Discover the diversity of people - a snapshot with Smart

 

June 2021

 

Dr Smart Nkemakolam Benson Chukwuemeka Josaiah Ezenyriume Azuru Nwa Ukwuoji or Smart Eze (76) for short is married and has two grown-up daughters. He lives in Eichgraben since 1989. At the age of 23, he served as a soldier in the civil war of Biafra, a comrad triggered a landmine.  A large number of tiny flying metal splinters pierced his eyes and upper body. As part of a humanitarian relief operation, Smart was flown out to Europe with other wounded soldiers in May 1969. Doctors tried in vain to restore his eyesight at the Lainz hospital. Smart can only sense his new home. Despite the circumstances, he drew tremendous courage to face life. After training as a telephone operator, he attended an evening school, studied, and received his doctorate in 1979.

A year later, he started working at the UN. First, he was a special representative in the UN Decade of Persons with Disabilities, then a press officer and finally as a social affairs specialist in the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. He has been retired since 2005. In his book "My Four Worlds" he tells his personal story.

 

You told me your beautiful name in one second. It took me ten seconds and I still pronounced it incorrectly. Tell me the secret behind your name?

In Nigeria, the parents choose different names for the newborn. My father gave me the name Nkemakolam which translates means: Let me not need what I desire. For baptism at the age of 12 I was given the name Benson, my mother always called me Chukweumeka (God make it good). I took the name Josaiah Ezenyriume from my father, the name Azuru, from my grandfather and Nwa Ukwuoji means son of the great grandfather. So my name is a living family tree. My cousin called me Smart, because I was a very inquisitive and curious child.

 

What was your biggest success at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime?

Building a worldwide computer database of NGOs working in the field of drug abuse and rehabilitation. Over time, I collected a lot of information and by the time I retired in 2005, my department had electronically registered more than 1,200 non-profit organisations.

 

Which of your activities at the UN has satisfied you the most?

That I was able to contribute to promoting and improving the situation of people with disabilities worldwide. It has satisfied me to see that people, no matter what their handicap is, are becoming visible to the community. That they are given a life with more quality, mobility and new prospects for the future. 

In 1981, the core team (consisting of about 20 people) and I sowed the seed as part of the International Year of Disabled People. A small plant sprouted from it, which slowly but surely grew into a stately tree.

Due to its success, it was decided in 1982 to extend the International Year of Disabled Persons to a UN Decade (1983 - 1992) of People with Disabilities.

Western developed countries have turned many of our projects into reality.

Lack of funding is one of the reasons why people with disabilities in many countries still face far too many barriers every day. I wish that one day these people will be able to live a dignified life as well.

According to the UN, two thirds of the 650 million people with disabilities live in underdeveloped countries.

Despite all the efforts, it took until 2006 when the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (Disability Rights Convention, UN CPRD) was agreed. It became effective in 2008.

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You are involved in the organisation Light for the World during your retirement. What is your activity?

Light for the World is an internationally active Austrian professional organisation that works for eye patients, blind people and people with other impairments in countries of the global South.

When I was still working, one of my goals for retirement was to get involved with this NGO. But not in an office as usual, but in the outside field. So, together with a co-worker, I visited educational institutions in Vienna, Lower Austria, Upper Austria and Styria. Starting from kindergarten up to upper secondary school. I told children and adolescents how people from Africa, Asia or Latin America handle their impairments in everyday life, how society deals with eye diseases and their prevention.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that more than 35 million people worldwide are blind.

 

How has the technology for blind people developed?

Over time, a number of aids for blind people have been launched.

In the 1980s, I started with an Optacon. It took me 15 minutes to read half a page. That was a huge challenge because some days I had to read up to 300 pages. I had to improve a lot during those years. My secretary helped me read confidential documents and volunteer readers read public reports to me.

My tape recorder and dictaphone were always next to me.    

When the Optacon was replaced by a Versa Braille device, it was an incredible relief for me. The texts to be read were translated into Braille with computer software and enabled me to read and write texts myself. With a matrix printer, I was also able to print out what I had written.

Today, my smartphone reads my messages and emails to me. Louis Braille, the inventor of Braille, would have been happy with me that we have developed such advanced technology. 

 

When was the last time you visited Nigeria and what is the current situation from your point of view?

The last time I visited my family was in 2005. At that time, I celebrated my 60th birthday with a great party.

Nigeria itself is sitting on a powder keg. Since the Biafra civil war, there has been deep mistrust between the individual ethnic groups.

In 1967, the oil-rich Christian south-east of Nigeria, where I also lived, declared its independence. The Republic of Biafra was born. "Land of the rising sun, land of brave heroes, we salute Biafra" was our national anthem.

By 1970, Nigeria had reconquered the territory in one of the cruellest wars Africa had ever seen. Many people, especially young people, still dream of an independent country due to a high unemployment rate and a lack of future prospects.

People are shot and kidnapped every day. At the beginning of June, I read that President Muhammadu Buhari had blocked Twitter for the whole nation because Twitter had deleted a tweet of him. If the people circumvent this block, individuals face prosecution. Critical opinions are taboo.

From personal experience, I know that in such cases, the police do not hesitate for long, and shoot people before arresting them.

The Igbo, an ethnic group into which I was also born, are the most disadvantaged in the state.

The Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram is wreaking havoc with massacres in northern Nigeria.

I also want to mention population growth: In the 1960s, I lived for a short time in Lagos, a city with less than 3 million inhabitants at that time. Today, it is estimated that over 20 million people live in Lagos.

I wonder what strategy my country will follow when the black gold of oil, our main source of income, dries up.

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When were you conscripted into the Biafra war and how do you feel about weapons being played down and brutal computer games being played in peaceful countries?

I was called up in 1968 in Port Harcourt. In the last few years that I was blessed with my eyesight, I saw unimaginable suffering and was aware of a deafening noise around me every day.

We as soldiers had little to eat, but more than most of the population and especially more than the children, the poorest and most innocent people in this cruel war. Many parents were separated from their children and the children from Biafra suffered from kwashiorkor. The disease pattern shows the characteristic hunger belly.

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I ask myself: How can we humans claim to be smart, resourceful, educated and talented? How can a peaceful country that condemns wars produce weapons itself? What is the point of commemorations such as D-Day if the root of the evil is not tackled?

Why do we live in two worlds, do we have two faces?

Humans are basically good, we want to live in harmony, we stand up for justice. Under certain circumstances, however, we turn into highly aggressive beings. As long as we don't get rid of these two faces, as long as we don't manage to solve conflicts without using weapons, we are anything but not intelligent, we behave like primitive and instinct-driven beings.

I expect more from people. I feel a great lack of understanding for the fact that apparently educated people find pleasure in weapons and brutal video games.

I ask myself why and think a lot without having found a solution. I am seriously considering sitting down again to write down my reflections for posterity. I still have not found the muse to do so, but perhaps it will come one day.

 

Are you still in touch with the other soldiers who were flown out with you at that time?

Yes. At that time, the flights were organised by the International Red Cross. Even in the darkness, the plane was shot at. I was very lucky: no more soldiers were flown out after that flight.  

In total, 70 people were flown out in my plane to various European countries.

When I landed in Vienna, nine other people besides me left the plane with facial injuries.  Of the ten people who arrived in Vienna in 1969, four are still alive.

Before Corona, we met once a month at the restaurant Mama's African Grill-Bar in Vienna's 10th district. An excellent restaurant that reminded us of how our mothers cooked.

 

What was your favourite festival as a child?

The New Yams Festival. Yams is a basic food in Nigeria. Already in the morning of the festival day, everybody was cooking. Various spices were finely ground with mortars. The smell and the continuous pounding in the individual households was like music to my ears. In the afternoon, we received guests from other villages. They brought gifts and in return we entertained them.

The music in the village square played until the early hours of the morning. What I liked most was the Ikoro dance.