Taking Ownership of the UN’s failings

World leaders are gathering for the annual meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Each leader will get 15 minutes on an international podium to put forward their agenda and mostly air their grievances and I suspect in the case of the some, notably Iran and Libya if last year was anything to go by, settle ‘personal’ scores. Of course the time limit is only a guidance, many leaders go over this time, though few compare to Gaddafi’s rant last year, lasting a whopping hour and 40 minutes only beaten by Fidel Castro who addressed World Leaders at the UNGA in 1960 for four long and no doubt painful for the audience – hours. Unlike the Academy Awards there’s no music that starts to drown them out as they go past their allocated time nor are they escorted away by burly security guards although the thought of Ahmadinejad being tackled to the ground Jerry Springer style for going over his time would provide much needed entertainment at an otherwise dull male dominated talk shop.

With this annual meeting comes the usual UN bashing – let’s face it we all love a bit of that don’t we? Whether you work within the system, would secretly like to work for it or just like sitting on the moral high ground and pointing a finger, everyone seems to have an opinion when it comes to the organisation that is made up of no less than 192 member states. I guess this is to be expected as the UN is a public organisation, albeit an international one so as our taxes go towards maintaining the organisation, we have as much right to scrutinise it as we do our individual country’s public sector. The issue I have is when World leader’s and their representatives talk about the United Nations’ relevance as though they played no part in making the institution what it is today. The worse culprits being those with veto powers who are the very reason the organisation fails to take any real action.

In 2004 former UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan commissioned a panel to make recommendations for a reform of the organisation. In 2005 he proposed these ‘bold’ reforms which included expanding the Security Council, setting out rules on when it can authorise military force and reaching an agreed definition of terrorism. Five years later and these reforms are still being debated.

In a document dated 12th April 2010 from the Ad Hoc Committee Negotiating Comprehensive Anti-Terrorism Convention, the issue of how terrorism is defined was still considered contentious. The second question of when the organisation can authorise military force seems to have to been reduced to an academic debate, the only evidence of it still being a live issue is in a paper presented in February at the Annual Conference of the International Studies Association by a student from Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University. The expansion of the Security Council which could be a key issue in real United Nations reform is no closer to being agreed by the five permanent members than it was when first tabled.

I find it somewhat dishonest when the media talk about the United Nations struggling to prove its relevance and cite failed negotiations with North Korea or the Middle East peace process, as though any government on their own or with others have succeeded where the United Nations has failed. Where diplomacy is concerned, I can’t think of a single state’s triumph following UN failure. Its absolutely ridiculous that the Washington Post should refer to the Middle East process in its article U.N. struggles to prove its relevance without quoting its own government’s repeatedly unsuccessful efforts in reaching a deal, which is even more laughable when we consider how ‘closely’ tied the United States is with Israel. If I can’t persuade my own teenager to turn the music down then what chance does my neighbour have?

Where countries have been ‘successful’ (a term used loosely) is in taking military action, something which fortunately the United Nations is a lot more cautious in doing because let’s face it, the last thing we need is another military power that is able to launch ‘shock and awe’ campaigns killing millions of innocent civilians at a whim.

At an individual level, critique is somewhat justified, as I said earlier we contribute to the running of the institution and therefore have a right to question how it run. However this should be done with a dose of common sense; diplomacy which is at the core of the organisation has never been known to produce overnight results. Negotiating with two parties is difficult at best, let alone negotiating with 192 parties, each and every one fighting fiercely to further its own agenda. I think it’s fair to say that there are areas where the United Nations makes a difference, where if it wasn’t there, countries, groups and individuals would run amok. Granted, there is a lot of room for improvement especially where the attitude of a lot of United Nations employees who are no more than paper pushing civil servants, doing the bare minimum while earning a highly competitive salary are concerned. A lot of people enter the system and become disillusioned and unfortunately many of the disillusioned join the lazy bunch and so continues the vicious and very unproductive cycle. I think this is a great shame and one of the biggest flaws of the United Nations. There needs to be better accountability; the seasoned civil servants who sit in offices with no purpose should be gotten rid of. Those who genuinely believe in the organisation’s aim and purpose should continue to work hard and be true to the values they signed up to and themselves. A friend signs her emails off with the following quote from her mother

"If I sweep the front of my house clean and my neighbours on my right and left do the same thing and everyone on the street does the same thing, the whole town will be clean"

If the member states and UN staff members of this extraordinarily broad organisation that is unlike any other, follow this philosophy, surely we will all end up with a United Nations that does what it was set up to do, i.e. facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and the achievement of world peace. Who then can argue with the relevance of such an organisation?

The angry black woman

I watched a film called 'Not easily broken' with Taraji P Henson and Morris Chestnut and was taken aback by how unpleasant Taraji's character was. As the wife of the handsome, sweet-tempered Mr Chestnut, she spent her time either shouting, no make that shrieking, nagging or rolling her eyes. It was horrible to watch and got me asking the question - is this stereotype of an angry black woman a reality?


I recall quite vividly when the US media tried depict Michelle Obama as another bitter angry black woman who would end up holding her husband back because she couldn't hold her tongue. It was infuriating to watch especially when the despicable Fox News (where the word news is used very loosely), repeated their racist and misogynistic slander suggesting that she was this way because all black women are angry with the exception - they conceded - of Oprah. It was clear as day that there was nothing bitter nor aggressive about the stunning, incredibly smart and supportive Mrs Obama, yet the Republican-backed media did their utmost to sell us an image of a angry black woman, who was racist to boot. Fortunately they didn't succeed in their smear campaign.

But that was then, this is now and this film is based on a novel by Bishop T.D Jakes so try as I might, I cannot find a motive for him wanting to portray black women in a negative light while at the same time portraying black men and white women in a starkly different and positive light. Aside from looking too handsome for his own good, Morris Chestnut is an incredible husband, supportive, caring and hard working. The only white female character in the film is a single mother who dotes on her son and has a positive outlook towards life; in contrast to the black women she is down to earth, kind and thoughtful. Aside from the main female character, there is the mother-in-law who is yet another angry black woman who has nothing nice to say about her ex husband as well as the character of the black female friend who confesses to infidelity and in the same breath suggests fighting any woman who goes after her friend’s man. So in a nutshell we learn that black women are either angry, bitter or aggressive.

Having seen such portrayals time and again, I’m left asking the question - are there really women like that out there? I mean don't get me wrong, I can throw a tantrum or two like the best of them especially when the dishes you promised to wash haven't been washed, the creaky door is still creaking two months after I asked you to fix it and even worse, you show up at midnight having forgotten to tell me you were going for drinks after work. I suspect anyone would lose their temper in such circumstances, be they white, black or yellow. Aside from that I think I'm quite even-tempered and when I think of my friends and family, I cannot find a single one who fits the bill of this angry 'for no apparent reason' black woman.

One of the reasons given in the film for the character's bitchiness, let's just call it by its proper name now, was that she had not been taught how to love by her mother who had an abusive husband who left her angry and bitter about men in general. Like so many women in happy balanced relationships, I was raised by a single woman who taught me to love and respect men starting with my father. I guess the angry mother raising an angry daughter being angry at men may simply not be my reality so I shouldn’t discount the existence of such women. Yet it seems a little hard to believe that a black woman or any woman for that matter will do everything to sabotage her relationship with a near perfect man for no apparent reason which is precisely what this woman does. The man is hard working, though not as successful as she is, he loves and respects her and cannot wait to have children with her and she belittles him, refuses to sleep with him and shows a completely lack of respect at every given opportunity. I mean you'd have to be pretty self-destructive in an age where the pickings are slim and getting slimmer by the day to scoff at a near enough perfect man.

I will stand corrected if someone gives me an example or two of black women who are angry for no apparent reason and live each day this way but I still think this stereotype is a misogynistic and racist myth which sets out to portray us as irrational beings with a chip on our shoulder and a grudge at life. That is not me, nor the beautiful, loving, caring and often selfless women I know as friends and family.

NY-LON Part I – The City that never sleeps

I can assure you that it’s not a myth or hype; there really is something special about New York. The City with more than 8.3million inhabitants is so densely populated you’d be forgiven for thinking the whole world descended on its shores in search of their American dream. In New York however the dream is less American and more multicultural. In 2000 when the last census was taken, 44% of New Yorkers were foreign born and over 170 foreign languages were spoken in the City. More than any other city in the world, New York embodies the term ‘melting pot’.
If you’ve never been to New York but are familiar with London then think of it as an amplified version. Both are undoubtedly impressive cities but New York seems to have more gloss, Times Square dazzles whereas Piccadilly Circus impresses. The statistics of both cities are not unlike each other with New York accounting for a slightly higher population and percentage of immigrants even though the London Olympic Committee claimed that over 300 foreign languages are spoken in the London every day. I would still put my money on New York having a more multicultural feel, because more so than in London, immigrants seem to thrive in the City. African-Americans who make up a quarter of New York’s population also add to its multicultural feel. The home of Essence magazine’s headquarters which celebrates the achievements of African-Americans, New York City is a success story for a number of Black people including but not limited to those who have been formally educated. There are many African-American families who mirror the lives of the Cosby Show’s Huxtables and boast property portfolios that include beautifully preserved Brownstones in Harlem and Brooklyn worth over $1 million. By contrast there is evidence of poverty in parts of the City with a high concentration of Black and Latinos; there are neighbourhoods, admittedly beyond mid and lower Manhattan where high rise apartment blocks hold stories of drugs, crime and illiteracy. The worrying thing is that the gentrification of neighbourhoods like Fort Greene and Park Slopes in Brooklyn as well as Harlem has resulted in poorer people being pushed into deprived areas and the creation of ghetto cities that propagate the cycle of poverty. Today Manhattan’s population is 51% White and Affluent with Americans and expatriate Europeans buying up properties that carry million dollar price tags.

As a visitor, New York captures you; the selection of restaurants, theatre, galleries, museums and stunning parks is enough to send your head into a spin. There is an abundance of choice when it comes to entertainment and because the city has featured so many times on the big and small screen, every location, every yellow cab, department store becomes even more magical and you feel like you’re attending a casting for the love story, New York. The lines between real life and art become even more blurred in a city that is home to so many of the rich and famous. If it’s Star-Spotting you’re into then there are bars and restaurants where you can go and feast your eyes provided of course your wallet can take the pressure.

For me, it’s the little things that make New York so phenomenal. I discovered the city as a fearless 20 year old staying with my uncle in lower Manhattan at the corner of 1st Avenue and 14th street. The first thing that struck me was how noisy the city was and also how hard it was to differentiate between the days of the week, a Sunday was a busy as a Friday with some businesses operating 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I realise that this is hardly everyone’s idea of living bliss but for a young insomniac, I relished being able to pick up a tub of Baskin Robbins ice cream at 3 O’clock in the morning. I also loved the fact that I could walk blocks; walking the equivalent of 5 kilometres would feel like a leisurely stroll as each block had its charm, its shops, cafes and people that I could marvel at. I discovered the East Village and then the West and kept going back for more of its eccentricity. Every day was a challenge to see which self-assured African-American man would come up with the most creative chat up line. I was blown away by the fact that they thought my 5ft5 curvy frame as worthy of praise where men in London tended to look through me and hone in on the borderline anorexic blonde. Lines like “Do fries go with that shake baby” and “Are your folks terrorists?.....cos you da bomb” deserve a place in creative language courses in my humble opinion...of course.

I partied with Brooklyn’s Jamaican community at nightclubs on Utica Avenue and tasted the best Trinidadian roti at a small restaurant in Crown Heights. I witnessed the rise of the fashion designed Moshood and his success in fusing Nigerian and African-American cultures within his vibrant and unique pieces. I was blown away years later by the diversity and charm of Fort Greene. As big as the city is, this neighbourhood and others like it feel like a small personable community where everybody knows and cares about each other.

Harlem represented African American achievement and I recall meeting a family of American-Americans who were third generation University graduates and PhD holders. Having come from West Africa where there academic and professional achievement was a given, to London where I discovered that being Black and a doctor was a big deal, it was refreshing to see so many accomplished Black people.

Over the years I’ve been to free concerts in Central park, had my hair braided in Petit Senegal in Harlem, read poetry at the Brooklyn Moon Cafe, been transported in the books I read at the architecturally stunning New York public library. My experiences have been as colourful and varied as the City’s population. The underlying theme though that I think makes New York City the greatest in the World is its lack of conformity. The City refuses to be one thing or the other, it everything to everyone and there is more than one way of making a life in New York, with millions of its inhabitants taking the road less travelled every day. I have countless friends who have shunned the doldrums of a nine to five existence; poets, photographers, jewellers, entrepreneurs working and living successfully on their terms. I’m still amazed to find so many people in parks on a normal work day when you would expect everyone to be pushing paper in congested open-plan offices as the majority do in other cities. I love the fact that although the city is fashionable, you can still walk around in last season’s trends without anyone batting an eyelid. There is a broader definition of style in New York City, far from being all about this season’s colours and cuts; it’s about creating your own unique identity however unconventional.

If you’re the adventurous type, a visit to New York City will make you feel like you just fell down a hole and landed in Wonderland. There is so much to see and do and experience. It can be daunting but the key to the Big Apple is to take one small bite at a time and to savour it as slowly as possible.

Let's keep our beliefs to ourselves

It's always best to avoid discussing religion if you can help it. Even when cornered by people eager to learn and quiz my religious beliefs, I go out of my way to say either as little as possible or nothing at all. The reason for my uncompromising approach is that I know for a fact that religion is probably one of the greatest, if not the greatest divider of people. Co-workers appear to interact effortlessly until of course one person takes offence at another's religious beliefs or lack thereof.


In the West there are those who equate atheism with intellect and therefore by process of elimination would argue that anyone who believes in the existence of God or Buddha for that matter must be a simpleton. It transpired by error rather than design a few months ago that I subscribe to the notion of a higher being and a colleague with whom I often have heated political debates sniggered in disbelief. He even asked if I was joking, thinking I presume that I was someone of sound mind who had somehow been brainwashed. He was proud to call himself an Atheist which I could just as easily found laughable but instead respected as his well thought out rational belief. This sense of understanding and tolerance is not borne out of an uncertainty in my own beliefs but rather a firmly held opinion that there are many truths. I don't think I'm in a position to say with absolute certainty that my way is better than his or vice versa. At the end of the day its about what works for you – if you’re a better person without religion then that’s fair enough, who am I to judge? Likewise if fasting or going to church or meditating helps you get through life then once again good for you. Who am I to judge?

I spotted a poster on a highway in Upstate New York which read 'There is only one way to God, through Jesus Christ' which amused me especially as I am so used to random people approaching me in the streets and asking me if I’ve met Jesus Christ as though he were some local celebrity. Yet I appreciate that while this statement is the foundation of Christianity, there are many Christians who do not subscribe to this view for the simple reason that they know that its not a practically sound. Let’s think about it for a second, it suggests that millions of people in the world who have never come across Christianity and its teachings simply because of their geographical location, are now doomed to an eternity of hell fire which I’m assuming is the opposite of heaven. I guess many of them can take comfort in the fact that ignorance is bliss so while their date in hell in sealed by some random Priest's sermon on a Sunday morning when he talks about the consequences of not accepting Jesus as your saviour – these pagans can go about their business oblivious of their fate.

Of course there are the Born-Again Christians who tell us we’re all doomed unless we repent and become one of them before we 'pop our clogs' (die). Again we can draw comfort from the fact that there is still time for those of us who have yet to embrace their truth, because so many of them have such 'colourful' pasts that there is clearly hope for the rest of us. The key from what I can tell is to stock up on the sinning, lies, even crime and then when you've had enough or been sentenced to prison, you can finally see the light. I can think of a number of men who’ve killed, maimed, heck even committed genocide and then decided to become Born-Again Christians. It's quite genius really!

Although a good chunk of people from different religions recognise that they share the same values as each other and are more influenced by the way people live their lives than the religion they follow, this practical view is unfortunately not shared by all. For instance, there is an ongoing debate with much opposition about a mosque being built two blocks away from the ground zero in New York City. The irony is that the proposed building is also meant to house a cultural centre which has as its primary purpose the promotion of religious tolerance and is backed by New York Mayor, Mike Bloomberg and a number of Jewish Leaders. Yet according to polls which have to be taken with a pinch a salt 6 in 10 New Yorkers oppose the building of the centre. It says a lot about people that they should be offended by something that seeks to encourage a better understanding of others' beliefs. It's also sad that Islam as a religion and Muslims as a whole are held responsible for the heinous acts committed by a few, obviously psychotic individuals.

I recently had a discussion/argument with a Catholic friend who remains convinced that Islam is a violent religion and encourages extremist behaviour. Much as I tried I could not convince her that most of my Muslim friends were no different from my Christian ones aside from the fact that they prayed to Allah every day and observed different religious festivals. Islamic fundamentalism in the Western world has probably done as much harm to Muslims as it has to Christians. The subconscious religious profiling which many of us practice means that Muslims are all guilty until proven innocent. There is a constant need for them to show how 'normal' they are. The task of blending in becomes even more pressing than for the average non-Muslim. It goes without saying that we should keep an open mind but in an era of countless national security threat and Western involvement in the affairs of numerous Muslim nations, our governments thrive on our collective paranoia, the bogeyman they have created has links with Al Qaeda and could be the turban wearing Sikh living next door to you. A woman wearing a hijab is judged to support extremist views even though if she may simply be reflecting her cultural upbringing and nothing more.

Whether you are Muslim or Christian or an Atheist, there is an increasing need to keep your beliefs to yourself lest people judge you. If however you are brave enough to don a hijab or a cross then you have to be thick-skinned enough to deal with the ridicule, contempt, scorn or even fear. Personally I know which option I choose.

My expose on immigration in the Netherlands

It started out as a joke between a friend and I, everywhere I went during my short break in the Netherlands, my inquisitive read: nosey personality got the better of me and I would start quizzing 'foreign-looking' people about where they were from and what exactly they were doing there. In all honesty I found it odd to find black people in the streets, shops and restaurants of Amsterdam, the Hague and Rotterdam and what’s more they didn’t look like visitors passing-by but rather like this was their home, where they belonged. I realise it’s a clear indication of my ignorance because of course black people have immigrated to countries all over the world so why should Holland be any different. Unlike the UK, the US and France though, I find the idea of someone from Africa or the Caribbean settling in the Netherlands hugely fascinating, I mean where does an immigrant from the Gambia for instance start in such a place? You not only look different but you also sound different and have never ever spoken a language that sounds anything like the Dutch language. Settling in foreign countries is hard enough even when the language is the same because of course for many Africans the culture is completely different to what we’re used to – so you immerse yourself and hope it will get easier as time goes by. Awestruck by all this – I started quizzing people I met in the hopes of learning more about these clearly resilient immigrants who had made the Netherlands their home.


In Rotterdam I met a waiter from Cape Verde - a Portuguese-speaking island off the west coast of Africa. I asked him how he came to live in Holland and learnt that his parents emigrated there some 15 years ago. He also told me that he spoke his indigenous language at home with his family and learnt Dutch from an early age which was now his main language of communication. Apparently there are sizeable Cape Verdean, Curacaoan and Surinamese communities in Rotterdam. Curacao which is a small island off the coast of Venezuela is in fact still part of Dutch territory and part of the five islands known as the Netherland Antilles that also includes Bonaire and Sint Maarten (the Southern half of the island of St Martin). Suriname, on the other hand is a former Dutch colony and Dutch speaking therefore it made sense for these islanders to settle here. My interviewee also told me that many of the stunning Surinamese and Curacaoan girls I saw, a number of whom were pushing ‘designer prams’ were born or came to the Netherlands as very young children and were essentially Dutch now. Unfortunately as a group, the Dutch islanders have a bad reputation, perhaps unfairly so but the general view was that they were lazy and aggressive. There is also a high percentage of teenage pregnancies within their communities and disproportionately so especially as the Dutch have the lowest teenage pregnancy rates in Europe. According to official statistics, there has been a growth in the number of unwanted pregnancies among ethnic minorities in the Netherlands with women from Surinam, Turkey, Morocco and the Dutch Caribbean, accounting for considerably more abortions than 'indigenous' Dutch women - in 2004 the figure was 60% of the total number of abortions carried out compared to their relatively small population. To give you an idea of where they sit in the country’s population as a whole - online figures suggest the population in the Netherlands is divided as follows - Dutch 79.71%, Turkish 2.31%, Indonesian 2.3%, German 2.28%, Moroccan 2.1%, Surinamese 2.06%, Netherlands Antilles/Aruba 0.83% and Other 8.36%.

With interview no. 1 in the bag, I decided to pick on some poor unsuspecting boy working at a MacDonald’s in Amsterdam city centre (of course my visit there was purely for research purposes). I should have known better than to try and get a man to multi-task because I quizzed him as he served us and watched as he broke into a sweat having to process so much information all at the same time. He just about managed to give me the information I was asking for as well as handing me two sachets of tomato ketchup. He repeated my question...a little baffled using his limited school English - 'where are my parents from?' - "Yeah", I barked "...and whilst you're thinking about it can I also have the ketchup I asked for five minutes ago?” Once we'd established that he was half Jamaican and half Surinamese and spoke mostly Dutch, I thanked him and left, much to the amusement of his equally young, also black colleagues. Unsurprisingly 85% of the staff in this MacDonald’s was young and black. So I guess that was one thing black immigrants in the Netherlands had in common with the ones here in the UK.

I also spoke to friends who work as expatriates for the various international organisations based in the Hague who told me that they found the Dutch quite unfriendly and some would go as far as to say quite racist. Political correctness was non-existent in a country where the people prided themselves on their humour even if it meant laughing at the cultural differences of others. There were adverts on television portraying black people as wild and primitive and things that are no longer said or done in the UK certainly for fear of accusations of racism were done in the Netherlands and their justification was that this was their sense of humour, like it or lump it.

I came away from my mini investigations with even more admiration for Black immigrants in the Netherlands than I had started with because I realised that aside from a difference in language, culture and skin colour, there were other difficulties which immigrants had to contend with. For instance in 2006, the Dutch introduced a test that all immigrants had to pass if they want to move to the Netherlands - this included watching and being questioned on a DVD which covered nude beaches, homosexuality and the sex trade as part of Dutch culture. So if you’re coming from a conservative society then you’d better for a crash course in Dutch liberalism. I met an exchange medical student from Burkina Faso who was attending a summer programme who had been traumatized by a trip to the red light district as part a cultural tour of Amsterdam. Even I found the whole women displaying their ‘wares’ in shop windows a little hard to take so I can’t imagine how this boy who was leaving his strict Christian home in Ouagadougou for the first time in his life must have been feeling.

Living as foreigner in the Netherlands takes even more pliability than living as an immigrant in other parts of the world - you clearly have to be prepared to immerse yourself in a culture that is so strangely different, so opposed to the one you are used to and so unapologetically rigid. Overcoming these differences is no small feat so my hat is raised to the immigrant who moves to Holland and settles there raising their children and succeeding in spite of everything.

(you are not) Welcome to the USA

I'm usually a big fan of the USA although I don't buy into the American dream thing, I do admire their 'can do' attitude and unshakeable belief in what they can achieve as individuals and as well as a nation even if it's sometime misplaced..

New York is probably my favourite city in the Western World although London can sometimes edge it out ever so slightly when the sun is out. So in this vein I was psyched about my recent holiday plans and inspite of extremely poor customer service on the Delta airlines flight, I was still looking forward to spending time in the insanely busy NYC.

After enduring an 8 hour flight - God knows why or when it started taking so long to go from London to the East Coast of America, followed by an hour on the tarmac waiting for a space to park and then according to the clearly incompetent pilot, for 'a million pound plane whose towbar was broken' to be moved. We finally got to leave the plane, and walk through a series of narrow corridor and down several non-functioning escalators to Passport Control. Ok I thought, just a few more minutes and we'll be on our way to Brooklyn - the buzz of a city that never sleeps was bound to make up for the drama of the trip.
As we approached the counters - all 4 of them, a morbidly obese, clearly uneducated and unkempt woman started yelling at the top of her voice for all US citizens to form lines behind three of the four counters that were open. Our long line of non- US citizens began to look at one another in bewilderment - so where are we supposed to go? The thought that they may be rounding us up to send us back to our respectives countries did cross my mind especially when I recalled the process I had to go through to receive 'security clearance' online for coming to the US. Gone are the days of being able to hop on a plane with a European passport and staying in the US for anything up to three months without having to justify one's trip. Fortunately before I started panicking about whether I'd have to go back to work if I was deported or just hang out at home for two weeks pretending to be watching a free concert in Prospect Park, our morbidly obese friend shouted for the aliens to join the line that was already dealing with disabled passengers first. Nice I thought, we're not only not good enough to have more than one immigration officer processing our passports, but we now have to share the one officer with people who we couldn't possibly take our anger out on even if the uncharitable thought had crossed our minds.
Coming from the land of the passive aggressives - English people would rather spontaneously combust with rage than speak out against something that is blatantly wrong...unless ofcourse it involves animals, most of the people in the Non-US citzen queue shuffled along. Instead of questioning this bizarre system some simply rolled their eyes in exasperation while the braver mumbled to their neighbours. According to a couple who said they travelled to the US all the time, New York's JFK was the worse airport you could fly into and although American customers left a lot to be desired, nothing reached the heights of the incompetence and lack of initiative displayed here.
Granted Americans are known for being inward looking and generally unconcerned about what the world thinks of them, especially as for many, there is no world outside of the US borders....well unless you count Canada and Mexico ofcourse. I get that but I don't get that you would display such a poor image of your country by giving people who first enter your country such a disgraceful experience.
As someone who works in PR, I would advise that they do away with the 'warm fuzzy' little video of Americans of all shades and hues saying 'Welcome' in the Passport Control hall and focus on better cutomer service. Americans or rather JFK officials need to acknowledges that sometimes your visitors can be your best advocates and the message that Coca Cola and the countless Hollywood exports fail to deliver may well be done by those of us who visit the country and enjoy their experience. You may even be able to sell the American dream message more effectively this way.

Life = Pushing yourself

I guess it must be human nature to avoid difficult things; we generally prefer to take the easy road because frankly who likes failure. So the result is that we go through life doing what we’re good at and being content to give ourselves a pat on the back when we live up to our own expectations. When it comes to exercise, I think I definitely into this category so when I may gym instructor, Rhona decided to set me the challenge of doing a 5k run, I nearly told her to get the *bleep* out of here. Fortunately for me and no doubt for her too, I didn’t –as she convinced me that she believed I could do it and that all I needed was a few weeks training, I thought long and hard and by the end of her sales pitch, my response was ‘Why not?’

I’ve always enjoyed going to gym but never ran or thought about running, in my mind I couldn’t do it but I really did admire people who ran on the treadmill. I had somehow convinced myself that my asthma prevented me from doing high impact cardio exercises. So I spent years in the gym using the cross trainer and power walking but never got round to the run or even the jog. She gave me a printed training programme for doing the run – it started with a 1 minute walk and 1 minute run which is repeated five times for 10 minutes. The programme gradually builds up week by week until you’re able to run for 10, 15 then 30 minutes without a break. I started following it and initially thought that there was no way I could learn to run for 5 minutes without stopping let alone 10 or 15 but I decided to stick to it largely because a big part of me does not like to let people down. I had promised Rhona that I would do it and I was going to keep to my promise.

Week one was probably the hardest but it gradually got easier and I started to really enjoy running, it also helped me to lose weight and tone up and oddly enough when I had overeaten or felt bloated, I just had to run and I would feel so much better.

It took me three months of training but I went from not being able to run for one minute to running for 40 minutes for a 5k charity run which I did last Sunday. I was amazed at my ability to do something that was completely outside my comfort zone and if nothing else, this experience has taught me that life is about setting challenges. There really is no point coasting through it because you miss out on so much. Our potential is huge; bigger than any of us realise and life’s challenges are what make us realise what we are truly capable of. The road less travelled is also so much more rewarding – if we all set ourselves the task of taking it once in a while even when it scares the hell out of us, I imagine our lives would be more fulfilled.

I felt a rush of adrenalin when I crossed the finished line on Sunday and I immediately thought to myself ‘I could have done this in ten minutes less’. So perhaps next year I’ll be going back to perfect my 5k run before doing a 10k and then who knows a marathon or even a once in a lifetime climb up Mount Kilimanjaro. As long as I’m healthy I’m making a promise to keep on pushing myself both physically and mentally because that I believe is the true definition of life!