#JeSuisCharlie: Time to go after the extremists completely

No excuses

It was with utter shock at lunchtime that I saw the news on the canteen television set that 12 people had been murdered on the premises of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris.

Nothing in my view could excuse the blood-letting carnage meted out by murderous brigands in the name of some belief system or religion.

Satire is a wonderful tool and sophisticated medium of expression to carry interesting, difficult, complex or controversial thought to a reading or listening public, it is to make people think and reflect, never is it to inspire barbarity and atrocious behaviour leading to murder.

Undermining their cause

The three cowardly and masked criminals who shot up the place and left as they were heard shouting "we have avenged the Prophet Muhammad" and "God is Great" in Arabic ("Allahu Akbar"), have done a great damage to any cause they portend to represent.

To suggest they were avenging the prophet is to promote the view that beyond the mystique, the mystery and sometimes the myth, the so-called prophet is weak, powerless, fitful and ineffectual. This can never be the case if the teachings of the prophet have thrived for over 14 centuries.

God is no doubt great, but this is not how to project the greatness of God, by spilling blood on the streets in the quest for their own personal sense of justice.

Lawless brigands

It makes you wonder, who appointed these butchering criminals judge and jury to run riot with weapons taking any life they see fit because they were seemingly offended?

In this day and age, we cannot allow people to overrun civil society bringing carnage amongst us and then running into some hiding place seeking refuge from justice. Cowards!

What damage these people have wrought in the name of Islam is beyond reckoning, and much as they are not representative of Islam per se, this act of unmitigated violence will give the movement that appreciates Islamophobia more fuel and support.

Damage to religion

Suffice it to say that the people who do the most damage to religion are those who through their actions in support of their beliefs are both unreasonable and extremist.

People whose perspective of life strips humanity of any expression beyond one of subservience to a deity that is cruel, merciless and humourless, yet, if we are to lose the richness of satire and humour to the feeble religious sensibilities of fanatics, we deserve no liberty nor freedom.

We must protect our liberty, our freedom, our expression and our wonderful humanity from these sort of people by chasing them and their sponsors; the acquiescent, the committed and those who give succour to the ends of the earth, bringing them to face the full wrath of the law.

Much as we have civilised ourselves beyond the routine shedding of blood, we must deprive these people of their liberty that no one else comes to harm by their words, thoughts or deeds.

Snakes in the backyard

We can no more pussyfoot around religious extremism, it has to be tackled head on and brought to heel, as every terrorist does not belong on our streets for more than an overly generous second.

It is like what Hillary Clinton said about tolerating terrorism in whatever form, “It's like that old story - you can't keep snakes in your backyard and expect them only to bite your neighbours. Eventually those snakes are going to turn on whoever has them in the backyard.”

That is what we do when those with a tendency to terrorist activity are allowed to remain free because of our fear of engaging them and eradicating whatever the radicalisation or philosophy is.

Whose picture is it, really?

Then we need to deal with the issue of depictions, nobody knows what any of the original religious leaders looks like, it is quite beyond belief that anyone would then think a depiction is a representation. Like every picture of a white man with blonde long hair wearing a white robe is Jesus Christ, or every picture of a man with dark hair, a big beard and a wearing a turban is Mohammed.

How we can be so convinced of what we do not know to so act as if it were a personal living experience makes the hold of religion on some people feel more cultist than devotional. This is where people not so grounded in the richness of their faith and belief systems get so easily offended by completely innocuous things.

Can we have come through centuries of repression, persecution, wars and emancipating to then end up in the 21^st Century looking like the Dark Ages? It ought not be so.

Protecting our expression

No one can so suddenly be so religious to begin to personify the original prophets and instigators of the belief systems we now hold dear, from whatever persuasions and anything that attempts to create and nurture people with that kind of mind-set needs to be nipped in bud.

Back to Charlie Hebdo, I am saddened and perturbed by this tragedy, but for the victims of this tragedy not to have died in vain, we must continue the discourse in the richness of satire and humour, whilst condemning those who have decided to forfeit this wonderful gift of human expression for murderous instincts.

Justice will prevail, peace will rein and may the beauty of human expression on any topic we so desire to reflect upon never wane.

May all those who lost their lives in this unfortunate tragedy, rest in peace.

#JeSuisCharlie

Opinion: Decriminalise Apostasy and Blasphemy Yesterday

Let the gods fight

There is a story in the Bible of Gideon who in an act of zealotry destroyed the altar of Baal. The worshippers found out and gathered a mob to lynch him when someone reasoned with them that if Baal was so aggrieved by the desecration of his grotto and altar, then Baal, the god the people worshipped should himself exact judgement on Gideon, the miscreant.

The reasonable message there was, despite the grievance and offence caused the worshippers, “If he [Baal] is a god, let him contend for himself, because someone has torn down his altar.” [Reference and context][Judges 6:25-32 – The Message]

More pertinently, the argument put forth is on many levels, first of all, men are prone to zealotry, sometimes taking extreme and provocative actions. People would be seriously offended and seek to take the law into their own hands by meting out some form of punishment to assuage their grievance.

Disarming our great gods

In so doing, they appear to disarm or belittle the ability of the deity to act for itself where the deity has been contemned. The question is, are men supposed to plead the case of their gods or are they supposed to allow the gods in whatever their omnipotent or omniscient capacity to seek retribution for any disrespect or desecration by any man?

“Are you going to fight Baal’s battles for him? Are you going to save him? Anyone who takes Baal’s side will be dead by morning. If Baal is a god in fact, let him fight his own battles and defend his own altar.” [Judges 6:31 – The Message]

I dare say, this should extend to all deities be it in established religions or any form of religious symbolism or act of worship. Much as each man should not seek to cause religious offence to others, it is important for the religious to let the gods fight their battles for the conscience, the soul or punish infractions of men.

No compulsion

“There shall be no compulsion in [acceptance of] the religion. The right course has become clear from the wrong. So whoever disbelieves in Taghut and believes in Allah has grasped the most trustworthy handhold with no break in it. And Allah is Hearing and Knowing.” [Surah Al-Baqarah 2:256][Context]

The Al-Qurʾān is unequivocal about the issue of religion in this verse, there should be no imposition and it is a matter of choice. Yet, if people do cross the line (Taghut), this could mean many things from disbelief, through blasphemy to apostasy, the judgement for that is left with Allah rather than with men.

The other verses that support this quote clearly state that the choice is that of the man and the reward or punishment is of Allah.

Usurping the role of deity

It then begs the question why men have arrogated to themselves the duty to judge and pronounce judgements in place of their deities to punish men for their actions taking away the greater prerogative of mercy and longsuffering of deity in whom they believe?

Do men expect to be rewarded for taking the law into their own hands fighting for their gods where all do not believe the same nor are all of the same consciences even if they seem to follow the same religion?

What is the justification for exacting judgement on another man for what they choose to believe or not believe as they are persuaded of message, experience or life and where does this stop or who then controls this vigilantism?

The next question is why the state should ever get involved in these matters as if they now act in the stead of deity to criminalise people and exact judgement on behalf of God?

I covered the issue in the blog below.

Blog - The case for State law over religious guidance

Separating religion and state

It goes without saying that the state has no business promulgating laws that criminalise religious thought, be that disbelief, blasphemy or apostasy. The state however may sanction offence caused other by refereeing civil cases brought by the offended; not to abridge the freedom of speech and expression but to ensure that the use of such freedoms is not abused to incite violence or cause unrest amongst the people.

It is in view of the arguments that I have proffered above that I call on the 21 countries that criminalise apostasy and the many others that criminalise blasphemy to abrogate and expunge such laws from their statute books.

The state’s involvement in these matters first politicises religion which can be used to nefarious ends like the Muslim cleric who allegedly framed a Christian girl in Pakistan putting her at the risk of capital punishment and yet he was acquitted probably because the witnesses against him were nobbled.

There is also the risk of vigilantism as seen here and here, worse still is when it is used to oppress those of a different religion. What religion a person follows should always be an adult choice, it should never appear to have congenital provenance.

Personal choice above all else

If a person cannot make an independent choice of what to believe because of their heritage or what their parents believed in the 21^st Century, then we have moved the age of conscience back to before the Dark Ages where the powerful acted like demigods with impunity, answerable to no one but the whim of how much power they can wield.

The world is certainly more advanced than this, and more and more, blasphemy and apostasy laws are looking like a homage to Barbarity than a celebration of the freedom and the liberty of thought, the coming of the civilised man. Abrogate these odious laws without delay.

Other references

Blog - Editorial: Religion and custom that savages humanity

Blog - Opinion: Before the law, the veil is removed

Blog - Opinion: Finding Against The Gospel of NOT - That EHRC Judgement

Opinion: Before the law, the veil is removed

Our open outlook

There are many reasons as a Western European I love living here even as a minority of many sorts. Despite the occasional negatives of racism, deprivation, inequality and much else, we as a people are probably still the most tolerant, accommodating, liberal and gregarious of all humanity.

That might be disputed but on the whole, we live and let live; very rarely do we impose our views on others and apart from populists and rabble-rousers for political gain, we are a peaceable people.

Garb and barb

However, over the last decade or so, our liberal democratic values of separation of religion and state to varying degrees have been challenged by the ingress of cultures, traditions, beliefs and attitudes that are not fundamentally what we might call our historical Western Judeo-Christian heritage – some have balked, but most have acquiesced, we make allowances, many allowances at that.

Recently, it has been about religious garb, the matter of coverings and modesty vary just as our interpretations of what constitutes those might differ depending on our beliefs and customs.

Germans for instance are not afraid of nudity, in fact, it is called, Freikörperkultur (FKK) which translates literally to Free Body Culture, it is a movement quite different from nudist sun-bathing and any other forms of public nudity, but that is a topic for another day. [Wikipedia]

To veil and to reveal

Yesterday, in the UK, we pussy-footed around the issue of the use of the full veil in relation to Islamic tradition when a lady appearing in court for a completely different issue of witness intimidation took us on a legal distraction as to whether she could appear in court fully veiled and never have the requirement to take it off. [BBC News]

The wisdom of judges must be commended when they give their opinions on these very sensitive issues, because in this case, the judge was accommodating of the lady to allow her wear her veil in court during the proceedings but that veil had to be removed when giving evidence.

Indeed, anyone who takes the witness box should only be accorded privacy and the possible invisibility for their safety and privacy as we do with minors, however that cannot be extrapolated on religious grounds to prevent an essential instrument of recognition and expression critical to jury observation and assessment, court is beyond just the hearing of words in answer to questions and cross-examination.

The visage of safety

The primary mode of identification for the elimination of doubt and the building of communal trust is the face as far as Western Europe is concerned, if you must access the public space for the convenience of the majority, which implicitly includes safety and security, the face must be visible.

We are conditioned to believe that a covered face is indicative of an assumed criminality, and whilst a religiously modest and pious woman might well be the most law-abiding citizen around, having a veiled face introduces an unnecessary threat, redefining our conditioning whilst it also can be exploited to ulterior ends – it is an unnecessarily difficult accommodation that we have to tolerate.

Dressed to digress

Back to Germany, it was a case of whether a girl could be allowed to wear the modest burkini if she were forced to attend compulsory swimming classes and then the extended religiously-tinged demand of her parents to prevent her splashing around with scantily clad boys in the pool. [Wikipedia][Economist]

Whilst, the burkini is almost too much dress short of a wetsuit with the attendant issues that do not need much exegesis, it is quite an accommodation redolent of our liberal and tolerant disposition to many cultures different from ours, we find it acceptable enough to not only condone it but accept it as wholesome and fashionable for those who choose to don that garb of presumed modesty.

Freedom and entitlement

However, judges found this accommodation that first could not exempt the girl from co-educational swimming classes which is the norm, by stating that, “the basic right of religious freedom does not confer any entitlement to be spared from encountering, at school, the behaviour of third parties... [behaviour] which is widely observed in daily life, outside school, at certain seasons.”

This construct should become both precedent and fundamental, because once again, the judges have identified the community of daily life as an unavoidable space of interaction available to the general public in which as human beings we are by choice allowed to participate and we cannot exclusively curtail that environment for the convenience of the few.

Freedom and allowance

The basic right of religious freedom is sacrosanct, you can practice it as fervently and fanatically as you will, but if you do not want to encounter the public in the observance of your beliefs, then the best accommodation we can afford is for you to absent yourself from that setting as a matter of right and privilege if of the age to exercise such a prerogative.

However, as a minor in Germany, where you must attend school and participate in activities that make up part of the curriculum, no entitlement is reserved to create exemptions to the point that each consideration if that situation arises creates disorder and chaos.

Adapt or depart

The broader point without stating it is the cliché - when in Rome, do as Romans do, and if you so feel that you cannot do as Romans do, the Romans should not have to change or adapt their Roman ways to your requirements as an entitlement, else they will no more be identified by their Roman ways, nevertheless, you having arrived in Rome might well find ways to adapt to what Romans do or extricate yourself from Roman influence by being in a recluse or leaving Rome entirely.

Beyond this, we must be concerned about the influx of ideas beyond the need for safety and security in the public space that informs the regulation of the public space by granting specific entitlements to certain persons, groups or beliefs which will curtail the freedoms and liberties we as a majority have for the satisfaction and accommodation of others.

The blunter point in terms of these conflicts of religious adherence that challenge the freedoms we all enjoy is that the law is finding better ways to say; adapt to your current environment and circumstances or depart to where those beliefs you so espouse have unquestioned currency.

Opinion: How we are losing the #ChildNotBride debate to Senator Yerima

Game, Set and Match to Yerima

We are swiftly losing the plot and the battle in the debate with regards to putting up our girls for marriage as espoused and promoted by Senator Sani Yerima.

In all the media appearances that the veritable ex-governor and Sharia law advocate has attended, he has literally wiped the floor clean with all his inquisitors demonstrating a thorough grasp of the constitutional issues that allow him the pleasures he enjoys without moral reflection because he believes he is in the right.

Meanwhile with our moral indignation, passion and disdain of the man and his views, we have deployed emotion, celebrity and ignorance against a well-prepared, media-savvy, knowledgeable and formidable force of personality who once again has successfully run rings round us.

Building an unassailable profile

Sani Yerima is a problem, a developing problem with a growing followership, media profile and international recognition; the little leaven of yeast he was years ago has slowly but surely leavened the whole dough, like the little venom of a poisonous snake has fully paralysed us in debate with neurotoxins presenting death.

We are never going to win this debate if we continue to entertain Senator Sani Yerima as the clown, more so, where we must tackle him requires proper intellectual engagement of people who have studied and understood the core legal, religious and socio-economic matters that underpin what makes these practices thrive without sanction.

Atrocious figureheads ruining the plot

This is no time to roll out figurehead celebrities oblivious of data and facts debating and contributing like airheads, adding fuel to the odious glare that is giving Senator Yerima the courage to state his case on the international media without apology.

Without doubt, the man is smart, he also has amazing political nous because what he has successfully done is make his own personal interpretation of issues the core and contention of the debate; once we have absented ourselves from the core objectives to toe this line, well walked by him and less known by us, we have basically lost before the first word is spoken.

The pimping media

The media also have to excoriated about how this debate has been derailed from giving more prominence to the protection of the rights of the child from entering adulthood long before they are due just because some men have found a propensity to satisfy their evil lusts with the innocence of kids.

Yes, the media, the houses and the personalities, for ratings and involvement latching onto the notoriety of the reprehensible have not furthered the debate for the cause of humanity and what is right, but have become voyeurs of comment and counter-comment, happily thinking they are providing a platform for debate when they are no better than pimps providing board for prostitute and punter to meet.

Respect the man

We will only begin to tackle Senator Yerima properly, when we humbly respect that he is knowledgeable, informed, equipped, savvy, smart and intelligent, it means we also have polish up our act by ensuring we match each of these qualities with people who have superior intellect on all the matters constitutional, religious and otherwise – we have many, prominent of whom is Maryam Uwais who gave a well-written submission on this matter here.

Senator Yerima and Constitutional Review – Maryam Uwais

We will never be equipped for the heavy lifting of radical change in national consciousness which some people term the reorientation of the citizenry, and in my view that will take generations of re-schooling, if we have not been exercised in lesser issues like Child Marriage, Female Genital Mutilation, Maternal Mortality, Rights of the Woman and the Child, Education, Health to greater social and infrastructure issues as Power, Resource Management, Corruption or even Homosexuality - We have to work with the discreet, and individual parts of the sum to make the whole product, the whole is too unwieldy to tackle, it is a leviathan of a problem.

This David is beating us fair and square

There is much to do, but we have to start with the basic sketches, pencil marks, brush strokes and composition before we get the big picture of where we want Nigeria to be.

The Big Picture is not a screenprint, it will be slow and painstaking, one generation working with the next and preparing the one after to take over reinforcing and building on the foundations laid down now; it is not a chicken or egg matter, but a chicken and egg coexistence because the future we so desire might not come to light until the lifetime time of the grand-chick, just as dreams of our fathers before might only be realised in the lifetimes of our grandchildren, we have to build continuity into the struggle and survival of humanity for the good, the better and the best.

One final note of warning, “Those who treat their adversaries with derision are soon humiliated in the theatre of battle. Think Goliath and David.” It goes without saying that Senator Yerima is playing the part of David too well for the Goliath of our disdain to realise that the stone of Islam in the sling of the Senator’s good aim is the death of Goliath and the end of our side of the story or the protection of girls who should not be brides.

Related reading

Nigeria: Senator Yerima's Child Is a Bride on Friday the 6th of September 2013

Nigeria: On Child Marriage, The Perception Drives the Debate

Nigeria: Senator's teenage marriage is lawful though reprehensible

Nigeria: Senator's defiance makes Sharia Law untenable

The case for State law over religious guidance

Nigeria: Senator Yerima's Child Is a Bride on Friday the 6th of September 2013

Bad interview techniques

The death of Sir David Frost this morning brought into stark relief the dearth of television interviewing scholarship and skill in Nigerian media.

Prominent amongst the recollections about Sir David Frost will be his interviews of President Richard Nixon post the Watergate scandal, beyond that, he was known for getting to chat to prominent personalities and teasing out information and detail that will never be revealed if he had not done his research and placed his questions with skill.

Other interviewers with my English bias of that class will be Sir Michael Parkinson, Jeremy Paxman, Stephen Sackur, Larry King, John Humphrys and recently Piers Morgan – these are people Nigerian interviewers should study and with a sense of courage and boldness be able to address the powerful without fear to elicit facts rather than have rings run round them as they cower in fawning obsequiousness.

The debauchery of Yerima

One such notorious personality that has not only run rings round media interviewers in Nigeria but appeared smarter, articulate and more prepared for anything slung at him is Senator Sani Yerima, the one-time governor of Zamfara State in Nigeria and the proud figurehead cum advocate of prepubescent matrimony.

At 53, the man has 28 children and has satisfied himself with a full complement of wives; four at a time with decreasing age of consummation that fell to the age of 13 with anEgyptian girl in 2010, having divorced another teenager wife of a couple of years to make way for this one.

Now, nothing in the laws of Nigeria as they stand makes what he did illegal, much as it is morally reprehensible to say the least and he has been recently in the news with regards to a constitutional amendment that had nothing to do with child marriage but once it was misinterpreted and misconstrued to pertain to that, we almost had a constitutional crisis that led to the public perception and campaign labelled #ChildNotBride.

A child marriage to stop

On the 6^th of September, Sani Yerima intends to give the hand of his 16-year old daughter in marriage to someone yet to be determined by the attendant news reports.

Being a Nigerian Senator, Sani Yerima is a man of great means and wealth, having also been a governor without vouching for or against his honesty, it goes without saying that he knows the need and value of education and he is enlightened enough to do what is right without resorting to the bogeyman of religion to press his case.

We must agree that a man of the Senator’s status really has no justification taking his 16-year old daughter half-educated out of school to fulfil a marital pact under any circumstances including religion, even if he is constitutionally warranted to do such if he deems it fit.

Girls have rights too

It goes without saying that the girl at 16 who will not have completed her secondary school education will be put at a lifelong disadvantage of not being able to be of independent means if this union should fail and she is left with dependants she has to fend for.

If we cannot have senior politicians stand up for the rights of girls in the 21^st Century where our global village exposes both boy and girl to challenges that require a really good education to get ahead at anything, then that is unfortunate.

If the girl were kept in school until she finished university, she will at most be 24 years of age and 24 is not too bad an age for a Muslim girl with an overly religious father to find a man, get married and fulfil of matrimonial duties along with having a sense of achievement and independence in the community in which she exists.

What to do?

We need to place a greater value on our girls to ensure they are not commoditised as bargaining chattels for pacts of marriage and the satisfaction of the propensity for paedophiliac lusts of lewd old men like their fathers.

I do not know if this marriage in 5 days can be stopped but this provides a socio-economical angle to the debate on child marriage moving it away from the issue of religion and the lascivious lewdness of old men sampling the virginity of girls for their sexual pleasure to the primary and fundamental interests of the child.

Our right to protect girls

Any man can choose whatever beliefs he wants and use them to his satisfaction, but the state has a duty above any belief system to protect the child from exploitation, abuse and the termination of opportunity to gain the basic tools for independence such as a full education where the means exist to cover such.

On that basis alone, that marriage should be not be contracted by the force of moral responsibility, an injunction or civil intervention, this kind of impunity must have an end and who better to be made an example of than Senator Sani Yerima.

The Churches of Strange - A short story

There they stood

“What is all this?” He said in amazement almost bordering in stunned amusement to his mother as he made to leave her room. It was one of those bizarre events that would almost read as too good to be true, it had to be the figment of an imagination in overdrive looking for the incredulous to offer as fact.

Somehow, there seems to have been a disconnect between mother and child, for all the tradition and culture she knew that she hoped to instil the greatest fear and dread in her son, one can only say she had cried wolf one too many times already.

The church of the bizarre

The boy had his problems, many could not be attributed to the usual adolescent issues, they were much more troublesome and she had resorted to remedies in African-initiated churches to deal with possibly mental, maybe psychological and generally termed spiritual problems.

The raison d'etre of these churches were of an almost macabre ritualistic creed that bore very few similarities to the established church which Africans generally never felt tackled the vague dread of the supernatural and superstition that held mind and reason hostage to agents of demonic and devilish persuasion personified in some close blood relation who was either envious or jealous of a person’s circumstances.

It allows for every misfortune to be blamed on some unnamed enemy or some hapless powerless victim that cannot fight back against accusations of sorcery or witchcraft.

The hold and the sway

Much as the bible appears to be their source inspiration, the powers of the churches derive from seers or prophets if you like and people convulsively possessed of influences that portend to prognosticate or exhibit telepathic or clairvoyant tendencies. This provides a great draw that one might well find of the terror of shamanism.

In the process, people who have bought into this religious chicanery are literally fleeced by these “false” prophets whose church establishments have all the trappings of some outward show of holiness and purity but are bastions of the occult gaining some Christian legitimacy by excitable references to God and Jesus along with even more violent exertions in battling Satan as the prophets operate like modern-day Levites and the laity recite the Psalms repetitively with Christian numerological symbolism of threes, sevens, twenty-ones or forties.

Many religions of Christ and others

You can imagine the confusion of “Christianities” the boy had, as his mother took him to strange prayer meetings before he was 5 where the family friends were bedecked in flowing white robes and red sashes, candles taking a prominent place in the homilies, those were seemingly secret liaisons.

Publicly, the family was Anglican though his dad had dabbled in bizarre animist rituals for protection and other life needs. However, every religion was tapped from medicine men through witch doctors to Islamic mystics. In the case of the Islamic mystic she used an episode in the boy’s life of terror and fear to warn him off telling anyone they had been seeking help there.

It was a nasty thing to do but with hindsight the boy felt mother hens will do anything to protect their chicks and this was just a personification of that justification.

The boy deciding

By the time the boy left home, he joined up with what was at that time termed an extreme Christian fringe which brought quite a bit of friction with his parents because they were at variance with other Christian practices.

Meanwhile, in that boy’s life, he had been cut many times, incisions made on the scalp, on the check, on the face with all sorts of potions rubbed in, he had bathed in forests, drank the most dastardly concoctions, seen the indescribable, experienced a lifetime of Steven King kind of horror and to culminate all, had eaten and swallowed razor blades; all in the name of protection, safety and help.

Then came this day as he returned from his church, she called him into her room and after much railing and agitation she cursed her child telling him, if he returned to that church again, he will not find his way back home again.

What is right?

It could have been literal but elements of the child’s upbringing meant that this act will hold less significance as it might have held for someone else steeped in their culture. The rationality of doing this unclothed never dawned on the child for his Christian persuasion at that time put him on a trajectory that gave him a sense of safety from that episode.

The child is then left with many questions on what really is Christianity from the established versions through the African-initiated ritualistic establishments to the ones steeped in dread of evil and a brand of ultra-evangelical exuberance whilst at the same time, he is yet to find his way back home – all because the conflicts in doctrine that govern all these congregations sometimes persuade people to do the most unlovely and inhuman things.

That is the story of a boy and the many “Christianities” that vie for his soul and claim to offer him protection.

Editorial: Religion and custom that savages humanity

The Customs of the Dark Ages

This just tore at my heart, the unconscionable evil that society allows in the name of religion, custom and tradition where men in their seemingly patriarchal superiority have the ability and sometimes that amazingly absurd but inalienable right to batter their spouses and project a sense of honour at their deeds.

Certain societies are so ensconced in the Dark Ages they almost have no prospect of arriving in the age of enlightenment, knowledge or development, they are so wedded to their customs for the purpose of serving selfish virtues in the name of misplaced honour.

The concept of shame is so warped and it never emanates from actions of the males and it is always considered the burden of the females who are then punished severely from actual bodily harm to heinous homicide by male relations who in their communities are automatically exculpated from guilt having restored honour to their clan through unspeakable violence.

Speaking up for against the unacceptable

As long as these communities generously called conservative but in reality are more savage than the wild uncivilised jungle of cannibal and fetish conclaves remain silent, women will continually be abused, forced to live inappropriately with domestic violence and made to take unreasonable rage from their spouses and male relations because that has always been acceptable, accepted and condoned with justice never intervening for the rights of the victims.

Rumana Monzur [1] of Bangladesh and her family have been convinced to go public and tell her story of the way a jealous husband with uncorroborated evidence attacked his professor wife, gouged out her eyes, bit off her nosed and launched into a character assassination of her trying to play victim.

These acts committed in the name of whatever belief system these nasty people adhere to must stop with the full force of criminal law visited on the perpetrators of this kind of violence – no human being’s existence is worthless enough to be sacrificed on the altar of this barbarity for the purpose of redeeming some virtue – my thoughts are with Rumana Monzur and my hope and wish is that she will find encouragement and all the support to pursue full happiness despite her tragedy.

Address men and dressing women

Which brings me to another matter of the Nigerian Minister of Aviation, Princess Stella Adaeze Ogiemwinyi who appears to have adopted a no-nonsense hands-on approach to her portfolio talking tough, eschewing unnecessary ceremony and getting down to the brass tacks.

As so she arrived in Kano, in the north of Nigeria and a one of those apparently conservative societies where her albeit practical and functional apparel [2] acceptable in so many places seems to have caught the displeasure of the keepers of community mores who have termed it “offensive to their cultural values.”

She was in a “smart dark long sleeve shirt and dark jeans trousers”, a picture would have spoken louder than words but I have none to display but if as the news story indicates, the governor of the state is a moderate Muslim, one would expect he would attend to the minister’s courtesy call without much fuss, as for the Emir of Kano, you have to wonder if the mountain would come to the 21^st Century or we all have to time travel to the origins of the world where cavemen modelled exotic underwear and well, the womenfolk probably never needed what we modern folk call a brassiere.

Men should take responsibility

There are people who might be concerned about conforming to certain customs and deigning to integrate to be tolerated but the real issue is the refusal of men to take responsibility for self-control in the presence of ladies who refuse to don dowdy apparel no matter how decent, cultured, fashionable and respectable they appear.

The extrapolation of this irresponsible adherence to so-called customs is exemplified in the unfortunate castigation of victims of rape where they are get blamed for the offenses committed against their person because of their appearance and rarely because of the uncontrolled and rampaging conduct of the perpetrator.

Set alight the embers of Islamic Banking

Then the Islamic Banking debate in Nigeria has escalated beyond the angst-ridden concerns of those who were opposed to it.

Now, Nigeria has always been a combustible cauldron of anxious religious uneasiness that does not need the introduction of even a pinch of peppery religious policy of any kind before the battlements are set up and the war of words accentuate the wedges of discord within that nation.

Islamic Banking thrives in many countries, however in Nigeria, the idea has failed to appreciate its community; my advocacy has always been that Nigeria is such a country that requires probably the strictest separation of religion and state just because of the way religion excites uncontrolled passions, intemperate utterances and unreasonable conflict leading to destruction of life of property – Nigeria is just a very volatile country when it comes to religion.

Nigeria’s Pandora’s Box

The smarter idea should have been to secularise the concept of Islamic Banking, define it as Participant Banking, lay out the rules of engagement in the most expansive terms and then offered that this banking concept was compatible, similar and analogous to Islamic Banking – it would be been a master-stroke of the genius of semantics – sometimes words use matter more than their deeper meanings.

However, as usual, Nigeria’s Pandora’s Box of various items of religious import has not been completely emptied and every time we find ways to slam it shut with objective discourse and reason someone kicks it open spilling it contents with some religiously-biased initiative that just heats up the polity.

The Supreme Council for Sharia in Nigeria (SCSN) is probably a matured, reasonable and objective organisation that has decided to abort the consideration of conciliation by allaying fears or educating the ignorant whilst dealing with sometimes unwarranted suspicion and suggested that Muslims are ready to go to war if Islamic Banking does not materialise as promoted by the Central Bank of Nigeria.

Jihad lines drawn

This Jihadist tone is at best unfortunate and bordering on incitement as they declare that they are ready to “defend the implementation of the Islamic banking system (also known as non-interest banking), with the last drop of their blood.”

Sadly, this would have certain Nigerians pushed forward to be sacrificed for this cause as the instigators stand back washing their hands in the blood of fellow countrymen in the name of religion the government now doubly blackmailed caught between the fears of non-Muslims and threat of war by the Muslims.

The core lesson that remains unlearnt after all these years is that Nigeria is in no way ripe for the easy accommodation of religiously-based systems be they legal, financial, economic, social or commercial as other less volatile nations may be where Islamic Banking thrives like the United Kingdom for instance apart from purely Islamic countries.

And …

Jaiz International Bank PLC with its website having exceeded its bandwidth which was incorporated in 2003 as the vehicle for Islamic Banking once had as its chairman and one cannot say if he remains so the father of the Christmas Day pants bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, not that anything should be read into that connection at all.

This is going to be a problem that extends beyond the ructions that the introduction of Sharia Law in the North of Nigeria caused, it was avoidable and manageable, if the initiators were conscious and committed to peace and unity within Nigeria – one wonders if some are ready to break the back of Nigeria on the altar of religion with the SCSN already signifying the tyranny of the majority is ready to make insignificant the concerns of the minority.

Sources

[1] Muslim ‘Honor’ Crimes: Rumana Monzur Allegedly Mauled by Her Husband - The Daily Beast

[2] allAfrica.com: Nigeria: Minister's Dress Sets Tongues Wagging in Kano

[3] The Punch: Islamic banking: Muslims ready to go to war – Sharia Council

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.

Obama sees the end of Osama

Osama in my slumber

Just before I fell asleep my Twitter time-line revealed Barack Obama was about to make an unusual Sunday statement and so my dreams were invaded by content broadcast by Al Jazeera concerning Osama bin Laden.

I eventually stirred up and the alertness that came was hit with the comprehension of my dreams, Osama bin Laden is dead.

A very evil man

It is a welcome development but it needs to be taken in context. This man was a very evil man whose Midas touch was death and destruction under the guise of an extreme form of religion that took its strains from Islam.

He found brotherhood amongst fellow religionists, usually sexually ascetic and repressed who were cajoled into giving up their lives for a paradise of debauched harems of virgins. With these bedazzled foot-soldiers he waged Jihad with impunity and unspeakable atrocity.

East Africa, Yemen, New York, Washington and spin-offs in Bali, Madrid and London, it was carnage like Armageddon and the man behind it every few months released videos to taunt and tease that he was still around – Catch me if you can.

The cost in life and property cannot be quantified in Afghanistan and Iraq, in some circles he could have been the precursor to the Anti-Christ, if a mere mortal can make destruction a global business you can only wonder about those who are destined to wreak biblical proportions of havoc untrammelled.

Justice is not served, revenge is

Amazingly, whilst he launched 9/11 from Afghanistan and was almost smoked out in Tora Bora he was found in a monumental edifice just North-East of the capital of Pakistan a classic case of hiding in plain sight.

I am not convinced justice is served, his actions changed our world that the rights, freedoms and liberties that many gave their lives for in the wars of the 20^th Century have systematically been rolled back in the blanket interests of safety and security, the world will never be the same again.

However, revenge has been taken, vengeance exacted and it is important that our celebration of his death especially amongst democratic nations should see this as the removal of a leader, a figurehead and an international nuisance, it would have been nigh on impossible to take him alive to face our courts and answer for the crimes he committed – we need to maintain that view of justice being served in that kind of structure.

Managing the fallout

An embarrassed Pakistan should have something to say about the unwanted guest that took residence in their country, as for the body that is in the custody of the United States in Afghanistan, he was shot in the head, he deserves no burial rites derived from the religion he professed to follow but besmirched with his actions and philosophy – there is a whole lot of rebuilding of systems, creeds, beliefs and reputations to be done.

He should never become a martyr and those who seek inspiration from his causes should begin to diminish and let our hope and future begin to take shape into a world that is safe, free, secure and less threatened by terror not forgetting the conflicts that allow for these extreme activities to take hold.

Palestine needs resolution, repressive regimes in the Arab world need to come to an end, some accommodation needs to be found for Iran, the Muslims should not find persuasion in the view that they are under siege.

The news today and the paralysis of analysis will for the moment be; Obama sees the end of Osama.

Comments on Nigeria: Islam strongly discourages polygamy

Pointed in that direction

My blog on Nigeria: Islam strongly discourages polygamy seems to have gathered a bit of reading and reference along with comments from people who felt I probably should not be researching those areas.

The fact is I would never have been digging in those religious tomes if the learned leaders of the Supreme Council of Sharia in Nigeria (SCSN) Kaduna State chapter had not categorically provided chapter and verse of what they claim supports their demand that the Senator decline invitations from the civil authorities on the accusation of marrying a child or even worse child trafficking.

My blog as I wrote it was not to be authoritative but enable a discourse that brought more scrutiny to what was accepted in relation to what was said or inferred to with regards to the verses quoted – it would be unfortunate if anyone suddenly finds offence where intelligent debate is the better means of learning and understanding the points that matter.

Facts of the 21^st Century

Most importantly, the human race has changed in interaction, knowledge and enlightenment since the 7^th Century of the times of the Prophet, the 1^st Century of Christ and the few Millennia before that of Abrahamic Judaism – the 21^st Century offers no carte blanche microcosm of civilisation that excludes us from the scrutiny of modernity if we live in these times but derive our verbatim societal standards from the times of yore.

All localities now suffer global intrusion of varying impact with the greatest import being the right to life, the right to free expression and the protection of the rights of the minorities – where those rights are impinged upon, regardless of allegiance the greater clamour of civilisation, civility, humanity and gradual liberalism that that affected all religions would demand that people be put first and not sacrificed on the altar of tenet, creed, tradition, culture, custom, belief or religion – all these came after humanity, not before.

We have to think for ourselves

This is where we all stand in the 21^st Century according to a ruling giving by Lord Justice Laws a few weeks ago.

“We do not live in a society where all the people share uniform religious beliefs. The precepts of any one religion – any belief system – cannot, by force of their religious origins, sound any louder in the general law than the precepts of any other. If they did, those out in the cold would be less than citizens and our constitution would be on the way to a theocracy, which is of necessity autocratic.”

“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.”

In essence, it is egregious for any religion to feel that its remit extends beyond that of its firm adherents and those adherents should not have that imposed on them by heredity but by individual choice because our societies now offer the scope and latitude for those decisions to fall to individuals rather than a hierarchy of unaccountable clerics – in the broadest sense – who are answerable to no man, no state, no constituted authority or earthly realm.

Comments to my blog

At first Portnoy wanted permission to translate my blog into Chinese for his audience to read my views which I promptly granted because this had become a matter for discussion.

I found your post via Global Voices and I really like the way you deal with this issue. I should translate this post into Chinese for more people to know what Qur’an really said. Do you mind?

Then Abdulkadir patronisingly addressed me with this

Akin my friend you need to understand Arabic language and sayings, action of Mohammad (peace be upon him) very well before you can understand Qur'anic verses. Please not say what you not know ask Muslims about their religion and make honest research.

To which I replied

The Qur'anic verses are clear about what they say, if you want them to mean something else that is another matter.

If you do have good objective teaching on these matters, publish them for serious scrutiny - that is the way learned people convey their knowledge in the modern world.

Subjective or objective

After that Auwal said

It is very impressive to see that a non Muslim is taking his time to study what Islam actually says. Unfortunately you are being objective with your interpretation, just like the rulers you are taking a jab at.

[I suppose he meant I was being subjective, because the rulers in my view were not being objective – fair point.]

The verse is referring to securing a good future for orphans. It doesn’t restrict the idea of polygamy to just marrying a widow. Because it goes on to say that if you fear that you may be unjust, then stick to one wife.  Simply because you are obliged to fulfil the rights of each wife, which is definitely not easy.

[Which was my point, I said polygamy was strongly discouraged because of difficulties with satisfying all the parties of the polygamy – I was highlighting the fact that human frailty was clearly identified as the issue – it would appear no one wants to accept that fact because they feel means and provision are the ready substitute for loving equally – sadly.]

Sunnahs and today

Abdulkadir then came back with this long comment

Muslims follow the both Qur'an and the Sunnah;  that’s (the sayings, actions, and approvals of Mohammad PBUH).

[Obviously, it is important to distinguish between the norms and mores of the 7^th Century compared with what can be the accepted in the 21^st Century – certain customs, traditions and habits of the 7^th Century as practised then cannot find expression today.]

(1). In Sahih Bukhari :: Book 7 :: Volume 62 :: Hadith 64 [I think he meant Sahih Bukhari Volume 7, Book 62, Number 64 Book 62 referring to the Nikaah ] Under Wedlock, Marriage (Nikaah), it been narrated from Aisha saying “that the Prophet married her when she was six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nine years old, and then she remained with him for nine years (i.e., till his death).”

(2). In Sahih Muslim :: Book 8 : Hadith 3309 Under The Book of Marriage (Kitab Al-Nikah),

 It’s been narrated from 'A'isha (Allah be pleased with her) reported: Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) married me when I was six years old, and I was admitted to his house at the age of nine. She further said: We went to Medina and I had an attack of fever for a month, and my hair had come down to the earlobes. Umm Ruman (my mother) came to me and I was at that time on a swing along with my playmates.

She called me loudly and I went to her and I did not know what she had wanted of me. She took hold of my hand and took me to the door, and I was saying: Ha, ha (as if I was gasping), until the agitation of my heart was over. She took me to a house, where had gathered the women of the Ansar. They all blessed me and wished me good luck and said: May you have share in good.

She (my mother) entrusted me to them. They washed my head and embellished me and nothing frightened me. Allah's Messenger (, may peace be upon him) came there in the morning, and I was entrusted to him.

[Without contention what was perfectly permissible in the times of the Prophet as betrothal at 6 and marriage at 9 in the 7^th Century cannot be justified in these times for medical, cultural and legal reasons in the 21^st Century – this is not aspersion on the acts of the leaders of religion, in much earlier times in Judaism Jacob the son of Isaac married two sisters something that is not considered acceptable in these times for medical, cultural and legal reasons too.]

Messages to obey?

[I am not sure if this last part constitutes a threat of sorts, because what we all should realise is that different people at different times in different places have had different messengers and messages that presage their religious allegiances – egregious and arrogance would not begin to explain the situation if any one religion begins to seek preponderance over all humanity – I would refer all readers back to the beginning of my blog and the statements of Lord Justice Laws .]

[If religions that predate accept that fact that there were differences between people, tribes, beliefs and systems whilst accommodating a sense of public secularly in those times – these modern times would more so deal unfavourably with belief system that impose themselves on others are not persuaded of the message they bring. Let me categorically state, I am not a Muslim and this is no time for crusades, jihads or lawlessness.]

Also in Chapter 4 Verse 80 Of The Holy Qur'an States. He who obeys the Messenger, has indeed obeyed Allah, but he who turns away, then We have not sent you as a watcher over them.

Meaning: Allah states that whoever obeys His servant and Messenger, Muhammad , obeys Allah; and whoever disobeys him, disobeys Allah. Verily, whatever the Messenger utters is not of his own desire, but a revelation inspired to him.

Leaders and rulers

Ibn Abi Hatim recorded that Abu Hurayrah said that the Messenger of Allah said, Whoever obeys me, obeys Allah; and whoever disobeys me, disobeys Allah. Whoever obeys the Amir (leader, ruler), obeys me; and whoever disobeys the Amir, disobeys me.) This Hadith was recorded in the Two Sahihs. Allah's statement.

I am at a loss as to what this last part relates to with regards to the discourse but if Amir means leader and ruler we do have leaders and rulers in Nigeria who are custodians of our laws and constitution – where a legally constituted authority demands the attendance of any Nigerian citizen, I would suppose regardless of religion and adherence they are answerable to that authority.

I am still saddened that every comment has not addressed the material issue that in the 21^st Century a 13-year old girl has been given in marriage to a 49 year old who is bringing Islam into disrepute in these times and can brazenly defend his actions without sanction. That is a blight on our humanity and it is unfortunate.