus is a valuable addition to the swelling library of books on this subject, written for a wide audience and containing some fascinating data.
One study that found giving mobile phones to households in Niger increased emigration illustrates the incredible impact of technology, for example. Another revealed Senegalese people in Spain send home half their earnings, a higher share than any other migrant community; Cubans in America and Turks in Germany send home 2% of income.
We are only beginning to grapple with the issues raised by modern migration. Collier shows its complexity in discussing the two African countries with the largest diasporas, Cape Verde and Eritrea; one among the best-governed nations on the continent, the other ruled by one of its most ghastly regimes. Although, he remarks astutely, "mass migration… is a temporary response to an ugly phase in which prosperity has not yet globalised".
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Fire extinguished on cargo ship off Norway
USATODAY.com Feed
Fire extinguished on cargo ship off Norway
Britannia Seaways is sailing to the Norwegian port of Bergen on its own steam.
India Ink: With Great Reluctance, India Bids Farewell to Tendulkar
NYT > World
India Ink: With Great Reluctance, India Bids Farewell to Tendulkar
On Nov. 15, 1989, Sachin Tendulkar made his international cricket debut as a curly-haired 16-year-old prodigy. Twenty-four years later, almost to the day, he departed from his beloved sport to the cries of an ever-adoring nation.
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HMS Daring docks in Philippines
BBC News - Home
HMS Daring docks in Philippines
HMS Daring docks in the Philippines to help victims of Typhoon Haiyan, as the government says more aid money is likely to be committed.
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