As part of IBM CSC program, I travelled to the city of Calabar which is located in Cross River State, Nigeria. Cross River State is located in South East Nigeria and Calabar was once a major slave trade port between 17th and 19th century.  The CSC program is one of a kind where IBM sends its employees to help a community address some of its problems. IBM works with NGOs in identifying assignments and sends a group of 10-15 people to handle the projects. The tasks do not have to be necessarily technical. Each team is further sub divided into a smaller size to undertake multiple projects within an assignment. For example, I worked with another IBM’er to help Department of Public Transportation of Cross River state to enhance the skill sets of the organization and get a Document Management system setup. Ten other people who were part of the assignment worked on 5 other projects for the state. IBM also typically sends more than one team (in a sequential fashion) to the same community/city/state to keep up the continuity and ensure that projects are being sustained. This program is part of IBM’s corporate citizen portfolio program and one of the ways IBM fulfills its social responsibility.  And each assignment typically lasts a month. I was privileged to be allowed to participate in one of the assignments.

Cross River State is named after “Cross River” that runs through the state. Weather is tropical and it was rainy season when I was there. The rains managed to cool down the temperature. It was still very humid though and at times I would sweat just standing.   The state itself is very green, though Nigeria as a country has suffered tremendous deforestation.  Calabar, the city where I stayed and worked for a month seemed a lot like a town in Kerala – lots of greenery with homes topped by triangular shaped tin roofs. Main highways and major streets in and around Calabar seemed well maintained with 2 lanes on each side with a divider. Interior areas of the city is lacking in good roads (like village roads in India), but cars do manage to get in somehow. The sewer system in the city was good enough to prevent flooding even with prolonged stint of rain.

Motor bikes have been recently banned in the city of Calabar (a brave move by the Department of Public Transportation) to primarily reduce accident rates. Motorbikes were also used as taxis to commute citizens from areas where cars cannot go. The government has since then subsidized purchase of cars to enable a smoother transition for these motorbike taxi owners. However, this has led to more congestion during peak times. I am ambivalent about this ban, but government is convinced this was the right move.

During such trips, I prefer mingling with the local people, talking to them and getting to know them rather than the canned tours. One the highlights of my trip were a 3 hour walk in and around the market area with few of my IBM colleagues. Most of the local people were extremely nice and would not hesitate to talk to us even though we may be annoying them with touristy questions. A few of the folks, particularly the older generation, were very averse to photos being taken. The aversion I believe is due to the fear of being exploited (perhaps via magazines etc. that highlights the poor conditions of the people).  Once, we explained that we had no such intentions, they seemed OK. However, I made sure I got the permission of parents before I took pictures of their children.

Watt Market

I visited a small museum which is all about slave trade and the suffering the slaves underwent as they were shipped from Africa to other countries. It was a pretty graphic experience with life sized models, scenarios and audio that reminded one of the gruesome cruelty suffered by Africans.  During the museum visit was when we realized why the “N” word is so despised by current generation African Americans. Obviously it is derived from Nigeria (or Niger) and probably reminds them of horrific times their ancestors had as slaves.

Another place we visited was Obudu – a scenic mountain resort (about 1500 meters above sea level) that boasts the longest cable car in the world. The ride down from Obudu in this cable car is heavenly and it feels like you float in the clouds at times. On the way back from Obudu, visited the Drill Ranch situated in the Afi mountains and is a place dedicated to protecting the endangered drill monkey and chimps.  This is a selfless effort founded by 2 Americans Peter Jenkins and Liza Gadsby who have dedicated their life to rehabilitating the drills. Bush meat is coveted by certain section of the population in Nigeria and the government has not been able to protect the chimps and drills from being killed. Thus, the eventual goal of sending these animals back into the wild has not been realized. Irrespective, the work of the 2 Americans is inspiring.  The walk to see the animals (safeguarded in a huge enclosure) is through a section of the forest in Afi Mountains. This forest also boasts a canopy walkway made of 8 bridges and the walk across these bridges while enjoying nature at its best was a wonderful experience. Even though the visit to Obudu and Drill ranch was short, I am thankful for the effort made by Cross River state to take us on this tour (they provided us with the vehicle and security).

Canopy in Afi Mountain

Liza Gadbsy

Drill Monkey

Cable car (in Obudu)

The state of Calabar and IBM made sure our stay was safe and secure and the people in Nigeria made us feel absolutely welcome. It has been more than 10 days since I left Nigeria, and I still recall the good times we had at least few times a day.

In the next post, I will try and cover a bit more about politics (whatever little I know), religion, people, language, food and the project itself.

References:

Articles related to Motor cycle ban:

http://thenationonlineng.net/web2/articles/28404/1/Cross-River-Okada-bad-taxis-good/Page1.html

http://www.transport.crs.gov.ng/newsevents_and_updates/newsandevents.php?topic=2&title=The%20Strategy%20Behind%20Banning%20Motorbikes%20In%20Calabar,%20Nigeria

About Peter Jenkins and Liza Gadsby – http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5j9OJQ5l6b1-QYA6L9QGJy01GrPcA

Drill ranch and Afi Mountain: http://www.pandrillus.org/projects/drill-ranch/visitor-information/

Cross River state government web site: http://www.crossriverstate.gov.ng/

Department of Public Transportation web site (Department I worked with): http://www.transport.crs.gov.ng/

Other photos:

Hotel (dedicated to God)!!

Land not for sale!!

This is my 3rd article for the Dignity Foundation’s magazine for Senior Citizens. I didn’t publish the second one containing some basic methods to research health issues, which may be too elementary for our readers.

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This time i want to cover the wellness aspects of our mind.   But before that I want to thank Ms. Sunita for following the instructions from my previous article and leaving me a comment on my blog.

The physical health of Senior Citizens gets a lot of attention, which is quite good. But what i find worrisome is the scant disregard for mental fitness which in my opinion is much more important.

For the purpose of this topic, i put the Senior Citizens that i come across into 2 buckets – the happy kind, who are quite positive, enthusiastic and energetic,  and the unhappy kind who are anything but.

Both kinds have the usual health issues – diabetes, hypertension, arthritis etc.  Interestingly, i found that the happy kind took the routine health issues in their stride, whereas the unhealthy kind, were unable to handle them without stressing out.

A revelation came to me when I dug deeper into this stark contrast. The happy kind seemed to focus a lot more on their minds than on their bodies, perhaps unknowingly. While they did do their regular exercise and regular tests like most senior citizens, it is what they do with their minds that is telling.  I boiled them down to 5 important activity clusters:

1. They take an active interest in things – news, cinema, politics, environment, neighborhood issues like any responsible citizen.

2. They take the opportunity to learn new languages, solve puzzles like Sudoku, join a toastmasters club, learn music, blogging – or anything that exercises their minds.

3. They do not brood over their life’s problems and regrets except as a way to draw lessons that they can pass onto others.

4. They renew their interest in cooking, taking care of grandchildren or taking care of a pet.

5. They do not focus too much on their appearance except to make sure they look and feel healthy.

On the other hand, the unhappy kind, didn’t do most of the above. And because their minds are not in top shape, even a trivial health issue seems to immobilize them. It is difficult for them to do even their day to day chores, which over time leads to illnesses like depression.

Which kind are you?

If you want to make a start towards a healthy mind, try Sudoku – it is an invigorating math puzzle that appears in almost all daily newspapers and it does not require anything other than basic arithmetic skills.

Barak Hussein Obama will be sworn in as America’s 44th president on the 20th of January 2009. There has been some unneeded controversy around his middle name ‘Hussein’ and if he will take oath using his full name including ‘Hussein’. And I am glad he took the dignified route of using his full name.

This incident made me think about the place and importance of religion in American democracy and politics. The current religious affiliations of members of the senate and house of representative show that they are all of a Christian denomination or practice Judaism. That’s it – No other religion!!.

America has achieved an important milestone by crossing the racial divide with Obama’s election. What about religious divide? When will America be ready to accept a Muslim or a Buddhist or an atheist as their leader – even as a senator or house representative? What is it going to take for Americans to mentally break-through this religious shackle?

And why are they not ready yet? And why has India been able to accept and elect leaders of various religions? Example – George Fernandez – a Christian elected multiple times and of course the current Prime Minister who is a Sikh (though one can argue that Sikh is just another derivative of Hinduism). We have had many non-elected Muslim leaders such as Dr. Abdul Kalaam as well.

Here is one theory – India, at various times has been ruled by Islamic rulers and has been colonized by Christianity affiliated countries such as England, France and Portugal. So, historically and culturally, we have been accustomed to being ruled by non-hindu leaders.

Or are we politically more mature as a country when it comes to politics? I highly doubt this. We would still blindly vote for anyone with ‘Gandhi’ or ‘Nehru’ as a surname.

As glad as I am about the religious tolerance that India has shown in politics, I am hoping that this is not just a surface level attitude but a deeper level understanding of politics and governance. Given that we have seen goondas and shady elements elected, I am afraid it is the former.

(Sidebar1: If Martin Luther King Jr. was alive today, he might have perhaps modified his “I have a dream” speech to include religion as well and here is my version – I have a dream that my daughter will one day live in a nation where she will not be judged by the color of her skin or the religion of her choice but by the content of her character.)

(Sidebar2: Of course, there has been no non-Christian American president yet. I do know that Mayor Bloomberg is a Jew. Could Mr. Jindal have become the governor of Louisiana if he had maintained his identity as a Hindu? Bobby Jindal claims that his conversion to Christianity was an intellectual process and the words in the bible “jumped out to him” and he felt as though they were just written for him. The cynic in me thinks that the dynamics of American politics made the words jump out to a savvy Bobby Jindal. )

Ganesh

(On the occasion of Gandhi’s birth anniversary, I dedicate this post to the memory of late Rajnarayan Chandavarkar among the finest sons and historians of India. Raj was based at Cambridge, England.)

“We can help make the world safe for diversity. For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal” – John F. Kennedy

I have a fetish for bridges! I have been puzzled by it myself: whether its those small structures across our very own Cooum , the Thiru.Vi. Ka bridge across Adyar or the Napier Bridge near the Madras University or the Howrah Bridge in Kolkata or the Laxman Jhula in Rishikesh or the Blackfriars bridge across the Thames or the San Franscisco Golden Gate. Recall the movie the ‘Bridge over the River Kwai’ or the TV ad zooming in on the magnificient Tower Bridge of London?! Bridges have me all excited and thrilled. For a long-time I thought this was a fascination promoted by TV and Cinema.

Until I came across this book by Ivo Andric titled the “Bridge over the Drina” It is a fantastic book and clearly ranks as one of the greatest pieces of world literature. Over a period of 300 years, the destiny of the town and the individuals and communities living near the river Drina get inextricably interwoven with the history of the bridge. The bridge becomes a metaphor for the life around it. Andric’s masterpiece documents the unities and challenges between ethnicities and faiths, Bosnians, Serbs, Jews, Muslim and Christians and their relationship with the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires. The bridge is a silent witness to the history of Europe over centuries.

Cut to the chase. I turn to the contemporary developments across the world including our country. It seems as if some storms are causing bridges to break down and the chasms widening. There seems to be a growing passion for hate! Horror of horrors. Why would anyone want to have a passion for hate? Nicholas Fraser in his book ‘The Voice of Modern Hatred’ sets out the contours of this problem in Europe. This is truly a global problem. Hate is like a ‘malignant tumour’. Young innocent minds have been poisoned to dislike entire cultures through the sustenance of stereotypes. This is because increasingly one can notice a gross distortion in the way entire cultures, communities and identities are being represented especially in the electronic media mainly because of the violence of terrorists. There are other kinds of institutions and organizations too that indulge in violence but that is a separate subject.

I find myself very concerned with the manner in which society and media creates ideas and images of groups of people and their impact. These images to cite a few often take the form of ‘Muslims’ versus ‘Hindus’, ‘Maharashtrians’ versus ‘north Indians’, ‘Hindus’ versus ‘Christian’, ‘Dalits’ versus ‘upper-castes’, ‘Sunni’ versus ‘Shiah’ , ‘Sinhala’ versus ‘Tamil’ and ‘Christianity’ versus ‘Islam.’ The stereotypes and caricatures of ‘us’ and ‘them’ seem to be on the increase. The blame game as to who is responsible for what mess goes on endlessly.

In this madness, where are innocent, peace-loving people to go? Whom can they turn to for solace? Most sober people have adopted the posture of “Forgive them, O’Lord for they know not what they do!” The less said about the political class the better. Of course, there are always exceptions among them. What about the intellectuals? We are reminded of the ‘Prophet of Gloom’ in the form of Samuel P. Huntington who is (in)famous for his theory of the ‘clash of civilizations.’  His theory of clashes found its practitioners in the person of those hawks who promoted the invasion of Iraq and the ‘war-on-terror’ with all its attendant disastrous consequences. Such hawks made the world a more dangerous place. As for me, I draw solace from my favourite subject ‘history’ which would indeed judge these hawks and their global disciples very unkindly.

History is a great teacher. The problem with us is that we are poor students of this subject. The common refrain is that our teachers made this subject boring for us. Alas, if life were to accept such excuses, then everything would be a cakewalk. We would have often heard that those who forget history are condemned to repeat it. I would like to add repeat it at a huge cost to themselves and everybody. I wonder why anybody in their right mind would want to incur these costs. My friends and colleagues often ask me ‘what is the solution to all this? I wonder when an individual falls mentally ill, we escort him/her to a shrink. When a whole society falls sick, what do we do? Which physician knows how to treat ‘collective schizophrenia’? As I write this, there has been terrorist violence in Delhi and attacks on Christians in Orissa and Karnataka.

We are now faced with an epidemic of hate of sorts. Those who believe in religion say that these are signs that the world is coming to an end. Yet others attribute the problem to primordial sentiments and say that it has always been that way and will continue to remain that way. I refuse to buy any of these arguments. I firmly believe that human beings are capable of acting in their self and collective interest in a positive and enlightened manner.

There is still hope for and in reason. I believe that rationality can still play a role in the face of the madness of hate. I believe that millions of people are puppets on a string, or pawns in a chessboard or gullible creatures following the pied piper. It is the ability of ‘vested interests’ (the list is long depending on the context)  to elicit consent from the people to their being manipulated. There is adequate proof in historical studies that masses get easily and unknowingly misled through a set of motives different from what is in their interest. And that is indeed what is happening in this world. If there was no perception of threat to each other’s community, several politicians would be called upon to deliver on issues of bread and butter which are far more difficult than pitting one group against the other. This is true of the East and West, North and South, whether its of India or the rest of the Globe. Distraction by peddling hate is a favourite form of politics for those who are desperate for power. We have all seen in contemporary politics, the love for power. We need to show ourselves the power of love!

Now that the picture is clear, what can individuals do? To start with, we can borrow Nancy Reagan’s famous slogan “Just Say No” to hate. To prejudice. To disunity.

We can then build bridges. Bridges of Love. We can all do it small ways.  Begin with our neighbours and colleagues – do we in the first place know who they are? Do they have families and children like ours? Take an active interest in their well-being. Move beyond that to the residential area or the street or the locality in which we live. Can we build bonds of trust and oneness? As Kennedy rightly argues are we not all faced with the same challenges? We wake up, go to work, fend for our families, return take care of our near and dear ones. We all have children about whose welfare we are worried about. We all have elders who in the sunset of their lives need our company as much as we need their blessings and counsel. There are plenty of interstices and intersections where these bridges can be built. We just have to think creatively about it. Festivals, Ceremonies, Family occasions, Music, Movies and so much more are unexplored arenas of building a sense of togetherness among individuals and communities. Can the effort of an individual in this matter? Certainly. Drops make the ocean. Its better to light a candle than to curse the darkness!

The challenge before us is to build bridges -across time and space; across castes, communities, religions, races, languages and not to miss gender. We need these bridges badly. There will always be naysayers. The villains. The troublemakers. Is it not noteworthy that during war, bridges are the first structures to be destroyed to prevent the movement of people and supplies? To those who believe in a God, (s)he made us such: different from each other. Varied and Diverse. Tomes have also been written on the ‘unity of existence’ that brings together all these differences. There is no religion that by itself preaches hate – that religions can be used to create tensions is a different matter. I believe that the ties that bind people with one another are sacred. Let no one undo those bonds of togetherness.

It is the bridges that connect us all. I for one am a die-hard romantic. Its high time that all peace-loving people resisted the stereotypes promoted by the media and thought beyond them. I raise a toast to several friends, colleagues and the ‘common man’ who have rejected these caricatures. I was brought up on the staple of ‘Enlightenment’ with the firm belief of a ‘common humanity.’ I believe friendship and love will prevail. I think we need to take ‘bridge-building’ more seriously than ever before. We have to work at it.

Prolog

The press is agog with articles on the collapse of the Doha round. It is sad indeed that after 7 years of negotiations the agreement collapsed on a single issue. I have been reading the articles and trying to make sense of what exactly has happened. I thought i will share with you what i learnt on this important issue that confronts the world today. Hoping that the rest of the community also has some additional wisdom that can be shared, as always.

Agriculture

The WTO has been quite successful negotiating other popular agreements like the GATT and TRIPS and others. Negotiations around agriculture started in Doha in the year 2000 and hence the name Doha Round. The main negotations have been around creating a framework that opens up agriculture markets both in developed and developing countries which obviously will give a big boost to the world economy as it has done in other areas of global trade, not withstanding what the opponents of global trade have to say.
Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM)

The entire Doha round which reached consensus around 18 of the 20 topics at hand, could not reach agreement on the issue of “Special Safeguard Mechanism” – Issue no. 20 was around Cotton which the negotiators could not yet get around to due to the impasse on issue no. 19. Cotton, apparently, another big issue especially for the African and Latin American countries which wanted to extract some concessions from the US and EU, but that is a separate topic.

The SSM, in lay terms, is a mechanism which is there to help the developing countries raise tariffs on agricultural imports if they find that their internal market prices crash due to imports. The issue is India (with China giving support quietly) wanted to increase the provisions in the SSM for increasing the tariffs by a margin unacceptable to the developed nations (read US, EU).

There is the linked issue of the generous farm subsidies that the developed nations give to their farmers. US made a token concession on this but no where near what the developing nations wanted. Of course, no one wants to talk about this as a contributory factor, but instead choose to pin the blame on India (China has intelligently played the silent role but supported the Indian position).

Why is India Worried?

The point which probably is missed out in the discussion is that 70% 20% of India’s GDP comes from Agriculture with 200 million farmers dependent on it. By contrast the US has just 1 million farmers and the contribution to GDP is very low (< 2%). The average land holding of Indian farmers is less than 5 acres whereas the US farmer farms thousands of acres by using scale farming.

And given that the US and EU generously subsidize their farmers, cheap farm exports from the US and EU can swamp the markets of developing nations and put millions of poor farmers out of business. This is in essence the real threat that India wants to guard against.

The Mexican Example

I wanted to see if this is indeed a threat or is it simply the UPA government’s posturing to pander to the Indian farmer and secure the vote bank. My research turned up the devastation suffered by the Mexican corn farmers – under NAFTA, US farm exports to Mexico increased 18 fold and has put a third of the farmers out of business in 8 years since NAFTA was signed. In another 6 years, the Mexican corn farmer is expected to completely dissappear. Sadly, corn was first grown in Mexico 5000 years ago.

Similar to India, the Mexican farmer’s average landholding is just 5 acres.

Epilog

I think this is a legitimate issue for developing nations which are still very dependent on farming. If the US & EU want to preach free market economics to others, they had better cut their farm subsidies to zero, or let India’s SSM proposal go through.

Additionally, i think India has to adopt scale farming techniques rapidly. The threat of cheap farm exports from the developed nations swamping India is very real, with or without Doha. That is the only way we can cut food prices down in India.

What do you all think?