Sharing my tour across Europe

_________________

OPINION

By Opiyo Oloya

On Monday afternoon, I climbed the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy.

Yes, that famous tower whose foundation was laid in 1173, and about which we were taught in our geography classes that the leaning began five years later.

I reached the second tier from the top where visitors are allowed to go. It was not much of anything — there was no prize for climbing to the top. There was no official at the top, no guide, nobody to tell me I did a wonderful thing. None of that.

Rather, I was propelled by my own sense of adventure to reach the top even as others, including my wife, stopped mid-way, either for fear of height or just being too tired to climb the stairs. But that is not why I am writing this story.

The real story is what I found half an hour earlier while looking for the perfect parking lot for our rental, diesel-powered Audi Q8 car. All the parking lots were full.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa, after all, is visited by well over five million people a year, and Monday was no exception, with thousands of people flocking to every space available to take one perfect picture. Many people take pictures while pretending to support the Tower from falling.

With so many vehicles parked all over the place, we were at the point of giving up. Just then, out of nowher,e a young Black man stepped into the street and beckoned me to move the car forward, pointing to an empty parking spot that someone had just left.

I parked the car, then walked over to thank the young man with a big hearty handshake. He said his name was Mansour — To be honest, I don’t remember if that was the name he gave me. He was twenty-something with a beautiful smile.

He was from Senegal and had been in Italy for a short time, and he was trying to make it. He spoke little Italian, which I don’t speak.

I tried French and, surprisingly, he did not speak that either.

We settled between his broken English and my Spanish-inspired Italian to communicate.

At this point, I should let you know that me and my wife Emily are driving across Europe as we did this time last year in Spain and France.

Starting from the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Italy, Austria, Czechia, Germany and back to the Netherlands, we continue to discover continental Europe and learning from the experience.

Did you know that Ugandan immigrants are among the largest in the Bavarian region of Germany — Munich, Stuttgart et cetera? I did not know that information, but my sister Jackie who works as a nurse in Munich and speaks perfect German told me that is the case.

Anyhow, for his help in finding a parking spot, Mansour did not ask for money or anything of the sort. Instead, his eyes spoke more than he dared to say. He is used to seeing Europeans streaming in and out of the Leaning Tower, and in front of him were two Africans who looked like him and who saw him as a real person rather than a nuisance dotting the landscape of Europe.

I did not have to ask him, and another colleague of his, also from Senegal, to look after our car. They gladly volunteered to do that, again without any expectation of being paid a dime.

Travelling through several European cities this past week, and continuing today to Venice, then on to Vienna, Prague, Frankfurt, Berlin, Hamburg and back to Amsterdam where we began our journey, we are seeing many young Africans like Mansour whose energy is expended scratching for a living in the backyards of Europe.

They work very hard selling odd items to make an honest living.

They dream of building something for themselves and for their families back home. They do that day in and day out, hopeful, motivated and determined to make it. There is something authentically heroic about their effort, in that they believe they will make it in Europe. But while a few might do just that, many of the young Africans are destined to live in the shadows of the riches of Europe.

The cold reality is that they provide labour for the insatiable economies of Europe, doing the work Europeans will not do. They may save some money to build a small house back home and to pay for their siblings to go to school.

Sadly, this never-ending task will continue to the day they retire, and someone else steps into their shoes to start the process all over again.

But telling Mansour that he is merely fulfilling the need of the economies of Europe is counterproductive, negative and without an upside. Rather, what he needs is encouragement to rise ever higher in the quest for improving his lot, which is what I told him as if he was my son.

He should see himself with a big house, yes, but most importantly he should see himself with something more precious than that — namely knowledge and experience that places him as an integral part of that society. He can do that by upgrading his education, and his language skills, whether it is Italian or German or French.

He is a much better person, not only for himself, but for everyone who depends on him when he is on the inside helping to shape a new Europe.

He is also better for building his country and continent when he is armed with deeper knowledge and skills.

This may not happen today or tomorrow or even the day after that, but the drive must always be about self-improvement. To never be content with doing the petty work for a few euros or dollars.

The question is not that he needs to educate himself, but rather, education toward what end. Here he toils in the hot sun to make a small living, but what would his opportunity look like if he were to study architecture, the very knowledge two Italian men had when they were inspired to start building the Tower of Pisa that is so famous today? What would be the ripple effect of his success as an engineer or accountant?

Countering the one-way drain of young Africans like Mansour attracted by the bright lights of Europe and the Americas requires a new way of thinking on continental Africa.

The most immediate area for change is creating opportunity for young people.

This means investing in new economies that provide jobs for our young people. This means eliminating corruption and deadwood bureaucracy that kill the motivation for innovation and new inventions.

This means changing the curriculum to be more Africa-centric rather than European oriented. Growing up, a lot of information was pumped into my young brain about Europe and the Americas — including about the Leaning Tower of Pisa—but little about the wonders of my own country, the beauty of the many cultures. The fact is that Africa needs to change from being the source of cheap labour for Europe and more self-sufficient to become the bright light of the world, the centre of knowledge production, of innovation and new thinking, the continent to which everyone flocks to look for opportunity. That is the way to start thinking and soon. As we left Pisa to travel to Rome where we are today, Mansour and his friend waved from the sidewalk. It was like saying goodbye to a family member you know you will likely never see again. This too is the reality of Europe.

Opiyo.oloya@gmail.com Twitter: @Opiyooloya

Dr Opiyo Oloya is the Inaugural Associate Vice-President, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) at Western University, London, Ontario, Canada