Lost in Moss Side

Thinking of the estates of yore

The night of the first Nigel Benn vs. Chris Eubank boxing match, I arrived at London Heathrow on a business trip to get computer kit and software for NextStep Limited, a desktop publishing outfit in which I had a 30% stake along with a majority stakeholder who was a lawyer and a director of the United Bank of Africa. This was the 18^th of November 1990 and Margaret Thatcher was on her way out. Nowadays, I get mistaken for Chris Eubank.

Totally unaware of where I was going, I had some addresses to doorstep for the week or so that I would be in the UK. Out to West Ham, I went and my former schoolmate no longer lived at that address, so I made it back into London on the tube and then the bus to Hordle Promenade North in Peckham, an estate in my total naivety at almost 10:00 PM with £1,500 in my breast pocket.

I knocked on the nondescript door for more than 10 minutes, the tumult of excited television viewers inside meant I could not be heard and then my friend who no longer lived there but was watching the boxing match with his cousins came to the door as if to leave for his home and was met with my visage. Surprise and shock, he became my host for the fortnight of my stay, his place way out in Surbiton.

Peckham over 30 years ago was a different place from what it is today, one could say the housing estates of that time, a habitue of drugs, crime, and many other vices are centuries behind what it has become. A few days over a decade after my adventurous visit, on the 27^th of November 2000, Damilola Taylor lost his life to a stabbing in a stairwell of the North Peckham Estate. In early 1991, I did live on Sumner Estate for a few months, after my second return to the UK.

A long time from Gunchester

Earlier this evening, I called an Uber cab in the middle of Moss Side in Manchester having decided to go on a wander of discovery from Hulme where I had gone shopping for some African goods. All the while, I was on the phone with Brian, but some 30 years ago, not only would I have never ventured into this locality, but the E-Class Mercedes Benz that picked me up might well have found a forcefully new owner with the driver who dared to arrive to pick his fare fighting for his life.

Such was the issue of gang violence, gun and knife crime, illicit drugs and muggings in inner city estates, the aforementioned being considered one of the most deprived residential areas in Western Europe at that time. Crime in Manchester earned the city the moniker of Gunchester and Madchester.

Even in 1996 when I first visited Manchester, I could not get a black cab to take me from the city centre to a venue in Moss Side. Once again oblivious of the situation and in my naivety, I found a cab ride in a literally battered taxicab that in the old times I would think any self-respecting horse would refuse to draw.

Things have no doubt changed, for I walked down the side of the Heineken Brewery into Moss Side, by some interesting church buildings, the bethel of the Brotherhood of the Cross and Star and across the road was the Church of God of Prophecy where some churchly dressed madams of ethnic origin seemed to be gathering that I had assumptions to which Brian made an unprintable quip.

The Brotherhood of the Cross & Star in Moss Side

Church of God of Prophecy in Moss Side

I think I am lost

I went through a park with the mind that I would get to the upper reaches of Oxford Road and walk down between the University of Manchester and the Manchester Metropolitan University to get home. As I exited the park the street name looked familiar, and I imagined I was not far off known terrain.

Soon, I said to Brian, as I was regaling him with the history of Moss Side, “I think I am lost.” I pressed on up another street, thinking I would soon be in a place of safety before it dawned on me that I was indeed lost.

When I switched on my Google Maps, I had been walking further away from home the only familiar location I could see on the map was a restaurant I visited almost 11 years ago. I got there with a taxi; it was not a walk.

Unbeknownst to me, my mobile phone was also running low on battery, and it was just fortunate that I decided to call Uber because just as I sat in the taxi our journey was about to commence. My phone died.

Many notes to self

You can have your phone with you, but you must always ensure you have enough juice to embark on silly adventures for if you lose the ability to communicate or find your way, you could well be quite endangered. A dead phone is just as good as not having taken your phone with you.

While is it unlikely I would have been so totally lost in Manchester, it would have taken a loss of composure and asking the wrong person to be presented with dire circumstances and we should curtail evil imagination.

Brian who was already aware that I was lost in Moss Side did not get to speak to me until I had returned home some 15 minutes later. I could imagine he would have been beside himself with glee knowing that this usually orderly man had now got himself into a pickle, totally of my own making.

Note to self: Many to write.

Thought Picnic: In the omerta of abuse

No perfect narrative exists

There are taboo topics that society, community, or situation makes too difficult to talk about for many reasons from not having a frame of reference in which to conceptualise and understand to the need to avoid engagement so that the horror of that reality does not inflict on our comfort.

In the matters of child sexual abuse, domestic violence, sexual assault, or bullying, some of which I have addressed in my almost 20 years of blogging, finding the form of words to discuss with the hope that it does not upset is one for which there is neither art, skill, nor perfection to convey silent suffering and the associated issues.

Why they suffer in silence

I would guess that is the reason that obvious and apparent victims do not share their experiences and mostly never report anything because of shame or embarrassment, worse still the default audience sits in judgement with the view that there is much more that could have been done to prevent things happening to oneself.

Yet, reporting any abuse is not as easy as making a customer complaint or reporting a theft, the violation of the person is visceral, it starts with the body, as the mind considers what has happened, and the spirit is grieved in the realisation of that truth. Maybe, the bruised body can be healed, and the conflicted mind can with time find peace, to reach into the spirit to enliven it is a whole different matter. A person must find their way just as they have to work with the dreams and imaginations that play in their heads.

Wrestling back some agency

That these taboos need to see the light of day through expression, sharing, and talking about it so that perpetrators realise that they do not hold any power over the people they violate or are emboldened to act with impunity is necessary. However, navigating the present to gain the support, sympathy and empathy needed to grow would never be an easy task.

The child abused who on mentioning it is shut down because the adults who should protect them cannot deal with it, the person who has suffered domestic abuse takes the blame for instigation rather than the abuser getting excoriated, sexual assault is seen as opportunistic and victimless that partners of victims are more hurt than the one molested, being on the receiving end of bullying considered an act and state of weakness when one is expected to fight back and put a stop to it.

Help, don’t worsen it

The long hard mile that others would never walk in the shoes of the wearer is deemed the easiest feat of endeavour. People in pain from living through it are doubly hurt by others taking on the same pain for what they never lived. It is a strange world, you begin to believe that the cruellest thing to allow to happen to yourself is to suffer pain, to be a victim, to be caught in circumstances you should have controlled but you failed to.

Whilst silence cannot be the answer, we have to find it somewhere in our human nature to consider, to appreciate, to understand, to commiserate, to empathise, to feel, and to know, that others will have experiences beyond our comprehension, if we cannot help them, we should not make it worse. Sadly, this all is part of the story of our humanity, much as we would love better stories. I do not have the answers, we should be careful of taking offence in the hurt of another.

Once again, “Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth.” [Romans 14:22b] The journey of self-healing is lonely, scary, unsure, and not guaranteed. You take each day as vulnerable and human with the hope that there is better ahead.

Opinion: The utter dehumanisation of Kim Wall

Responsibility is not outdated

This matter cuts to my heart that I am almost left speechless, yet, I find it is a topic on which I must comment even in the jumble of thoughts that afflict me.

A female freelance journalist researching a maverick submariner, met up with him one evening, apparently went on a submarine ride with him and unfortunately never returned home. The following morning, the submariner was rescued from his sinking submarine and as to the whereabouts of his guest, he said he dropped her off on an island the night before.

Eventually, the submarine was retrieved from the waterbed where it sunk and there was still no sign of the journalist, however, it was impossible not to hold the submariner responsible for the disappearance of the journalist, since he was last seen with her.

How you deal with accidents matter

Then, just as mystery piled on misery, a human torso washed up on a beach just as the submariner changed his story to suggest the journalist came to her demise by accident on submariner and he buried her at sea. The said torso, yet to be confirmed to be the missing journalist was apparently deliberately mutilated.

The journalist was Kim Wall, aged 30, Swedish and quite well accomplished, the submariner was Peter Madsen, aged 46 and Danish. [Independent]

This narrative disturbs and perturbs me on so many levels, accidents do happen whether by commission or omission, but most particularly, there must be a greater sense of responsibility at play. Kim Wall was the guest Peter Madsen on his possibly precarious vessel, it meant on a basic level that he had a sense of great duty to ensuring the safety of his guest and an all-consuming responsibility to ensure that he delivered safely back to shore after their meeting.

How reaction indicts you

Whatever, the accident might have been on the submarine, Peter Madsen should have come back to the surface if the submarine were submerged and immediately contacted the emergency services to come to the aid of Kim Wall to determine with certainty the mortal danger she faced after the said accident.

If Peter Madsen could not have delivered Kim Wall alive to shore, the basic sense of awareness of his responsibility should have been to bring her body back to shore and contact the police and her next-of-kin, ensuring a proper investigation of the event would lead to possibly acceptable conclusions.

I cannot speak to the state of mind of Peter Madsen, he was utterly irresponsible, his conduct extremely reprehensible, and his actions absolutely contemptible. That he did not readily assume responsibility for the safety of Kim Wal that he lied to deflect blame is not only cowardice, it presents a clear disrespect for the person and dignity of Kim Wall whether living or dead.

This was unforgivable

However, what shocks me to the core is how on Kim Wall’s death in his care, he arrogated to himself the right and authority to dispose of her body at sea without any reference or consultation with any of her family or friends. If that is not one of the greatest acts of gross inhumanity ever observed in recent times, I wonder what is.

Peter Madsen’s inability to immediately recognise the gravity of this criminality, for there is no other word to begin to broach this matter with any depth, is beyond belief. Whilst the death of Kim Wall might well have been an accident, for we do not know what happened aboard the submarine, one cannot divorce this matter from the violence against women that continues into death by the desecration of her humanity through throwing her into the sea like some dead fish.

Nothing Peter Madsen did can be found excusable, I cannot find anything defensible in the whole matter and it is necessary that justice for Kim Wall be found in visiting the full force of the law on Peter Madsen without mitigation. He was evil and grotesquely so, such as his ilk must never walk the streets where the civilised walk again, he is barely human and belongs in permanent sequestration for the safety of all. He deserves no mercy, not in the slightest.

Apology 001

Village rag of ruse

This morning, I came upon a malicious false accusation that was made against a friend on Twitter to the effect that he was allegedly recorded on video assaulting a woman and swearing at her.

On observing the video, it was clear that neither the man assaulting the woman nor the voice of the perpetrator was my friend, the accent was American, his is British-Nigerian. That this video appeared on one of the more odious vehicles of invective and the worst of Nigerian journalistic standards was at first instructive, the text dripped with malice, it could not be overlooked.

As it transpired, Nigeria being a country in the rat race of keeping and settling scores, someone decided to publish this malign atrocity and then continued with commentary that excoriated my friend in the most uncharitable terms before proceeding to church.

Malicious and atrocious

Meanwhile, anyone who had any idea of who my friend was had already seen this hatchet job for what it was, the antecedents of the village rag masquerading as an online newspaper indicated that the act was deliberate to cause injury and harm to the name and reputation of my friend.

Whilst, engagement on Twitter can both be robust and virulent, there are times when even my friend might have exceeded the bounds of decency. In the snake pit of Nigerian commentary, the search for gentlemen can be futile as to be impossible. However, that should not excuse the abuse of platforms and expression to denigrate anyone, that applies to both my friend and anyone else.

Address the issue at hand

I am not here to keep the record of longstanding conflicts between personalities on Social Media, however, I can as occasion allows when I am observing my timeline on Twitter engage in the discourse or the debate as the opportunity comes. This morning presented such an opportunity and for that particular act, I walked in with the clear intention of defending my friend from that particular smear and address all who colluded in propagating the odium.

For some people, they might seek moral equivalences to justify that atrocity, it does not excuse this particular one I decided to address and the forum is open for others to address grievances they might have with other issues they feel so strongly about. The idea that one should help them fly their own flags, whilst understandable is neither a duty nor an obligation.

I have on many occasions called out friend, acquaintance, stranger and worse on general issues, I am nobody’s surrogate, I work as an independent mind on the matters I choose to address and never as a policeman seeking to impute offence at every possible opportunity.

It was a hatchet job

The backlash was fierce and unrelenting, with that came a conditionally grudging apology which some considered a full-hearted apology, I was having none of it. Eventually, the village rag pulled down that rotten hatchet job, which it was and appeared to apologise. The apologies were an apology of an apology in and of themselves.

I say it was a rotten hatchet job, because if it wasn’t, the story would have been edited to address the matter of Violence Against Women, which one of the protagonists tried to use to deflect the opprobrium for his perfidy. It got to a point that I found myself having to write an Idiot’s Guide to Apology and I labelled it Apology 001 because to have given it Apology 101 would have made it impossible for some to understand as a very advanced course in appropriate restitution.

The Idiot’s Guide: Apology 001

The Idiot’s Guide appears below and I have really not seen anything that resembles an apology on the matter. Just because you dislike a person does not mean you cannot stand for right in support of that person, that is what constitutes having a value system and principles. It is left to us to decide if past hurt is an excuse for allowing injustice and worse to thrive in our midst.

Apology 001: A regretful acknowledgement of an offence or failure.

Apology 001: An apology requires first an expression of regret; that expression cannot be conditional.

Apology 001: An expression of regret cannot be prefaced with the conditional if, because that invalidates the acknowledgement of error.

Apology 001: An apology must stand on its own, it must be full, unreserved, sincere, honest and final.

Apology 001: An apology must fully repudiate all the errors and claims that caused offence. For example; I am sorry for falsely accusing ...

Apology 001: If an apology is not grudging and deemed honest, it will be obvious to all and the offended will receive it gracefully.

Apology 001: Until we grasp the fundamentals of giving a good apology, we cannot advance to the Apology 101 course. :)

South Africa: Rest In Peace, Reeva Steenkamp

Talking Uber

I have the most interesting discussions with Uber drivers who form the basis of my regular mode of transport in Johannesburg.

Usually after the exchange of pleasantries, a question or two about where I am from, I make an observation during the journey and the deeper conversation begins.

What I find amongst the drivers, either the economy UberX or the luxury UberBlack fares are inquiring and inquisitive minds with questions and an openness to new thought and angles.

South Africa in the time I have been here, has presented flux and frenzy in the socio-economic and political world that we have a surfeit of topics to cover.

They are usually quite amazed at how much I follow South African current affairs, but that is the creature that I am, I try to keep abreast of things.

Justice many times denied

Before Oscar Pistorius appeared in court yesterday, on my way to work I was asked what my view of the situation was.

I lamented the fact that the courts had not given much succour to victims of violence citing Reeva Steenkamp and Anni Dewani as examples of where the men allegedly behind their deaths got away literally scotfree.

However, my only hope this time would be for the judges to ask themselves one question in coming to their decision. All arguments exhausted, where is the justice for Reeva Steenkamp in all this?

Yesterday, evening the answer came in a 53-minute unanimous ruling that the act of Oscar Pistorius on that fateful Valentine Day's morning constituted murder regardless of who was behind that toilet door.

Now fix this

Whilst we find ourselves referencing the Latin dictionary of legal terms that Judge Thokozile Masipa compelled us to acquire when he was sentenced to 5 years for culpable homicide it would appear her ladyship read her own annotated copy erroneously.

We have now to be schooled anew on the application of dolus eventualis to this case, that shooting four shots into an enclosed place regardless of the state of mind of the shooter can only lead to death and there is no reasoning to suggest the shooter, Oscar Pistorius did not know that death will occur after those shots.

The Supreme Court of Appeal which is the highest civil court in South Africa thereby found in favour of the National Prosecuting Authority that was dissatisfied with the ruling of Judge Masipa's court.

With Judge Masipa suitably scolded by superior legal opinion, she has been offered a second opportunity to balance the scales of justice to visit the crime of murder with a suitable punishment that hopefully takes consideration of the indisputable fact that a life was brutally extinguished at the hands of a thoughtless gun nut.

It is no doubt as Judge Eric Leach said, that this is a human tragedy of Shakespearean proportions, but the greatest justice will only be served when the sentence says, Reeva Steenkamp, we're sorry, now rest in peace.

Opinion: This violent denigration and murder of girls and women must stop

Sudan: Merian Ibrahim – Apostasy & Adultery

The week ended with some good news for women, Meriam Ibrahim of Sudan who was sentenced to death for apostasy and 100 lashes for the additional charge of adultery for contracting an ‘illegal’ marriage to a Christian is to be released. [BBC News]

If not for the fact that she was with child and about to be put to bed, if is very likely that the political expediency of Sharia law might have exacted the judgement on the woman. Yet, they were ready to punish the lady as soon as her child was weaned.

In the 21^st Century, the state must never have any influence on what an adult chooses to believe, the idea that religious beliefs should be viewed as congenital; that is, passed down from parent to child with the child not having any option to rethink, to reason, to question or to abandon the faith of their ancestors and adopt new experiences and faiths when they reach adulthood is utterly anachronistic and archaic.

Religious politics

The politicisation of religion and the conflation of traditions and beliefs into a bizarre culture underpinned by unacceptable moral laws that denigrates and violates the human rights of the child, our womenfolk, the poor and the deprived of power and opportunity is sometimes used by a Machiavellian elite to oppress and subdue, whilst those same laws rarely apply to the ruling class.

There is every reason for every free and liberated human being to join voices to ensure that the last vestiges of these rotten abuses of human rights are expunged from the statute books of every state that subscribes to blasphemy, apostasy and lèse majesté laws.

Pakistan: Farzana Parveen – Abduction and ‘Honour Killing’

Then in Pakistan, Farzana Parveen was bludgeoned to death by her own family members that included her father, in front of a Pakistan court, in public and with the police allegedly standing by as disinterested onlookers. [BBC News]

That Farzana at 25 had to go to court at all is unbelievably atrocious, she was appearing with her husband to fight her family’s claim that she had been abducted and had entered into a marriage against their wishes.

It makes you wonder when, if ever, women do reach adulthood and a status of independent means and personal responsibility in Pakistan.

A dereliction of duty

Yet, the courts were ready to hear this case, and knowing how volatile such issues are, the system failed to provide the necessary security and essential safeguards  to keep the warring factions apart whilst guaranteeing a modicum of safety for the defendant who was under duress from the law to defend herself.

Too many questions arise about the unfortunate culpability of the court, the presence of such laws in Pakistan’s criminal justice system, the indifference of the police who probably ascribe to the untenable culture of egregious abuse of women in incomprehensibly dishonourable crimes labelled ‘honour killings’.

There is absolutely no honour in the abuse of women, the imposition of marital duress on women against their wishes or the killing of such women that decide to disregard the wishes of others as they pursue their own happiness.

Do women have any rights?

The happiness of relations cannot automatically be the happiness of an individual and any system, law, tradition, culture or view that trammels the pursuit of personal happiness as a fundamental human right must be excoriated and dragged with all possible force into civilisation.

The fallout of this heinous public murder committed with impunity, was exacerbated by another revelation from Farzana Parveen’s husband who alleges he killed his first wife in order to fulfil his affections for Farzana. It makes you wonder whether women in Pakistan are only allowed to draw breath at the mercy of ‘greater’ men for whom they exist to give pleasure or be disposed of.

Where girls threaten a rotten patriarchal system

Surely, this should not be the case for a country that gave us the whirlwind political force of Benazir Bhutto, who I dare say was also disposed of by the Taliban patriarchy in 2007 and with us in England is Malala Yousafzai who the Taliban were ready to dispense of because she clamoured for the right for the education of girls. She was only 14 when they shot her.

These stories are however the ones that made the headlines, there is no telling how many more heinous crimes are committed against minorities in Pakistan’s legal terms and elsewhere without any intervention of the law for justice and the sad acquiescence of the system in supporting perpetrators of these abuses.

The spotlight is on religion, women rights and countries where human beings like us are treated as less than human with no respect for their person, their space, their ideas, their decisions, their happiness or their lives.

India: Gang rape and murder

Boys will be boys, some would say about some events in India that seems to have linked feral sexual appetite with a level of sadistic psychopathy that defies explanation. [BBC News]

Not only were the girls gang-raped by beasts in human skin, they were murdered and left hanging after the rapists had had their evil way with them.

Whenever the perpetrators of this rotten crime are caught as they should be, there is no punishment that can full atone for what they did, however, we should be in no doubt, these people are beyond rehabilitation and they do not belong in the openness of any society.

Unaffected establishment

What compounds this latest in a litany of gang rapes in India [7 publicised since December 2012] is the fact that the authorities are almost unconcerned and politicians seem to handle the matter with such levity that baffles the mind. They seem to be so disconnected from the realities of the victims as to be lacking in empathy and bereft of sympathy.

These gang rapes have become an inconvenience rather registering as a crime wave that needs to be checked and handled with the severity of the law and compassionate humanity.

In a land rich with cultural history that has produced remarkable world leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and most especially, Indira Gandhi, whilst many have sexual needs, it needs to be clear that sexual favours should only ever be acquired with consent, where that is not the case, the perpetrators are no better than animals and one is minded that those rapists be put down like dogs.

Nigeria: Pricing the woman

Back in Africa, we arrive in Nigeria where having enjoyed the humour of the Bride Price App we must see a more serious point to the issue. Beyond the sexism and the objectification of womenfolk when about to contract a marriage, we see the commodification of women when attributes, achievements and looks are the fundamental factors deciding the bride price above the personhood and humanity of the woman.

We are all to a greater or lesser extent affected even if subliminally by this mindset and it is time for us to review our motives and objectives when we are to address these issues.

Blog - Nigeria: Some Truths About The Bride Price App

Nigeria: #BringBackOurGirls – Day 48

48 days since the 14^th of April, 2014 and we are still crying out #BringBackOurGirls with a development that has included the capture of Hassan Ali, a Boko Haram leader; we learnt from him that he had already married two of the abducted Chibok girls. [Leadership Newspapers]

Nothing ever in this world can ever justify the forcible abduction of girls into marital slavery, not to talk of the being in joined in unholy matrimony with Boko Haram brigands. At best, this is a case of aggravated rape.

These abductions are not new, but realising what has happened to the abducted makes for seriously horrific reading. Hassan Ali besides murdering his father and uncle sanctioned the killing of his own sister when after abduction she refuse to become a 'pleasure unit' of another Boko Haram leader.

Innumerable atrocities

Everything about Boko Haram points to something Voltaire said a few centuries ago, “Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”

You have to ask what absurd belief system enables a man to commit the atrocity of murdering his filial relations and siblings. That alone should be enough to seek to proscribe Boko Haram and rid our good earth of every semblance of that organisation, its thinking and whatever support system it enjoys.

We are not the enemy

The challenge for the Federal Government of Nigeria is that for the first time they are forced to act beyond the vacuous promise to delivering results. The result being the rescue from Boko Haram of the Chibok girls; nothing can eradicate the plight of the girls from the world’s consciousness.

The sooner the government realises it has a responsibility to act by using every means possible to #BringBackOurGirls realising the protests are urging them to act decisively and purposefully, rather than some ploy to disrupt the comfortableness of their exalted and unaffected cocoons of power and privilege, the better it would be for all concerned. #BringBackOurGirls from the grip of the Boko Haram menace.

We must stand

As men, we need to be at the forefront of fighting for equality for all participants in our global village, ensuring their rights are upheld, protected and wrestled into existence arresting the descent into the Barbarism that makes other members of the human race any less than ourselves by reason of their gender, their beliefs, their orientation, their means, their culture or any other distinguishing element of our great and broad diversity.

I stand with our women for liberty, freedom and the freedom to pursue their happiness without restraint or interference as we all desire for ourselves in this world.

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.

Nigeria: The Sweet Smell of Money is also the Bitter Taste of Stolen

Preaching the gospel of controversy

Once again a religious establishment with a sprawling business empire and an overly charismatic leader whose hubris will rival the extreme arrogance exhibited by Lucifer in the times of old is embroiled in controversy.

In fact, it appears to find myriad ways to court notoriety and be a ready receptacle for opprobrium and worse within its temple halls where violence and indifference have found expression and in the tertiary institution on its grounds that runs like a glorified secondary school.

In the case of indifference, about two years on, the child that was kidnapped from the crèche has now been reunited with its parents and that is wonderful news, a great cause for celebration more for the parents than for how it appeared the victims were treated without care or due consideration when the event occurred.

The tithe of writhe

However, now, it is another looming crisis that will determine what the character of that establishment represents.

An army tribunal recently found that one of their own had embezzled funds and as a ‘good’ Christian in church but a corrupt official beyond the temple walls had contributed the tithe into the coffers of the church in the sum of NGN 11 million ($68,497).

Now, because the majority of the moneyed in Nigeria who generally have no entrepreneurial sources of income nor are they speculators in the stock market to the extent of carting off with the bank, one can only suppose their unaudited sources of wealth have been corruptly acquired through degrees of fraudulent activity from simple influence peddling through to blatant thievery by embezzlement.

Due anywhere but right

The churches usually ask no questions because their moral compass has long lost its magnetism that once pointed due north to honest, prudent, righteous and reputable conduct to the libation of the Mammon ensconced on a throne where the sacred and most holy altar used to be.

Obviously, the church might well say they received donations and offerings in good faith, but that is the standard to which we view the secular world at which point the law might suggest the receiving party is a handler of stolen goods.

Again, it might well be a case of a mistaken and misdirected investigation, but the sleuthhounds have followed the scent of the money to pockets that might well include the collection buckets of that church. Lord have mercy.

What will they do?

If the church as it hopes to stand in the strictest moral rectitude is to maintain its integrity, it should require no persuasion to move everything possible temporal and spiritual to extricate themselves from this rotten embarrassment too foul for words to express in its odium and repugnance by returning the moneys paid with interest to the army with a loud display of the moralist dogma they preach at others but sometimes fail to observe for themselves.

One expects that this will be the case, but with an establishment literally inured to criticism, we might just have another thing to whip them with, God knows these people are gluttons for punishment, turning the other cheek with the rapidity of a lathe when convenient and acting like fiery rabid Rottweilers at other times, we’ll be red meat before we could scamper to safety. Run!

Burning Up The Rapist's Manual

This is my contribution to 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence Say No – Unite to end violence against women.

Loving rape

This topic always gets to me and it has become one of the ones I have returned to write about again and again.

The issue is rape but worse still, it is the justification of rape by reason of what some might call indecent, ungodly, improper or provocative dressing.

This school of thinking that included an Attorney General in Nigeria suggests that the rape victim is almost entirely responsible for their rape because their dressing provoked the rapist to act uncontrollably such that the rapist had to satisfy the jungle animal lust presented by sighting a provocatively dressed object of desire.

Animals, we are not

I could well agree if this happened amongst animals but out there in the jungle animals are not in clothes and essentially they are not human-beings.

In fact, even in communities where nudity exists as a matter of course, I doubt those societies violate the bodies of each other without consent, as human-beings we are civilised and one element of civilisation is self-restraint in the face of serious provocation.

We are equal

Another issue I want to address is that of relationships between men and women in society. From a moral standpoint there is a tendency to dehumanise and objectify our womenfolk with the idea that the male gender collectively and individually automatically have lien over all women to such an extent that men believe they should have control on all issues that affect women.

That is why we still have to content with issues of rights, rape, abortion, trafficking, abuse, harassment, dressing, mutilations and much else with the law almost giving perpetrators the licence of impunity without consequence.

Women have rights

I contend that beyond the primary sphere of influence if there be one that subscribes to the primitive view of the inequality of the sexes, the woman out in the street minding her own business in whatever state of dress she might be in is in her own right an individual, equal before the law and she should be able to make the decisions she deems fit for how she presents anywhere she have the right to be at.

We cannot because we are men attempt to control every woman as if we are husband, father, son, brother, nephew or relation to suit some preconceived notion of some play being honour and dishonour requiring violent sanction.

No licence to violate

Basically, no man by nature, by law or by divine instruction has acquired the right and licence to violate another person for whatever purposes they might want to use to justify that heinous act. This applies to rape, sexual abuse, physical violence or harassment and we need to address whatever allows us to condone any violation forthwith.

In a series of tweets that I have collated into a Storify titled The Rapist’s Manual, the total sum of my compelling argument is found in this tweet - Let me as categorical as I can ever be. There can NEVER EVER be any grounds or mitigating circumstances for rape.

If I were to leave my readers with one analogy framed in a question it would be this – If a woman is responsible for her rape because of her indecent dressing, are you responsible for an armed robber pointing a gun at you?

Further Reading

A Hard Look At Violence Against Women – The Resurgence

3 commissioners suspended for improper dressing in Ebonyi State, Nigeria

Violence Against Women Online Resources

Nigeria: Prove that you obtained consent or it's rape

On-going and progressing

I have been watching the case of the alleged rape of a young lady by a prominent Nigerian monarch which first came to my attention with the crudeness of cross-examination that asked that she expose her private parts in open court to judge, counsel and other witnesses to determine if indeed she had been raped and bruised. It inspired a blog titled What Rape Victims Face in Court.

There has been much activity since then, though for a rape that occurred in 2010 and a case running into its eighth week including adjournments and other deliberations, the pace of justice has been tardy but a substantive point has been reached. [Source – Vanguard News]

The monarch has no case to answer in terms of three charges of kidnap, assault and deprivation of liberty but having established that he had sex with the lady through his own admission, he would now have to defend himself on how he got the consent of the victim before making love to her – we have the tendency to suggest all acts of sex are “making love”, however, where rape is alleged, it will be utterly inappropriate to consider any inference of love was involved.

Consent is the crux

Now, we have returned to the fundamentals of ascertaining rape – the issue of consent and the burden has with this determination fully shifted on the respondent to prove to the court that there was consent first regardless of the emotion the respondent suggests accompanied the act of sexual intercourse that he says they both enjoyed.

I will also hope that the prosecution will make a stronger case of the rape charge even though the circumstances that led to the victim being within the lecherous confines of the monarch in terms of the kidnap, deprivation of liberty and assault would have helped.

I will suspect in explaining how he got the consent of the lady, elements of the dismissed charges might reappear, the monarch should not think he has gotten off on three of the four charges if he comes under intelligent and hard-hitting cross-examination.

Victim remorse is unlikely

Rape by definition is the crime of forcing another person to submit to sex acts, especially sexual intercourse. As long as the victim believes she was forced into the act, she has been violated and rape has occurred, the onus is now on the alleged rapist to prove they obtained consent and the accusation is not one of remorse after the event.

Going from the information that went into the case when I first wrote about it, the alleged inducements and offers of a bribe by the monarch would suggest a level of culpability but that is just an opinion.

Students are wards of constituted authority

In another development, 35 students of a secondary school in the monarch’s domain were suspended for coming to court to protest the trial of their monarch when they should have been in class.

Much as it is important to have a sense of justice inculcated as part of one’s education, when under the supervision of an authority like a school, such protests would normally require the students obtain permission and they might well be accompanied by a teacher for both their safety and to maintain order – it would appear the said students did not follow that process and were duly sanctioned.

Obviously, with the case sub judice, I would hate to think the students protested out of plain sentiment and in support of the supposed entitlement the monarch might have had to force himself on the lady and for the justification he might have felt not to be held accountable for his alleged crimes.

Public opinion issues

It is also instructive that no mention is made of townspeople or market women having come out in support of their king and there is no telling that the said students were not paid to buttress the image of the king as having community support condemning his on-going prosecution and assumed persecution.

If anything, monarchies in Nigeria are no more as absolute as they tend to be portrayed, the courts are no respecters of persons regardless of status and rape victims can begin to expect that their alleged rapists will have to convince the courts as to the means by which they obtained consent before sex.

South Africa: We must make examples of horde rapists

Another recorded rape

My blood just runs cold when I read stories [1] of the sexual abuse of women, minors (girls and boys), the vulnerable and the powerless.

However, one unhealthy development in the perpetration of these devilish acts is the impunity that compels the wicked persons to record their exploits on cell phones and then distribute such as some celebration of achievement without consideration of the victim.

The turn of the phrase in the last paragraph is a bit awkward; these people had no consideration of the victim they abused. These beastly lowlifes in the garb of human skin preying on the innocent to satisfy their sexual aberrations have no place among us.

Garrotte them

In another time, they would have so easily belonged in Nero’s Coliseum, fed to lions for our glee, none of us shedding a tear at their screams when they are torn to shreds sating the hungry lions as we hope that those screams are amplified to their own hearing just as they have ignored and contemned the pleas, screams and cries of their victims.

The fact is this rotten practice of bottom-feeding cretins engaging in sex rape by the hordes is not peculiar to South Africa; we have had many reports of these nasty activities in the hallowed campuses of our tertiary institutions in Nigeria. Apparently, there are educated young men whose devilish passions find expression in the sexual humiliation of others thinking they are being macho when they have taken a status well below worms.

Now, the recording of these crimes has in some ways been helpful because it is admissible proof that the acts took place and it might mean that the victims do not have to face their assailants in court with such glaring evidence. An even more reprehensible extension of this is the others who find these recordings entertaining that they openly seek to view and share those experiences which must be tapping into an incipient and latent Neanderthal psyche that they must have. Shame on them.

It’s alarming

Rape as a means of pack mentality pleasure seeking and the viewing of such for titillation and arousal plumbs the depths of unspeakable depravity that should have such persons sectioned for life if not corralled in zoos that harbour the part of wild humanity that evolution left behind of what is good, wholesome, humane, beautiful and exemplary of our human wonder.

The case in South Africa is made even so heart-rending when we learnt that the victim was mentally disabled; after they finished their devious act, at least 7 of them; they attempted placating the poor, defenceless girl with 25 cents – woe betide them for generations on end - there can be no merciful course of justice for these men than to see the full wrath of the law that includes the bonus of a castration, their accursed crown jewels hung in the public places for the mediaeval gawping of the many as a deterrent to others.

They deserve exceptional justice

We are supposed to live in civilised times but if people decide to take liberties with the violation of the person, the dignity and the bodies of others for their pleasure, no fair justice will have been served if in our leniency the barbarous are punished by being made just to face the wall.

Personally, one would hate to see our society go back to the Stone Age but rabidly sexual barbarians will only understand the language they act out, if we cannot put them down like dogs, and dangle their heads like conkers in the town squares the least we could do is to make the most horrific example of them – we will not condone these acts in these times or at any time.

Source

[1] A South African rape, captured on video, exposes an epidemic | L.A. Times World