Memory Pain

The Familiar Stranger

As I was walking to work this morning, I had the onset of stomach cramps, the abdominal pain I have written about often, which I have experienced since childhood. I don't know what brings it on, but if I remember correctly, I last had this discomfort 14 months ago.

It is different from what you suffer with food poisoning; after emesis and bowel movement, you are usually alright. The other situation comes after a hot shower; lying on my belly cushioned with a soft pillow makes things subside.

Memory and Recognition

This is memory pain, like a visitor you cannot bar from coming round to your place, it comes with a keen recognition, and the way it begins to tire you out is remarkable. For comfort, I take highly sweetened milky tea. It eases but rarely cures; however, some bed rest helps.

Yet, there is another concern. My tolerance of pain is high. I would endure discomfort for longer than is necessary as I attempt to put the issue out of my mind, even when it is becoming unbearable.

Perspective Through Experience

My reflexes have been schooled by cancer pain; any other kind of pain seems almost insignificant by comparison. I would rarely take analgesics because the pain is not deemed that serious.

Though pain is your body telling you something is wrong that needs addressing, I reckon I can bear it and manage. Do not think I treat the endurance of pain as a sign of machismo; it is more a matter of perspective derived from lived experiences.

Dignity and Humility

Eventually, after completing a change request in the office, I decided to leave for home. Walking back, I banished thoughts and images of me just falling in the middle of the street, writhing in pain. Could one be too dignified for such a humbling by sudden incapacity?

I am grateful for one last thing: regardless of the pain I am suffering, I have never lost my sense of humour or my ability to write about what I am going through.

For now, Akin is indisposed and taking a bed rest, looking towards a speedy recovery with a prompt return to verve and vigour.

Pain through the times

Blog - I remember this tummy ache (October 2007)

Blog - Take away the pain (September 2009)

Blog - Knowing pain is personal (August 2021)

Blog - The pain is a long story (September 2023)

Blog - That unwelcome discomfort from youth came visiting today (November 2024)

A Google NotebookLM AI Podcast on this blog

Spaces without balance

The shift has occurred

I came across an article, a commentary on how organisations, establishments, and corporations are lacking in accommodation and inclusiveness. Sadly, given the direction of our public conversation, we are expected to promote and reinforce a particular perspective or risk ostracism.

Having experienced times of political correctness, which evolved into woke culture, and now the topical issues of identity and how diversity can imply exclusion, one might wonder what has changed in our discourse that no-platforming and cancelling have become more common, along with the need to punish those who dare to think differently and voice those thoughts.

The balance has tipped towards an unrelenting intolerance of broader perspectives and dialogue. For instance, my idea of safe spaces used to be forums with a range of viewpoints available for all participants to consider, regardless of their beliefs. However, what currently exists is a safe space not to feel uncomfortable or challenged; rather, it is a space to reinforce biases instead of questioning preconceived notions.

Can we think for ourselves?

The brave space to dissent and debate respectfully without being disagreeable has been lost to a different kind of safe space. It is safe for the timid or entitled, but unsafe for the brave.

Grievance, offence, upset, and outrage often dominate, at the expense of open-mindedness and tolerance of opposing viewpoints. As a result, we fail to step into another's shoes because we believe we are already wearing the most uncomfortable shoes imaginable.

How we arrived at this unidimensional situation involves curating inputs, confirming biases, a lack of curiosity, and perhaps a lazy mind as well. Meanwhile, certain purveyors of extreme perspectives stand to benefit from homogenising and intensifying positions that leave no room for compromise or consensus. We are unwittingly pawns on their vast chessboard of power, profit, and politics.

We must ask ourselves whether we are still thinking for ourselves or have become subsumed into the malign thought processes of others. In voicing these thoughts, we become megaphones for ideas we would have once rejected.

We are not the same

This debate is ongoing in Australia, where those involved have initially faced punishment but then found themselves reprieved through legal actions and protests. It is a debate we should be having across the Western world, as exemplified in this excerpt from the article.

“All right-minded organisations try to make their workforce more diverse. But are we going to accept people from different ethnic and political backgrounds only to the extent that they behave like middle-class white people? That is, those who dominate our culture largely as a result of their luck, and who have not got a family legacy of colonisation, war, trauma and holocaust?

Sometimes, encounters in brave spaces might lead to us changing our minds, or question our own assumptions.” [The Guardian: Opinion: The ABC and Creative Australia panicked in the face of controversy. These vital institutions must not be so timid. - Margaret Simons]

Men's things - XVI

Blogging The State of Akin

I write how I feel, and I cannot account for who reads and finds any interest in my blogs, though there are people who have over time realised that this blog infrequent and hardly prolific as it is represents The State of Akin (TSoA) at any given time.

Sometimes lucid and at other times in turmoil, I am told I write better than I converse, yet I cannot drive traffic to this blog for that purpose, it is left to those who discover this to engage as they see fit.

My last blog gave a sense of direction in terms of certain questions I had about the treatment of prostate cancer. I guess I was a bit miffed that out of Active Surveillance, a Radical Prostatectomy, and Radical Radiotherapy, the first had been taken off the table before any discussion with the patient primarily affected.

I should be centred and relevant

Again, I respect the knowledge and the expertise of the medical teams superintending the courses of recommended treatment, however, even if a course of treatment is not desirable, I should be informed of the reasons that led to that determination. With respect to this situation, I asked for a further consultation, and I received two phone calls that seemed to need clarification on my premises.

I had acquired enough understanding to appreciate from the post-treatment situation that on the issues of future prognosis, the exacerbation of the condition, and the problems that might present in bladder and bowel control along with attendant sexual function, radiotherapy offered the best and most manageable outcomes.

Links to engender confidence

A comment in my last blog gave me additional information through two links, Predict Prostate and Cancer Alliance: Prostate Cancer: Know Your Options, both of which allow you to enter the indices of known or unknown test results to then connect your situation to the predictive outcomes of the Prostate Testing for Cancer and Treatment (ProtecT) study as indicated in the graphic I shared in my last blog post.

The links also offered more detailed information and YouTube videos. At the end of which I was more convinced of the course of treatment I had chosen.

Poring through the medical notes shared between the medical personnel, I finally learnt that I was actively considered for the low-dose radiotherapy, or in medical terms, it is Hypofractionated radiotherapy of 60 Grays (Gy) over 20 sessions, given on weekdays only. The Gray is a unit of ionising radiation. [ICR: A new standard of care for prostate cancer]

The outlook, the prospect

Prior to this treatment, I will attend a radiotherapy planning scan that uses a Computer Tomography scanner to locate the position of the prostate gland to which the radioactive beam will be directed. This treatment option makes Intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) more efficient as it is more tolerable for certain older age groups.

I am also recommended to go directly for radiotherapy without neo adjuvant therapy which is hormone therapy to reduce testosterone, which might well be a blessing of sorts. I think I have had the answers to the many questions I have had, and I am basically looking forward to putting all this behind me within the next few months.

I feel fine, I am positive, and I believe in the best for me, my health, and the enjoyment of life and its pleasures. I also look forward to spending some recuperation time with Brian.

Men's Things Blogs

Blog - Men's things

Blog - Men's things - II

Blog - Men's things - III

Blog - Men's things - IV

Blog - Men's things - V

Blog - Men's things - VI

Blog - Men's things - VII

Blog - Men's things - VIII

Blog - Men's things - IX

Blog - Men's things - X

Blog - Men's things - XI

Blog - Men's things - XII

Blog - Men's things - XIII

Blog - Men's things - XIV

Blog - Men's things - XV

Taking friendliness to heart

In patient endurance

In a telephone conversation that I could not wait to end that there was an urging in me to ask what the particular purpose of the call was, I held on still to allow it to come to its natural end.

It was not a conversation, I was on the listening end of everything and the work inside me was one where I rationalised to myself that it was a test of my resolve, I had to recalibrate my ability to engage my friend even when my eyes begin to glaze over and my neck stiffens in obduracy to avoid being swallowed in the mental chasm of his chaotic and yet charmed existence.

Then again, I was somewhat vindicated when he said that chatbots could not understand him, this is not just because of his accent which is quite distinct, much as I hate to use the word torrent, his speech is like a waterfall of words without attempted enunciation, you strain with much difficulty to understand him, you begin to tune out.

A burden of care

Beyond that, I had begun to associate this ‘speech impediment’ and it has to be that if we are speaking the same language and yet we cannot understand each other, with mental exhaustion. It is energy sapping with all the wringing of anything you can wring if caught in the web of this engagement.

Yet, my love for him is undiminished, as a friend and I will support him, where I can calm him down enough to have a conversation, and understand where he needs my support, he can count on me.

With all the tendency I could have to assess, I have come to another appreciation of what I need to do in terms of endurance and patience, there is much work to be done in being more longsuffering, for I have been forgiven much more than I have dared to forgive others.

We suffer as grass in fighting cancer

In the scheme of things, cancer

An African proverb says, “When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.” The meaning from The Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs suggests, ‘The weak get hurt in conflicts between the powerful.’ [TODOP]

This was the thought that came up in discussion with my boyfriend on the shocking and sudden death of his uncle from cancer. I reflected once again on how battling cancer rarely involves the person as there is hardly any natural means of defeating it.

Rather, we are the battleground on which the cancer is tackled by chemotherapy, radiotherapy, therapeutics, and/or surgery. For we are the hosts for the onslaught that is raised against cancer, with the caveat that we might or not have the physiological capacity to tolerate the treatment.

Tolerance in intolerance

When I had 7 sessions of chemotherapy, each session progressively attacked cancer and left me weaker with a totally compromised immune system that was already immunodeficient because of HIV and full-blown AIDS that my consultant was beginning to worry about doing something for the cytotoxicity of the treatment.

Meanwhile, one the day of my 7^th session, early that morning I had attended the funeral service of a friend who passed on after 2 sessions of chemotherapy. It had exhausted him totally that friends who attended his PhD viva voce just 13 days before he passed on said, they can hear the strength drain out of him in his voice, he was barely there.

Our mortal frame

I do not subscribe to the idea of battling cancer as something you can overcome by the force of the will or any kind of determination, you can only aim to trust in the medical expertise brought to bear and hope that you can tolerate whatever is thrown at your body and that there is just sufficient in your system to carry you through to the other end where you have just been fortunate to have survived.

For He knows our frame;
He remembers that we are dust.
As for man, his days are like grass;
As a flower of the field, so he flourishes.
For the wind passes over it, and it is gone,
And its place remembers it no more.
[Bible Gateway Psalm 103:14-16 (NKJV)]

Thought Picnic: Friendship is a test that never ends

Tested and testing

I pass many tests I do not believe I can pass, many not as a result of study but as a study of resolve. The extent to which I have allowed myself to be tested beyond the limits that are tolerable yet somewhere in my cabinet of virtue I find the tolerance. I tolerate a lot.

If you were to survey my tongue, you will find the accidents of restraint, the number of times I have bitten my tongue and resisted blurting out an expletive. With equanimity, I absorb the shocks and displeasure even when I should explode, I become a fully corked volcano stopped short from spewing out pyroclastic flows hoping the pressure subsides.

Friends escaping sanction

I think to myself, friends are a rare breed for whom such allowances are made where others would not find an inch of escape to act with the levity to abuse the familiarity of relationships that breeds contempt and disrespect that we overlook as those we like, and love take liberties and licence on our generosity and much that we share.

Willingly we become masochists of the violation by the hands and whims of those that are not strangers to us, our patience an enduring virtue that could attract the desire to overlook while it demands the irascible. I guess you find yourself entering the twilight zone of Jesus’ advice to forgive seventy times seven times.

They unbeknownst to them wrong you so gravely and yet they do no wrong. It is the stuff of friendships, and that count might just run out and weaken the bond to when it cannot but break. It does break when being careless, carefree and without care deals a lesson of sobriety in reality that you can take no more. How much more? You can never really tell.

London: Making light of irksome sights

A small centre

London still remains a place of new discovery for me in many ways just as I never knew that I did not need to change at Leicester Square for Charing Cross to get to Trafalgar Square almost 25 years ago, or that if I got off at Liverpool Street, I did not have change trains to get to my office between Liverpool Street and Moorgate.

I have taken to walking as much as I can within London having realise that the London Underground, known as the Tube sometimes makes central London feel a lot bigger than it really is.

For instance, London Euston Station to London Waterloo Station is just 2.1 miles or 3.36 kilometres, it is literally one straight road down and over the Thames – give it about 50 minutes of a brisk walk. It is better to do this than get on the Tube.

The bastards of Westminster

Then, I have walked from London Euston Station, through Old Street to Liverpool Street and then London Bridge before walking the south embankment of the Thames called the Queen’s Walk all the way to Vauxhall.

As I pass Westminster Bridge, I see the mother of parliaments, the Palace of Westminster and lament the whoring that has given her bastards for children.

The many politicians who have never had a life outside politics, rent seekers who are leveranciers of the poverty they portend as policy. Looking upon them from the tower is Big Ben that I pray when next she tolls at the point we are asked to find new leaders would toll for this lot.

Dressed to ostracise

Yet, London presents fascination from mundane observation, like walking into a T. M. Levin shop full of seemingly formal wear to find that the shop attendant does not know what a cravat is. I could not muster the strength to be aghast, I was beyond that. What training do these label readers and payment till get to man these shops? Perish that thought.

Further along the road was a family out for the day, the man proudly strutting along with his wife and two children. Well, I am not sure of the kind of pride in a man that would have his wife all covered up except for the slit in the garb made for her eyes to peer through.

If the lady were walking alone, maybe it might ward off interest, but with her husband and family, it is more about the man than the woman. The concept of dressing to cultural and religiously defined codes in a very secular society does sometimes make one wonder about societal cohesion and integration – this applies to all, by it Muslims, Jews or even Sikhs – these being the ones that come easily to mind about men, women and their dress sense.

I paid for better than this

Off clubbing we paid to use the coat check and were given numbered tickets to identify our things. At the end of our revelling, we presented our tickets and told them the initials as a security safeguard against them giving our bags to others.

Unusually, we were ask what our bags or jackets looked like and 10 minutes on they were still looking for my bag just as the mess in the coat check storage had become too chaotic for words, it was disheartening and annoying in the same measure.

I remonstrated and I was asked to calm down at which point I smacked the counter with an open palm loudly stating I paid for the service beyond which it was just unacceptable to have to wait this long to find my things.

The supervisor then came forward to take control of the situation, but it was not before one of the team took exception and offence to my attitude. I was having none of it, we celebrate incompetence to the point of excusing atrocious customer service, even apologising for poor customer service that we have paid for, not if I could help it.

Eventually, after a third time of describing my rucksack, they found it, I was not effusive with thanks, I was infuriated. Am I supposed to demand for the service I paid for or allow people act without responsibility for the jobs they have been hired for? I think I am just getting too old-fashioned for the lack of attention to order or detail, but I would not tolerate it.

Thought Picnic: Living your own life, creating your own norms

Father and son, Justice Oputa and Charles Oputa aka Charlie Boy
Courtesy of Nancy Keshy Ademolu

You do your norms

I happened upon a Twitter firestorm about norms, standards, customs and values. My Nigerian friends were at their sententious best from judgemental through castigation to excoriation, disgust heaped infamy on notoriety, what a sight it was.

Now, it was the difficult case of the son of an establishment figure at his father’s funeral service, where he gave no space for expected norms or decorum that people felt both scandalised and mortified, yet I was unperturbed.

Peace is all

In my view, father and son had made their peace with each other, the father a respected judge, the son an anarchist of sorts, a complete opposite of his father in demeanour and conduct, at 63, still playing tearaway with incredulity. His father knew all that and yet he made no plans to have his funeral conducted by any other than his son as he deems fit.

Beyond that, the funeral services of very important personalities can so easily be gatecrashed by political transients seeking validation through egotistical displays of shameless megalomania. What should be a solemn and sombre occasion can readily descend into farce because of these trashy people. [Information Nigeria]

It can become a protocol nightmare for the family of the deceased, it is probably best to suggest they keep away than have them create a rowdy scene. If the programme does not confer the honour of making a speech, the uppity had rather keep their seats or send in their regrets for not attending.

Trash the norms

In any case, the broader issue was about what was expected and what was observed. The son was never a conformist and the expectation that he would conform to a certain type was at best wishful.

Having broken all the rules of convention, we should have expected the unconventional and that could well be bizarre and lacking in taste, but that was his prerogative and he exercised it to the full.

Many people many not be worthy of example or even close to being role models but as outliers they are bold, courageous and out there, living their own lives happily without a care for what others think about them.

Live your own life

To some, it is almost lascivious, yet it is the ultimate pursuit of happiness and long may we have such amongst us to teach us that we do not have to conform, we can break the rules, jettison the norms and still be well-adjusted and successful people.

The bigger question is, when are we going to begin to live our own lives, the lives we have charted and wished for regardless of what others think they have as influence over us?

The life to choose your own career without sanction, the life to love the one your love without question, the life to live with the full expression of your sexuality without shame, interference or fear, the life to be you and be accepted for who you are.

The themes of tolerance, acceptance, understanding and humanity become the focus as is the need for everyone including ourselves to mind our own business.

Why? The Big Question With Unacceptable Answers - Homelessness Amongst Young LGBT BME Persons

Why? The Big Question with Unacceptable Answers.

This was my response to a question that Bisi Alimi posed on Facebook after he revealed a statistic about the percentage of homelessness amongst LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transsexual) young persons of Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) groups between the ages of 16 to 25 in London.

As a member of the Stonewall Housing Board (SHB), he noted that 75% of the young persons seeking housing support from the SHB were of African, Asian and Caribbean descent.

He closed his comment with, “My people, why would anyone in 2014, drive out a child in Britain just cos (sic) of their sexuality? Why?”

No acceptable excuse

In my humble opinion, I cannot find any excuse that any parent in any situation or circumstance can give, regardless of what they believe or the positions and status they hold in society or in their community that would justify their unreasonable and unconscionable loss of humanity, humaneness, parental affection and responsibility to their child.

To throw a child on the streets at a vulnerable stage of their lives because of the discovery of their sexuality that does not seem to fit a construct they expect is heartless at best and downright evil.

Not the end of the world

Whilst very little can prepare parents for the realisation that their child is LGBT, it cannot be the end of the world and it should not be made the end of the world of the child.

The station of parent demands great responsibility and many situations challenge the capacity of parents to hold that responsibility with stoicism and courage, but a parent is what a parent should remain - understanding, supportive, protective and hardest of all, accepting.

It is hard enough for the child realising that they are different for all sorts of reasons with the possibility that they feel that the world is against them.

Sexuality is rarely taught

More pertinently, the child having grown up under guardianship in most cases cannot have been nurtured into homosexuality living in an environment where heterosexuality is the situational norm, which can lead to the conclusion that sexuality is innate and natural rather than learnt.

Then again there are children who have been reared in a same-sex parentage who are naturally heterosexual – it really is not the end of the world.

Children are not clones

Sadly, the truth is parents have to get to grips with stark realities about their children, they would be distinct, different, individual, distinguishable and accomplished in so many diverse ways, they would assume our likeness beyond which their character, temperament, imaginations, dreams, abilities, sexuality and whatever else that makes up a human being indicate they are not clones of ourselves.

That BME groups would remove parental protection on account of the sexuality of their child is beneath contempt, but I am thankful that organisations like the SHB exist to help, by providing shelter, protection, opportunity and a brighter future.

Many of these homeless child will in spite of and despite the actions of their parents find their own way, and though they might be bitter and helpless now, it is not like these children do not have a bigger heart of humaneness and compassion that would put their parents to shame.

The Story of Chris

I share a story about such a person who was thrown out of his home at 15 for coming out to his mother in 1988, and this was in Caucasian family whilst contrasting it with the attitudes of the other siblings.

When a child comes out to their guardian, that is the time to offer some comfort, strength, reasonable guidance and support, it is definitely not the time to wash your hands off the child you brought up and ostracise them by throwing them out of the home.

Any parent who does this should be ashamed of themselves, whether that parent were ever worthy of being one, is a question for another time.

Chris, a son, a man, a person of honour

I first met Chris some 11 years ago, just about a year after we began chatting online.

I cannot say how many people he told his story, but it has been one story that has stuck with me long after his sudden and unexpected demise in late 2009.

He grew up with a single mother and a younger brother when at the age of 15 she threw him out of the house because he came out as gay.

In the late 1980s, that is what most parents tended to do, dump their offspring who under their care and protection just by happenstance appeared to exhibit a same-sex attraction.

Someone else became guardian

Providence shined on Chris because an African-American saw him on the streets and arranged to give Chris a better life and future in America.

There he lived for 6 years, gaining an education and skills before returning to Europe and eventually settling down with a partner in Amsterdam who one day due to mental illness sadly drowned himself in one of the Amsterdam canals.

Chris returned to the UK then and engaged in a number of social and creative activities, in which time his health suffered, but he still had a wonderful outlook to life. That is when I met him.

A son without malice

In early 2006, the mother who dumped him for being gay was very ill, and ironically, of all the children she had, it was Chris she looked to for care and help.

He bore no anger or malice towards her and in February 2006 she died in his arms.

Chris did what was expected of a son and much more, he buried his mother with honour, dignity and respect. For all that he had suffered, he had the warmest heart to care even to the point of denying himself essential care.

A son with a heart

Yet 2006 was a horrible year for him because his father from whom he had been estranged for years and who was atrociously unsympathetic on hearing of Chris' mother's death was dying too.

His father who had many other offspring, at least three much older than Chris with their own children, desired earnestly that Chris be at his bedside.

Chris did not think twice about providing succour to his father who at times past was as nasty and horrid as ever can be, to Chris.

Something informed his father that of all the children he had, only Chris would do right by him.

A worthy son

So when his father died in December 2006, it was Chris that stood in the position of son and man to give his father a befitting funeral.

The child rejected and reviled almost two decades before became the child to honour those who spurned him. His father in his testament bequeathed all his worldly goods to Chris at the expense of the brothers and the grandchildren.

The brothers had the shameless temerity to contest the will, but Chris won in every court of opinion and process.

Chris was one of a kind, a gentle soul whose hard life did no becloud the opportunity to be forgiving and accommodating.

That was the manner of man he was and sadly he died of renal failure in London, in October 2009, a great loss to many who knew him and never will forget what a kind soul he was.

Alan Turing: Victim of Prejudice, Champion of Modern Expression

My country of acceptance

As I left a Starbucks Café on Sunday, I saw two men sat quite close together in a posturing that could only mean they were at a rendezvous and they were probably lovers.

I felt gratified to live in a country of liberty, tolerance, acceptance, accommodation and understanding. This was a country quite different from 60 years before.

A great and different man

To a man, we owe much and yet he was different, persecuted and prosecuted but a genius, a gift to our world lost because the establishment frowned on an expression of himself that in no way affected the abilities he brought to his vocation.

To him we owe much for his contribution to the war effort during World War II for which he was honoured and as one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th century, the Time Magazine had this to say of him, “The fact remains that everyone who taps at a keyboard, opening a spreadsheet or a word-processing program, is working on an incarnation of a Turing machine.”

For Alan Turing is today, a man, pardoned, celebrated and appreciated as the father of Computer Science.

Celebrate humanity above all

We all have needs and in all of us is a sexual expression acted upon by reason of our sexuality which in essence does not deduct from our ability to perform with excellence in other spheres of life to benefit humanity as a whole.

And as I trekked back home, I stopped by at Sackville Park where I also paid my respects to Alan Mathison Turing, 1912 – 1954, who as a victim of prejudice with the knowledge and expertise he brought to this world gave us the democracy of expression.

Choose acceptance

I would not speculate as to what else Alan Turing would have done with his far-thinking genius and ability if he had lived for longer, but we now know that the world we had 60 years ago is far different from the world we have today.

For we have the capacity for understanding diversity to accept difference and the ability to exercise tolerance for the greater cause of our humanity, if we choose to be better than what age-old beliefs and traditions have constantly taught us to do.

We must happily or grudgingly come to a point where we are able to express gratitude for our shared humanity, where we would not prejudge before we understand or castigate before we embrace – we all have a duty to be examples regardless of our beliefs, of tolerance rather than bigotry, whether we would rise to that challenge is for each individual to decide.

Thought Picnic: Tolerating diversity on the streets of our humanity

Death on our streets

“Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” Karl Marx [Wikipedia]

One fateful day in May 2013, a young 25-year old father of one who had served his country in the treacherous battlefields of Afghanistan and returned unscathed was butchered on the streets of London, his name was Lee Rigby.

The scene of that murder, macabre, gruesome and beyond belief was the handiwork of Michael Olumide Adebolajo, 28, and Michael Oluwatobi Adebowale, 22, both black, British and of Nigerian descent.

Just like me

Nigerian descent by reason of both their middle names and surnames which are of Yoruba origin, very much like mine are, we are Third Culture Kids.

“A Third Culture Kid (TCK) is a person who has spent a significant part of his or her developmental years outside the parents' culture. The TCK frequently builds relationships to all of the cultures, while not having full ownership in any. Although elements from each culture may be assimilated into the TCK's life experience, the sense of belonging is in relationship to others of similar background.” [Wikipedia]

That is probably where the similarity ends, beyond having Christian names this tale takes a turn for the worse.

Drugged by religion

They took religion, became religious and adopted an outlook to life and circumstances that seem to give cause to what they presumed was their oppressed existence – their fellow Muslims were suffering around the world; that appeared to justify their heartless act – to take an innocent human being off the street and butcher him like a dog and that informed their soulless utterances – expressing no empathy, care or remorse for the evil acts wrought by their hands.

They were opiated by religion that nothing they did made sense and whatever made sense to them was to any other human being manifestly evil, incomprehensibly beyond words and lacking in humanity that they had become demons in human skin.

Blinded by belief

They represented the extremes of how religion can blind people to the community, communion and commonality of our humanity with all its differences and diversity. The tendency to feel one has right by some deity or some instruction to lose perspective of the fundamental human rights of another and thereby deprive them of their freedom, their life, their expression and their pursuit of happiness.

As we battle with our conscience we sometimes lose consciousness of the fact that regardless of what we believe or what we are persuaded of, we may not understand the world of others besides ourselves, but as fellow human beings they have a right to live, survive and thrive in the world we all share – free of persecution, prosecution and execution - it is called tolerance.

Harm no one

The greater lesson here is not so much about heritage, culture or religion, but the need to recognise within ourselves our Good Samaritan humanity not to harm others because of our persuasion, omission, commission, inclination, indifference, silence or utterance.

Examples of which is fearfully expressed in the Boko Haram menace in Nigeria where children and people are massacred, and a government continually stand clueless of ability, purpose, resolve or empathy apart from the wringing of hands, the miniskirt ban in Uganda, the new homophobic laws of Nigeria and Uganda along with the religious and cultural expression that underpins such inclinations.

Free our streets from offence

As we all freely walk the streets and justice is served by taking extremists off our streets, we must be careful not to hound off the streets others whose only offence to us is to be different, diverse and divergent from what is our norm but not their norm.

Back to England, may Lee Rigby rest in peace, his family, relations and friends find some closure and strength in the fond memories of that innocent man and that we all learn that religious fanaticism can lead to ruinous consequences for both believer to the wider society. Our humanity must always inform, temper and moderate our beliefs, not the other way round.

Opinion: These Narcissistic Religious Homophobes

You don’t know me now

I just got on the train in London, and there I recognised an old friend from secondary school, this was 13 years after we left school and 8 years after I last saw him in Nigeria.

We had hardly exchanged greetings before he asked, “Where do you church?” it was a Sunday, and I was not coming from church nor going to one. As I answered, that I was not going to one, the conversation ended there, and it was like I had become a nobody, invisible and inconsequential.

Now, this was someone who in secondary school was not just a friend, there was much else that happened between us, that is another story.

A fiend of a friend

However, today, that memory was revived when my friend who is somewhat like a kid brother too, Bisi Alimi shared on Facebook a letter he received from a ‘friend’ who he had not seen for nigh on 20 years and on seeing Bisi’s appearance on CNN with Christiane Amanpour wrote an atrocious missive questioning Bisi’s sexuality and much else.

This was my contribution to the commentary that followed on Facebook:

“This is what tires me about people who profess to be Christians, they ignore the person for the purpose of their religious pomposity. I have no time for people who having not seen me or interacted with me for ages think they suddenly can begin to impact any aspect of my life in anyway.

The effrontery of intrusiveness is not only disrespectful, it negates whatever purpose they have in mind and it is utterly annoying to think we all think the same deluded and blinkered way.

These hardly travelled ignorant nonentities who suddenly think they know the world and the expressway to heaven make me sick. Very sick indeed.”

Whatever I am is not your business

I make no bones about the fact that I love gays, anyone who has followed my blog or the catalogue of my writings over the last decade would have noticed that I write a lot about homosexuality, amongst other things as child sexual abuse, the abuse of women, religious abuse, heinous cruelty, intolerance within humanity, human rights and else.

Yet, I do not believe my sexuality is for public discussion, it is my business alone who I decide to love and share my sexual favours with, it should be of no concern to anyone but myself and whoever in a consensual liaison decides they want to spend intimate and quality time with me.

The pursuit of happiness, my happiness, is mine and mine alone to pursue, I do not subscribe to the communal or society view that I should be assimilated into certain cultural or traditional norms to satisfy those with familial, filial or some other relational affinity to me.

I am human, first

It is no secret that I am not married, I have never married, I do not have children and well, basically, I cannot have children after chemotherapy. I have made peace with myself about what my life is, I am blessed, and I am a survivor.

Most importantly, I am human first, I celebrate humanity, I celebrate diversity and seek to be a better person with thoughtfulness, understanding and knowing that if I have not walked a hard, long mile in another’s person’s shoes, I am far from pretending to the full knowledge of their experiences.

The marriage debate

After that Anti-Gay Bill was signed into law in Nigeria, I have been quite enamoured by the greater tolerance and reasonableness amongst many straight Nigerians who have elevated their core humanity above beliefs, traditions and altars of gruesome impugning accusation of others to embrace diversity, justice, fairness and human rights. They have displayed a very rare example of Good Samaritan humanity recognising that difference is no excuse to persecute, prosecute and execute.

Blog - Nigeria: Arrest Him! He's Homosexual!

On the matter of marriage, I am quite open-minded, much as I have never experienced one for myself, I have no qualms about whatever pairing of sexes decides to consecrate their union and have that recognised by civil law with all the civil rights that accrue to respecting that that relationship is in and of itself unique and separate from every other partnership.

We all know that there was no advocacy for same-sex marriage in Nigeria, a society where homosexuals are hardly expressive, talk less of seeking the kinds of freedoms of expression that we freely enjoy in Europe, in particular.

Same love celebrated

However, at the Grammys last month, the rapper Macklemore performed his amazingly unifying gay-rights activism song, Same Love and Queen Latifah conducted a mass marriage ceremony of 34 couples, many of whom were same-sex couples.

Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Queen Latifah, Mary... by dm_51b0b9210644b

Lyrics - “Same Love” by Macklemore with Ryan Lewis, featuring Mary Lambert

Earlier this evening, I read that Bizzle, a ‘Christian’ rapper had given the lyrics of Same Love a typically contemporary homophobic Christian rehash with all the traditional railing, vituperation and stereotypes trotted out by those who subscribe to such beliefs.

He thinks he knows best

Slate, the magazine did an analysis of this corruption of Same Love in the broader context of attitudes to homosexuality from those of a particular religious persuasion with the title - Bizzle’s Response to “Same Love” Reflects The Narcissism of Today’s Homophobia.

I would excerpt parts of the write-up liberally in the following paragraphs, but I beseech you to read it in its entirety, without prejudice and with an open mind, then reflect.

Slate - The Narcissism of Today’s Homophobia

“Homophobic people seem unable to see past themselves, to transcend their most rudimentary emotions and arrive at a place that’s often reachable only if we apply a modicum of reason—often spurred by empathy—to challenge old mental habits.”

“The late philosopher and psychoanalyst Elisabeth Young-Bruehl once wrote that those with narcissistic prejudice ‘cannot tolerate the idea that there exist people not like them.’”

“Borrowing another concept from psychoanalysis, homophobes may be especially likely to project their own narcissism onto others as a way to deflect taking responsibility for their own issues.”

They know nothing of the other

“The fixation of some straight people on the sex acts of gay people is another incarnation of homophobic narcissism.”

“But gay advocates are not asking for any and all relationships to be validated as marriages, just same-sex ones that otherwise meet state criteria. And gay people don’t claim equal rights based on our desire to have gay sex; we claim equal rights based on the argument that there is no good reason to treat us any differently from straight people, that granting such rights harms no one and helps millions.”

Usurping God’s place

What I found most profound in that article was this indictment of the narcissist, “It also reflects the narcissist’s limited capacity for empathy—an exercise in stepping out of the self to imagine the feelings of others.”

That is why I have found myself writing this blog, I have been always intolerant of intolerance and mostly, I cannot countenance those who lack the capacity and proudly demonstrate their incapacity for empathy.

These are the many who have hardly walked an inch in the shoes of another and already presume they can dictate, prescribe, proscribe, censure and control the lives of others because they know best, believe better and are secured in their holier than thou tents to look down on the ‘dregs’ of humanity passing God’s judgement from on high.

Opinion: Before the law, the veil is removed

Our open outlook

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

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

Garb and barb

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

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

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

To veil and to reveal

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

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

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

The visage of safety

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

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

Dressed to digress

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

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

Freedom and entitlement

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

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

Freedom and allowance

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

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

Adapt or depart

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

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

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