Thursday 30 July 2015

In Elite Company

Today, on a trip from Accra to Amsterdam, I was upgraded to business class. It was everything a weary researcher, away from home for a couple of weeks and about to re-enter the family dynamic, could ask for on a ‘red eye’ back to Europe: a bed, freedom to read emails on a laptop without smashing elbows, and a pillow bigger than my hand. This is actually one of the few bonuses that comes with being a frequent flyer on an airline: the occasional – and unexpected – upgrade.

One of the more interesting experiences with being in first class – and something I have reflected on before in this space – are the types you find in the lounge. It is always an eclectic bunch who share a common trait: very little understanding of, and care for, the world they are a part of, or I guess more to the point, should be a part of. These are the elite who run poor economies such as Ghana, working collectively to help it reach new economic heights. A brief reflection on who actually came into the lounge over the hour I was there, however, certainly helps to explain a lot of the things we see in developing countries today.

First, there were the three Americans talking about oil. Clearly, they were Texan: you could tell from the Southern drawl. They requested ‘three’ Jack Daniels at the bar. Once the lady who took their order was out of earshot, the three men began to laugh in unison, poking fun of how, in a rather malicious way, the woman pronounced ‘three’ in her Ghanaian accent. This soon turned into a discussion about how Ghanaians are lazy, and how Ghanaian women are only after foreigners’ money. Sometime later, two Canadians (I assumed, judging by their accents and frequent reference to Calgary being ‘home’) entered the room, whining about how the mining company they worked for ‘could not continue this way’, in the words of one, ‘with the community behaving in the way they did’. ‘What the hell is wrong with these people?’ the other asked, in reference to presumably the community which was causing one of the company’s operations some trouble. ‘You build them a borehole, and they say it’s in a graveyard, and then you build a road, and they complain about the dust.’ ‘Well,’ the other later commented, ‘at least they are not a bunch of goddamned alcoholics,’ which, I presumed to be a jab at the First Nations’ reserves often found in the catchment areas of many mines in Canada.

There was also the Ghanaian whose hands were adorned with gold rings and who wore what appeared to be a tailored Armani suit. Holding two I-Phones, he demanded to be served food in a self-service area. I guessed that this guy was off to an ‘important’ meeting in Europe or North America somewhere, perhaps London, Washington DC or Paris – an engagement with perhaps a donor, his trip financed using the small bits of foreign exchange remaining in the Government of Ghana’s coffers, for a loan that would surely put the country back on track, developmentally. For this individual, ‘ministerial mode’ clearly extended beyond the walls of the office, and included someone else’s airline. Clearly not wanting to be outdone and wanting his presence to be known, an Indian man, who did not stop barking instructions into the newest Samsung Galaxy, began shouting at one of the women working in the lounge, complaining about the internet being slow. I guessed that this man was a wealthy merchant – or at least pretended to be – who has set up businesses in Accra which service the country’s growing primary sector. If this is a glimpse of what South-South cooperation is about, I am sure African people are anxiously looking forward to more arrivals from destinations such as Asia. Finally, there was the heavily-overweight Ghanaian whose phone never left his ear throughout his entire one-hour stay in the lounge. Sweating profusely, the man talked and talked, clearly very busy with setting up some important meetings with various companies and/or other organizations that would bring important investment to Ghana. This was clearly a highly-respected government official sent to represent Ghana at an important negotiation. One could only hope that if the meeting was the next day that he had sufficiently recovered from the two beers and two Baileys he had at the lounge, and – at least based on what I later observed – three glasses of champagne he had consumed whilst on the plane. With such people duking it out in parliament, Ghana’s people are surely in safe hands.

The first class lounge, therefore, could be thought of metaphorically as the microscope which zeroes in on who runs a developing country – in this case, in Ghana. It magnifies all of the nuances, providing a glimpse of the very individuals who have been entrusted with developing a country. It is truly amazing what you can learn about development whilst sipping on a Coke with your feet up whilst waiting to board an airplane…