The social beings we are

The needs of I

Recently, I have found myself seeking the succour of different support environments that attend to the many facets of my personality and being. It is a realisation that no one is an island, and I have understood quite well that these are not distractions, but engagements.

Spirituality, as a man of faith, I have been developing my personal fellowship in listening to messages and given to prayer; then besides my Anglican inclinations to which I have given much adherence, I have also sought an evangelical and Pentecostal community to involve myself. The morning for the establishmentarian and the evening for the free-flowing and sometimes unstructured, yet quite edifying fare.

And what matters more

Beyond that, for the mind and sense of well-being, I attend a support group that gathers black men living with HIV, once a month. In a way, I find myself transitioning from the hermit sequestered in my apartment for days, into a reticent and introverted social being. 

It is the strangest feeling that to some I appear to easily strike up a conversation with strangers, yet in these communities if I am not approached, I look like a shrinking Violet with a yearning that I can neither express nor commit to any form of networking.

Then again, I am thankful for these different community and support environments, as they address different needs in the quest towards being a more complete person. However, the situation I need the most is the company, companionship, and embrace of my partner and my lover, in whose daily verbal intercourse I revel and need much more. Everything else would always be secondary to the power of love, the place where two hearts are knit in one and nothing else matters.

We are social beings

Companionship always matters

I was watching a nature programme some years ago where a silverback gorilla had been fought and defeated that he had to leave his troop of gorillas. Within weeks the condition and state of the silverback had deteriorated, he was emaciated not because he was not eating, but because the loss of company, companionship, interaction, grooming and society had a radically detrimental effect on him, he was depressed and could most likely die soon after.

Then, I remember an event where some members of my family piled on me for not keeping in communication, all with the inkling that I was getting on with my life with no concern for them. Nothing could be further from the truth, I was alone and lonely whilst being expected to shoulder issues that should and could be resolved between people who see each other daily at home, but the mistaken belief that from abroad I could manage things was to absent themselves from the power of power and importance of human proximity.

The hard distant circumstances

Much as we can be social beings, we can also be hermits by choice or through circumstances beyond our control. We all need intimacy of a sort that is not available to all, but we cope with the situation we are in until opportunities come. I find that it strange that people still make no effective use of human interaction where the proximity exists. Invariably, we find scope for ignoring that benefit which for others is a luxury.

We treat those near with contempt because we feel those who are distant can fill in for that sense of community forgetting that many of those far away do not have that resource. We may not deteriorate like the silverback gorilla, but the need for companionship and intimacy cannot be insignificant.

Use proximity better

If only some of us did not have to be alone and find some social setting to feel just simply human, for we are not boundless in strength and capacity even if we appear to be so. We are vulnerable and sometimes envious of the community that others fail to appreciate.

It goes without saying that those who have friends and family around to see, to touch, to interact with and to find that social animal expression should exploit it better, if they can. If with proximity you cannot find your best humanity, how really can you do much more at a distance? In the same vein, have in mind that many do not have that situation, do not stress them with demands they can hardly meet.

Experiencing the mental health detriments of a pandemic

One feels alright

Are you alright? I hear people ask, and I answer, I am fine, thanks. I think I am fine; I feel I am fine, generally, things are fine and well. Yet, they are not so.

Some of the consequences of the pandemic are not as studied or appreciated to any extent, the mental health consequences. In terms of relationships, I am engaged, but we are on different continents almost 9,000 kilometres apart, we were last together in January and communicate daily keeping faith, hope and love alive until the circumstances allow us to meet up in South Africa soon.

To feel human

However, at the crux of this issue is the fact that I am a lone occupant of my apartment in a big city of impersonal glances or stolen greetings. My social interactions are only on Sunday, first at church in our socially distanced seating with masks on, no singing, no touching and pleasantries at a distance. I have not shaken a hand or felt the tight grip of a handshake in probably 9 or 10 months.

Sunday evenings, I meet with my close neighbours for wine and snacks, much banter, smiles and laughter, they have companions and family, I return alone to my abode comforted by the video conferencing with my fiancé or telephone conversations with friends I have no seen in ages.

Touch feels good

The last time I hugged someone was when we hugged at O. R. Tambo International Airport in mid-January. My social humanity is under stress and seriously strained. I was probably last touched when the nurse donned gloves to take blood in April, it remains the last significant human touch I have felt.

I am at work with colleagues I have never physically met, we have been working together since May, but I have been working from home or living at work as the case might be. They have families, some even visit the campus of the workplace, so human interaction takes place to an extent, which for many like me, we live in an electronic age of sight and sound, smell is local or just home as the restaurant culture is literally gone, touch is anathema as it is to be avoided and taste is what you cook or put together to eat.

Senses feel lost

You wonder what this pandemic has wrought upon the earth, it takes away your sense of smell and taste, then robs you of the enjoyment of the sensation of touch, whilst the use of sight and hearing is constrained to a world bolstered mostly by electronics. As social animals, we have lost the social and the animal begins to disintegrate without the grooming that comes with the socially enhancing qualities of human interfaces, much of it physical.

I am fine, I have found coping mechanisms, I am working with the expectation that things will ease up and soon a semblance of living like a real human being with all senses in deployment will come. That sensation of skin on skin, the warmth of touch, the whispering that triggers and excites the ear from breath to sound, the expression of love when lips meet and tongues tussle, you melt into each other with a longing that no words can yet express.

That is what keeps me sane, for I reckon, all this shall pass, the night always ends in the breaking of dawn, no matter how long it seems to our consciousness. There is stress, there is strain, but we prevail.

Coronavirus streets in Manchester - III

Social animals are we

Much as progress, civilisation, technology, human ingenuity, and resourcefulness has brought amazingly miraculous feats to our modern-day life, this period of quarantine and self-isolation has highlighted some fundamental needs.

Chief amongst them is human interaction, my beau and I have co-opted Zoom as our video conferencing tool over WhatsApp, as Skype was not reliable enough, except for voice calls when other means of communication are unavailable. How much we would have preferred to be together instead.

I had not left my apartment since Saturday and at other times when I have gone shopping, it was a solitary event. Only once before had one of the store attendants ventured a decent conversation and it was mainly about the lockdown. My friends do attempt to keep my spirits up, calling on the phone and having long conversations, but that is no substitute.

They were really there

This afternoon, I heard voices in the corridor outside my door, we have 5 apartments in my wind and the length of the corridor is probably 20 metres or more. I looked out and saw my neighbour opposite who had passed a note under my door a few weeks ago offering assistance and help with my shopping, her daughter and my next-door neighbour.

We were all properly spaced apart and after exchanging pleasantries, we talked for about 15 minutes. You can imagine how useful the interaction was, it gave me the feeling that I wasn’t losing my marbles, and that for all my tendency to looking myself away from the public, I still need this social expression, if just for the sake of sanity. We are social animals.

Grant them eternal repose

Later, I went to my local store, in fact, I visited 3 stores, and all had run out of flour. Is everyone baking a cake? Suffice it to say, all hotels are closed, only restaurants offering takeaways are open and suppose they only use couriers. The city is almost a ghost town and it is unlikely the lockdown would be lifted on Easter Monday.

Meanwhile, as our Prime Minister sits up in high spirits being tended to by an Italian consultant in an Intensive Care Unit we are given the inclination he does not really need, another 938 people gave up the ghost in the last 24 hours and I cannot help but wonder how many of those souls needlessly died before their time. If …

My thoughts are with the many whose lives have been touched with the sorrow at the departure of a loved one. God rest the souls of the beloved and strengthen the hearts of their survivors.

Quarantined in my self-isolation

No fun in this

If I am to be honest, I am not enjoying the sequestration, quarantine, self-isolation, or social distancing rave of the moment as part of the scheme to limit the spread of the Coronavirus. Much as I am a confessed hermit, I still like social interaction with other people and more on the physical than the virtual.

This social interaction is the equivalent of the grooming observed in a band of gorillas, we are all social beings. At least, I have not developed the ability to commune with inanimate objects and by that derive the benefits I would otherwise gain from seeing fellow human beings.

Obviously, I have to calm myself down and relax, there is another week and a half left of this matter and it could be extended. I would hate to think of what effect it would have on those of us who live alone at home or are used to social events that were so suddenly snatched away.

Sacred cows of our society

In our society, we lose objectivity when anyone suggests a cause is for charity, we are unquestioning and quite generous to charitable causes. You only have to watch the money mountain grow at nightlong television events like Sport Relief in the spring and Children in Need in the autumn, we have been had in a cult and many exploit it.

One other cult is our beloved and revered NHS, founded in 1948, we would not have anyone touch our National Health Service, yet, it has been raped, pillaged, starved through the decades, shedding many of its social underpinnings for the profit motive, but it is being called upon to fight this Coronavirus epidemic hobbled, restrained, underfunded, under-resourced, under-equipped and radically politicised.

A disservice to the NHS

It is not enough to throw money at the problem, someone should be solving the problem of throwing the NHS personnel in the middle of a pandemic without Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) against a virulent and highly contagious pathogen. Much as we applaud the NHS, we cannot justify sending them on a suicide mission for that is not what they signed up for.

They are there to save life and it only behoves the authorities to provide tests, protection and tools for them to perform excellently without having to be kamikaze heroes. Medical personnel are dying, many are gravely ill, and others are in isolation away from the battlefront where they are needed, because of failings in the system.

Exploiting our NHS love

To heap insult upon injury, NHS staff are being threatened with disciplinary action if they voice the dangers in their working environment, that is just unconscionably evil and whoever suggested that action should be booted out of the NHS forthwith.

On the message to the public, it was easy to attach the need for us to stay at home to the cult of the NHS. We are to stay at home to save the NHS, yet, the NHS staff are not given adequate protection and support to save themselves from ever-present danger at work and being vectors that take it to their homes. The government has been utterly derelict in their duty. Lest we forget it was used to drag us into the madness of Brexit that has consumed this country for 4 years.

If only we could see

I remembered reading books by Lobsang Rampa in my late teens which covered paranormal and occultic themes. In one of his narrations, he was in a physics class where electromagnetism was being demonstrated with iron filings used to visually show electromagnetic waves. He told the class he could see electromagnetic waves and he apparently went through a test of his assertion with him being able to tell when the waves were present or not.

Won’t it be wonderful to have that kind sight to see where the Coronavirus is, in the air and on surfaces and by that be able to navigate the world without interacting with it except when found in enclosed places with others or when someone expels droplets by sneezing or coughing?

Back to my feeling at the beginning of the blog, this self-isolation is having the effect that I want to further isolate and extricate myself, I feel I am losing the mental capacity to call up people and engage, I am tired.

Essential Snobbery 101: Devoid of Perception

He walked away from danger

This is a blog I started almost two months ago, but never got to finish because, like some blogs that I have posted before, the ideas might be pertinent, though the time and occasion are not ripe for publication.

A tweet I read this morning allows me the opportunity to finish this blog and hopefully get to post it. The tweet concerns a man who suggests he nearly got killed by a cop. He was returning from the gym, and he entered a shop to buy some things before he was accosted by the police with guns drawn, shouting at him to respond to some commands.

Here’s a story about how I nearly just got killed by this cop. pic.twitter.com/3IYZFM9Ggh

— Ziggy (@TheHipsterRebbe) January 3, 2018

He did not hear the commotion surrounding and directed at him because he had noise-cancelling headphones on; it was a matter of luck and fortitude, if not some restraint from the cops, that meant that he walked away from that encounter unharmed.

Shutting out the world

It transpired that the shop assistant had called the police about some criminal activity going on in the shop, and somehow that was read to be an armed robbery, with this man the supposed perpetrator. There is much to comment on about this, but that is of no particular concern to me.

My issue is with the headphones and noise-cancelling ones at that. The man says in a tweet, “Sometimes I like to shut the world out and listen to music.” That is the problem, you are in a public place, and you shut the world out, just imagine if he had walked into the shop and without that isolation bubble of his headphones blocking out the world, he might have seen and acknowledged the shopkeeper, who then, with that interaction, would not have suspected him of being up to no good.

I can comment on a lot of things in this thread, the one I am most concerned about is how headphones covering both ears limit your spatial awareness and sensory perception, not just in this instance but in many other situations. https://t.co/7U1bGeuaoX

— Akin Akíntáyọ̀ (@forakin) January 4, 2018

For all the commentary that followed his narrative, no one picked on the fact that the situation is as much his own fault in the first place, and it could then be that of others. When you shut off any of your working senses to external stimuli in the world around you, you place the responsibility on others either to look out for you or the anxiety on others to consider you a threat.

Devoid of perception of others

The same goes for people who ride their bicycles in the streets with headphones on so that they are unaware of the sounds and movements necessary for them to anticipate and avoid danger. It is just irresponsible at best and without doubt selfish and reckless.

The other day, I got on the train, but could not get to a free seat because a lady was standing in the way. Thrice, I said 'Excuse me, please', and she neither heard me nor budged; she was too engrossed in her mobile phone to be bothered or aware of her surroundings. It took me poking her with a finger for her to respond and reluctantly step out of the way for me to pass.

This is becoming the norm, a lack of awareness and the absence of perception that reduces our humanity from that of being social beings to the exemplar of being wild animals, uncivilised, inconsiderate, unconcerned and apathetic.

Just selfish and inconsiderate

Then, on a Sunday night, in a hotel full of business guests, the fire alarm went off at 4:20 AM, because some restless and noisy young men decided to smoke in non-smoking rooms. To cover the evidence, they broke the window and lied to the night concierge about the deed. I doubt they suffered any other consequence for waking everyone up in the hotel.

For them, nothing and no one else mattered in their selfish quest for self-satisfaction at the expense of everyone else. Sitting in a railway station waiting room, a passenger thinks it is socially responsible to play their music loud to the hearing of others, unafraid of being asked to behave.

In many cases, you cannot ask them to be considerate because that infuriates them, and it could lead to violent acts committed against you, as such a challenge to their antisocial behaviour is taken as an act of disrespect.

Why does it happen?

Meanwhile, another brings a can of alcoholic beverage onto the tram platform as we await the next one. He finishes the drink, drops the can to the floor and walks away as if it had nothing to do with him. This is despite the fact that there is a wastebasket 10 yards away. Then you imagine if everyone dropped their litter without any consideration, whether we would have anywhere to walk without running the gauntlet of refuse heaps.

Too many episodes and events I observe of carefree and careless people lacking in consideration or social skill, devoid of spatial awareness and the useful utility of their senses to do the right thing.

Unschooled, uncouth, untamed, uncultured to the point of stupid existence, upsetting everyone without any sense of offence caused or bad behaviour, you do wonder if it is a deliberate act of self-expression or just the absence of social graces, breeding, tutelage and much else.

Homelessness: Make June the end of May - #EndMayInJune

Signs of bad times

As I walked to work this morning and then walked back to my hotel to collect my stowed baggage for the station in preparation for my journey back home, I could not help but notice the number of young people sat on the ground, their backs to the walls of shops or offices building signifying some need.

Need, not wants, here were the youth in the 5^th largest economy in the world without a prospect, opportunity, promise or hope. The only thing occupying their minds was the means to take shelter compounded with one sign that broke my heart, the young man’s sign said he had not eaten for days.

Now, I do not care if that is anything but the truth, I would hope that cynicism and suspicion would not rob me of sympathy, maybe empathy, a sense of compassion and the ability to be touched by the hardship of another.

Great needs with little supply

Besides, I know privation, not to that extent, but I have gone hungry in the midst of lack and when I would have been rendered homeless, I was fortunate to find support from people who covered my nakedness, shame and misfortune. To them, I am grateful probably not to the extent that I can repay them, but that when I see another in a situation that I have once experienced, I will not ignore them and walk on by if I am opportuned to do something, no matter how little.

Then, there was another thing on the signs that struck me, at least were asking for £16 to be able to spend a night in a home shelter. What the home shelter would probably provide is a bed, a shower, hot drinks and some safety from the elements and menace. I would not know if they also provide food.

Homelessness is a thief of the future

However, for someone who has nothing and has not eaten for days, how on earth would the shelter take priority over food, the little that comes from alms might only cover just one meal and so they are still out on the streets day after day in the hope that someone would just pour our God and love upon them that they would not only smile but cry the tears of joy bearing hope.

I have said before, homelessness is debilitating to the extent that it almost impossible to see how steals the future away from the present which becomes an enduring and harrowing existence. Without a home address, you probably can’t take on the most basic jobs, talk less of open a bank account or make any headway in life beyond being caught in the rut.

The charity of no clarity

Then I have my gripe with homeless charities, I am not convinced they are doing enough if anything, I see signs that I should give to charities rather than the homeless. I have this to say, if the charities were really seen to be helping the homeless, there would not be so many homeless and somewhat helpless people on our streets.

The other side of this argument is we probably would be persuaded to give to the charities and readily walk the homeless to the nearest point of help just as the Good Samaritan of old committed time and resources to the wounded stranger.

In this electioneering season in the UK, I have even bigger concerns; Theresa May boasts of offering strong and stable leadership, but I have no time for leadership that has no heart. Our social services are cut to the bone, that people cannot get by. The thought that British nurses are resorting to food banks in full employment is a disgrace I cannot find the words to express. [The Independent]

Make June the end of May

Theresa May said there are many complex reasons why people use food banks, I’m sorry, the reason is not complex, it is simple, they are not being paid enough and the cost of living is rising far beyond their means.

The system is completely messed up and I do not believe Theresa May as a bloody difficult woman has the wherewithal to bring the necessary humanity and compassion to bear to change things for the better for those who suffer homelessness, who use food banks or have to rely on the system to get by. That people in full employment should live from hand to mouth is utterly contemptible, an atrocity of the magnitude that has no mitigation or acceptable excuse.

This is not the United Kingdom that should be happy to have remain like this, things must change, the homeless and the hungry nurses are neither thinking Brexit nor strong leadership, they are hoping against hope for respite, food for their hunger, shelter for their heads and a future that gives them a chance for a different life.

Theresa May is not that person and I’m afraid, no such one is in the Tory Party to do that too.

Opinion: We cannot for our comfort ignore the homeless

No woof without a roof

Having suffered the threat of homelessness a number of times, there are deep experiences that recovering from illness and adversity have brought into my life.

Blog - Homeless! My exciting life takes a new chapter

Blog - England: How Lewisham Single Homeless Intervention Prevention humiliated me

I have hoped that the lessons I learnt and continue to learn will make me a better person, a more considerate person, a caring person, a compassionate person and a more understanding person.

Critically, being a more understanding person hopefully helps you appreciate long before you are tempted to judge or be prejudiced.

More than who you see

I have seen homelessness in many cities and it is clear that most homeless people have stories and narratives that are far from the stereotypes of homelessness that we are sometimes fed by the media.

One such example of a homeless person with a story was that of Anne Naysmith whose obituary appeared in literally all the main English newspapers, locally known as the Car Lady of Chiswick, she was once concert pianist and even taught at Trinity College, London.

She lost her home and lived rough in a car for 26 years before she was moved on by the authorities, quite a tale of a life that was. It goes without saying that many others might well have tales of wonder in their past that the present attempts to place into insignificance. We must never be fooled, our humanity is much richer than what meets the eye.

Longing for a caring society

For myself, where I have had the opportunity, I have been blessed to both give and encourage, if I could do more, I would love to. For what many of the homeless need is first the understanding of others and then the opportunity to begin to have options; once those options are there, they can begin to make choices; choice indicates a sense of independence and from the budding of the very basic encouragement in word and in deed, you can watch people rise.

What I long for is, a more caring society, a more considerate humanity and a more engaging community in helping those who lack shelter, resource or opportunity.

Atrocious spikes

It is in this vein that I was utterly, utterly repulsed by the studs Selfridges in Manchester installed on the ledges of their shop window with the excuse that they were to prevent staff from smoking about and around the entrance of the store. [Mancunian Matters]

Whilst the ledge itself was probably not wide enough for people to sleep on, it represented a growing trend first seen in London when Tesco’s installed anti-homeless studs at their Regent Street store and then a luxury apartment complex in London did the same.

For all the excuses and many might be valid for installing the studs just as anti-pigeon pins are installed around public buildings, the broader society could not countenance the deliberate attempt to cleanse our inner cities of the homeless so that we can comfortably assume their being out of sight means we do not have a homelessness problem amongst us.

Our true society

I believe we need to observe the comforts and the discomforts of our communities in plain sight and if at any time the discomforts of homelessness should disappear, it should be as a result of society working to help rather than society actively ostracising and stigmatising those more unfortunate than ourselves.

It is the reason why I signed Change.Org petition started by Professor Cathy Urquhart asking Selfridges in Manchester to remove the anti-homeless spikes from outside their store and I am glad to report that after a well-publicised campaign against this odious and reprehensible conduct, the spikes have been removed.

Still unforgivable

I, however, doubt this episode will be forgiven just as I have not forgiven Tesco’s for thinking up the stinking idea. I would rather see these corporate behemoths of retail excess positively contributing to helping the homeless and the many disadvantaged, get their lives together and find opportunities to thrive in society.

That to me would be real corporate social responsibility, one where those who have been helped with have heart-warming stories of corporate showing a human face, having a human heart passionately and compassionately working for profit for the community and themselves.

Whilst I will thank Selfridges in Manchester for listening, the real truth is it should never have happened in the first place.

Nigeria: From Basketmouth to Basket - Rape has no place in jokes

Those jokes are no jokes

Yesterday night a tweet came upon my timeline about crude, crash, rotten jokes made by Nigerian comedians whose following had for the laughs not particularly reflected on the depth of what they had heard or read.

Jokes are supposed to be light-hearted fun but they should not be used a cloak for more sinister messages of commission, omission or indifference causing extreme offence to our common and civil humanity.

Now, I choose the comedians I listen to with the expectation of hearing wholesome and witty stuff, jokes you could go back home to tell mother without looking for some rating that would leave certain people wondering the kind of company one keeps.

Jokes can be risqué, for adults only, suffused with dark humour but that in itself should offer no artistic licence to celebrate abuse, denigration or atrocious stereotypes.

Crossing the line

In this case, we must broadly agree that jokes about paedophilia, pederasty, sexual abuse, rape, domestic violence, disability, racism or the Holocaust cross the line of decency into otherworldliness.

No matter how good the joke is, we must have a filter that triggers when such jokes are played for laughs appealing to the basest elements of our humanity. That care and discernment not applied to what we entertain may mean we inadvertently acquiesce to and by unfortunate response appear to endorse the most reprehensible of views.

Rape has no place in a joke

One such occasion came about with a Nigerian comedian called Basketmouth who appeared to suggest that Caucasian girls are of easy virtue to be laid by the third date and that black girls who by the ninth date have not yielded to sexual advances should be raped.

Many excused this apparent slip and mistake, and probably it would have been excusable as a first offence but Basketmouth has form, there is a video of a joke where he more or less created the scene for the rape of a vulnerable old woman.

To date, Basketmouth and probably any other comedian that cannot appeal to wit but can do bawdry and off-colour humour to a willing and barely considerate audience has gotten away with this kind of talk and script pocketing the proceeds of their rottenness none the wiser about their conduct – a line had to be drawn.

What would our society condone?

Much as our society is still struggling to elevate the rights of the woman and the child, putting it on the agenda where abuse would not only be frowned upon but would face the full force of the law, one expects those with a platform to be at the forefront of progressive thinking rather than subscribe to a savage instinct because it is conveniently lazy to attract adulation.

With a comedian’s platform and one as popular as that of Basketmouth comes great responsibility, one that they should daily be aware of not to abuse and misuse that they do not become a channel for the bits of rotten cultural conditioning we are striving to rid ourselves of.

We cannot in this day and age appear to trivialise sexual violence against women, children, men, animals or whatever might sit well within the thresholds of depravity we can countenance.

More so, this trivialisation introduced surreptitiously in a joke is heinous at best and it must be condemned in the sternest terms.

What it says about us

Those of us who have for whatever reason been able to accommodate the depictions for laughs should again reflect and wonder if when we have acquiesced with laughter we might well have been conditioned to act the situation out if presented with such an occasion where opportunity and advantage might mean we escape sanction.

Having known abuse myself as a child and seen other children like myself abused, then by familial connection been affected by the rapes and the abuse of people known and dear, there is just none of the genes associated with humour in me to react with laughter to any jokes that celebrate low-life acts against our humanity.

We, as a society obviously have to decide if excusing barbaric behaviour in innocuous jokes is what we are as people or we have decided that every means possible be deployed to condemn, repudiate and correct such behaviour with the comedian going beyond just the apology to working with NGOs serving victims as a means of restitution and an example to others.

Comedians can source better material

I am of the opinion that Nigeria has enough talent to craft better jokes than puerile unwholesome rotten stuff. Being a Basketmouth is no excuse to have a basket brain and by that become a basket case.

It does appear Basketmouth has issued an apology, which for me is neither here nor there. He was wrong in the first instance, he should have known in these times that such jokes were unacceptable and it should never have happened.

However, we are where we are now and I hope lessons are learnt by the comedian, other comedians and the audiences that lap up this stuff.

We are not a nation of rabid Neanderthals with poor taste and the absence of cultural refinement. I hope that we respect and treat with the dignity our fellowman; woman, child or any other person regardless of race, ethnicity, intellect, age, sexuality or disability. That is the bigger message, in a joke or in serious conversation.

Postscript: I decided not to dignity Basketmouth with a link to his profile and there was no reason to give his offensive joke more oxygen of publicity. Rather a bigger point was being made here about the content and context of jokes.

I feel like I've been raped

Feeding the great database

They come with forms or sit behind computers, pens to hand or fingers oscillating between keyboard and mouse, they record my words for that great database beyond my reach.

The many times, I have told my story, I could have staged a play and put it in a theatre for entertainment, but this is not entertainment, it is my life and at present, it not fun.

Maybe they were listening with rapt attention, they feigned enough sympathy to appear concerned, and I was deluded into thinking something was afoot, the great database will lay out tables for food, build huts for shelter, hold my hand over unsteady bridges from uncertainty to stability, but no such luck.

They have harvested each meaningful part of my tale into statistics that show they are doing something, but I am seeing nothing.

Used and abused

The psychologist knew the urgency, too many papers were filled and signed, we need to deal with the immediate issue, she said, but nothing came of it, and yet I return today to be raped once more in the hope the abuse would get to the point that I cannot be refused.

#ABSURape: It is now justice or bust on Social Media

They walked

I should have gone to bed but after reading the news story that the police were of the opinion that the ABSU gang rape (Twitter hashtag #ABSURape) victim agreed to be raped [1]; all gloves had to come off.

On the 5^th of October 2011, walks to protest the #ABSURape were organised to take place in Umuahia, the capital of Abia State, Abuja and Lagos, the walks were seriously militated against by the Abia State government with radio jingles advising people not to support the initiative, the walkers were then briefly harassed by the security services.

In Abuja, the walkers got to meet certain ministry officials though much was done to prevent it from happening but in Lagos, they did walk to the Abia State Liaison Office where forceful representations were made on this matter.

My reports of these walks were gleaned from postings made on Twitter, other participants can provide more detailed information about what they experienced, we have to address a more serious burning issue.

So, he watched that DVD

The Abia State Police Command has apparently suspended investigations into the gang rape with the view that the girl victim consented to the rape.

Now, I find it impossible to get it round my little head from what has been reported by those who have viewed that video that the said victim was looking forward to a sex orgy by any stretch of the imagination.

A J. G. Micloth who is the Assistant Commissioner of Police in charge of the state’s Criminal Investigation Department said he watched the DVD “tape” sent to him and could not see the young lady resisting the rape.

In trying to exculpate the police from taking any responsibility for solving the crime, he suggested the suspects could not be identified from the legs amongst the possible 70 million Nigerian males, which is fair enough.

Some serious questions

However, in the next statement there is a clear abdication of responsibility and a default to the tolerance if not the condoning of sexual violence when he first said, “gang rape is often videoed as a tool by under-graduate boys to rubbish the self-esteem of snobbish girls.”

The questions that arise from that statement are:

So the police recognise gang rape as a tool and are unconcerned about it?

Is mutual consent not required for the recording of any sexual activity?

Do girls have no right to be snobbish and deny advances from boys they are not interested in and be protected from such menace?

When did our society degenerate to the level that such activity by undergraduate boys had become the norm that the police did not care that it happened?

How can a policeman of such a high-ranking utter such statements without any consequence?

Is there a definition of rape in Nigeria?

Then he went on to say, “even if the lady had not consented,” which introduces the suspicion of rape that the policeman had turned into a triviality with the flippant nature of his comment.

He then figured, “that she was a girlfriend to one of the cultists and must have probably cheated on him and when queried ‘insulted’ the boy hence he probably assembled a gang to teach her the lesson of her life.”

So, without any proof whatsoever, he had come to the conclusion that the end of teaching her the lesson of her life had been justified because her supposed boyfriend had been insulted when he questioned her about a possible allegation of cheating on him.

Reviewing the statements together, the policemen has decided that even without consent, but for the sake of teaching her a lesson, it was not rape.

It really beggars belief that it is no more law enforcement working through the proper legal process of aggrievement or crime, investigation, arraignment, adjudication and punishment that in the words of the policeman, teaches “the lesson of [his/]her life” but as it were, jilted undergraduate Nigerian men can take the law into their own hands with impunity, rape women with no consequence and find support from the police that the supposed victim was having a nice time.

A rotten investigation

Now, obviously, the names that have before appeared in the media have been said not to belong to the alleged rapists but innocent persons who were helping researchers ascertain who the victim was and hopefully elicit who the rapists were too.

The police however contend that they have combed the records of the university and visited the supposed locations of the gang rape act and concluded there were no such students at the university.

The only respite in this sordidly unbelievable tale is that the police have offered NGN 500,000 as a reward leading to the arrest of the culprits; this I believe will be augmented with the NGN 200,000 stumped up in the name of the Enough is Enough Organisation.

In all, we have to recognise that the university, the government and the police have from the onset been more than reluctant to take on this case, in fact, they have been hoping that the clamour for justice will wane over time as they twiddled their thumbs in denial and indifference.

There are no words to describe the view of the governor of the state when he suggested the rape video was staged by his political detractors to discredit him and his government; it plumbs the depths of inhumanity that will give the devil second place that no compassion has been shown towards the victim apart from the desperate attempts to close down this heinous crime wishing any remembrance of it will not go away.

Social media activism is it

Once again, we need to redouble our efforts on every forum and by every means to get these men and much as we would hate for the victim to have to relive the ordeal she went through, no justice is served for her or the impunity to commit other crimes if information cannot be coaxed to apprehend them and have them severely punished.

It goes without saying that one’s confidence in the Abia State Police Command to pursue this investigation to a conclusion is lacking, they are prejudiced if not voyeuristically pleasured by the DVD than to see what their duty to society is and it is appalling that such can represent law enforcement even in the dungeons of the harshest cruelty in this whole wide world.

It would appear the Situation Room for this crime returns once again to social media where injustices might well be compounded but everything and I dare say anything must be done to apprehend those cockroaches – this #ABSURape must not go unpunished and by God let it be those 5 men and none else.

As for those who condemned the social media activism as tabloid stupidity, they had better come off their high horses and sanctimonious disavowal with some constructive ideas as to how to help the victim and apprehend the culprits; enough of playing smart, carping from the side-lines with feigned righteous indignation.

Source

[1] ABSU gang rape: Victim agreed to be raped – Police | Vanguard

Editorial: The many issues around the #ABSURape

A video gone viral

The last week saw the gathering of emotions and revulsion at the video of a lady who from reports of viewers suggested she was being gang-raped by 4, maybe 5 men.

The video had gone viral and it appeal to the humanity in many of us to sue for the apprehension and arraignment of the men involved to the point that justice will be done and seen to be done.

Apparently, the recording of this atrociously evil act was made on the 16^th of August 2011 and it had been circulating within the campus of Abia State University that goes by the acronym ABSU.

Impunity and entitlement

For all the clamour for retribution and justice there seems to be a lot awry that we cannot somehow confidently expect that what we desire will be realised.

The lady, the victim might have gone to ground nursing her wounds that would range from emotional to physical and anything in between that might not find succour, comfort or respite – justice is probably the furthest thing from her mind – she might just want the event to be a haze, an unrecalled memory as if it never happened.

The video suggests that she was being punished with rape as weapon of vindictiveness and torture just because she somewhat disrespected one of the men.

That presents another problem, a society that thrives on inclination of the certain people feeling they have complete entitlement and can with impunity act criminally expecting nothing to come of it because they have the tacit approval of society to revel in lawlessness because the law is handicapped or they have the means to suborn every process that will attempt to bring them to book.

Inured for titillation

That is the possible precipitous decline into anarchy we face if these attitudes are not arrested and punitively sanctioned not only as a deterrent but as a message that society will no more brook such manners in our communities.

Beyond this there is another niggling problem, whilst watching the video might well have elicited evidence that the law could use, there are some whose intention was to derive the titillation element rather that than the social justice push – we have somewhat become inured to such violence and violation that some even thought the lady was almost too docile to have the video depicted as the recording of a gang rape.

One is left to throw up ones hands in exasperation; we have great difficulty dealing with sexual crimes in Nigeria from child sexual abuse through to rape and the denigration of women. An incipient and sinister interpretation of religious laws allows for women to be treated with disdain.

Our lawful acquiescence to injustice

In some cases, the onus is pushed on the woman to appear in a certain way in order to not to be preyed upon by rabid men with untrammelled passions redolent of the jungle. The Nigerian male is almost allowed by law to be absolved of responsibility for being unable to control themselves – it is like a somewhat “indecently” dressed lady has it coming, she is ready fodder for abuse and much more and she has no recourse for justice.

The ladies are not helped by women legislators who help perpetrate this atrocity on their fellow womenfolk with the silliest laws about dress ever to be promulgated that at a UN meeting of women they were ridiculed for their risible ideas.

The same difficulty in tackling sexual crimes is what drove the university and the state government to deny the rape ever happened. It ploughed the depths of incredulity when the governor suggested the video was created by detractors to discredit his government.

Unable to handle the matter

The Minister for Youth Development should be commended for trying to get to the bottom of this matter, the rape did happen and whilst it might not have happened on the campus of the university, there is no doubt that certain parties to that criminality were or are students of ABSU and for that reason along both the university and the government should engage and work to uncovering all those who have brought shame on the state.

A member of the House of Representatives moved a motion on this matter and there was one who suggested there were many more pressing issues than rape to deal with.

At which point one can only say our political representation is completely oblivious of the rights of the individual and the need for social justice, besides it also shows how deeply ingrained our toleration of sexual crimes is that it is take as par for the course.

The social media devil

Social media has been agog with this story and it is probably what gave rise to the more general coverage that extended in international new sites. There are many concerns with this, in the quest for justice some have been falsely accused such that the collateral damage in resolving this case might hit a lot more people and shatter reputations.

The authorities have their share of blame for this, if they had been proactive to investigating the rape rather than defaulting to denial and had set up an incident desk for the matter, all information would have been channelled there rather than on the unfettered and unregulated forum of social media communications.

In any event the Minister for Women finally gave voice to the matter not to seek solutions but to offer another one of those political platitudes, they are concerned about welfare and well, the case just founders in inactivity and reticence because even though our huge population is a by-product of sexual activity we are still quite squeamish about sex.

A long fight in the making

There are strongholds and barriers to take down and one can only hope that it starts with the concerted efforts of every Nigerian with a heart and soul working to ensure that those men do not go unpunished and hopefully that lady can also get all the help and therapy she needs to rebuild her life.

We still have a long way to go on this matter, in fact, what it brought to light was that campus rapes happen quite frequently and nothing really gets done about it – that, my friends, is utterly, utterly untenable.