The Art Of Self Deception

Saturday afternoon in cloudy Lagos.

Just me, my laptop, and a carton of Luckies in my hotel room.

It could have been different.

Last night I was in E-Bar, on the Lekki Peninsula. I finished work around 8:30pm and my colleague and I popped in for a look-see. The bar opened a few days before the world cup and it is conveniently located on the way home for a large chunk of the ex-pats working here. Inside, there was a jazz band (a good one) pumping away. Lots of noise, smoke, people dancing. All normal so far. I sat outside with my pal, ordered some food and a couple of beers and we took a look at the other fine folks enjoying themselves.

Opposite us sat a group of white guys. Two things in common: all were in their late forties/early fifties, and all were drinking good red wine. Maybe it's a regular thing, I didn't ask. Two tables down I see another white, forties something guy, his companion is around 19 or 20. A stunning looking lady. I walk past, on my way to the loo, and hear him say "I just don't know what you see in me". I did. It was his wallet. But this statement, and a couple of others later on in the evening convinced me that the guy had convinced himself that this girl was interested in him for his intellect, his good looks and witty repartee. No doubt when he woke up this morning and paid his dues, reality came crushing down on him. I hope he survived. I also hope he used some protection. One in three have AIDS here and it seems to me to be a huge risk for 10 minutes of fun.

So I got to thinking about self deception.

We are human. Sometimes real life is a bit tough to take. So we invent a new reality. Much easier to take than the truth. I had several opportunities to talk to our guy. Miss Nice Boobies buggered off three or four times to talk to her pals. It would have been a small thing for me to walk the five yards and wise our friend up. But it is dangerous. He could have got upset, he could have got nasty. I figured that the kindest thing to do was nothing. He will have learned the lesson for himself just after he woke up.

Over the last few years we have deceived ourselves about some bigger things than a Friday night hump in a foreign country, and we did nothing.

We have known for some time now that Blair took us into an illegal war. Some say that up to one million people have died since March 2003. Do we hunt the fucker down and haul him into a court-room? Hell no. We queue up outside Waterstones to buy his book. We pay staggering amounts of money to hear this remorseless man regale us after dinner. We pay millions every year to protect the real Butcher of Baghdad.

We knew that Brown was a schizophrenic. A disturbed man who led the troughing 646 for far too long. He destroyed, then gave away our nation. He bankrupted not only us, but our children and their children. He made so many mistakes in office that to list them would make this blog entry look stupidly long. Did we hunt that fucker down and make him pay for his crimes? Hell no. Since the election he has been to Westminster two or three times. And we pay him to do whatever he wants to do. It's only £100K per year, so who cares?

We knew that our entry into Europe in 1972 was a massive mistake. Hansard tells us who the real defenders of our nation were. We slot the EU £52 million per day and get around £6 million back in "grants". Now we allow foreigners to come in and haul our people away to fester in stinking gaols for months on end without any hope of good counsel or a fair trial at the end of their ordeal. You would imagine that some evidence may be required before we let our people be taken away, but no. This is the EU. No evidence required. Just an accusation. Do we protest? Do we attempt to put this right? Hell no. We keep paying our taxes like good little drones.

We also know, or at least feel, that something is badly out of kilter here. We don't understand, or we refuse to believe that our nation is £4 TRILLION in debt. How the fuck did that happen? Why did we stand by and do nothing?

My contention is that we did nothing because we deceived ourselves. We preferred to kid ourselves that everything was okay. That it wasn't impacting on us directly. Let it go. It's someone else who got hauled away by strangers in the dead of night bearing A Fabled European Arrest Warrant. It was someone else's kid that got snatched, and some other hapless couple that tried, and failed, to get justice in a secret Childrens Court. It was someone else's son that got repeatedly molested by the kindly Catholic priest after communion on Sunday. That the Pope knew, and did nothing, is neither here nor there to us.

The problem with looking the other way is that, at some point, it will be YOU in the firing line. With so many crimes on the books, there is almost no way you won't transgress at some time. When you stand back, and look with a cold, clear eye, you have to recognise this fact. And who will be there for you? It won't be your countrymen. They will be too fucking busy whistling and looking the other way.

We are in deep shit, my friends.

We are in deep shit because we looked the other way.

We are in deep shit because we conned ourselves. We believed that everything was fine. We believed that what was happening was completely normal.

It isn't fine, and it isn't normal.

If being human means anything at all, it means that we have to look out for each other. We have to finally realise that there is no more "them and us".

It is just "us".

Time to react. Time to defend. Time to be human again.

If we cannot do that small thing, we are fucked.

Well and truly fucked.

CR.