That’s the title of a new report from the IGLHRC (International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission). It documents some of the stories of LGBT Nigerians who are attempting to speak out against proposals for a new law prohibiting same-sex marriage in Nigeria. It makes for heart-rending reading. Meanwhile, the flames of hate are being assiduously fanned by the vile Peter Akinola and others of his ilk.
Category: Society
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Who Do You Think You Are?
My brother has been trying to piece together our family history for some time now. He started long before it became fashionable. Unfortunately, the trail back through time peters out fairly quickly – the curse of having common family names, I suppose. We would like to know more about our mother’s side of the family in particular, because we have Indian ancestry via our great-great grandmother.
The story goes that our great-great-great grandfather was serving in the British Army in India in the 1820s-1830s. We’re not even sure of his name and rank – family folklore calls him Colonel Murray Holmes, but we’ve drawn a blank on that name in the army records so far. Apparently he married an Indian, but after the birth of a daughter in 1833(?) (our great-great-grandmother) she died. The child was brought back to England by a Major Penrice, who became her guardian. What happened to Colonel Holmes, we don’t know. Did he go mad with grief over the death of his wife? Did he get killed? Did he go AWOL? We are unlikely to find out. In any event, the child grew up and in due course married into a farming family – the Johnsons – in Cumbria. The only photograph we have of her was taken in about 1900, we think. Our mother remembered her visiting the family in about 1910 – as an imposing old lady who arrived in a pony and trap. Our mother would have been about six years old at the time. This is the photograph.
The photographs that we have of our great-aunts (Corra, Annie, Ethel and Emily) and our great-uncle George are even more striking, as they clearly show our Indian roots. These were taken in 1915.
Of course, by the time you get to our generation, mongrelisation has well and truly taken over, and I suppose that all that’s left is my Lamarckian fondness for curry… My Desi roots are all but lost.
Update 16 December 2007: Well thanks to Shelly, we’ve now gleaned a little more of the family history. It turns out that we didn’t have the correct name for our great-great-great grandfather. He turns out to have been Lieutenant Colonel George Home Murray in the 16th Lancers. He died in Cawnpore, India on the 15th December 1833 after a few days illness. It was possibly cholera, since in August of that year there was a cholera epidemic in the Regiment. 364 men out of a total strength of 580 were admitted to hospital during the period of 22nd August to 24th September, and 60 men died of the disease. Colonel Murray was buried in the Cawnpore cemetary, where a monument was erected to his memory by the officers of the Regiment. I wonder whether it still stands?
My brother has also been busy. He’s engaged a genealogist, who, amongst other things, has turned up the last will and testament of Colonel Murray. It turns out that while he acknowledges our great-great grandmother as an heir, she is named in the will as “the daughter of an Asian woman”. Whether she was his flesh and blood or not (and the probability seems high that she was), she took the name of Corra Home. Another piece of the jigsaw fell into place when we saw that the executor of Colonel Murray’s will was a Thomas Penrice. Could this be the “Major Penrice” who became Corra’s guardian? In any case, we now know that Corra was apparently born in 1827 (not 1833) in Calcutta, and she married John Johnson, a soldier in the 2nd Life Guards. He was born in about 1821 in Macclesfield. Further digging is afoot…
Update 17 December 2007: Shelly turned up trumps again – she’s found a photo of the monument to Colonel Murray. The internet is amazing…
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Still Missing
I see that Jim Gray is still missing. I’m afraid I fear the worst, although it seems that his family has not yet given up hope. -
Friends and Enemies
I’ve mentioned the ding-dong between Pascal Bruckner, Timothy Garton-Ash and Ian Buruma before. Other voices are joining in, but can I just refer you (at the risk of seeming a trifle immodest) to the excellent commentary on the whole affair by J. Carter-Wood over at Obscene Desserts… -
The Book Of Rules
The Taliban’s Book of Rules contains some breath-taking precepts:24) It is forbidden to work as a teacher under the current puppet regime, because this strengthens the system of the infidels. True Muslims should apply to study with a religiously trained teacher and study in a Mosque or similar institution. Textbooks must come from the period of the Jihad or from the Taliban regime.25) Anyone who works as a teacher for the current puppet regime must recieve a warning. If he nevertheless refuses to give up his job, he must be beaten. If the teacher still continues to instruct contrary to the principles of Islam, the district commander or a group leader must kill him.26) Those NGOs that come to the country under the rule of the infidels must be treated as the government is treated. They have come under the guise of helping people but in fact are part of the regime. Thus we tolerate none of their activities, whether it be building of streets, bridges, clinics, schools, madrases (schools for Koran study) or other works. If a school fails to heed a warning to close, it must be burned. But all religious books must be secured beforehand.And while I’m reeling from this I come across:19) Mujahideen are not allowed to take young boys with no facial hair onto the battlefield or into their private quarters.Er, what?(hat tip to Norm) -
Jaw Drops…
…I’m sorry, but this makes me want to scream. "Their money"? So that makes it OK then? With financial advisers like this, who needs people slitting your veins? -
Punks In Niqabs
Not Saussure illustrates his post on the recent Policy Exchange report on Islamism with a wonderful photograph – you must go and look at it. Punk rockers for the multicultural age. And while you’re there, read the rest of the post. As he says, the best thing to do is to keep a sense of perspective. -
Pomposity Pricked
I mentioned a few days ago that I had read an attack by Pascal Bruckner on Ian Buruma and Timothy Garton Ash, whom he accused in turn of attacking Ayaan Hirsi Ali. I said at the time that I found Bruckner’s piece shrill and over the top.Well, via the editor of the New Humanist’s blog, I learn that Buruma and Garton Ash have both replied. And frankly, their replies confirm my original impression that Bruckner is a bit of a wanker. Well, quelle surprise… -
Plus Ca Change
In 1995, I bought a book called Prayers For Bobby. It is the true story of a mother’s coming to terms with the suicide of her gay son. I thought of that book today when I read Terrance’s post about another gay son. Go and read it. Plus ça change… -
Indoctrination
Dear lord, this is depressing. I have news for the young man who thinks he’s going to win a Nobel prize. Not in this universe, sunshine. -
Our Maddy of the Sorrows
I confess that almost anything that Madeleine Bunting writes usually has me rolling my eyes by the second paragraph. And that’s on a good day. Some of the pieces from Our Maddy of the Sorrows have been known to push me close to apoplexy. It’s really not good for either my sanity or my health. In June 2006, it was announced that she would be leaving the Guardian to take up the post of Director at the Think-Tank, Demos. Pausing only to wonder whether Demos would have to re-christen itself to be a Belief-Tank, I did permit myself a sigh of relief that I’d no longer be reading her rubbish in the Guardian.Alas, a mere six weeks after taking up the post, Demos announced her resignation, and she scuttled back to the Guardian. I wonder whether we’ll ever learn the true story behind that. The Demos press release is intriguing:Since it has emerged that her vision for Demos is incompatible with that of the trustees, she has decided to focus on her interests as a writer and a thinker at this point in her career. She will resume her regular column in the Guardian and her position as Associate Editor…That’s the trouble with incompatible visions, always causing problems for someone or other.Anyway, she’s back, writing the kind of article that we have come to expect. I was going to comment on it, but I see that a far better class of fisking has been delivered by Opehlia Benson, over at ButterfliesAndWheels, and J. Carter Wood at Obscene Desserts. Go and read them and sorrow at our Maddy.Oh, and J. Carter Wood amplifies on something that struck me when reading AC Grayling’s retort to Bunting; that Grayling could be said to have delivered a hostage to fortune with the lax wording of his challenge. Fortunately, J. Carter Wood tightens up the challenge, and demonstrates that the essential point is that the religious have a distressing tendency to insist that their holy books must be right when science points out a discrepancy. -
Bruckner on Hirsi Ali et al…
Via the blog of the editor of the New Humanist, I’ve come across a defence of Ayaan Hirsi Ali by Pascal Bruckner against the "attacks" on her by Timothy Garton Ash and Ian Buruma. I must admit I found Bruckner’s piece somewhat shrill.While I haven’t got the writings of Garton Ash to hand that Bruckner quotes, I do have a copy of "Murder in Amsterdam" by Buruma that Bruckner uses as evidence of the attack on Hirsi Ali. And I have to say that I don’t recognise the portrait of Buruma that Bruckner paints from it. I thought that Buruma portrayed Hirsi Ali very sympathetically, even when he mentions what he sees as her shortcomings. His writing about the events and the participants are rounded and humane. I don’t think the same could be said of Bruckner:It is her wilful, short-fused, enthusiastic, impervious side to which Ian Buruma and Timothy Garton Ash object, in the spirit of the inquisitors who saw devil-possessed witches in every woman too flamboyant for their tastes.Er, I’m sorry? As I said, Bruckner’s piece strikes me as being shrill and makes it difficult to be receptive to his argument. I felt as though I was being hectored by someone shouting in my ear and waving his arms about wildly… -
The Sound of Woo
Following on from Donnie’s musical offering, Orac treats us to the wilder shores of woo… -
Blasphemy!
If you didn’t catch the discussion (I wouldn’t call it a debate) between Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry at last year’s Hay Festival, then here’s your chance to hear it or capture it for posterity. Posterity will be moderately proud of you. -
Two Fathers
Gelert, over at An Experiment In Normailty, adds his thoughts on the UK adoption row. Worth reading. He mentions the interview on BBC Radio with the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, yesterday. I didn’t hear it, but there’s a telling comment on it in the piece today by the Guardian’s religious affairs correspondent:…it is uncomfortable for the archbishops, as anyone who heard the Ugandan-born Archbishop of York equivocating on the Today programme, as he tried to explain why being "in conscience unwelcoming to gays" was entirely different from in conscience discriminating against black people, will have appreciated.Well, quite. A clear example of cognitive dissonance, I would have thought. The article also clarified for me why I thought that Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor seemed uncomfortable in the interview I saw a couple of days ago with him laying out the party line. It seems as though one of the factors playing out here is politics in the Catholic hierarchy, in particular, who gets to succeed the Cardinal when he retires later this year. I suppose one shouldn’t really be surprised that the Catholic hierarchy is stuffed with venal politics just like every other aspect of human life, but still, the hypocrisy does take my breath away at times.Update: This article is a shortened form of the piece that Stephen Bates wrote for the Guardian’s Comment Is Free section. The full version is here, and is definitely worth a read.There’s also an article in today’s Guardian about the Rev. Martin Reynolds, who, together with his (male) partner, has been fostering a boy for the past 15 years. The boy has two fathers, which brings us neatly full circle to the song in the link that Gelert refers to: Twee Vaders. It’s nice to end on a positive note. -
Following Orders
As you might imagine, the kerfuffle in the UK over Catholic adoption agencies wanting an exemption in the law so that they do not have to consider gay couples as prospective adopters of children does not make me feel kindly disposed towards the Catholic hierarchy. And now, perhaps predictably enough, the Anglicans are closing ranks with the Catholics.
And, as usual, Ophelia, over at ButterfliesAndWheels, casts some light through the gloom.
Frankly, it seems to me that the Catholic adoption agencies are swirling in a cesspit of their own making.* They do not appear to recognise that the overriding factor here is the well-being of the children, instead they prefer to focus on their particular cherries that have been plucked from a set of ancient tales by multiple authors. If they do feel obliged to close their agencies, rather than consider all couples as prospective adopters on their own merits, then so be it. Apparently, they only fulfilled 4% of the 2,900 adoptions in the UK last year anyway, and that gap should be able to be filled.
And I cannot pass without a comment on Ruth Kelly, Minister for Women and Equality. As she is also Roman Catholic, and a member of Opus Dei, one could be forgiven for thinking that the phrase "conflict of interest" might well pass through one’s mind as a particular danger in her case.
I think that she would be well advised to reflect on the political circumstances of Charles E. Wilson in the Truman administration. He was the CEO of General Motors, before he was tapped to enter the Truman Administration as US Secretary of Defense. He was asked if, as Secretary of Defense, he could make a decision (in his role as Secretary) that would be adverse to the interests of General Motors. Wilson answered affirmatively but added that he could not conceive of such a situation "because for years I thought what was good for the country was good for General Motors and vice versa." It was quite rightly pointed out to him that in his role as US Secretary of Defense, his task was to do what was right for the country, and not for General Motors.
Similarly, Ruth Kelly should take a decision that is right for the children and the country, and not for her particular religion. I await with interest to see the outcome.
I see also that Martin Newland, in a Comment is Free piece in The Guardian, argues that "in opposing the new law on gay rights and adoption, Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor is simply doing his job".
That’s as may be, but I will run the risk of invoking Godwin’s law by saying that in a very real sense he could also be said to be following orders. I watched an interview on BBC yesterday wherein the Cardinal was clearly uncomfortable about what he had to say, but nevertheless stated the party line.
When it boils down, then what the Catholic agencies are doing is wanting to turn their backs on people who could help rebuild children’s lives. They can claim conscience all they like, but their conscience, in my view is wanting. Steve Bell points out what, in all honesty, I think lies at its heart.
*With acknowledgements for that lovely phrase to Sir James Anderton, the former Chief Constable of Manchester.
Update: Oh-ho! Is Cherie the real Eminence Grise here? Can’t say I’d be surprised.
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Easy Targets
Well, of course, editing the film makes it easy to remove those who gave the right answers, but even so, this remains pretty depressing. We’re all doomed, I tell you. -
Denying Denial
A statement, signed by more than one hundred Iranians, deploring "that the denial of these unspeakable crimes has become a propaganda tool that the Islamic Republic of Iran is using to further its own agendas", and condemning the Holocaust(-denial) conference organized by the Iranian government last month. Scroll down for the English translation.(hat tip to Normblog) -
Going Dutch
After 23 years living in The Netherlands, I’ve taken the step of obtaining Dutch citizenship. While officially this occurred last month, yesterday was the occasion of the naturalisation ceremony held in the local townhall. It’s an opportunity for the State to recognise those individuals who have become Dutch in a small ceremony. Nothing too serious, but a nice gesture.There were a number of us at yesterday’s ceremony. Here we are, together with the Deputy Mayor who officiated.
In case you are wondering about the characters in the background wearing orange hats, they are my friends and neighbours who showed up to give their support. I had told the Townhall that I’d just be bringing Martin and one other friend, but Martin surprised me with this large group. Fortunately, there was enough coffee and cakes for everyone.Afterwards, we returned home, and the party continued…
Geoff Coupe's Blog 