The UK: Asserting rights and affirming status by minorities in our courts

Somewhere in England

A quietly deliberated and adjudicated event a few weeks ago requires some pertinent commentary, in which abused entitlement was found wanting by the assertiveness of the knowledge of right, privilege, history and the law.

After #Brexit, the government of the day went into an overdrive of assumptions of what they thought the referendum meant to the exclusion of the views of the almost divided nation that voted 52% to 48% in favour of leaving Europe.

Unravelling the Brexit conundrum

What ‘Taking Back Control’ meant was completely undefined, it was not a question in the referendum and if the government was not going to return to the people to determine the detail of what their desires for #Brexit were, one would have thought the final arbiter would be with the representatives of the people in the Parliament of Westminster.

Instead, the government was on a course of excluding the legislature out of the final determination and direction apart from the courtesy of a rubber stamping the decisions. This is where we are introduced to Gina Miller.

Standing up to convention

Gina Miller, born in British Guyana, long term resident of Great Britain, a successful investment management expert thought the government, the executive was going about #Brexit by excluding the legislature, by that the Parliament and so with other parties sought judicial clarification as to how to go about #Brexit and in the end won the case at the Supreme Court.

What Gina Miller did which was to assert the rights that any indigenous British-born person with generational lineage and knowledge of the Constitution, history and the law could have done. That it fell to someone else to do this is not particularly unfortunate, it had to be done and Gina Miller did it.

Then a lawless peer wrote

However, this opened Gina Miller to splenetic opprobrium, abuse, death threats and violations of her person and standing, chief amongst the purveyors of this abusive onslaught was a Rhodri Philipps, the 4^th Viscount St Davids whose aristocratic lineage stretches as far back as 1299. In him was the embodiment of entitlement and privilege along with a sense of aristocratic hubris that tempted him to consider himself above reproach and beyond sanction.

Railing against Gina Miller on Facebook, he placed a bounty with the words, “£5,000 for the first person to ‘accidentally’ run over this bloody troublesome first generation immigrant.” His tirade then descended into the utterly reprehensible by calling Gina Miller a “fucking boat jumper” and further questioned her status with this atrocity, “If this is what we should expect from immigrants, send them back to their stinking jungles.” [Guardian]

The law would not stand for it

This sickening onslaught did not stop with Gina Miller, he seemed to have garnered a penchant to not only be abusive but to suggestively inspire to violence anyone who could be enticed by his bounties to cause harm to others he did not like or agree with.

Whilst Arnold Sube had neither clout nor resource to fight back, Gina Miller was a different prospect. Having challenged the Establishment and the orthodoxy and won, she must have considered taking an uppity aristocrat and peer of the realm to the courts was a lesser challenge with a greater prospect of winning through.

Whilst we might forget that Rhodri Phillips was of mixed nationality parentage, his mother being a Chilean, I have concluded that hypocrisy is a coveted virtue of an entitled class without the ability to reflect before expression. For his show of stupidity, the 4^th Viscount St Davids was on the 13^th of July sentenced to 12 weeks in prison. Not long enough a deterrent in my view, but it is a humbling of an overbearingly offensive miscreant. [The Independent]

Know your status and know your rights

That minorities in the UK suffer so many forms of slight, abuse, threats, menace and attacks is not particularly news, I recently faced abuse on a train journey where the perpetrator pointedly questioned my status in the UK, not knowing that I was British-born despite my race. It landed him in court and I should soon be hearing the verdict.

It is not an issue of political correctness; some behaviours are just unacceptable today and must be vigorously prosecuted to the fullness of the law. At its core is the need to ensure that every law abiding person resident in the UK is not subject to unwarranted abuse in the first place and consequently be free from the threat of harm or the violation of their person.

In Gina Miller, we have found a reaffirmation of status and right, the right to pursue all legitimate means of redress in terms of constitutional law as a private citizen and the right regardless of presumed status to have the law deal sternly with anyone who threatens our safety out of malice, spite, racism or anything bad inspired notion of inciting violence against us.

Thought Picnic: Being black and knowing

Being black in America

Observing the recent events of black people killed at the hands of law enforcement officers in the USA has been disheartening and very sad.

I have watched anger, protest, hashtag and campaign to bring to the fore the urgency and the prevailing compelling message that Black Lives Matter.

It is more than a pertinent point to make and it was amazingly sympathetic to notice the former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich, write, “If you are a normal white American, the truth is you don’t understand being black in America and instinctively underestimate the level of discrimination and the level of additional risk.” [The Hill] How insightful!

Been black a long time

Then in Dallas, 5 policemen were assassinated in a black-on-white vengeance spree, the black chief of the Dallas Police Department, David Brown finds himself straddling the intersection of race, history, culture and community which has become a national narrative.

He was asked how he bridged these communities and he responded, “I’ve been black a long time, so it’s not much of a bridge for me. It's everyday living. I grew up here in Texas, third generation Dallasite. It's my normal to live in this society that has a long history of racial strife. We're in a much better place than we were when I was a young man here.” [NBC News]

The histories we live

I could very well relate to the highlighted part of his response and maybe more if I had the history and experience of David Brown, and he has suffered grave personal losses in that environment. Yet, I realise that being a minority in any setting comes with a communal history and personal history.

The communal history of David Brown evidenced in what he said might have dictated that he as a black man cannot successfully be a police chief with the burden of African American history that pervades, yet his personal history allows him to confidently operate in that office.

In the UK where I live, there is a spectrum of communal history related to being Black, Asian, and minority ethnic (BAME), the communities one belongs to, the motivations or accidents of being here, how that might define you and possibly dictate your personal history.

Understanding personal blackness

My parents came to study in the UK in the 1960s, successful as they were with their academic pursuits, they faced a communal history of racism which until today probably colours their views of racial relations in the UK. My father once wrote to me that I would be a second-class citizen in the UK and by inference implied I was a first-class citizen in Nigeria, yet, my personal history suggests I was neither.

My personal history refines the context. I am by rights a British citizen by birth, then I grew up in a multicultural setting in Nigeria. In my education and life, I did not have to run the gauntlet of the race and deprivation politics of the 1970s and 1980s in the UK.

My sojourn in Nigeria confirmed in me my blackness, such that I am quite comfortable in my own skin. I do not then strive with my blackness nor take too much offence when racially abused as it mostly provides an opportunity to educate. That probably means I am rarely agitating to be identified or recognised, my personal history and experiences have created my self-esteem and self-assurance in whatever environment I choose to exist in.

Not despising myself

I draw comfort from the words of a letter of a black father wrote to his son in the light of the killings, the shootings, the turmoil and the angst. [Time Magazine]

Quoting James Baldwin from “The Uses of the Blues” and I have obtained the full context, "In every generation, ever since Negroes have been here, every Negro mother and father has had to face that child and try to create in that child some way of surviving this particular world, some way to make the child who will be despised not despise himself. I don’t know what ‘the Negro Problem’ means to white people, but this is what it means to Negroes." [Time Magazine]

It does not have to be Negro, a contemporaneous word of the 1960s, it could be anyone, anyone can be despised, the hope is something in the communal and personal history of that person ensures that person does not in turn, despise themselves. I am blessed with the thought that enough was put into my development to accept myself for who and whom I am.

At that point, there is no bridge to cross, you are yourself, whole, happy, contented and thriving. It is not the end of the war per se because many others still fight that battles that define them from participating fully in our common and shared humanity out of what is man’s inhumanity to others.

Give Your Voice To Rights That Don't Matter To You In 2013

Harmony from afar

The old song goes, “I’ll like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony …” We all know that the world is singing many songs and mostly never the same words, or the same tempo and harmony is so distant that we hold hands and sway our heads into a dreamland of Utopia hoping it signifies peace and harmony.

To sing we need a voice and to that voice we need the words, lyrics that represent our humanity, our struggles, our victories, our losses, our pains, the quest for justice, the call for war, the identities we have or the differences we want to project – there is much for song and much to do.

A world riven

The voice is important, it is critical to producing the sound we need all to hear to bring people to listen so that they can reason and then hopefully they can agree.

We live in an unequal world riven with great injustices, wars, disease, poverty, dispute and much else with people populating the broadest spectrum of extremes between palatial comfort and atrocious discomfort – we cannot stand still and watch the world go by.

Lend your voice

I challenge you to lend your voices this year to that which is just, that which is fair, that which lifts and confers rights on the least amongst us and the most different from us.

We should extricate ourselves from rules, creeds, customs, beliefs, traditions and cultures that bind us to age-old systems that persecute and prosecute others needlessly and become the Good Samaritan of humanity setting people free to be the best they can be because of the brotherhood and sisterhood of humanity we all belong to.

Stand!

Let colour, tribe, language, region become insignificant and enter the global village of what allows us to laugh together rather than cry in anguish, what makes us shout in unison than shoot at each other and what lets us embrace those we once saw as lepers rather than ostracise them.

There is much to stand up and be counted for in the quest for human rights and the protection of the same, the campaigning against abuse; the abuse of children, of women, of the vulnerable and of the powerless, rolling back the cloudy pall of sententiousness for the fresh air of acceptance and the fight against institutionalised corruption, racism, rape, victimisation and oppression.

Your voice, the seed

This is not a call to forsake your values but to use your values better to give value to others that you might once have been tempted if only in the slightest to deem worthless.

The voice amongst our friends, in our communities, in our societies, in our countries and well beyond that into the world is what will make the difference to both your lives and those of others around you.

Appeal to reason and reasonableness, persuade but do not dismiss, disagree but refuse to be disagreeable, you are allowed to be irreverent without being disrespectful – call out the hypocrites and expose falsehood – stand with the honest, just and true always because they will always matter.

Know yourself, know others

There is no shelter in excuses and using moral equivalences to justify your position stop you having the essentially critical self-examination and self-scrutiny you need to adapt and change for the better.

There is a voice in you that needs to be heard, in your experiences, your intellect, your unique thinking unclouded by indoctrination, and the better world you want to see – Speak up, stand out, make waves – for when your voice is heard for the least amongst you, you protect both yourselves and others from future oppression that could be overwhelming and unassailable if in your silence you lost those who would have done everything to stand with you and for you.

Make it a year where you fight for rights that mean nothing to you but mean the most to those whose lives and the pursuit of happiness depend on it.

Happy New Year!

Thought Picnic: Some mean streets in Europe

Hardly a chase

A snatch and a chase by three of one who could really dodge and run and so he did between vehicles round the corner and down a stretch of road long before those in pursuit came into view.

By the time they found their bearings as to where he had absconded to, he was a good 150m away standing as if to dare them to make that distance and catch him in an instant.

They stood forlorn, they had been had, the one most affected lingered but did not cuss or curse, nor did he swear under his breath, it all looked like the survival of the fittest and this one got away.

It is possible they will meet soon again, a melee will break out, probably some fists fly, an altercation as it ever was strange amongst them and evening of scores and the one-upmanship is reset for another occasion.

They were brothers, one of the ethnic minorities that brought to might that most poignant saying in Yoruba about the regret and sadness of broken relationships – be not betrayal for the betrayal of friends for brothers get away with a lot more.

Not a lady by half

The altercations are many, ladies who have lost the grace of be addressed as such by their public show of jealous rage, the man helpless and embarrassed as each attempt at pacifying her only seems to escalate the matter.

By the time he manhandles her as if the shake the devil off the screeching and shrill charade, the men in blue have arrived to book them for breaching the peace.

The neighbours know no peace neither do the shopkeepers whose late hours only leave them open to the waifs and strays whose apparently friendly but wary exchanges quickly turn into situations well out of hand needing the law.

The speed at which they arrive and almost cuff the culprits for a chat at the precinct will rival science fiction transportation systems.

It is a typical Saturday night dawning into Sunday many of those involved have not slept from the night before and the menace they are to themselves defines the mean streets of this city.

Brother, I am calling you out on this one

My writings and thoughts

I have a number of blogs that I read regularly for views, opinions and angles on all sorts of matters.

In general, I write about all matters I find concerning but I am most passionate about justice, fairness and rights. Usually, this would be pertaining to the under-privileged, the unfairly treated, the minority or just a case of plain commonsense being lost to some absurd situation.

In these areas, the abuse of children and women attract my most activist stance, then the intolerance of minorities which would be on races, sexuality, ability and any other seemingly wronged perspective.

Surely not you

Before I went to bed last night I read a piece on one of the blogs I frequent when updated and I was left askance in bewilderment at first then that turned to anger but I decided not to respond in the heat of that moment.

Some 20 hours on, I find myself no less indignant of the myopic, intolerant and ignorant views offered by this seeming intelligent person who I generally respect for his strong views but in this case, I would be remiss if I do not call him out for the reprehensible views cloaked under the concern for clerical child sex abuse.

Indeed, for an institution that has been around for 1700 years or more, the Catholic Church appears to be making a botched job of the matter of child sexual abuse, where they should have been more empathetic to victims and very intolerant of perpetrators their concern for the integrity of the great institution above all else leaves the Vatican on the verge of the serious embarrassment of losing moral authority.

Paedophilia is not homosexuality

That said, one has to appreciate the frailty of humanity where vows of celibacy are taken but the urges for sexual expression along with the pressures of calling lead certain of the clergy to abuse the vulnerable and trusting in the off chance they would not be found out – the resulting paedophilia is abhorrent at best.

The sexual abuse however was not just limited to boys, girls were also abused just as one can say about oneself that the abuse started with a female and then it moved on to males.

Child sexual abuse is definitely paedophilia but a paedophile does not necessarily have to be homosexual, heterosexual or bisexual – maybe there is a preponderance of homosexual behaviour in these abuses but to conflate paedophilia with homosexuality and present them as the same is stark ignorance.

Sex is an expression beyond procreation

Whilst again the act of sex between heterosexuals is in the majority, its primary purpose cannot just be for procreation even though it does result in children. To contend that sex has no other function between people apart from procreation is absurd and probably suggests people with kids have only had sex a finite number of times not too greater than the children they have produced or something to that effect.

Reading that even reads as very silly, but it was one of the expressed opinions, furthermore, there is the tendency to allow religious fundamentalism to blind one to the existence of minorities amongst us.

Surviving as a minority

Homosexuals are probably in a minority in many societies, but that does not mean they should not have a right to the pursuit of happiness in whatever way they might see fit within the law, privately, consensually and maybe liberally too.

The idea my blogger friend put forward was the equivalent of expecting everyone to be heterosexual or nothing – extrapolating that oblique line of thought, it would be like expecting the minority of the black race in Scandinavia to conform to the type and forms of that region which by inference would be that they should be white, probably blonde and maybe blue-eyed.

Crass is what comes to mind, a jumble of ill-thought through opinions of bigoted slant expounded under the cloak of indignation about clerical child sex abuse does not help justify the atrocious views expressed.

Shame on you

To say I am disappointed in the writings of this blogger does not begin to show my disdain especially in a world where minorities of different kinds need emancipated voices to speak out on their troubles and afflictions, seeking fairness, justice and the protection of rights.

It is saddening that having lived for so long in the West; the West has not found any expression of civility, tolerance, the appreciation of diversity or the protection of the rights of the minority in his opinions.

Worse still is to express those views it so brashly, ignobly and ignorantly – I am sorry to say – My brother, I am calling you out on this one – shame on you.