On Respecting People
By: Fonon Nunghe
Tags: Culture, Learning, Nigeria, Respect

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie wrote something in her collection of short stories, “The Thing Around Your Neck,” that put my eyes at a standstill.

She said that one of the reasons “big men” preferred to remain in Nigeria rather than America, is because America does not recognize them as “big men” in the way that a Nigerian society does.

They don’t get set on high tables at weddings of people they have no relationships with. People don’t rush over to carry their bags at their workplaces. Boy-boys don’t bow and brown-nose and “Sah” after every sentence. And they certainly don’t have people climbing flights of stairs to greet them, when a simple “hello” could suffice if they happen to cross paths.

The instance that always comes to me when my mind wanders into this thought space comes in the aftermath of the tragic 2018 Parkland shooting, when a gunman opened fire at Stoneman Douglas Highschool in Florida, killing 17 and injuring over a dozen people. In a highly televised interaction, a survivor from Douglas Highschool grilled Senator Marco Rubio on gun control, his stance on it, and whether he would accept money given to his campaign by the NRA.

My immediate response to watching this was realizing that this would never happen in a Nigerian space, and that is a problem because what that young man (Cameron Kasky) did is fundamental to the fabric of a democracy. Government officials are public servants. Therefore they should be held accountable to we, the public.

But Nigeria sees them as anything but that.

There’s an aspect of the Nigerian culture that, though stemming from good core values, has become convoluted, festered with time, and emerged as a threat to common human decency.

I once attended my cousin’s wedding in Houston and sat through the family introductions. The Nigerian introducing her side of the family regarded my uncle as “Retired Honorable Barrister Tsumba,” then went on to introduce the rest of his immediate family as “his wife and children.” The African American gentleman on the other hand introduced the grooms side and regarded a family as “John, Katherine, Tim and James.”

From that hour long introductory session, I left with two realizations: Nigerian wives and children must not have names, and the outlook we uphold on respect towards people is fundamentally flawed.

A level of reverence is something that should be given to everyone on account of them being a person, but in an extremely elitist society like Nigeria, respect is a one-sided offering usually given by the young to the old, by the have-nots to the haves, and most often, by the young have-nots to the old haves.

Photo: Marriage Revolution

This happens all the time, it’s the norm, and it should not be the case.

During my freshman year of College, the Dean of student affairs repeatedly encouraged me to call him by his first name. After I had graduated, a professor I consider to be a mentor did the same since I was no longer her student. Between the two of them, there are two Ph.Ds., three masters degrees, and about a combined age gap of sixty years from me, so coming from the Nigeria that I grew up in, the very idea of calling them Richard and Marissa seemed ludicrous at the time. But time is funny in the way it works things out and lets things be seen. Later on, I understood the point they were trying to drive across to me. I even attempted doing so in a similar, but somewhat different manner to someone else.

A few weeks ago, the lady who runs the canteen at my place of work served me and after she did, I said “thank you, Ma.” She immediately responded by saying that she was not a “Ma,” not in the way that one doesn’t want to feel old, but in the way that one feels unimportant in the grand scheme of the office hierarchy. I went on to tell her that everyone, by virtue of them being an individual, is either a “sir,” a “Ma,” a “Mister,” “Miss,” “Ma’am” or “Misses,” or whatever form of salutation they deem to be respectful to them.

And THAT is the country I dream of; one where everyone realizes that they are a “Ma.” One where people don’t bend over backwards to please ogas and madams; one where people are not selectively polite based on who is on the receiving end of their actions, but one where, ultimately, everyone is respected rather than looked down upon or unrightfully exalted.

When I was first leaving for school, many people told me that Americans were rude, had no sense of respect and needed to learn from African values to get better. As I have gotten older, I have come to see that we perhaps still have a thing or two to learn as well.