Accountability for naught

Coming to bury Caesar

It would be easy to mock Matt Hancock but there is much more for which he should be justifiably excoriated. His resignation yesterday came as a surprise to many of us and like I had indicated before, that would not suddenly mean integrity has found some exposure in Boris Johnson’s government, Matt Hancock’s position just became increasingly untenable, there was no other option than for him to resign.

In my view, Matt Hancock’s tenure as the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care was marked by abject failure damningly exposed by the pandemic from the poor PPE provision, the lack of adequate testing, the seeding of care homes with infected discharged persons from the hospitals, the failed and exorbitant track and trace system, the multiple waves of infections all resulting in the highest deaths from the COVID-19 in Europe.

Torched by a fling

If there is any commendation to be given, it is that the NHS was allowed to run the vaccination programme rather than farm it out to friends of the Tories. Yet, none of those failings in office were enough to hold Matt Hancock to account until he was caught in a clinch. Something is wrong with our systems of accountability in public office if peccadillos matter more than performance.

Matt Hancock’s situation is maybe a personal human tragedy of the absence of self-control with far-reaching ramifications that cannot in any way begin to compensate for his professional failings and political misjudgement, his wife apparently is not available to stand by her man and play the doting Tory wife.

And so he got away

He is ensconced in their constituency home in what suggests the end of their marriage. The other lady who got squeezed and snuggled, has resigned from the posting that gave them proximity in his office and one can only wonder what story would result from this sordid saga.

There is no more to add to this tale than to feel Matt Hancock has escaped essential scrutiny for monumental catastrophe on his watch, he according to his boss, Boris Johnson “fucking hopeless” and Boris might have said that whilst he was shaving too.

Thought Picnic: A child has memories that last a lifetime

Caught in a body of lustful desire

Lasciviousness is a word I first saw in the Bible, and I could only wonder what it meant and why especially in the Pauline epistles, it had consequence on church building and church discipline.

The gospel had been taken to heathen nations with completely liberal and sometimes abusive human relationships along with the absence or lack of moral restraint. People just did what they tended to do until someone came with the message, that was all wrong and not how to behave as Christians.

Until a moral code was introduced through Christianity or some religious instruction, human beings were just themselves to live, strive, maybe thrive and die.

I never had a virginity

That I had to answer a question, ‘Are you so loose?’, left me pondering the many things that I have covered on my blog many times which pertain to the consequences of child sexual abuse and how I have hopefully used my experience to help others who might have had even more debilitating outcomes in life than I have been fortunate to have.

For instance, I was introduced to sex a lot earlier than I should ever have been. There were probably signs in my character and personality that something had happened to me, but only the trained eye might have been able to notice. On that point, this was at the age of 7 and who it was will not be revealed to anyone except if I decide to put it in a book. My first reference in January 2007 covers some of that experience.

Blog - My Sex Post (January 2007)

Then, I wrote a blog about virginity with the conclusion that I never knew I even had one. There are people who later in life got to experience sex for the first time in a place and manner of their choosing. What does a child know about those kinds of choices?

Blog - Thought Picnic: How do you lose your virginity? (August 2011)

And I am one of the lucky ones

I went to watch the film Spotlight in 2016, it was about the investigation of clerical child abuse in America. I was the last to leave the cinema theatre when the film ended, it was not only distressing, but I was also weeping because I knew what those children had gone through. Many victims of child sexual abuse do not even know they are being groomed, programmed, and abused.

The people who exploit children for sexual pleasure are good at winning the confidences of both parent and child that by the time the child has been violated the odds are so stacked against the child that they have no one to run to in time of need as the abuse is perpetuated.

Blog - Shine a Spotlight on child sexual abuse (January 2013)

The impact of indirect action

My father was a strict disciplinarian in every sense of the word, he probably meted out his most violent punishments on his youngest sister. I hate to think of the ways she might have sought revenge against her brother, inadvertently, I was a casualty a few times.

As a child observer of what was happening, my father became unapproachable, even an ogre of sorts, when we began to have our disagreements in my teenage years, we were long past a place of useful reconciliation and confidences. Yet, he had this seething displeasure with me for so long, with the view that I was constantly disrespectful of him as I did not subscribe to the obsequiousness that others had towards him. I am a son; I would scream within myself, but a relationship did not thrive.

“When our parents confused our fear of them with our respect of them, they lost the many times we could have confided in them.”

Blog - Thought Picnic: The Barrier to Confiding in our Guardians (May 2013)

We talked about sex once

Time does not heal the loss of innocence; it simply compounds the experience to the inability to either discriminate or make the right choices about something as intimate and serious as sex. I do wonder how many of my generation ever had a conversation about sex with their parents.

I know I never did and the first time that topic ever came up was when our housemaid fell pregnant. She, under interrogation of my mother, my mother asked her if I was responsible for it.

Well, whilst the houseboys and sometimes gateman had taken sexual favours off me from the age of 8 into my teens, I doubt I gave the house-girls a third look. As I would not have initiated anything.

It was recently that I learnt a whole new truth about that sordid event because all the while, I remember returning home from seeing my mother at the hairdressers with my cousin to see her dishevelled and apparently roughed-up, I asked no questions, but I thought whoever I thought was responsible was apparently not the person who violated her. Anyway…

Blog - Thought Picnic: We Never Knew What a Healthy Sexual Relationship Was Because ... (May 2013)

I can’t speak evil of my parents

There are two episodes in my childhood that mark out the relationship I have had with my parents and the sad reality that they might only learn some things for the first time out of reading my blog.

I was taken ill and sleeping in my bed when a female family friend of ours came into my room and sat on me. I knew who she was because of what I said to her, “I will tell your husband.”

My mother was in the next room nursing my brother when she called out to me to determine what was going on. I completely drew a blank, it was as if the memory of who assailed me had been erased, eventually out the recesses of my memory, I now remember who she was.

However, this began a number of ritualistic and religious activities apparently contracted to save me from harm, the extension to that is how my mother bought my silence many years later after a visit to some spiritual figure by threatening with that kind of experience again.

Then, my aunt, my father’s youngest sister was chatting to our houseboy one day about paranormal activity in the presence of my utterly impressionable mind. That night we had visitors and I was called to clear the dishes to the kitchen, though the washing area was in the garden in the dark.

When I returned to the kitchen with the dishes, my aunt adjured me to take them to the washing area and as I stepped up to the table and before me, I saw a tall, big red-chested beastly apparition, that I heard later that night and saw again in the presence of my mother, I believed was the devil and screamed in terror. Everyone ran out and I told my tale, well, my dad dismissed it, the burden fell to my mother to deal with and that was one of the things I was threatened with if I revealed where we had been.

Blog - The damage done when parents fail to listen (February 2015)

If anyone touches you: A parent talks

I wonder if there is much to say about the need for parental involvement fully in sexual education. It should not be ignored first in the view that the child is innocent or secondly in the fear that it might corrupt the child.

Just imagine for one if a parent as the child was growing up had said, “If anyone touches you there, run to me and tell me, do not think twice about it, I am here to protect you.” It is speculation, but I think a lot of child sexual abuse might have been nipped in the bud.

Then, who knows?

Blog - Sexual Education and Parental Naivety (August 2019)

I write to help myself and others

I am not looking for anyone to believe me or even pity me for what I have experienced, but what I will not allow to be taken away from me is my own story in my own words. What my blog has done fore me and to help me come to terms with many things is immeasurable.

Fundamentally, I hold nothing against anyone including my parents, but that does not obviate the essential necessity to bring these things into the open so they can be discussed privately, if that opportunity comes up or publicly with others who might find that what I have written resonates with them.

What matters the most is that the old mistakes are not repeated in the generations that come after us. If anything, that it is the most important thing.

Blog - A survivor does not owe you a convincing story (July 2019)

Back to the question

Lasciviousness: unrestrained sexual behaviour, or a habitual inclination to such behaviour; lustfulness: [Dictionary.com]

So, the question was, Are you so loose (sexually, morally, whatever)? How would I know, if I lost my innocence at 7? Sex became utilitarian and I was already sexually active from 8 and it is from sexual activity that I contracted HIV almost 19 years ago, and all the things that emanated from that.

I am thankful for what new love has given me in preserving and preparing myself for intimacy that has value, I cannot escape from my history, but I can refuse it let it define me.

Am I so loose? Go figure!

Thought Picnic: The quest to see the person first

No Sabbath for suffering

It never ceases to amaze me when people are presented with situations and they are occupied with anything but the engagement with humanity. Biblical references come in useful, the instance where Jesus had disputes with the religious leaders and leaders of the synagogues because he performed healing miracles on the Sabbath, where, by law, he was not supposed to perform any work.

One leader of the synagogue made his displeasure known by remonstrating that there were other days in which Jesus could perform miracles, but the Sabbath really had to be kept holy. This was after witnessing the healing miracle of a woman who had been bound in infirmity for 18 years. Somehow, it was impossible for him to countenance the wonder of giving the woman any succour on the Sabbath, for as far as he was concerned, the law came first, and the woman could come on another day. [Luke 13:10-17 The spirit of infirmity (NKJV)]

As I have mentioned before, when I had cancer, our modern-day Sabbath which by terms is a Sunday did not suddenly mean the pain went away or I had any respite. There was a Sunday when my Fentanyl patch fell off the skin of my stomach unbeknownst, I just knew the pain was deathly and then realised the patch had gone. I applied a new patch but whilst I waited for it to take hold, I was in excruciating pain that I began to laugh almost hysterically with the view to releasing endorphins to ease the pain.

The birthday of a gay man in love

Which brings me to yesterday when I posted birthday greetings to Brian, my partner. I included pictures of a sunny disposition and these included ones of us kissing. We were kissing because we are in love, there should be no difficulty in recognising that.

Blog - Thought Picnic: Live your life freely and we'll live ours

If we were to view this in terms of humanity versus the legalism issue which comes across as an inability to recognise and accept diversity, this was what was at play. Two men kissing, an expression of love that some might find difficult to understand or appreciate, then they might look at the message; a birthday greeting expressed in love. Well, if they cannot abide the kissing, they should be able to celebrate the birthday, you would think.

Blinded by rage

Then obviously, no one is under obligation to do anything, the men are strangers to you doing something you do not agree with. As there is no connection between you and them, you would probably let sleeping dogs lie, ignore it and move on. That, unfortunately, was not our experience with some, even though the majority offered best wishes and support.

They on their high horses with unrighteous indignation to castigate, excoriate, condemn and vilify, completely implacable in their outrage at two men celebrating their love and a birthday, all they could see was everything wrong according to their worldview. The iota of humanity that would have allowed them to even grudgingly offer birthday greetings and express their misgiving never found an airing. They became protectors of the law as they saw it at the expense of their humanity.

Bitterness diminishes humanity

For them, seeing others suffer their stinging wrath was more pleasure to them than the celebration of life and happiness. To a point, I was pained for them, for at the root of it all was bitterness and negative energy that probably had depths that could not be explored satisfactorily to revive their innate humanity. Some, I withstood and faced down, others were too disagreeable to engage.

It is not like they would entertain any stranger interfering with how they live their lives, but a form of hubris with arrogance and a misplaced moral authority emboldens them to insert themselves to dictate how they think others should live and express themselves. It was a hard viewing to watch soulless and heartless vituperations. Yet, in the broad spectrum of our diverse humanity, I guess someone should fill those positions even when on the wrong side of history, priorities, or simply minding your own business.

An ode to the sententiously sanctimonious

No less a fit of rage

The maddening effrontery of it all, you come into my life from 35 years ago with muscular heartless Churchianity to dictate how you think I should be living my life? No words can begin to express my outrage, you don't know me, get off my lawn before I set the rabid dogs on you. I have forgiven too many an intrusion, I would allow it no further.

Lacking in decorum or courtesy, without greeting or supplication, attracted like a fly to faeces you homed in on my situation, uninvited and without permission to poke your nose in my business with the audaciousness of a bull let loose in a china shop. You confuse my gentleness for the opportunity to control me. How dare you?

Now you care about my eternity? I was about to scoff. Where were you when doctors gave me 5 weeks to live as cancer ravaged my body and otherworldly pain camped in every sinew? In my days of sorrow, you were invisible and now you come like a thief to steal my joy? You will not prosper in this or another.

Busybodies in the garb of false religion, clouds of locusts that feast on souls to ruin them, who have never known love in themselves or of God, laden with conflicts that they project on others, seeking relevance in their presumed superiority to others, the ilk of which even Jesus adjured as the brood of vipers.

The wrath of God is upon you, for ye all are a plague on humanity, standing in the way of grace and mercy for those more deserving of the gospel of truth. You find fault and fling scripture about like manure offering no succour but condemnation, ye are the accuser of the brethren. Ye all shall perish without a tit or jot to your memorial. For thus is it written of you.

The unsweetened experience of taste

For each, a pleasure

A friend shared a profile of his with me which made for intriguing reading until I happened upon a phrase, I was unfamiliar with. With more information at my fingertips than I could care to absorb in a microsecond, I tapped in the ‘girlfriend experience’ and a new world of knowledge without prejudice was opened to me.

Not one to moralise about vices as I cannot say I have that many virtues, even as one strives to be more virtuous, the offer of intimacy with emotional accoutrements for an agreed transactional value satisfies a universe of purveyors and patrons that cannot be ignored, if consent rather than duress initiates the purpose of the rendezvous. Invariably, there should be no shame in having the talent to share and seeking the talent to explore rather than exploit.

On the matter of ‘girlfriend experience’ of which it is an expression, a film, and a television series, even for the limited period in which that experience exists with one patron before another seeks it, it can only be hoped that the value of it which for my friend would be as cerebral as it is physical and rewarding will be repeated with more generosity than before.

Much as there can be a gender specification like ‘boyfriend experience’, it would appear the ‘girlfriend experience’ applies to all manner of companionship of that genre, it evokes a more fulfilling expectation than can be said for the less salubrious male determined version.

Stirring up the wrong sugar

Then to my long-running polemic about Frankenstein sugars. These are artificial sweeteners not derived from sugar cane or beetroot. I had decades ago taken to reading the labels on drinks and foods to ensure these sweeteners did not become part of my diet. Anything that suggests diet, no sugar, or low calorie, almost definitely has a different kind of known sugar in it.

Blog - The rise of the Frankenstein Sugars

In my ‘The rise of the Frankenstein Sugars’ blog of 2007, I wrote of the many sweeteners I have avoid whilst failing to wean myself off sugar. I had discovered through the process of elimination that some sweeteners trigger severe migraines, though accidental ingestion may not be a direct cause, new knowledge guides my adjustments.

The other day, I walked into a shop for a bottle of cranberry juice which is supposed to be ameliorative for the water infection I recently had. There was one with Stevia, a sweetener and sugar substitute derived from plants.

Peradventure a mistake indeed

Plants would have suggested its natural providence, but on tasting the juice, I did not have more than a glass, before I emptied the bottle down the sink after a week of it squatting with mendicancy in my fridge. Indeed, I have worked on eradicating the use of sugar in my beverages, I rarely have it in coffee which should be milky and not in tea when served in a restaurant or in a café.

I need to work on the guilty pleasures at home, honey replacing sugar is an indulgence and agave syrup doing the same is probably a cry for help where you’re marooned far away from civilisation. Evaporated milk in tea or coffee is a sin I indulged with the use of coffee milk when I lived in the Netherlands. I can only wonder how many pounds I might shed if I made sugar haram.

Stevia is sweet, but that is where the praise ends, the aftertaste is bland and forgettable, just a few degrees from sickly, you cannot have a tongue with taste buds and think Stevia is the future of sweetness. If I were to close the chapter on Stevia, Yuck, will be the last word of the three same words I repeat at the end. Each with their own exclamation mark. I regret that foolish adventure each day I remember my tongue was assaulted by it.

Furloughed: Checks, posts and views

A furloughed week

As a consequence of a frank professional assessment of a situation I was working on, I have found myself inadvertently furloughed to work just one day this week, as that is the only billable activity on my schedule. The disadvantage for me is that I do not get paid for days that have no billing, I am dependent on my resource manager to assign new projects to my schedule, or I am technically out of work.

However, not to be idle, I chose to book a sexual health check today, as before now, each visit to that clinic has me spending almost 5 hours there, I seem to always be the last to be seen. They have changed the arrangements from a walk-in clinic to an online appointments system that is open at noon for slots the day after. I caught the first slot of 8:30 AM today and still did not get called by a doctor until 9:15 AM. An improvement, but I arrived first, two people arrived after me and they were seen before me.

In any case, we had a pleasant session from answering questions that were heretofore embarrassing to me giving a detail medical report of my situation. Blood was drawn, swabs taken, and I gave a urine sample; all done in about 30 minutes.

I left to post a letter that was processed as registered post, taking time to ask questions about the normal operations of equipment and systems in the Post Office as part of my activities in the last few weeks included investigating the performance of Post Office environments.

Legacies that last

Then as I made my way home, the Whitworth Art Gallery which had undergone renovations a few years before became a point of interest. I decided to consider some appreciation of art, so I walked in first for a coffee and a croissant before looking around.

The gallery is named for Sir Joseph Whitworth Bt. who donated funds for the gallery and is renowned for setting the standards for the screw thread known as the British Standard Whitworth and the pioneer of the sniper rifle. His name features prominently around Manchester on Whitworth Street; where I live, Whitworth Hall, the Christie Hospital which he funded and is now one of the foremost cancer treatment centres in Europe. His legacy also funds 10-15 scholarships for engineering degrees and now to doctorate level.

At the gallery, is saw prints by Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (1746 – 1828), known to all as Goya and William Hogarth (1697-1764) in a curated exhibition titled Prints of Darkness: Goya and Hogarth in a Time of European Turmoil which runs until August 2019. The subtext is these men challenged orthodoxy and the abuse of power in times when the powerful had an untrammelled ability for impunity without accountability.

History is panels

At the exhibition, I learnt that Hogarth as an active governor of the Foundling Hospital founded by retired sea captain Thomas Coram in 1739, persuaded other great artists to donate works to the hospital and thereby pioneering socially engaged artists.

Then in his moral depiction of the Four Stages of Cruelty, he works progressively from childhood cruelty against pets, to adult cruelty against beasts of labour, then criminality that includes robbery to murder, ending with the reward of cruelty where the criminal having been condemned to disembowelled when brought down from the gallows.

On seeing the print of The Cockpit, I did wonder when the meaning evolved from watching a cockfight to being the helm of a water-going vessel or the flight deck of an aircraft.

We always need rational thought

Hogarth like Goya was a fierce critic of organised religion that held sway over people with superstition leaving little room for rational thought. In his Credulity, Superstition, and Fanaticism, he satirises and excoriates the belief in the Cock Lane ghost and a Mary Toft who was the perpetrator of an elaborate hoax suggesting she gave birth to a litter of rabbits.

One can aver that we desperately need a Goya and a Hogarth in these times to challenge the illogical and mad dash to Brexit along with the lies and terminological inaccuracies that has bewitched the populace into accepting that what is essentially damaging to them is more desirable than the status quo.

Another exhibition, Four Corners of One Cloth: Textiles from the Islamic World, filled me with fascination. On show was a piece of Kiswah, the cloth that covers the Kaaba the holiest shrine of the Islamic world which is apparently changed annually on the 9^th day of the month of Hajj, divided and sent around the world.

Until I saw the narrative of the items of clothing from the last nomadic tribe of the Qashqai from Iran, I had always wondered where Nissan got the name for their Qashqai. Now I know.

I guess I made more use of the day than I could ever have envisaged.

Some of the pictures of panels, prints and exhibits I took at the gallery are in this slideshow.

Thought Picnic: The notion of men as they are rather than as they ought to be

You read me right

I guess after reading a few of my blogs, there will be no doubt in the mind of the reader that I have libertarian and liberal views about many things concerning our humanity.

Yet, I am hardly tolerant of abuses of religion, the law, in the family, of customs, traditions or somewhat long-held belief systems that either curtail or proscribe the opportunities for freedom, liberation and expression.

Vigilant nosey parkers

In 1894, at the tail-end of Queen Victoria’s long reign when supposedly Victorian values had become quite entrenched and were being exported to its colonial outposts, there was an upheaval taking place in England.

The licence for the Empire Theatre of the Varieties had come up for renewal, this was vehemently challenged under the leadership of Laura Ormiston Chant of the National Vigilance Committee with the charge that the theatre exhibited indecency on stage and tolerated prostitution in its tiers.

Whilst the new licence placed wide restrictions on the activities of the theatre, there was a wider debate in society as to whether entertainment and enjoyment should be so strictly regulated at the behest of a morality and purity brigade. Laura Ormiston Chant did not particularly have an auspicious backstory besides having run away from a home with parents that were strict disciplinarians and who run a girls’ institution.

The fallout

Meanwhile, the first anti-homosexuality laws were passed in 1885 in the Labouchere Amendment making gross indecency a criminal offence in the United Kingdom and many of those empire era laws that have now been expunged from our law books are being reaffirmed by many of the colonies that have since been independent from the British Empire since the 1960s under that guise that such is not according to our customs, traditions or beliefs.

One notable consequence of these Victoria purity drives was what ensnared Oscar Wilde when he file a libel action, lost it, which resulted in a new trial, a conviction and disgrace in 1895.

Men as they are

However, within the furore of the debate about morality laws, a young Winston Churchill wrote to the Westminster Gazette in 1894 and stated the following:

“State intervention in the form of statute will never eradicate evil.
It may make it more dangerous for the evildoer.
But such a policy, while not decreasing immorality, only increases its ill effects.
The state should protect [its citizens] from harm,
and must govern men as they are and not as they ought to be.”

This is where the issue of morality laws places all sorts of unacceptable constraints on the freedom of expression and articulation allowing for undue and unwarranted prosecution of people for harmless activities that have been rescheduled as crimes.

Live and let live

We have too many instances of the force and imposition of various unyielding and ultra-conservative belief systems with extreme tendencies given the weight of the law to force people to be a certain way rather than be themselves and by that be better participants in their communities and societies to the good and better of all.

There is no doubt in my mind that when we not only govern but begin to see, to accept and to celebrate “men as they are and not as they ought to be” having already put in place the systems to ensure none of the vulnerable amongst us comes to harm by reason of our liberties, being fully protected in their rights and privileges and full members of the society they are in, the world will no doubt be a better place.

Nigeria: Arrest Him! He's Homosexual!

The sketch

Alice More (Wife): Arrest him!

Sir Thomas More (England's Lord High Chancellor): For what?

Alice More: He's dangerous!

William Roper (Son-in-law): For all we know he's a spy!

Margaret More (Daughter): Father, that man's bad!

Sir Thomas: There's no law against that!

William Roper: There is God's law!

Sir Thomas: Then let God arrest him!

Alice More: While you talk he's gone!

Sir Thomas: And go he should, if he were the Devil himself, until he broke the law.

William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!

Sir Thomas: Yes!

Sir Thomas: What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

William Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!

Sir Thomas: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?

Sir Thomas: This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down (and you're just the man to do it!), do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?

Sir Thomas: Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!

Sketch from A Man For All Seasons about Sir Thomas More from What Delicate Balance? by John Loeffler.

Signed in silence

I watched on social media yesterday as word got round that the President of Nigeria had signed into law the Same Sex Marriage Prohibition Bill (SSMPB) which had wide ranging powers to persecute and prosecute Nigerian citizen homosexuals and their sympathisers with threats of jail sentences of up to 14 years. [The Nation] [Wikipedia] [SSMPB (PDF)]

There is no point dwelling on the minutiae of that law, because there is a wider issue at play that we fail to recognise can be the unintended consequence of this type of law.

At no time was Nigeria under the threat of sweeping homosexual matrimony invading the sanctity of temple or place of worship for solemnisation, the majority of the population is well schooled in the revulsion of homosexuality from a sexual perspective, that they would willingly gather in mobs to lynch in the name of whatever deity they worship to mete out just justice without repercussion.

Stones in hand

At tip of the tongue and with means to act, they have chapter and verse from any religious tome of your choosing to commit the homosexual instantly to the abyss of infernal perdition. We need no encouragement in what is innately our natural disposition.

Homosexuals in Nigeria have no pride marches, society takes no pride in them, the family can’t have pride for them and in essence the person so afflicted in the minds of the assailant is not proud of who they are. They are stuck in labyrinthic closets or acquiescing to societal pressures fulfilling the rites of passage of marriage whilst satisfying a deeper need on the down low.

Yet, we have a law for what does not exist, which can never get popular and has little chance in this generation of becoming acceptable, in our statute books. An exercise in legislative indolence signed off to the hysterical mesmerisation of the people who think this is the best thing the government ever did.

Now they've come

They have come for the homosexual with the Same Sex Marriage Prohibition Bill and because many are not homosexual they like the crowd that gathered at the trial of Jesus before Pontius Pilate have been excited by the leaders to cry out loud until they are hoarse – Crucify them!

One cannot be oblivious of history, for the persecution of the minority, the different, the castigated, the powerless and the other has allowed tyranny to lay hold until there is none to stand true for justice.

The words of Martin Niemöller come to mind in all its contexts and ramifications and for this piece, may I prefix it without necessarily changing the whole premise to the Nigerian setting, because there would be people to eventually fill those cadres of offence when sufficient momentum is gained for a new moral law on dressing, on sayings, on actions and much else, in what is becoming a sham of a democracy.

First they came for the Gays, and I did not speak out—because I was not gay.
Then they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

No business of the state

For the state has deviated from civil law to moral codes as much of the debate that fuelled support for this law had nothing to do with civil coexistence of the diversity of humanity and human nature, but some selective affinity to Mosaic rules designed specifically to differentiate the Israelites of the times of Exodus from other tribes. I digress on this essential matter of conscience above all else.

Where this becomes a problem is whilst in general, we have agreement amongst religious beliefs, we have no consonance of systems of worship and essentially do not believe the same.

For each person to their level of adherence can decide that they subscribe to their understanding of God’s law to do whatever they will or think is God’s mind about issues, even if others do not so subscribe to that system of beliefs or believe in any of that stuff. Yes, to some, stuff is article of faith and to others, it is just stuff.

Thinking for ourselves

When a man suggests he is only answerable to God or his religion, the state loses the power to provide the impartiality of justice to all its citizenry. For God’s law when taken to the street imposes sanction without appeal, empowering abuse without redress, yet self-justifies the presumably self-appointed custodians of those laws.

This was well argued in the submission of Lord Justice Laws on the issue of separation of religion and state.

“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 other words, these laws whilst appearing to be founded on firm moral principle, they offer no protections for the people in a democracy when they are caught on the wrong side of it, either by reason of being criminalised or by the abuse of process to persecute the innocent.

Blog - The case for State law over religious guidance

Arrest him, he’s homosexual

This takes us back to the sketch at the beginning of this blog on the use of the law, the misuse of the law and the abuse of authority.

The Lord High Chancellor had his family appeal to his sentiment to arrest a man because he was dangerous, and in terms, the homosexual in Nigeria is deemed dangerous not for anything that affects us personally, but for the satisfaction of our moral sentiments.

And by God’s law in the arguments proffered when debating the bill in the legislature, we have created something to ensnare people by criminalising the bedroom of others who do not subscribe to what is our norm or our normality.

In the voices of Margaret More, Alice More and William Roper, we seek to persecute, prosecute, impugn, damage and criminalise deploying every fallacy available to justify our stance (against everything different, unusual, misunderstood, reviled, especially homosexuality), by appealing to every sentiment to suborn the objective assessment of the facts, but there stands amongst us a Sir Thomas More.

This is a very bad law

He brings down every fallacy from hysteria to tradition, upholding the primacy of man’s law and its purpose for justice and fairness to all. For our wider humanity which easily finds ways to exacerbate difference and punish the same is better served in finding unity of purpose, in according fundamental human rights to each existence, to every expression and to the pursuit of happiness.

The Same Sex Marriage Prohibition Bill whichever way you want to look at it is a bad law, it is odious, inhuman, unconscionable, contemptible and celebratory of the worst of our human expression in the name of some presumed morality – the fight for its repeal has begun.

Every Nigerian homosexual in the 21^st Century should have a right to exist and thrive in their own country, fulfilling their potential without hindrance of the state through the criminalisation of who they are.

For all the sentiment we might have about what is the reason for homosexuality, science and psychology has gone beyond that to prove it is natural, sticking to the age-old religious acceptance that the earth is flat does not change the scientific fact that the earth is round, and it is the earth that revolves around the sun rotating on its axis to make night and day. 

I stand for the diversity of humanity expression, the protection of the rights of all, similar, different, powerless, powerful, heterosexual, asexual, celibate and homosexual, old and young, the many and the few. Repeal the law!

Other notes

Blog - Human Rights Day 2011: Gay Rights are Human Rights

Blog - Homosexuality in Nigeria - Condemning bigots who seek death

Blog - Editorial: Legislating for the Unforeseeable of Same-Sex Marriage

Facts About Homosexuality and Mental Health - UCDavis

Homosexuality – Wikipedia

Blog - Decade Blogs - Editi Effiong - Dear religious people, let's kill all the gay people

Private universities in Nigeria: Where are the ‘big’ men? - A Rejoinder on the Moral Element

I originally published this on NigeriansTalk.

A rejoinder is necessary

I have not written for NigeriansTalk in quite a while but after reading Salisu Suleiman’s piece titled Private universities in Nigeria: Where are the ‘big’ men? I could not resist the need to comment on a particular part of his article.

By the time I finished writing my comment, I realised I might well have broken an unwritten rule of concision and brevity required of comments that I decided it was best published as a rejoinder-blog to the original article as appears below.

Dear Salisu,

I very well agree with the main drift of this article which is the need to establish more universities, hopefully of academic excellence and qualitative progressive education with far-reaching benefits or endow existing ones to spread opportunity and access in Nigeria.

However, when I got to the part I highlight below, I do have misgivings I must voice.

“Also, many families have found to their cost that sending children to schools abroad may not necessarily produce the better students in terms of qualification or moral development – many students sent abroad ended up victims of alcoholism or drug addiction. Having private universities here will help parents monitor their children’s development in person, not through vague progress reports from foreign schools.”

This is a generalisation too expressive in stereotype that needs to be challenged. The issue of moral development when put in the context of being at home or abroad is simplistic at best. One had to take exception to this characterisation of foreign academic pursuits that suggests waste, loss and reckless abandon.

Much as many students including Nigerians can be given to social vices abroad, it smacks of cant if that is not juxtaposed with even more serious issues of cultism, abuse of females especially, the shirking of responsibility by academia in terms of incessant strikes, the absence of accountability of authorities for overreach and much else in Nigeria - you castigate serious students abroad too harshly.

The other issue of moral development you allude to in monitoring students is exemplified in the egregious abuse of authority and megalomaniac atrocity accompanied with reprehensible punishments as meted out most publicly by Covenant University and others in that ilk.

These private universities, rather than stimulate development of the mind and the person, tend to diminish the personality and esteem of young adults, creating a glorified secondary school atmosphere of non-inquisitive, non-questioning pliant drones of rote-learning and cloned attitudes of closed-minded conformity.

I say, let universities be mainly institutions of learning, expression and progressive development but leave the moral upbringing to parenthood, community and society at large - the downward trend of converting private universities into fiefdoms and pseudo-borstal homes of presumed innocence in pursuit of academic achievable should be not be encouraged.

It is of the utmost importance that we properly define the purpose of universities and the role of society at large without conflating issues; good moral conduct is generally expected of people in university but morality, no matter how broadly defined and presumed to be essential to our sometimes myopic outlook to life should not suddenly become part of the credit-scoring system of academic attainment.

Thought Picnic: Finding significance in our shared humanity

A multi-cultural person

I always find myself at the point where cultures conflict though it is not as obvious as it is for those of mixed race ethnicity.

However, I am grateful that the conflict is externalised rather than internalised but difference is accentuated in voice and reasoning, I will not give up either to conform because the wonder of being a product of the influence of many cultures is that rather than get pigeon-holed, you don't get placed, categorised or judged too harshly if you refuse to be subsumed into a dominant cultural experience.

The inspiration of circumstance

Why have I started this blog in this way? I just read of a second suicide of a university student in Nigeria that no one could attribute to anything – the stories concerning the two young men who took their lives are sketchy and peripheral and knowing how the dominant cultural expression thinks, it is unlikely that anyone will get to the bottom of why presumably promising, quiet and academically able young men will take their lives.

Now, this is where my difference is, I was born an Englishman, it has a strong imprint, part of my formative years were spent in Nigeria amongst people who were not on my tribe and culture and then my late teens were spent in the potpourri of diversity that you will find in post-secondary education.

Proud of all influences

I only had to speak and my accent betrayed a difference but when my dad said, I have always thought like a Westerner and my brother suggested I was not really one of the rest, though my sense of belonging was challenged the innate ability to adapt and thrive wherever I have lived has stood me in really good stead, I belong where I choose to belong.

Roughly, I have spent a third of my life in England, Nigeria and the Netherlands respectively, all with much that has influenced my outlook to life and the most important one for me is to be more understanding of people, their circumstances, their decisions, their persuasions and their sometimes unfortunate judgements that fuel moralising, sententiousness and intemperate attitudes.

Understanding matters

Again, we may never understand why those young men took their lives but knowing what I know now about many things that I have experienced and observed of our societies, we will need to tackle some taboo subjects to appreciate these issues better.

I remember too many instances where what I needed was just some care and understanding when I faced some psychologically threatening issues but the circumstances real as they were to me were dismissed with frivolity that you internalised turmoil and found some sort of attitude adjustment – solutions are not easy to come by.

Have I ever contemplated suicide? I have and many times, times when you hoped the ground will open up and swallow you than face a situation, the wrath or live through a circumstance because you were badly behaved, you had been violated, you were threatened or you were not performing as expected of you – I read a comment accompanying the news of the suicide – “Everything will fail you, but Jesus never fails. Try him today.”

Walk a yard in my shoes

Such hit-and-run philosophical musings are hardly helpful, as we approach the Christian Easter, we should remember that the Apostle Peter in the most trying times of his followership of Jesus Christ denied his master thrice and his master was not even dead yet, nor must we forget that Judas Iscariot was as much an apostle chosen amongst men who saw all that deeds and heard all the words and still he committed suicide.

We sometimes believe we know all things though many have hardly walked a yard in the shoes of another nor are we the embodiment of the total experiences of the many that we see around us. If we all told our stories to the detail necessary to sympathise or maybe even dare to empathise if we could, we would realise that the second, third or fourth man from us has probably seen more of life than we could ever have the capacity to face that we would faint at a fraction of what they have faced.

Good Samaritan aspiration

I wrote yesterday that I do not want to be a better Christian, I would rather be just a good Samaritan, there is much to that realisation. It is commonly said that we judge others by their actions and ourselves by our good intentions.

The Good Samaritan matched his good intentions with his actions, he dug deep into his humanity putting himself in the state of the wounded stranger and doing all he could do to help that stranger than the more religious people who left the stranger for dead.

I dare say that the more religion we profess, the more likely we would leave people for dead, judge their actions, find reason to castigate them, give foundation to our prejudices and boldly expound on our bigotries.

Let your humanity show through

The core of humanity is a different thing, it is not subject to any belief system it is just the heart connecting to that of another thinking this simple thing – If I were met with the circumstances the other person is in, what will I do and what will I hope others will do for me?

Our society suffering the turmoil of negativity of abuse, expectations, criticism, dangers, threats, mistakes and much else piles on pressures that the simplicity of words will not assuage, it is  involvement, engagement, listening, touching, hugging, understanding that some people need to see beyond their clouds – before you so readily judge and condemn, be aware that that invincible and inviolable man within you might just in the right theatre be like the person we have suddenly rubbished, excoriated and condemned with disinterest and indifference thinking we are being helpful.

In all that I have written here, I have not even begun to tackle the issues that I had to mind when I started this blog, let us read this as an introduction, there is much to talk about on these suicides – if anything, just say a prayer for anyone you have until now been unable to bless for reasons of your religious beliefs without which you might have been more understanding.

Review: Wole Soyinka on The Sexual Minority and Legislative Zealotry

The Nobel Laureate

Now, Professor Wole Soyinka is not really the easiest literary genius to read even though I did have some of his texts in my secondary school curriculum.

He has for a long time been a prolific intellectual who has spoken and written about oppression, misgovernment, corruption and the lack of accountability in leadership in Nigeria.

At 78, the man has not diminished in his critique of events and ideas whilst still retaining a considered voice of reason and deep analysis of issues especially in Nigeria.

26 years after being awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, I still find his writings difficult to access but full of meaning and objective discourse.

Consenting adults, the crux

This time the professor sketched his piece on the matter of homosexuality in Nigeria with an article titled – The Sexual Minority and Legislative Zealotry.

Wole Soyinka lays the groundwork for his thinking by stating that the legislation on sexual conduct between consenting adults is interference.

Then he posits that whilst foreign commentary on the activities of the Nigerian legislature in this regard is hysterical, hypocritical and disproportionate that foreign criticism should not deflect from the fact that as rational beings and particularly rational Nigerians this issue should primarily be about “the right to private choices of the free, adult citizen in any land.”

He suggests that the legislative fervour that has accompanied this matter is a distractive ploy to obscure actions of the government when out of their depth because of the economic crises or to inject unpopular policies that might catch the public unawares.

Conflated issues

Taking no prisoners, he addressed the legislators to attend to the numerous and urgent businesses for which they were elected and take their noses out of sexual practices of consenting adults whilst warning that the said bill is redolent of legislative fascism which has no place in a democracy.

The bill in his view conflates two separate issues, the first being homosexual practice and the other being same-sex marriage, something he considers deliberate.

Throughout the article, it appears the professor is stridently against the encroachment of the law on the private practices and choices of consenting adults whilst acknowledging that the law does protect minors from abuse and adults from harassment.

Biology trumps faith

Attempting a broad definition of sexuality, he pitches tent in the nature rather than nurture camp of sexual preference by suggesting some people are born with an imprecise gender definition even if the said people do have sexual organs that suggest they are either male or female.

This is probably one of the more archaic arguments for sexuality definition but it is in a language that the more sententious of Nigerians might understand.

Tackling the morality views that are used to promote support for such legislation, having averred the issue of biological truth he is categorical in saying articles of faith are no substitute for scientific truths.

Democracy or theocracy

The democracy we have in Nigeria is being tested, in that we must “choose either to create a society that is based on secular principles, or else surrender ourselves to the authority of – no matter whose – theocratic claims.”

A theocracy should go the whole hog with all beliefs and doctrines adopted and enforced regardless of whether the other person is of similar or different faiths, the idea that where scriptures agree is compulsory and where they do not is optional is a recipe for chaos.

“The national train must run either on secular rails or derail at multiple theocratic switches. No theology can be privileged over another in the running of society.  This means, theology and its derivates cannot be privileged over material reality and its derivatives.”

A law against nothing

On the issue of same-sex marriage, the professor says there is no evidence of anyone attempting to legally enter in such contracts requiring the state to honour such liaisons at a court registry nor has any religious organisation or the clergy been compelled to perform such a ceremony.

People have of their own free will the right to privately ostracise or embrace such relationships but the state overreaches itself in attempting to criminalise such liaisons.

Moralists are advised to have a sense of proportion and embrace objectivity, that being the preponderance of biological fact over moral sentiment, avoiding the tendency to incite to mass hysteria and manipulation.

The debate

This is in my view that first time a highly respected and globally renowned Nigerian figure has addressed the matter of homosexuality and same-sex marriage with an open mind, if not objectively.

The issue is one of rights, it is about sexual conduct between consenting adults, that our democracy should be superior to the tendency to be swayed by disparate belief systems that do not essential agree on all elements of doctrine to be adopted as a constitutional reference point, that the state should not interfere and that our legislators should get on with the job they were elected to perform.

Nigerians are asked to be more objective, less moralistic, adopt empirical evidence of science over sentiment and even if they have private animus, it remain their prerogative but to support the legislation of moral laws will have more far-reaching consequences beyond the supposed targets to be used as instruments of persecution, blackmail or even worse, present a licence for jungle justice and mob lynching.

The debate is beginning and the reality cannot be obfuscated with legislative distractions; there are homosexuals in Nigeria and no legislation will exterminate one of the many enduring representations of humanity.

Please read the article in its entirety, there is much sense in The Sexual Minority and Legislative Zealotry.

Thank you.