Readers of this blog will know of my admiration for the work of James Cameron, the journalist.
It is thanks to him that I was recently able to extend my vocabulary of phrases from across the world [whatever happened to 'my postillion has been struck by lightning?] to now include "Bado kidogo".
From Swahili spoken in east Africa, it translates, roughly, as 'Not just yet'.
Straight-away I recognised the phrase as being some long lost section of a map for that part of my life's work which continues to baffle, frustrate and exasperate. "Bado kidogo" is the missing fragment of the map.
I have been for as long as I can remember and in some form or another, seeking out and eliminating the dragons of discrimination, inequality and injustice. I do so with some vigour and not a little passion. I do not always hang around and wait on a consensus emerging from my peers on the need to do this or that, and instead will rush off to re-enact 'High Noon' with the outlaw gang who, say, have not started to reduce the gender pay gap and have no obvious plans for doing so.
There appears to be a universal phrase book which most of those working on equalities use to explain why, say, eliminating the gender pay gap, or having more BME people in senior positions in the NHS, is of course a goal they absolutely and unequivocally share. It is just that there is so much else to do, so many people to be trained first, so many legal obstacles [even although equal pay is a legal requirement itself], it is too difficult just now, that no-one else is doing it, that the data is not available, that we can't achieve everything by tomorrow, and that surely it is all really rather academic because we are all really nice people and would not discriminate against anyone, and by the way did I know that some of their best friends/colleagues/neighbours are gay/black/Polish? I now know the map of the territory they have been using to plot the path of their work for decades. Bado kidogo, Wlad, bado kidogo.
It even exists at senior levels in government. How many times I have come across reports on equalities which offer the clichéd 'we have achieved much in the last 3 years on [disability/race/gender] equality, but much work remains to be done'. Bado kidogo.
The duplicity is staggering and goes way beyond anything Rupert Murdoch and News Corp have achieved. Here we are more than 40 years on from the Equal Pay Act 1970 - yes, 1970 - and we still don't have equal pay. Just as bad, we can't even routinely find evidence from public bodies of just what their gender pay gap is. Public bodies have been breaking the law for decades and women have been cheated out of probably £billions.
The Race Relations Act of 1976 has given us 35 years in which to change systems, mindsets, practices, and behaviours, so that BME people can live with, alongside and be part of us and our society, free of discrimination and free of fear.
Government and the public sector has tossed, wasted, lost, and abandoned the opportunity of those decades. We still live in a Scotland where you can pay with your life for being 'different', where your employment and career development options are just not comparable to those enjoyed and taken for granted by non-BME people. Most public bodies can't - 35 years on - give you accurate data on the ethnicity of their workforce, can't give you data on the pay gap between white and BME staff, and very, very few can tell you - 35 years on - what service users think of the public services provided and whether BME and white people enjoy the same opportunities to use the services or get the same quality of service when they are able to use them.
On race equality as with gender equality - government and public bodies have been breaking the race equality law for decades and BME people, their children, and their children's children have been cheated out of life opportunities and been denied the right to live a life free of fear and abuse.
It is time, long overdue, for government and the public sector to stop clinging on to the comfort blanket that is 'bado kidogo' and its many variants. For those who are unable to imagine that equality can be delivered in their lifetime, I would suggest it is time they moved aside and made way for people who want to construct a society where equality for all exists today, and tomorrow, and the day after that. It is time, as the Proclaimer's might once have sung, for 'Bado kidogo no more'.
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