About Ayo
Ayo Ojebode is ordinarily a lecturer in the Department of Communication and Language Arts, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria. He's now a fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences (NIAS), Wassenaar, Holland. At NIAS, he’s trying to complete a research on media and the memory of dictatorial rule. To him, Holland and its people are a pack of paradoxes –simply complicated; lavishly frugal; attractively disgusting. Therefore, they attract keen attention and frank comments.
Starting this month, our new weekly blog 'Africans going Dutch' will follow the highs and lows of living in Holland from an African perspective.
By Ayobami Ojebode
In Leiden, I had three favourite friends. One was Jan, a man with little schooling, so little that the day we met we could hardly communicate. I didn’t speak any Dutch and Jan didn’t speak much English. He said: “I don’t good err… speak English”. Yet, we clicked. Jan ran a tiny shop on Steenstraat. Note that Steenstraat itself is so small you won’t even notice it if you pass it by.
Jan repaired computers. He knew little engineering theory but he could solve practically any laptop hardware problem - from screen to keyboard. At first glance, he would tell you which of those thousands of tiny wires was crooked and was causing you headaches. Jan wasn’t making much money, I imagine. But he made ends meet.
Super supermarket
My second friend was a young man on Breestraat who repaired mobile phones. Instead of pursuing a college degree that would guarantee him a steady job, this young man had chosen to learn a trade and become self-employed. My third friend in Leiden was a Moroccan-looking guy who ran a chicken-and-chips shop. Industrious, humorous and enterprising is how I remember him.
I was away from Leiden for about 18 months. When I returned, Jan was gone! And so was his shop! Where his shop had been, a huge supermarket was being constructed. Three or four other tiny shops around Jan’s former shop had also disappeared. Where was he? What was he doing? And how was he doing? No one knew where to find Jan. The constructions workers had never heard of him.
With a heavy heart, I trudged on to Breestraat. Fortunately, my young phone mender was still there. But he wasn’t mending phones. I asked him if he knew Jan. He did. “Jan’s business got bad; he closed shop.” Then he went on to tell me about his struggle to keep his own business afloat. He was planning to relocate to a remote section of town where the cost of hiring a shop might be lower. My chicken-and-chips friend was still there, but he wasn’t humorous that day. “We are trying, you know, business is not easy in Holland,” he said.
Faces behind the figures
What is happening to small businesses in Holland? I see the big businesses growing: HEMA, H&M, Bristol, Digros, Kruidvat, ALDI, Gamma, BelCompany and their counterparts seem to be multiplying in this land. Yes, I know, economists say that this great nation has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the world (4 percent); its purchasing power parity is 22nd in the world; the GDP per capita is in the world top 21; and only 10 percent of the population is living below the poverty line.
But the economists who roll out these figures, and the politicians who brag about approval ratings, need to examine the human faces behind these figures. What's happening to the small fruit vendor? Where is my small Jan? How is he doing?
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What I'm thinking right now for little business is that that they should do a merger. That way little business owners may not lose so much!
Dr. Ojebode!
I'm not surprised that what you read is not what you found in Holland. what a way to hide a country's lie! Now, late Fela's song came to my mind... "suffering and smiling." Majek too.. "the rich get richer... poor get poorer" this is the situation with man all over the universe. this is why I don't support those traveling to live permanently in the West. There is no place like and will never be a place like home.
Just explore all you can, its quite an adventure in this regards.
The blog on small and large scale businesses in Netherlands makes good reading. Just this morning in the taxi, as I was entering the UI campus, I heard on radio (most likely Diamond FM) an economic expert say that 4percent unemployment may be regarded as no unemployment. He explained (if I heard right)that the 4percent refers to nursing mothers, the very elderly and so on whose condition stops them from doing any work at a particular point in time.Is Netherlands case one of full employment less the human face?
Sir, with reference to what you taught us in class, development should be human focused. It should be bottom-top approach for it to be effective.
Doc, you remind me of Dr Soola's Development Communication class, where we were taught what development was not.Development is not only about building sky scrappers, big shopping malls, supermarkets etc.It is not only about GDP, per capital income, bla, bla, bla.But, Development is making life better for the ordinary man. So, to me, Holland's development should be measured by what is happening to people like Jan.
The world today is the world where big things matter and small things falter. Big fishes are swallowing small ones. Ventures are swallowing enterprises, companies are eating up ventures, corporations are obliterating companies just as multinationals are dwarfing the latter. Hence their managerial econometrics becomes a complicated 'tower of Babel' and the corporate bureaucracy gets exploded with their protruded economic confusions- called recession. Like Holland like Nigeria. It 'is frost all over the world' indeed.
Interesting perspective!
Reminds me of this proverb abt if green leaves can burn, God help the dry ones! If this happend in Holland, what do we do about our home country? In Nigeria, I am sure it is not even worth talking about without you trying to shed tears. Business are not even standing let alone survive. Then somebody says that Walmart is coming to Nigeria. The Nigerian president and governors spend half of their govt lives traveling all over the world looking for foreign investors when those of us at home cannot even survive. Shame! I weep!
A good piece Dr. Ojebode. In Holland, people are being sawllowed by big national corporations. In Nigeria, we are swallowed by big international corporations that has swallowed our leaders!
Sir,
This is not a matter to be taken lightly. If small businesses are disappearing in such economies as the one you have descibed, what hope then do we have for small business in economies such as our own. The thing is that wherever it may be, the ordinary man bears the brunt of economic activities by the giant conglomerates. I hope that the Jans of this world will find succour some day. Aluta continua.
Good piece and very true. It is a big problem how the social fabric is destroyed, I see the same happening in the village where I live. Small businesses are pushed out and replaced by the same stores where nobody knows each other anymore.
Doc, the state of small scale businesses over there is not different from what we have here going by the picture you have painted.But the irony is that it is such businesses that can drive our economy and not the few exploitative multinational companies we have around.And please,tell my African brother to return home, it could be better at home.
A beautiful but deeply reflective piece.In sociology we say that the Jans of this world are ‘socially anonymous.’ Prof. Aweda told me that way back in 1980 at Ife.
My oga, never mind, "we meet to part; we part to meet" so goes the saying. I think small business has always find it difficult to survive in most economies especially in underdeveloped ones. If this happens in a country like holland, which we believe is at least to some extent well organized, how much less a country like ours - 9ja where our leaders have not got the words, plan, arrange, put-in-place, think of the masses, etc in the pages of their dictionaries. Im shocked one of them is thinking of relocation to a more remote area. this means there is life in their remote areas too. Probably they have enough electricity and what have you. How can l dream of living Ibadan city, Lagos, Abuja, P.H, for a remote area such as 'Mele-Koka', 'Aba-Esu', 'Aba jamoje' among others. I think if l do, it would be classified as a suicide mission cos l may never see PHCN, may be l'll see their electric poles etc. Waiting to have you back and get you into government, sure you can change things for us based on your experiences. Enjoy Oga.
Small businesses seem to be the hardest hit whenever there is economic turbulence. There's almost zero access to credit facility, costs increase even as patronage falls yet, like Inge pointed out, its worse in countries with no social security to back up the needy.
Thanks for sharing your experience sir. No matter how much a country intends to be highly industrialized or become one of the best economies in the world,there is still need to give small scale enterprise the opportunity to thrive. The beauty of every market is to have variety.While the high and the mighty are given the room to do their businesses, those with small businesses should also be given a level playing ground to survive.A favorable business environment should be able to sustain small scale enterprise and not to drive them to extinction. People like your friends,(Jan, the guy that runs a chicken and chips shop, and the one that repairs mobile phones)are struggling to make ends meet and should be encouraged. A market place should not only be controlled by the 'haves'.The 'have not' should also have a place to thrive.
Dr, that is interesting. Capitalism has got the world tipsy so that those mere acts of survival like Jan's have become the scum we detest and the greed of the corporations is what we nurture. UN's Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation has just approved $4million for Nigeria's implementation of REDD in Cross Rivers state. I'm afraid many local people's forest-based livelihood may be threatened by the government and the rich who might do everything to secure the local forests so they can have the most goody from REDD. Who gains, who loses in all these? Where are the faces?
Oga sir! I wonder what the problem you have
With quatitative research is. So far, it appears
Ironic. Anyway, this reveals that there is problem
Everywhere, though we can't compare the poverty
Level in developed nations with developing or
Under-developed ones like Nigeria. Indeed, our
Leaders need to learn from other nations even
Within Africa just as Vincent (Nation Newspaper)
Wrote recently about trading our (Nigeria)
democracy for GADAFFI'S. Is this country really
Learning from experiences?
Thank you Dr Ayobami for painting this vivid picture of how governance and economic policies across the globe have been tilted in favour of the big conglomerates. From Wall Street to Broad Street,small shop owners are being forced to make way for those who can donate towards election campaigns, forgetting that Millions of Jans have families to feed.Development, by whatever definition must be about human beings.
Great seeing Ayo in electronic print! Seeing the Occupy Movement in Action here in the US helps me put perspective on this - we should not forget that the 99% is more like 99.9% if we consider all countries and continents.
Beyond govt rhetorics on development and d economy,growth of small scale businesses is needful.especially 2 create jobs
Thanks for pointing out issues like this, so that Africans struggling to fly to Europe know it's not all rosy especially when you are not educated. I see a lot of these stories in Suprising Europe on Aljazeera News and I can't help wondering why we cannot stay in Nigeria and live a better life.
I guess governments these days are too busy solving 'big' problems and lack the time to spare on the 'small' individual faces who make up the 'big' votes that brought them into power. Dear Doc, by the time you return home, more of your friends operating small businesses on the campus and it's environs might have disappeared if our government implements the proposed removal of fuel subsidy.
When it comes to human faces, economy, business and governments.... I also attended a workshop about Shell in Nigeria yesterday, in which Shell and Amnesty International debated, together with the audience. Fascinating, but complicated topic. Shell actually surprised me in a positive way. They addressed the fact that showing a human face as a company is necessary if you work in an environment like the Niger Delta, but that it also brings problems and more complexity. Shell is operating in a grey area between business and governance in Nigeria today and I believe it's time for the Nigerian government to step up and take their responsibilities in the Niger Delta. Less bureacracy, more action in close collaboration with oil companies and civil society, so that peace, health and beauty can return to the region.
That's what our government should do, look at the human face of the economic crisis. But if they would, they wouldn't be able to get us out of the crisis I guess.....
Its a crisis because of the faces behind the figures...not the other way round. So i think the best place to start to fix a crisis is to look at the faces behind the figures.
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