“MY APARTMENT IN NIGERIA IS CONSTANTLY ROBBED” - what it is like to live in a poor part of a Nigerian city 🧵

In Ryszard Kapuściński’s Book ‘The Shadow of the Sun’ the author spends time in Nigeria and decides to try living in an African neighbourhood instead of an expat one. He describes how he is constantly robbed until a witch doctor helps him protect his apartment with enchanted totems

“The apartment that I rent in Lagos is constantly broken into. It happens not only when I am away for a longer stretch of time- even if I am going on a short trip to a nearby town, to Abeokuta or to Oshogbo, I know that upon my return I will find the window popped out of its frame, the furniture turned upside down, the cupboards emptied.

The apartment is located in the center of town, on the island of Lagos. The island was once a staging area for slave traders, and these shameful, dark origins of the city have left traces of something restless and violent in its atmosphere. You are made constantly aware of it. For instance, I may be riding in a taxi and talking with the driver, when suddenly he falls silent and nervously surveys the street. "What's wrong?" I ask, curious. "Very bad place!" he answers, lowering his voice. We drive on, he relaxes and once again converses calmly. Some time later, we pass a group of men walking along the edge of the road (there are no sidewalks in the city), and at the sight of them the driver once again falls silent, looks about, accelerates. "What's going on?" I ask. "Very bad people!" he responds. It's another kilometer before he is calm enough to resume our conversation.

Imprinted in such a driver's head must be a map of the city resembling those that hang on the walls of police stations. Little multicolored warning lights are constantly lighting up on it, flashing, pulsating, signaling places of danger, sites of attacks and other crimes. These warning lights are especially numerous on the map of the downtown, where I live. I could have chosen to live in Ikoyi, a safe and luxurious neighborhood of rich Nigerians, Europeans, diplomats, but it is too artificial a place, exclusive, closed, and vigilantly guarded. I want to live in an African street, in an African building. How else can I get to know this city? This continent?

But it is far from simple for a white man to move into an African neighborhood. To start with, the Europeans are outraged. Someone with my intentions must be deranged, not in complete possession of his mental faculties. So they try to dissuade me, warn me: It is certain that you will perish, and the only thing still in doubt is the precise way this will happen--either you will be killed, or you will simply die of your own accord, because living conditions are so dreadful there.

But the African side also regards my plan with scant enthusiasm. First of all, there are the technical difficulties--live where, exactly? This kind of neighborhood is all poverty and overcrowding, wretched little houses, clay huts, slums; there is no fresh air, and often no electricity; it is dust, stench, and insects. Where can you go? Where can you find a separate corner? How do you get around? What do you do? Take, for instance, something as basic as water. Water must be brought from the other end of the street, because that's where the pump is. Children do this. Sometimes--women. Men? Never. And here's a white gentleman standing with the children in the line for the pump. Ha! Ha! Ha! This is impossible! Or let's say that you have found a small room somewhere, and you want to shut the door to work. Shut the door? This is unthinkable. We all live together in a family, in a group--children, adults, old people; we are never apart, and even after death our spirits remain among the living, with those who are still in this world. Shut yourself alone in a room, in such a way that no one can enter? Ha! This is impossible! "And besides," the natives explain gently to me, "it is dangerous in our neighborhood.”

[1/5] There are many bad people around here. The worst are the boma boys--gangs of debauched hoodlums, who attack, mug, and rob--a dreadful swarm of locusts that ravages everything. They will quickly sniff out that a lone European has come to live here. And to them, a European is a rich man. Who will protect you then?

But I held firm. I didn't listen to the warnings. My mind was made up--perhaps in part because so often I had felt irritated with people who arrived here, lived in "little Europe" or "little America" (i.e., in luxury hotels), and departed, bragging later that they had been to Africa, a place that in reality they had never seen.

And suddenly, an opportunity arose. I met an Italian who in a back alley not far from Massey Street owned a little warehouse of farm implements. Like many whites who were gradually liquidating their enterprises here, he had closed his business. The two-room service apartment above it was now vacant, and he was all too happy to rent it to me. He drove me there one evening in his car and helped me carry up my things (the metal stairs were attached to the building's exterior walls). It was pleasantly cool inside, he had turned on the air conditioner that morning. There was also a working refrigerator. He wished me a good night and quickly departed. He was flying to Rome early the next morning--after the latest military coup, he was afraid of further unrest and wanted to take some of his money out of the country.

I began to unpack. An hour later the lights went out.

I didn't have a flashlight. Worse still, the air conditioner had stopped, and in addition to it being completely dark, it now quickly became hot and stuffy. I opened the window. In swept the stench of rotten fruit, burnt oil, soap, and urine. Although the sea was somewhere nearby, you could detect no breeze in this enclosed and congested alley. It was March, a month of crushing heat, when the nights often seemed hotter and more stifling than the days. I looked out the window. Up and down the street below me, on woven mats or directly on the ground, lay half-naked people. The women and children were asleep; several men, their backs leaning against the walls of the clay houses, stared at me. I didn't know what their gazes meant. Did they want to meet me? Help me? Kill me?

I decided that I could not endure until dawn in these sweltering rooms, and went down. Two men rose; the others watched, motionless. We were all sweaty, deadly tired; merely existing in this climate is an extraordinary effort. I asked them if this kind of electrical outage happened often. They didn't know. I asked if something could be done about it. They conversed among themselves in a language I did not understand. One of them disappeared. Minutes passed--fifteen, thirty, forty-five. Finally he returned, bringing two young men with him. They said that they could fix the problem for ten pounds. I agreed. Soon, the lights were back on inside the apartment, and the air conditioner was working. Several days later--another outage, another ten pounds. Then fifteen, twenty.

And the thefts? In the beginning, I was filled with rage each time I returned to my ransacked apartment. To be robbed is, first and foremost, to be humiliated, to be made a fool of. But with time I came to understand that seeing a robbery as a humiliation and an affront is an emotional luxury. Living amid the poverty of my neighborhood, I realized that theft, even a petty theft, can be a death sentence. To steal is to commit manslaughter, murder. A solitary woman had her little corner in my street, and her sole possession was a pot. She made a living buying beans for credit from the vegetable vendors, cooking them, seasoning them with a sauce, and selling them to passersby. For many, this bowl of beans was the only daily meal.

[2/5]

🇫🇮 New Finnish Study on the Net Financial Costs of different immigrant groups. It replicates the findings of the famous Danish and Dutch studies - almost all immigrant groups are net costs to Finland. Migrants from the Middle East and North Africa are the biggest financial drains

https://twitter.com/samuli_salminen/status/1958462257051980284

In Finland even western migrants are rarely net fiscal contributors

Are Somalis the world’s number one rattlers? They are such talented wind-up merchants it almost loops back round to being a soft power

REVIEWING EUROPEAN CITIES - PARIS 🇫🇷

Impressions from recent visit to Paris and the ways in which the city is and is not changing in the 2020’s 🧵 This is not a complaining thread, more just to describe Paris as it is today and the extent to which Paris is or is not changing. ‘TLDR’ - A lot of what is said about the scale of change in France is true but Paris is such a great city it can still fairly easily accommodate it

REVIEWING EUROPEAN CITIES - BUCHAREST 🇷🇴

Impressions from recent visit to Bucharest and the ways in which the city is and is not changing in the 2020’s 🧵 This is not a complaining thread, more just to describe Bucharest as it is today and the extent to which Bucharest is or is not changing. ‘TLDR’ - Bucharest feels comparatively poorer vs other EU capitals but seems to be improving. Relatedly, recently migrants started arriving

REVIEWING EUROPEAN CITIES - BRUSSELS 🇧🇪

Impressions from recent visit to Brussels and the ways in which the city is and is not changing in the 2020’s 🧵 This is not a complaining thread, more just to describe Brussels as it is today and the extent to which Brussels is or is not changing. ‘TLDR’ - Brussels is possibly the worst capital in Europe in terms of demographic change, migration has run wild and the city has transformed

VISITING MOLENBEEK, BRUSSELS 🇧🇪🇪🇺

Molenbeek is one of the most infamous municipalities in Europe - right at the edge of the Belgian and European Union capital and known both for its very large migrant community and for producing a large number of Jihadis. I went on a tour 🧵 Molenbeek is the largest migrant enclave in Brussels and one of maybe most known on the European continent given its location in the EU capital. Infamously it has been the home of many Islamists; eg the 2004 Madrid Bombers, Paris 2015 terrorists and Brussels 2017 Station Bomber

REVIEWING EUROPEAN CITIES - COPENHAGEN 🇩🇰

Impressions from recent visit to Copenhagen and the ways in which the city is and is not changing in the 2020’s 🧵 This is not a complaining thread, more just to describe Copenhagen as it is today and the extent to which Copenhagen is or is not changing. ‘TLDR’ - Copenhagen’s reputation as about as Basically Fine as you can get is well-deserved but it is too soon to say it is out of the woods

THE YOOKAY AS ART

A short collection of recent photographs of Modern Britain AKA ‘The Yookay’ which have artistic merit and which capture a changing Britain 🧵 THE ADMIRAL

REVIEWING EUROPEAN CITIES - STOCKHOLM 🇸🇪

Impressions from recent visit to Stockholm and the ways in which the city is and is not changing in the 2020’s 🧵 This is not a complaining thread, more just to describe Stockholm as it is today and the extent to which Stockholm is or is not changing. ‘TLDR’ - Stockholm is a modern, pleasant, high human capital city which to a large extent lets it shrug off its large recent migrant influxes

The year is 2050. Changing demographics have Latinamerica-fied your politics - like in Latin America western countries are now condemned to neverending lurching between two ideological extremes that then only further radicalise in reaction to each other. Which side do you choose? America will fulfil its destiny and become the penultimate Latin American country in the Americas, before Canada which will first become a Subcontinental country and then a Latin American country after the Latinos move up into it from America. Trump is the first American Caudillo

HOW NATIVES THINK - WHY MANY PEOPLE SEEM TO THINK SO IRRATIONALLY 🧵

Lucien Lévy-Bruhl was an early 20th century French anthropologist writing before many of the taboos academic anthropology has accumulated today. In his book ‘How Natives Think’ he explores why so many people - and for him especially so many ‘non-civilised’ peoples - seem to be so superstitious. He tries to explain what it is that is happening inside the minds of (he calls them) ‘natives’ when, for example, they appear to have difficulty understanding causality in anything other than in terms of spirits or djinns. Though the work is not without its critics (eg it has been called reductive, eurocentric and generalising) it is an interesting example of taboo-free study on the ubiquity of a kind of magical thinking or djinnbrain Lévy-Bruhl’s core claim is that so-called “primitive” peoples do not think illogically as such, but instead according to different rules. Reasoning is primarily shaped by emotion, symbolism and collective belief, not contradiction or empirical causation

New Article in the Telegraph on ‘The Yookay’ and my @MythoYookay page. “The "Yookay" now has a wider implication too: to suggest … we are now a new country, an actual successor state to the old Great Britain”

https://twitter.com/davidghfrost/status/1935756709298888836

Article is much more sympathetic than the articles in more left-leaning outlets. Somehow an easy enough concept to grasp when there is less bias

REVIEWING EUROPEAN CITIES - ZAGREB 🇭🇷

Impressions from recent visit to Zagreb and the ways in which the city is and is not changing in the 2020’s 🧵 This is not a complaining thread, more just to describe Zagreb as it is today and the extent to which Zagreb is or is not changing. ‘TLDR’ - Zagreb is not as interesting VS Croatia’s coastal areas but it less touristy, a good ‘local’ city. Guest workers recently started to arrive

BBC Journalist asks Danish Politician how Denmark is able to maintain trust in its Democracy - “Give voters what they want. If they want lower immigration lower it” Advanced Techniques for Expert Democracy-Heads (Experts Only) to maintain trust in your Democratic System

• Release all data for transparency, even if the findings are uncomfortable
• If voters want lower immigration, lower immigration
• Don’t allow foreign ghettos to form

https://twitter.com/lucaajw/status/1930259960287400426

☸️ THE FALL OF THE KINGDOM OF SIKKIM

In the C19th and 20th large numbers of Nepali workers were settled in the Himalayan Kingdom of Sikkim, over time becoming a majority - this demographic change providing the impetus for the eventual dissolution of the historic Sikkim state 🧵 Sikkim, once a sovereign Himalayan kingdom, saw its tenability as a state dramatically contested by waves of Nepali migration - initially as labourers, but then as dominant political actors who transformed the state’s demographic and political character, eventually dissolving it

PICTURE THREAD TOUR OF LEICESTER, UK 🇬🇧

I recently visited Leicester - one of the cities in Britain most transformed by immigration and the infamous location of a recent series of intercommunal riots between its Hindu and Muslim communities - to see what it looks like today 🧵 Leicester received more migrants before other British cities because of its textile industry and an influx of Ugandan Asians, creating chain migration incentives. Aside from its infamous community unrest also in recent years Richard III’s body was discovered under a carpark here

REVIEWING EUROPEAN CITIES - TBILISI 🇬🇪

Impressions from recent visit to Tbilisi and the ways in which the city is and is not changing in the 2020’s 🧵 This is not a complaining thread, more just to describe Tbilisi as it is today and the extent to which Tbilisi is or is not changing. ‘TLDR’ - Tbilisi is an underrated city where issues affecting the rest of Europe are still novel, politics is more balancing EU & Russia influence

REVIEWING EUROPEAN CITIES - PRAGUE 🇨🇿

Impressions from recent visit to Prague and the ways in which the city is and is not changing in the 2020’s 🧵 This is not a complaining thread, more just to describe Prague as it is today and the extent to which Prague is or is not changing. ‘TLDR’ - Prague is a fun Basically Fine city but it can suffer from overtourism. A very limited number of guest workers are now starting to arrive

REVIEWING EUROPEAN CITIES - BELGRADE 🇷🇸

Impressions from recent visit to Belgrade and the ways in which the city is and is not changing in the 2020’s 🧵 This is not a complaining thread, more just to describe Belgrade as it is today and the extent to which Belgrade is or is not changing. ‘TLDR’ - Belgrade is a tidy and organised city in an ongoing construction boom. It is a very overtly nationalistic place without much migration

REVIEWING EUROPEAN CITIES - LISBON 🇵🇹

Impressions from recent visit to Lisbon and the ways in which the city is and is not changing in the 2020’s 🧵 This is not a complaining thread, more just to describe Lisbon as it is today and the extent to which Lisbon is or is not changing. ‘TLDR’ - Lisbon has experienced a visible migrant influx and a decline in the public space. Lisbon still often magical but in future may see changes