We are experts in our prejudices

Weeds in the garden of the mind

In times of reflection and introspection, I allow myself some searching scrutiny of my views, my opinions, my beliefs, my principles, and most importantly my prejudices. The blind spots that limit the range of vision in areas where ideally, I should normally be able to see, but I do not.

Like a gardener, it is a process of planting, trimming, weeding, pruning, grafting, uprooting, cleaning and much else that allows the garden to appear first well looked after and hopefully beautiful as a projection of what is aesthetically pleasing to myself and then to others. This is necessary for the mind too, things we have learnt that we need to relearn, unlearn, or have mislearnt through ignorant, incomplete, or bad education that needs jettisoning before it becomes the foundation for bad choices and decisions.

Arrogance is disabling

It brings to mind something Peter Drucker, the management guru said some decades ago, “discover where your intellectual arrogance is causing disabling ignorance and overcome it.” Discovery is always a process of searching and curiosity, that one has acquired some set views left without reassessing and questioning to ascertain their validity and application for the context, the time, the situation, or the circumstance will leave one prone to error.

The Merriam-Webster defines arrogance as an attitude of superiority manifested in an overbearing manner or in presumptuous claims or assumptions. When reading Peter Drucker’s quote, I tend to drop the ‘intellectual’ qualifier of arrogance.

Arrogance is bad and sometimes it is difficult to notice it in ourselves, the sense of superiority, that makes us think we are better than others, the overbearing manner that prevents us from being accommodating of alternative and different situations, the presumptuousness that denies us the benefit of knowing the limits of our understanding, expertise, abilities, competence, and even open-mindedness.

We are prejudice experts

It is strange is it not that arrogance does cause disabling ignorance, the lack of knowledge, information, insight, context, premise, understanding, the list in synonyms and similar inferences can be limitless. However, the point is arrogance disables you and when you are disabled, you are unable to perform like those who are able can. This construct can be applied to anything, what we do to compensate, mitigate, or eliminate that disability can make all the difference.

Nowhere is the issue of arrogance more evident than in our prejudices, the quickness with which we rush to the judgement of others, castigating, excoriating, and condemning them, based on our limited worldview contextualised within the constraints of knowledge and the mistake of assuming we are all-seeing when we have many blind spots.

We are experts in our prejudices, qualified and lettered to the point of being unchallengeable and unassailable, it is dangerous for ourselves first and then others. It is easy to be unaware of it because we are comfortable and secure in what we know.

The open mind like parachutes

This brings me to another quote, part of which is popular, but the provenance and the context in which it is used differs, depending on who it attributed to, the one attributed to Lord Dewar, Thomas Robert goes, “I have an open mind. Minds are like parachutes—they function only when they are open. I believe in collecting information on every important topic and verifying it. That is why I am here tonight—in the spirit of enquiry.” [StackExchange: A mind is like a parachute]

There is no better way to learn, to unlearn, to relearn and create scope for new knowledge that changes perspectives, perceptions, or prejudices, than to have an open mind, it is for our development and our safety, it allows us to acknowledge our blind spots and adjust our line of vision, it enables us to see better, it addresses deep-seated arrogance and brings us to the realisation of new possibilities.

You wonder why I have written a treatise on open-mindedness, simple, someone published a picture of themselves in interesting attire, adornments and makeup, the commentary that followed whilst a few celebrated and commended the bold difference in embracing the alternative and sometimes misunderstood, too many from the Nigerian opinion pool could not see the aesthetic blinded by their prejudices and leading to outright condemnation.

Open all windows to light and air

You have to be openminded you cannot be selective of where you are open-minded, streams of knowledge and enlightenment come from unexpected places when we are ready to explore the unfamiliar and sometimes threatening. We cannot access new knowledge pools when we have closed our minds to the avenue or route to that new experience. Like in the daytime, any window closed is closed to letting light and fresh air into the room.

To that, I wrote two tweets, “I would suggest that a little open-mindedness to the alternative, the different, the unusual, the atypical, the unconventional, or the chimeral can open up areas of creativity and genius closed to sight just because we can't countenance the radical. Nigerians should let go.” [Twitter]

“I just saw an interesting fashion statement of difference, the commentary that followed showed how people are limited in vision, bound by the myopia of conformity, that despite their talents and academic achievements, they never reach their potential by judging others.” [Twitter]

Suffocated by ultracrepidarians

The wisdom of madding crowds

Never have we needed a surfeit of expertise in these trying times, people who have not just an idea of what they are talking about, but are ready, willing and patient enough to take the time to inform and educate to the point that others begin to understand and grasp the basic knowledge of things.

It’s been difficult to navigate the deafening cacophony of those in captivity of the Dunning-Kruger effect, those who have not even conspired to dilettantism that enter the fray to pontificate and postulate as authorities in subjects where they have no schooling but are so opinionated to the point that experts are relegated to the inconsequential or forced into the feigned balance of pitching their vocations against novices. Ultracrepidarianism is rife.

Conspiring conspiracies

With the Coronavirus pandemic, the person we probably need most to shut is President Donald Trump, he needs to get out of the way and let the experts take control. He speaks like an idiot, spewing a multitude of jumbled words redolent of someone who has done nothing in a long time to improve his faculties. [Jolted by Her Own Illness, Pandemics Scholar Gains Insight into Botched COVID-19 Response - Scientific American]

Excerpted from Scientific American

Hitching a ride on the Coronavirus bandwagon, 5G technology has now branched out into a deluge of conspiracy theories promoted by every useful idiot from religious leaders through politicians to celebrities.

I cannot begin to repeat or perpetuate much of what I have read or heard, only that the ignorant and illiterate have become willing hosts of propagating the contagion of pseudo-science, fables and incredulous stupidity with property at risk of destruction and possible loss of life and livelihood. They have become the personification of a virus. [The Coronavirus Collection: Conspiracy Theories – Snopes] [5G Conspiracy – Snopes]

The church online

I guess the only respite I had was in the celebration of Palm Sunday, we have reached the end of Lenten season and entered the Holy Week. Quite inauspiciously, we have now completed 2 weeks of the intended 3-week lockdown to expire on Easter Monday. There is a likelihood it would be extended. [Palm Sunday - Wikipedia]

The etymology of quarantine is Venetian of the 14^th to 15^th Century spoken in the northeast of present-day Italy, quarantena meaning 40 days anglicised to quarantine of which the Lenten period is also 40 days. [Quarantine – Wikipedia]

Yet, what a relief it was that I would able to attend the online Palm Sunday eucharistic season of the Manchester Cathedral, streamed life on Facebook from the homes of the clergy presided over by the Dean of the cathedral. There is a daily morning (09:00) and evening (16:30) prayer service streamed live too. [Manchester Cathedral – Facebook]

Experts of mercy

In a week suffused with the excess of illusory superiority, hubris, and cognitive dissonance almost presenting as schizophrenia, here were people not given to the eschatological incomprehensibility of those of another creed, but with humility, patience, service and love for their congregation led us in worship, adoration, and celebration of the day.

Was I glad to see so many clerical collars? We must be thankful for small mercies. In other news, I joined the Labour Party on the 19^th of January, the day before the close of eligibility to elect a new leader. That contest is over, and Sir Keir Starmer was elected, my choice for deputy leader came second. It is my hope that the Labour Party that I have voted for since 1992 now has the opportunity of becoming a party of government after 4 straight electoral losses. I wish Sir Keir, every success. [BBC News]

Thought Picnic: Sometimes, forgiveness is arrogance and ignorance defeated

Giving and getting without the for

The ability to differentiate between forgiving and forgetting was brought home to me again when I visited the District Six Museum and followed the guided tour hosted by a former resident.

She told her story with depth and feeling, it was palpable, we maintained such respectful silence as she relayed how Apartheid dehumanised an entire community in the pursuit of fulfilling a policy of the segregation of races.

She had not forgotten every single detail of what happened to her up to her mother dying within 48 hours of being forcefully ejected from a home where she raised 11 children.

History, not misery

For me, there is a lot to remember and much else I must never forget, all these in their recollections and stories are part of my life, my history, my narrative, and forms part of how my worldview is defined.

We all need our stories and some of us get to tell them in brutal and excruciating detail. Forgiveness, however, is how we allow those experiences to define us. Whether we would allow the wrongs and those who have wronged us to continue to have a hold on our lives and by their presence become an interminable upset brewing unmitigated resentment and bitterness.

People are who they are

This is where I begin to compartmentalise, some people are pathological sociopaths, they would never acquire an iota of emotional intelligence. I know I few and I have extricated them from my purview, our lives have diverged and long may that divergence continue until distance and time has obliterated every smidgen of whatever constituted our encounter.

Some may not know how to empathise, they think the world revolves around them. To some, I have been as blunt as I can be, to others, I have refused to be wrapped around their fingers, to be at their beck and call. I jealously guard my independence, it is with great difficulty that my autonomy would be subdued for longer than it takes for me to realise I am being played.

People are really who they are

I excuse a lot because for all sorts of reasons, the lives of others have followed courses I cannot begin to understand. Once I find a context within which to characterise that expression of themselves, I can deal with the situation. Between taking liberties and making allowances, you find a way to coexist with consideration out of contemplation.

I do not know if I am my own greatest critic, but I have been able to look at myself at certain times and accept I have flaws, faults, frailties, foibles, falsehoods, and foolishness. Some things I am about to do on impulse would be trammelled by premonition and conscience. I hope to be more alert to these guardians of my soul. I have learnt not to condemn myself in the things I have allowed and in that, I find some forgiveness for myself.

Even in the many cohorts I have identified, I probably have to seek forgiveness for things done and said, in omission and commission, it is a process of getting to be at ease with both oneself and others. Have there been times I have come across as supercilious? At times, it is where I have put myself and in others, it is a projection redolent of where they have put themselves. I strive to lift than to debase.

Disabling my ignorance

In terms of hypocrisy, I am of the opinion that it is not entirely a bad thing, it is a source of knowledge, both the person with a speck in their eye and the other with a beam in their eye need the speck and the beam removed so they can both see clearly.

In the process of managing oneself and understanding the work of forgiveness, in the words of the management sage, Peter Drucker, I need to “discover where your intellectual arrogance is causing disabling ignorance and overcome it.” Take out the word ‘intellectual’ and much more can be done to better oneself, by learning and unlearning with the view to overcoming fundamental flaws in our humanity.

Opinion: Kim Davis is in jail because she is a clerk, not a cleric

She is a devout Christian, no doubt

Kim Davis, the clerk of Rowan County in Kentucky is in jail for contempt of court and I think that is right and just.

The reason why Kim Davis is in jail was because she refused to grant marriage licences to gay couples after she had been instructed by the courts at various levels up to the supreme court to do her duty.

Now, Kim Davis would have us believe that she is a devout Christian and I have no reason to question her beliefs, her convictions, her persuasions or her conscience.

She is also a public servant

However, Kim Davis as a public servant is someone who has a duty to perform for which she is paid and for which she should be accountable if she fails to perform her lawful duty. A public office in civil society must never be where to wage religious wars of conscience and conviction.

I say this because any community setting might have the same religion, but rarely have similar convictions or devotions, the imposition of which can so easily infringe on the rights of those who are not similarly adherent.

When I last checked, the United States of America is a democracy and whilst many might deign to wear their religion on their sleeves, it is not a theocracy, it is not governed by religious books or dogma, but by a constitution and amendments to the same along with a body of living jurisprudence that interprets questions of law, rights, freedoms, liberties, causes, policy and much else.

She is clerk, not a cleric

I also note that Kim Davis ran for office to be a clerk and not a cleric, so for the multidimensional community that she serves, she is duty-bound to treat everyone to whom she provides the service of granting a marriage certificate equally, with respect, with dignity and without prejudice.

Yet, I respect the fact that Kim Davis due to her religion, her convictions, her beliefs and her conscience might well disagree with the law that grants the right for same-sex couples to receive marriage certificates, those elements of her devout Christianity do not automatically confer on her the right to disobey the law, most especially a direct court order commanding her to do her job.

She has every right to do her job reluctantly, grudgingly, even abusively if she is so disposed, but the law must be upheld.

We should not mistake Kim Davis’ tribulation with one that represents the persecution of Christians, rather this is a case of stubborn presumptuousness engendering stupidity and ignorance.

Why we have civil law

There is a reason for civil law, it makes everyone equal before the law and allows for everyone to be judged on the merits, the facts and the arguments properly made to defend a position based on extant law and constitutional interpretation along with appellate processes that can be exhausted to the highest court after which the decision of that court is final and it must not be impugned.

If we have a situation where everyone is allowed by reason of their devotion and conviction to act according to their conscience regardless of the dictates of the law we risk a society falling into anarchy. We cannot have public officials acting on the whim without regulation or conduct, where depending on how they feel, what they perceive, which prejudice appeals to them most or what judgement they have in their heads they serve without any public accountability, but to God alone.

This brings me to a blog I wrote on the matter the separation of church (religion) and state, I implore you to read the blog.

Blog - The case for State law over religious guidance

The state must think for itself

The aptly named Lord Justice Laws made a number of pertinent statements in his judgement, which I highlighted in that blog, one that I find most critical I have copied to this blog.

“The law of a theocracy is dictated without option to the people, not made by their judges and governments. The individual conscience is free to accept such dictated law, but the state, if its people are to be free, has the burdensome duty of thinking for itself.”

Invariably, the learned judge is saying the people need the option to decide who makes their laws and this option is exercised through their judges and their governments, it is only then that the people can truly say they are free because the state to which they belong does not have to answer to anybody else but the selfsame people from whom are selected those who are the judges, the representatives and the government. That is human government in a nutshell.

Kim Davis by her histrionics was trying to take this option away from the people and give it to her preconceived higher power of God, she can do that in her own house as an act of individual conscience, but as public servant, the people decide through their representatives and this is the judge.

There was a scenario in the bible where the rulers questioned Jesus Christ about the paying of taxes and in the ensuing conversation his answer was good enough to send his challengers on their way.

Don’t confuse the renders

“Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's.” Matt 22:21 (KJV)

Jesus as the initiator of Christianity knew clearly the difference between civic duty and religious devotion. In his answer, one must note that he first addressed the matter of civic duty where the understanding of the rules is clear to everyone before talking of God where that might well be a matter of individual conscience.

I make bold to say that what Jesus intended in his answer was without equivocation that regardless of personal conviction or individual conscience, the laws of the land must be respected. The disarray and disorder comes when certain ignorant religious adherents or extremists confuse the instruction by rendering what is Caesar’s to God and what is God’s to Caesar, sometimes not even knowing what is Caesar’s from what is God’s and that is why Kim Davis is in jail.

Obey or resign

As a clerk, she should have been rendering what is Caesar’s to Caesar, respecting the law and doing her job, she decided to render what is God’s to Caesar and well, Caesar does not trade in God’s currency and technically, that is fraud and frauds go to jail.

Kim Davis in my view belongs in jail until she is ready to obey the law as a clerk who grants marriage certificates to all who are legally entitled to one, including same-sex couples, regardless of her conscience or conviction or she should resign and go home to worship her God without interference from the law or the people.

Thought Picnic: I don't know it all

Know why you do

In my line of work, I have variously found myself at loggerheads with others when it comes to problem resolution.

In context, it is important for me to understand why scenarios and circumstances present themselves before seeking a range of paths towards solutions that might resolve or eliminate the problem entirely.

A background in logic

There are many people who come from many walks of life and careers into the Information Technology profession taking up roles from design and architecture, through project and change management to support and much else.

It goes without saying that whilst many again are good at what they do when things are working like clockwork, the gaps in their fundamental knowledge of things begin to show when problems or emergencies arise.

There is a great user and support community out there from where one can get answers to a range of issues and problems. Yet, being able to craft a question properly or explain the scenario properly lends itself to other being able to visualise that setting and hopefully present ideas, opinions or clear solutions with steps to implement them to resolution state.

What an engineering mind gives you

My engineering background requires that there must be a purpose for any activity undertaken towards obtaining a solution. For me, it has to be logical, sensible, goal-oriented and capable of advancing knowledge and experience that any other similar scenario can literally use those steps as a template.

I do not work too well with trial-and-error, where purpose and goal are lacking that brawn rather than brain is used to hopefully get an unexpected outcome that then turns out to be the solution.

Because there is no particular method to trial-and-error problem resolution, stumbling upon a solution might well be fine, but you are left with whether you can backtrack and formularise those trial-and-error steps into a clear guide with full understanding of the problem, why the problem arose and what can be done to resolve it.

Reading the runes

I regularly peer through error logs trying to ‘divine’ from the logs what set of circumstances have presented the error observed from after. In doing that, I have to make more deductions over assumptions to begin to make headway.

In many cases, what the logs tell me gives me a sense of certainty about where things have gone wrong and possible insights as to how to right the situation. It is at this stage that I might become unpersuadable of alternative thinking if the logic and the reasoning is neither clear nor convincing.

In exasperation, I have sometimes walked away from a situation, though usually after I have shared my views and wait for the doubters to come to the conclusion that I might have been talking sense all along.

I don’t know it all

Yet, I have to be careful that this assuredness does not descend into intellection arrogance blinding me from other perspectives and perceptions. It is important to have a good idea of what knowledge you have, what knowledge you do not have and most pertinently be quick to retrace your steps where the absence of knowledge has precipitated into negligence or ineptitude.

Ignorance is fine if it means the quest for knowledge remains an ongoing pursuit with the view of mastering the rules established and then breaking new ground with new thinking and new perspectives.

Make allowances to learn anew

The constant quest for knowledge also limits the occurrences of negligence borne of not acquiring and using knowledge that is already available and the possible crime of ineptitude where wilfulness or hubris has made one almost too sure of a situation when it really is not the case.

Curiosity and a sense of precociousness are attributes one must always possess along with a questioning and challenging disposition. We can trust many things, but they should really only be trusted that much if they have also been verified as trustworthy – paraphrasing Ronald Reagan aphorism of “Trust, but verify.”

The inspiration for this blog came from Dr Atul Gawande’s first Reith Lecture in 2014 on The Future of Medicine, titled, Why Do Doctors Fail? [PDF Transcript]. In this lecture, he referenced an article Toward a Theory of Medical Fallibility [Subscription PDF], Samuel Gorovitz & Alasdair MacIntyre (1976) Published in The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, 1976, Vol 1, No 1.

Nigeria: The need to arrest the spate of religious vampires

The gospel meeting needs

The airing on Channel 4 in the UK of Seyi Rhodes' Unreported World - The Making Of … Nigeria’s Millionaire Preachers [1] did not include other footage that would have been more representative of the gospel because it did not appear as spectacular and outlandish as the subjects in that show.

In an accompanying article [2] that should have had a modicum of proofreading [This is a blog, Channel 4 is a professional news channel, such must be better catered for.] the ministry of Rev. Mrs. Chika Oluchi is spoken of.

She is the overseer of The Mountain of the Lord Ministries International: Centre for Liberation which runs a widow’s fellowship catering to the needs of these women who apparently have no means of material or spiritual support.

Almost inexcusable gullibility

Most touching is the story of Therese who is mistakenly identified as a widower rather than a widow, just as the confusion of numbers is used to describe Rev. Oluchi as a remarkable women [sic].

Therese lost her husband some years ago and apparently fell into the hands of rotten preachers who convinced her that her husband was a member of a devil worshipping cult persuading her to dispose of all her late husband’s property and give the proceeds to the church leaving her and her children destitute.

To crown this wickedness they said God will kill her and her children if anyone found out. Those preachers have now been apprehended and Therese appears to be rebuilding her life untouched by the supposedly wrathful God ready to murder her and her children for being inadvertently married to a devil worshipping husband.

Held hostage to their ignorance

Herein is the deeper problem with religion in Nigeria, the ability for the unscrupulous, dishonest and Machiavellian to prey on the gullibility and apparently vague dread of the supernatural of people to exact them money, property, blind allegiance and followership.

People get held hostage to their fears perishing in their ignorance and inability to independently seek out the truth of their beliefs many of which have been foisted upon them by merchants of deception masquerading as religious leaders.

Sadly, there is no indication that many can emancipate themselves from this enslavement as these religious confidence tricksters trot out every kind of corporate or personal message along with false prophecies purporting to be of God to feed on the anxieties, fears, uncertainties and doubts of the sometimes vulnerable, sometimes stupid and usually both.

Taking advantage

Religious vampires with fangs long enough to sink deep into the heart to feast on the blood of those beholden to their whims, drawn away from the truth by the spectacular and paralysed by the fear of the retribution of blood thirsty animist gods in the misrepresentation of the Christian God.

It takes one back to those unsightly but horribly truthful paragraphs reproduced below from Lord Lugard’s book, The Dual Mandate that I covered in my Apes Obey Series [3].

Revisiting Apes Obey

In character and temperament, the typical African of this race-type is a happy, thriftless, excitable person; lacking in self-control, discipline, and foresight; naturally courageous, and naturally courteous and polite, full of personal vanity, with little sense of veracity, fond of music and loving weapons as an oriental loves jewellery.

His thoughts are concentrated on the events and feelings of the moment, and he suffers little from the apprehension for the future or grief for the past; his mind is far nearer to the animal world than that of the European or Asiatic, and exhibits something of the animals’ placidity and want of desire to rise beyond the State he has reached.

Through the ages the African appears to have evolved no organized religious creed, and though some tribes appear to believe in a deity, the religious sense seldom rises above pantheistic animalism and seems more often to take the form of a vague dread of the supernatural.

He lacks the power of organization, and is conspicuously deficient in the management and control alike of men or business; he loves the display of power, but fails to realize its responsibility; he will work hard with a less incentive than most races.

He has the courage of the fighting animal, an instinct rather than a moral virtue; in brief, the virtues and defects of this race-type are those of attractive children, whose confidence when it is won is given ungrudgingly as to an older and wiser superior and without envy.

Perhaps the two traits which have impressed me as those most characteristic of the African native are his lack of apprehension and his lack of ability to visualize the future.

Without doubt there is a need to review each of these traits as identified by Lord Lugard and see how certain who have acquired power by all sorts of means have been able to subjugate others so easily because therein lies the root of many of the problems Africans face today, a fifth of those Africans are apparently Nigerian.

[1] 4oD – Channel 4 – Unreported World - The Making Of … Nigeria’s Millionaire Preachers

[2] The Making Of … Nigeria’s Millionaire Preachers – The Widows’ Fellowship and Therese’s story.

[3] Introducing the Apes Obey! Series

Editorial: Lifting the burqa on identity and ignorance

Where the burqa belongs

The matter of the burqa though religiously sensitive needs to objectively thought about in its proper contexts. A number of European and Western countries have promulgated laws or are in the process of creating legal situations where the burqa is banned in public places.

In Islamic countries where the chastity and dignity of the woman is presumably preserved by the total cover-up with slits for the eyes, a see-through net or grille it is traditional and customary for women to be invisible as recognized individuals and personalities.

In more conservative settings, the women would have to be chaperoned by male members of their families to be seen in public and their identity is derived from who accompanies them.

Western societies have no such customs and this type of extreme modesty is rather alien to the concept of individual identity and the representation of personalities.

Where the burqa does not belong

The face is the first object of identification, communication requires eye contact and people, especially adults have the responsibility for acting as free moral agents with verifiable particulars of identification to access all sorts of services especially those to do with security, law enforcement and business transactions.

It means such open societies just do not have the means or the latitude to accommodate these alien customs because it abridges human-rights in terms of having a clear identity in the public space as it disrupts the sense of security people have by facial recognition of those within their space.

The civil liberties advocacy for the right to wear the burqa in open societies that require facial identification as a verification of identity simply holds no water wear no alternative system of identification exists to verify a covered face belongs to a particular person, it burdens such societies with impossible hurdles and impacts on the sense of equality we all have.

Whilst the preservation of right to religious observation is apparently sacrosanct, that of customs that go against the grain of easy identification cannot be so. The burqa just does not belong in free societies.

Unhealthy burqas of ministers of health

Health ministers would be expected to have the medical health of their fellow citizens as paramount with the aim to facilitate access to good, affordable and accessible healthcare to all.

For all their erudition, expertise and organizational ability, we expect that whatever they do will attract the greatest commendation of respect and praise of their service and one can dare to hope that they would avoid being embroiled in controversy.

It was bad enough that a health minister in Nigeria did not see the medical emergency of fake drugs and substandard drugs being dispensed in Nigeria’s University Teaching Hospitals suggesting only his predecessor was directly addressed and informed of the matter.

However, when somewhat progressive countries end up with health ministers in that kind of mould, a greater disservice is done to the people who deserve better than that kind of cack-handedness.

In South Africa it was the health minister in Thabo Mbeki’s presidential tenure who advocated the use of beetroot garlic and herbs for the management of HIV and AIDS that she earned the embarrassing world-stage moniker of Dr Beetroot as the medical situation in South Africa was allowed to grow into an epic emergency.

She has passed but the baton seems to have been handed to the health minister of the world’s second most populated counted and the largest democracy.

Donning the burqa of crass ignorance

Whilst health ministers are entitled to their moralities and values, they are not put in their positions to preach to the adherence of some moral code and alienate others on grounds that have no professional or medical basis.

It therefore comes as a shock beyond words when the Indian Health Minister at a HIV/AIDS conference he was attending said that “homosexuality is a disease which has come from other countries.”

It is hard enough listening to people propose that an element of human nature has a particular racial or regional progeny in their quest for a sense of cultural purity but to hear such stuff from a health minister is really beyond the pale.

There is every reason to expect this person to walk the plank before their pronouncements validate and promote the persecution of others on all grounds predicated from a false and illiterate medical perspective, one can only be filled with trepidation at what might result from this statement in a country where the matter of rights are not as sure and in others where India is supposed to serve as an example.

We need to lift the burqa on this kind of intellectual arrogance which is portends to have moral underpinnings but is stark ignorance expressed by one who should really know a lot better.

Acknowledgements

The BBC news website writes about giving powers to the New South Wales police concerning criminalising burqas by reason of the fact that it hampers the identification process in crime investigation and law enforcement. After a BBC documentary five years ago, I wrote a blog about the Unhealthy directors of Nigerian Health and yesterday, the Indian Health Minister took on the mantle of Dr Beetroot of India.

Nigeria: The Guardian, Conscience nurtured by half-truths

Guided from the truth

When my friend highlighted the context of an article that appeared in the Nigerian Guardian of the 6^th of March 2009, I opined saying maybe the paper was not necessarily serving the function of its masthead [1] which is Conscience, Nurtured by Truth but just being a general publishing forum of opinions no matter how crass.

The editorial board of the Nigerian Guardian allowed and in allowing, endorsed the publication of an article by a Christian Nwoke who purports to work for the Project for Human Development in Lagos titled Finally, a social vaccine for HIV [2].

Reading through his diatribe I felt the article might have been well placed to appear in some newspaper some 25 years ago. I would not know the function of the agency he works for but he is clearly not aware of the demographic he writes about.

The women are the most affected

Indeed, there is sexual promiscuity amongst the youth and there is serious child sexual abuse in Nigeria which does not get tackled with the urgency and exposure that it requires, but this is hardly the face of HIV in Nigeria.

If Mr. Nwoke had bothered to do the most basic research before he fulminated, he would have realised that in Nigeria it is the women [3] that carry the greater burden of HIV/AIDS by over 50% of those infected and children account for 8%.

His article concentrated on the scourge affecting the men when the social issue is the women who in their matrimonial homes cannot exercise the restraint on their promiscuous husbands who sleep around and bring things home. Or women who are egregiously abused by a paternalistic culture that demands sexual satisfaction regardless of the woman's desires or rights.

Condoms fail but still protect

There is a mind and discipline element to Abstinence but human beings have a sexual inclination and appetite, where it needs to be satisfied for all sorts of reasons it is good to Be faithful but where that fails the next line of action is to use Condoms.

These are the ABC’s of protection; using all means as a pragmatic response to realities – social, moral, political and economic – rather than a puritanical one solution view of abstinence which we fail to accept is ineffective.

Mr. Nwoke expressed his ignorance in full measure when he suggested that condoms are causative of HIV and hence advocated they should be banned because they are known to fail.

Anything can fail

Indeed, condoms are known to fail which is why we are advised to use a lot of lubricant and check during usage that it is still effectively doing its job, but I doubt if condom failure is the main cause of HIV infection, I would suggest it is the lack of use of condoms.

Abstinence can fail if one is unfortunate to have a tainted blood transfusion, being faithful can fail if one of the partners is infected by other means than sexual transmission and condoms do fail; there is also a contraceptive element to using condoms talk less of the social consequences of children people cannot afford to rear – However, HIV/AIDS comes from either participant being infected – never from just the act of sex between uninfected partners, no matter how promiscuous they might be – one should debunk the unfounded view of sex equals infection.

By the time he uses the analogy of failed parachutes where he says if he is told one out of 6 parachutes failed he would not jump out of a plane, (parachutes are used all the time for jump out of planes, stopping high speed vehicles and many other things, we we adopted such a unadventurous view to life we would get nowhere; I guess because of car accidents he does not drive and for the fear of electrocution he does not use the mains) – the story of his ignominy was complete but he would not draw my ire.

The Guardian draws my ire

That is to be given to the Nigerian Guardian Editorial Board headed by a Dr. Reuben Abati [4] who as watchdogs and guardians of the principles and focus of the newspaper should not have allowed such tripe to feature especially not in a forum like the Internet which has a global reach. Indeed we should promote the freedom of expression but there should be a line drawn at poorly researched expressions of ignorance.

In this one case they have allowed a matter of conscience for Mr. Nwoke to be nurtured by half-truths, fallacies and ignorance then given it a global platform – this is appalling at best and should be harshly excoriated at worst.

A malevolent protégé, I perceive

As for the agency Mr. Nwoke works for, human development can be anything from serious humanitarian activity through eugenics to being an offshoot Dr. Mengele’s laboratory [5] – with such views expressed, one can easily see where Mr. Nwoke’s mind is.

The Guardian should really ensure that their columnists have researched their copy diligently and would impart knowledge rather than a diatribe of ignorant generalisations that have no basis in fact.

My friend who alerted me to that apology of an opinion has worked with persons with HIV and AIDS in South America, Africa and Oceania in the last 8 years and was incensed that such nonsensical views could appear in a newspaper that is supposed to have a reputation and a standard – the qualifier supposed for now stands as a grudging compliment.

Sources

[1] The Nigerian Guardian masthead

[2] Guardian Newspapers: Finally, a social vaccine for HIV

[3] HIV InSite – Nigeria

[4] Reuben Abati - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[5] Nazi human experimentation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

How safe are condoms against HIV - HIV AIDS Care

How Effective Are Latex Condoms in Preventing HIV? | Questions and Answers | CDC HIV/AIDS

Note: If the source article disappears, I have already printed a PDF version of this infraction to good journalism.

YouTube versus Islam - Between discernment and ignorance

Mosque smarts and technical dunces

When I wrote Temple smarts and street dunces as the subtitle to my write-up Earth-queers quaking in Israel on the 21^st of February, I was not anticipating writing Mosque smarts and technical dunces 5 days on.

On Sunday, the Pakistani government had ordered ISPs to block all access to YouTube because of content deemed offensive to Islam and they all complied.

The smarts at Pakistan Telecom hijacked the IP address of the YouTube web server and in conjunction with PCCW an ISP sent seekers of that site down a rabbit hole.

In fact, it sent the global user community of YouTube down the rabbit hole for two hours.

The jury is out as to whether this act was deliberate or just a case of ignorance about how Internet protocols work because Morocco, Thailand and Turkey have successfully implemented bans to YouTube without bringing the whole house down.

Accountability or ridicule

Did I not say, “The sooner adherents and followers call their leaders to account the less their beliefs and dogma are subjected to ridicule”, to leaders we now have to add technical people.

This also extends however tenuously to the use and abuse of knowledge, when Pakistan acquired knowledge of nuclear weaponry the smarts involved opened an illegal market of nuclear proliferation threatening global peace.

Fostering an intellectual environment

Sadly, the real problem is the fact that the Pakistani government has failed to foster an intellectual environment amongst its people.

In the weekend, a friend sent me a few links from YouTube to do with a grandmother doing some “commendably” shocking things like kicking a toddler out of the path of an oncoming train – I found the material utterly offensive and definitely not funny, I did not bother to view the other link but deleted the email and was ungentlemanly enough not send acknowledgements or thanks.

What I am saying here is I made the decision to view the content and once I found it was not to my liking, I refused to create more revulsion by viewing the rest of the material.

If the email had come with a clearer idea of the content, I would not have opened the links at all.

Give the people more credit of discernment

Surely, the people of Pakistan should be able to make informed decisions like that; as refusing to view YouTube videos with refer to the Mohammedan cartoons (Warning: Links to the cartoons, you exercise a personal prerogative in clicking on the link) or Geert Wilders’ Islamic ruse called Fitna to be released in March and still be about to seek out videos that glorify Islam or teach Internet protocols properly.

Censorship is a very blunt and unwieldy hammer to hit the nail where the government has lost the persuasion of ideas that they have to use the coercion of tyranny by resorting to blanket bans.

Very typical of ordering everyone to wall off the windows in their homes because the wind is blowing and it might carry bad odours when people should have the choice to open or close their windows at will to let air in or keep it out as they will.

In the process, technical ignorance on the one part and government policy failure on the other have combined to depict proud, independent and intelligent Pakistanis as ignorant, incapable of making informed decisions and brought Islam to unnecessary ridicule in the name of protecting the self-same religion.