ELEMENTARY MY DEAR SHELTON
Dr. L.C Simon-Hazlewood
As someone who responded in writing to Shelton Daniel's article on homosexuality in his Man Matters series, last year, I feel compelled to respond to his recent article in which he wrote about the backlash he has received.
Mr. Daniel now seems to understand that some people (speaking for myself) responded to his epistle not because they are homosexual or homosexual sympathizers. He hit the nail on the head when he noted that his article might have conveyed a holier-than-thou, talk-down-to-you condemnation. Additionally, some people (speaking for myself again) just love to take on an argument. We studied theorems in school.
But we must understand the basis of this condemnation to which he so apologetically and manly referred. I wish to posit that the fundamental problem is acceptance of a false premise: that of being a Christian. There is no such thing as being a Christian, until just before our last breath. It is not like the practice of “Walking for Confirmation”, that we, Anglican children, endured, and then, voila, we became confirmed. I am registering an obvious fact. Mr. Daniel and all others who profess to be Christians, are in fact in, or should be in, a constant, daily act, indeed an hourly, raging battle, at times, of becoming a Christian. The word Christian should be changed from a noun or adjective, to a verb in its present continuous tense, or a gerund. We are “Christianing”. “Christianing” all the time.
Simply put, my dear Shelton, at the real core of Christianity is a constant battle of becoming Christ-like, with the eternal paradox that we are forever and ever becoming and improving our chances of actually being a Christian. If this act of constantly becoming a Christian were to replace the claims of being a Christian, and become the mantra of Christianity, the world would be a better place, starting inside the very church itself.
The recent article might also raise (higher) the ire that the initial article generated. Daniel claimed that, “No Christian should ever look down on others for their sins or faults – be it homosexuality or anything else”. And then he dropped the axe by saying that the reason for this is because, “…we ourselves also were once foolish, disobedient,…serving various lusts and pleasures..…” (Titus 3:3).
The foolishness, disobedience, etc. are dynamic definers of becoming a Christian, of “Christianing”. You are only less foolish and less disobedient than before. Mr. Daniel should probably have quoted more of Titus chapter 3 because it goes on to explain how the change from being once foolish and disobedient, etc. was realized: “But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared. Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us…” (Titus 3:4-5).
The fundamental problem I had with the original article had very little to do with homosexuality. It had to do with the response given by some of us when we confront a difficult topic. Throwing the book (the Bible or the law books) at wrongdoers is the easy part, and we can always find the scripture and laws to do so.
I am sure Mr. Daniel is familiar with the Christian principle that Shakespeare inscribed in our hearts. “The quality of mercy is not strain'd. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven” (The Merchant of Venice). This, unstrained mercy has nothing to do with being sympathizers or empathisers of homosexuality or of whichever act is being brought to whichever book. This unforced mercy that drops as the gentle rain from heaven is the first radically conscious, Christian, ethical step, in beginning to grapple with a very difficult problem. This is where the original article failed miserably. Daniel’s subsequent attempt to try to understand the backlash he is enduring is highly commendable. Elementary, my dear Shelton.
Friday, January 8, 2010
Sunday, December 20, 2009
The Goose is Fat
MY FAVOURITE THINGS
A One Act Almost Christmas Play
Scene: The reception area of a small hotel in Antigua.
Jonathan: Here comes Santa Claus.
Mizpah: You shouldn’t mock Joseph. He is doing a fine job. He is a good chef.
Jonathan: I cannot understand why men can’t cook at home and all the top chefs in all the hotels are men.
Joseph: It’s not that men can’t cook at home. Their mother and women spoil them; like you.
Jonathan: Always remember this: I refused the job that you have.
Mizpah: Women do not get the top chef’s job because of gender discrimination, and talk about women’s domestic life. From now on, any more advice from me about food will cost you two.
Jonathan: You should have applied for the chef’s job. What new advice do you have for Christmas?
Mizpah: I am looking at what is cooked and how it is cooked in this hotel compared to what is cooked outside because I want to understand why there is an epidemic of obesity, diabetes, hypertension and heart disease just outside this hotel’s door. Food is killing us.
Jonathan: Inside the hotel too. Some tourists are so big and fat, they can’t pass through the doors.
Joseph: That’s the reason for the downturn. Some tourists are so fat they can’t enter this small country.
Jonathan: Too much fat, too much salt, too much meat, too much booze.
Mizpah: It’s the sugar, baby. Too much sugar.
Jonathan: Well tell me this, Miss Mizpah: If too much sugar is bad, how can plenty of fruits be good?
Mizpah: A really good man would understand why. In a nutshell (and nuts are good for you too), all of something, or someone, might be good for you but concentrations of some of the parts might kill you.
Joseph: There is coded message there but let’s stick to real sugar, not imaginary ones.
Mizpah: All sugars are not equal. Table sugar is sucrose. Sucrose itself is made from two other types of sugars: glucose and fructose. The key sources of fructose are fruits, vegetables, and honey. Fructose is the sweetest of all naturally occurring carbohydrates. It is about 1.73 times sweeter than sucrose, the common table sugar. Excess of any sugar is bad but excess fructose is so bad, it’s almost like a poison.
Jonathan: So, again, why are fruits, containing fructose, the sweetest of all natural sugars, so good, and sugars, including fructose, are so bad?
Joseph: I suspect we need another lesson in biochemistry.
Mizpah: Simply put, glucose is used by all cells of the body for energy and some of it is changed into fat or stored as glycogen in the liver. However, fructose is not used by any part of the body except the liver, where it is changed into fat and some other bad things.
Joseph: It’s complicated. Glucose causes insulin to decrease appetite. Fructose increases appetite. But excess glucose and excess insulin can also increase appetite. Too much of any sugar is bad.
Jonathan: Too much of anything. What is all the fuss about high fructose corn syrup?
Mizpah: High fructose corn syrup is in almost everything, from baby foods to soft drinks. It’s cheap and it is a good preservative for processed foods. But it’s not just high fructose corn syrup, since it actually has in fructose and glucose, almost like sucrose, the table sugar. It’s that we are using too much sugar.
Jonathan: I hear that fructose is almost like alcohol.
Mizpah: The liver handles them almost the same way, just that you don’t get a buzz from fructose.
Joseph: The way some children drink soft drinks you would think they get the buzz and are addicted to the fructose. Plus, fructose opens their appetite.
Mizpah: It’s not just soft drinks. Almost all sugary drinks, including fruit drinks, have added sugars.
Jonathan: So, again, why are fruits so good and the fructose in them is so bad?
Mizpah: You must eat the entire, natural fruit. When the fiber from the fruit is in your gut, it cuts down on the amount of fructose you absorb from your gut into your bloodstream and body.
Jonathan: So what happens to the remaining fructose in the gut?
Joseph: The bacteria in the gut act on it and change it into gas.
Mizpah: You have to know how and when to take your fructose or any kind of sugar. Take it in high doses in drinks and you get fat. Eat wholesome fruits and vegetables so that the fiber decreases the absorption of fructose. Be moderate. Eat too much fiber and sugar and you will make plenty gas and fart. That is why Dr. Robert H. Lustig, said that when God made the poison, fructose, it was packaged with the antidote, fiber. Fiber, unlike fructose, suppresses appetite. But again too much fiber with too much sugar will make you fart.
Joseph: Excess sugar makes you fat or fart. Stop drinking all those soft drinks and all those fruit juices too.
Jonathan: So I should eat an entire orange or local fruits, fiber and all, and drink water, for Christmas.
Mizpah: All the time. Eat properly or repair you body from fatness or excessive farting. Reparations again.
Jonathan: Why does everything with you always lead to reparations?
Joseph: Yes Mizpah, you pushing reparations too far. Reparations and food?
Mizpah: Food is all about choice and control. You have to look back and see the good, natural foods we used to eat in Africa before the European arrived, mainly vegetables and grains; very little meat, used mostly for flavouring. We had to change our diet by adding large amounts of salt, sugar and fat to make the junk food we ate during slavery more palatable for all the energy we had to put out. After slavery, some of us are trying to get back to good, natural foods, like the nutritious one-pot meal; like pepperpot.
Joseph: But the salt, sugar and fat remain along with salted pig tail, salted beef and salted fish.
Mizpah: Precisely. Until we refocus on our journey from Africa to here, how we survived, and regain control of our food, we are dead. Reparations are lined to food. Reparations will assist us at arriving at food security. We would eat more of our natural foods, stop importing so much junk, so much processed food with high fructose corn syrup, and stop financing the rich countries. The goose in not getting fat. It is fat.
Jonathan: The next thing I will hear about is reparations and Christmas.
Mizpah: Christmas, the celebration of the coming of Christ, not the comical, commercial celebration we practice, is all about reparations. But that is another story. I wish you a healthier 2010.
A One Act Almost Christmas Play
Scene: The reception area of a small hotel in Antigua.
Jonathan: Here comes Santa Claus.
Mizpah: You shouldn’t mock Joseph. He is doing a fine job. He is a good chef.
Jonathan: I cannot understand why men can’t cook at home and all the top chefs in all the hotels are men.
Joseph: It’s not that men can’t cook at home. Their mother and women spoil them; like you.
Jonathan: Always remember this: I refused the job that you have.
Mizpah: Women do not get the top chef’s job because of gender discrimination, and talk about women’s domestic life. From now on, any more advice from me about food will cost you two.
Jonathan: You should have applied for the chef’s job. What new advice do you have for Christmas?
Mizpah: I am looking at what is cooked and how it is cooked in this hotel compared to what is cooked outside because I want to understand why there is an epidemic of obesity, diabetes, hypertension and heart disease just outside this hotel’s door. Food is killing us.
Jonathan: Inside the hotel too. Some tourists are so big and fat, they can’t pass through the doors.
Joseph: That’s the reason for the downturn. Some tourists are so fat they can’t enter this small country.
Jonathan: Too much fat, too much salt, too much meat, too much booze.
Mizpah: It’s the sugar, baby. Too much sugar.
Jonathan: Well tell me this, Miss Mizpah: If too much sugar is bad, how can plenty of fruits be good?
Mizpah: A really good man would understand why. In a nutshell (and nuts are good for you too), all of something, or someone, might be good for you but concentrations of some of the parts might kill you.
Joseph: There is coded message there but let’s stick to real sugar, not imaginary ones.
Mizpah: All sugars are not equal. Table sugar is sucrose. Sucrose itself is made from two other types of sugars: glucose and fructose. The key sources of fructose are fruits, vegetables, and honey. Fructose is the sweetest of all naturally occurring carbohydrates. It is about 1.73 times sweeter than sucrose, the common table sugar. Excess of any sugar is bad but excess fructose is so bad, it’s almost like a poison.
Jonathan: So, again, why are fruits, containing fructose, the sweetest of all natural sugars, so good, and sugars, including fructose, are so bad?
Joseph: I suspect we need another lesson in biochemistry.
Mizpah: Simply put, glucose is used by all cells of the body for energy and some of it is changed into fat or stored as glycogen in the liver. However, fructose is not used by any part of the body except the liver, where it is changed into fat and some other bad things.
Joseph: It’s complicated. Glucose causes insulin to decrease appetite. Fructose increases appetite. But excess glucose and excess insulin can also increase appetite. Too much of any sugar is bad.
Jonathan: Too much of anything. What is all the fuss about high fructose corn syrup?
Mizpah: High fructose corn syrup is in almost everything, from baby foods to soft drinks. It’s cheap and it is a good preservative for processed foods. But it’s not just high fructose corn syrup, since it actually has in fructose and glucose, almost like sucrose, the table sugar. It’s that we are using too much sugar.
Jonathan: I hear that fructose is almost like alcohol.
Mizpah: The liver handles them almost the same way, just that you don’t get a buzz from fructose.
Joseph: The way some children drink soft drinks you would think they get the buzz and are addicted to the fructose. Plus, fructose opens their appetite.
Mizpah: It’s not just soft drinks. Almost all sugary drinks, including fruit drinks, have added sugars.
Jonathan: So, again, why are fruits so good and the fructose in them is so bad?
Mizpah: You must eat the entire, natural fruit. When the fiber from the fruit is in your gut, it cuts down on the amount of fructose you absorb from your gut into your bloodstream and body.
Jonathan: So what happens to the remaining fructose in the gut?
Joseph: The bacteria in the gut act on it and change it into gas.
Mizpah: You have to know how and when to take your fructose or any kind of sugar. Take it in high doses in drinks and you get fat. Eat wholesome fruits and vegetables so that the fiber decreases the absorption of fructose. Be moderate. Eat too much fiber and sugar and you will make plenty gas and fart. That is why Dr. Robert H. Lustig, said that when God made the poison, fructose, it was packaged with the antidote, fiber. Fiber, unlike fructose, suppresses appetite. But again too much fiber with too much sugar will make you fart.
Joseph: Excess sugar makes you fat or fart. Stop drinking all those soft drinks and all those fruit juices too.
Jonathan: So I should eat an entire orange or local fruits, fiber and all, and drink water, for Christmas.
Mizpah: All the time. Eat properly or repair you body from fatness or excessive farting. Reparations again.
Jonathan: Why does everything with you always lead to reparations?
Joseph: Yes Mizpah, you pushing reparations too far. Reparations and food?
Mizpah: Food is all about choice and control. You have to look back and see the good, natural foods we used to eat in Africa before the European arrived, mainly vegetables and grains; very little meat, used mostly for flavouring. We had to change our diet by adding large amounts of salt, sugar and fat to make the junk food we ate during slavery more palatable for all the energy we had to put out. After slavery, some of us are trying to get back to good, natural foods, like the nutritious one-pot meal; like pepperpot.
Joseph: But the salt, sugar and fat remain along with salted pig tail, salted beef and salted fish.
Mizpah: Precisely. Until we refocus on our journey from Africa to here, how we survived, and regain control of our food, we are dead. Reparations are lined to food. Reparations will assist us at arriving at food security. We would eat more of our natural foods, stop importing so much junk, so much processed food with high fructose corn syrup, and stop financing the rich countries. The goose in not getting fat. It is fat.
Jonathan: The next thing I will hear about is reparations and Christmas.
Mizpah: Christmas, the celebration of the coming of Christ, not the comical, commercial celebration we practice, is all about reparations. But that is another story. I wish you a healthier 2010.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Murder Most Fowls and Most Other Animals
TEN TO ONE IS MURDER
Dr. Lester CN Simon
I have always wanted to be a detective. It all started with my fascination with the Green Lantern superhero and, more pedestrian, my absorption of Perry Mason novels, the first books without pictures that I had read. At first, all I wanted to do was to catch the crooks and show them how smart I was. Now, all I want to do is to understand why we have crooks, and reveal how I am not so smart after all.
My fascination with crime detection was peaked in Jamaica. I had done my medical internship at Kingston Public Hospital (KPH) in 1977 and during my six months on general surgery and orthopaedics, a strange association occupied my time and space, living adjacent to the hospital. It was the sound of gunshot from the neighbourhood and the subsequent ring of the telephone. Since then, I have always looked to Jamaica to find the causes and solutions to the crime wave soaring across the Caribbean. But I have been looking in the wrong place. Let’s go north and examine the greatest country on earth, the land of the free and the brave, the murder capital of the world, the United States of America.
It was reported by Jill Lepore in the November 9, 2009 edition of The New Yorker that “The United States has the highest homicide rate of any affluent democracy, nearly four times that of France and the United Kingdom, and six times that of Germany”. Might we in the Caribbean learn something from America regarding why one country is more murderous than another?
One of the theories reported by Lepore to explain the long decline of the murder rate in Europe from the Middle Ages to the present is the civilizing process. Simply put, this refers to a gamut of behaviours that require physical restraint and self-control. Importantly, it also reflects the “growing power of the centralizing state to disarm civilians, control violence, enforce law and order, and, broadly, to hold a monopoly on the use of force”.
How then does the United States fit into this mold? The American homicide rate has always been higher than Europe’s, even from the start. The reasons put out by some Europeans is that Americans have not undergone the same civilizing process (some might say outright that American are not civilized). The argument goes on that democracy came too soon to America. The suggestion is that, unlike in America, by the time democracy came to Europe, the populace had accepted the authority of the state.
It is argued that the American Revolution happened before Americans got used to the idea of a state monopoly on force. Americans have not only preserved the right for individuals to bear arms (rather than yielding this right to a strong central government). They still have medieval manners such as impulsiveness, crudeness and a belief in a culture of honour. In the case of the latter, Europeans are said to have replaced the culture of honour with a culture of dignity.
The lesson from this comparison between Europe and America is that we West Indians may be more American than we think. No matter how we try to avoid it, we seem to be forever circling the roundabout of how we build a society from slavery and colonialism, from a culture of honour in which “dissing” can cause your death, to a culture of dignity,without addressing reconciliation and reparations.
Recently, I heard the head of the Observer Group say that he was not interested in reparations, all he wanted was opportunities. I used to say the same thing, until I came to the conclusion that individual opportunities will be given, and I have been a beneficiary of the same, but collective opportunities require a seminal shift from a culture of dishonour (slavery) through a culture of honour (post slavery) to a culture of dignity (the future). Collectively, only reparations can do that for all us, West Indians and former colonials within and without the West Indies.
Crudeness can be rampant and subtle. I recall apologizing to a medical student friend after a movie for hitting him very hard during an action scene in the movie. He promptly, told me not to worry because, obviously unbeknownst to me, he had returned the favour in excessive measure. Crudeness applies to the way we eat (no more finger-licking chicken?) and terms we use, like “box off” a plate of food. It also applies to how we treat our womenfolk, directed, as we are, to either make her walk and talk, or “gee she work fu do”, with all the burning flames consuming her.
Some researchers say that the prevalence of guns in America does not support the high murder rate in America. Lepore noted that some scholars have suggested that laws allowing concealed weapons actually lower the murder rate. I recall the first (and only) time a gun was pointed in my face. My entire life passed in a slow-motion flash before me, like a movie, popcorn (with butter), soft drinks and cartoons included. The lasting effect is still present.
Lepore lists other theories for the high murder rate in America. Four other factors mentioned were, mobility, federalism, slavery and tolerance. Mobility has fractured the social fabric that used to bind society together; plus criminals can escape more easily, or blend in so well amongst a crowd of strangers in a small town like St. John’s, with a crowd of football fans peeping.
Federalism is said to be a weak form of government. There are other forms of weak government, such as West Indians in a small (place) state, disrespecting politicians and politicians allowing disrespect as a currency for being local, colloquial and for obtaining votes. Slavery, Lepore argues, rationalized a culture of violence. Tolerance, speak for itself here. From tolerating bad driving, bad roads, bad service, to bad credit, bad behavior, bad debt, bad death, and murder.
One remarkable point Lepore makes would be seen as racist, were it leveled at West Indian. She makes it in reference to Americans. One of the theories she mentions, leads her to conclude that Americans are medieval and backward and warlike, because they became free before they learnt how to control themselves. Risking the loss of friends, I wish to say the very same thing about post-slavery, post-colonial West Indian society. But I have a caveat.
Whenever freedom comes, it must be grasped with hands and feet and whatever else. Freedom must be wrestled away from the enemy, taken and celebrated. Immediately thereafter, the real battle to win the war begins. The battle is to build a society so that we can move from an disparate, murderous ten to one to an attempted oneness of civility, accepting as our battle cry that we will still be imperfect, but less so.
Dr. Lester CN Simon
I have always wanted to be a detective. It all started with my fascination with the Green Lantern superhero and, more pedestrian, my absorption of Perry Mason novels, the first books without pictures that I had read. At first, all I wanted to do was to catch the crooks and show them how smart I was. Now, all I want to do is to understand why we have crooks, and reveal how I am not so smart after all.
My fascination with crime detection was peaked in Jamaica. I had done my medical internship at Kingston Public Hospital (KPH) in 1977 and during my six months on general surgery and orthopaedics, a strange association occupied my time and space, living adjacent to the hospital. It was the sound of gunshot from the neighbourhood and the subsequent ring of the telephone. Since then, I have always looked to Jamaica to find the causes and solutions to the crime wave soaring across the Caribbean. But I have been looking in the wrong place. Let’s go north and examine the greatest country on earth, the land of the free and the brave, the murder capital of the world, the United States of America.
It was reported by Jill Lepore in the November 9, 2009 edition of The New Yorker that “The United States has the highest homicide rate of any affluent democracy, nearly four times that of France and the United Kingdom, and six times that of Germany”. Might we in the Caribbean learn something from America regarding why one country is more murderous than another?
One of the theories reported by Lepore to explain the long decline of the murder rate in Europe from the Middle Ages to the present is the civilizing process. Simply put, this refers to a gamut of behaviours that require physical restraint and self-control. Importantly, it also reflects the “growing power of the centralizing state to disarm civilians, control violence, enforce law and order, and, broadly, to hold a monopoly on the use of force”.
How then does the United States fit into this mold? The American homicide rate has always been higher than Europe’s, even from the start. The reasons put out by some Europeans is that Americans have not undergone the same civilizing process (some might say outright that American are not civilized). The argument goes on that democracy came too soon to America. The suggestion is that, unlike in America, by the time democracy came to Europe, the populace had accepted the authority of the state.
It is argued that the American Revolution happened before Americans got used to the idea of a state monopoly on force. Americans have not only preserved the right for individuals to bear arms (rather than yielding this right to a strong central government). They still have medieval manners such as impulsiveness, crudeness and a belief in a culture of honour. In the case of the latter, Europeans are said to have replaced the culture of honour with a culture of dignity.
The lesson from this comparison between Europe and America is that we West Indians may be more American than we think. No matter how we try to avoid it, we seem to be forever circling the roundabout of how we build a society from slavery and colonialism, from a culture of honour in which “dissing” can cause your death, to a culture of dignity,without addressing reconciliation and reparations.
Recently, I heard the head of the Observer Group say that he was not interested in reparations, all he wanted was opportunities. I used to say the same thing, until I came to the conclusion that individual opportunities will be given, and I have been a beneficiary of the same, but collective opportunities require a seminal shift from a culture of dishonour (slavery) through a culture of honour (post slavery) to a culture of dignity (the future). Collectively, only reparations can do that for all us, West Indians and former colonials within and without the West Indies.
Crudeness can be rampant and subtle. I recall apologizing to a medical student friend after a movie for hitting him very hard during an action scene in the movie. He promptly, told me not to worry because, obviously unbeknownst to me, he had returned the favour in excessive measure. Crudeness applies to the way we eat (no more finger-licking chicken?) and terms we use, like “box off” a plate of food. It also applies to how we treat our womenfolk, directed, as we are, to either make her walk and talk, or “gee she work fu do”, with all the burning flames consuming her.
Some researchers say that the prevalence of guns in America does not support the high murder rate in America. Lepore noted that some scholars have suggested that laws allowing concealed weapons actually lower the murder rate. I recall the first (and only) time a gun was pointed in my face. My entire life passed in a slow-motion flash before me, like a movie, popcorn (with butter), soft drinks and cartoons included. The lasting effect is still present.
Lepore lists other theories for the high murder rate in America. Four other factors mentioned were, mobility, federalism, slavery and tolerance. Mobility has fractured the social fabric that used to bind society together; plus criminals can escape more easily, or blend in so well amongst a crowd of strangers in a small town like St. John’s, with a crowd of football fans peeping.
Federalism is said to be a weak form of government. There are other forms of weak government, such as West Indians in a small (place) state, disrespecting politicians and politicians allowing disrespect as a currency for being local, colloquial and for obtaining votes. Slavery, Lepore argues, rationalized a culture of violence. Tolerance, speak for itself here. From tolerating bad driving, bad roads, bad service, to bad credit, bad behavior, bad debt, bad death, and murder.
One remarkable point Lepore makes would be seen as racist, were it leveled at West Indian. She makes it in reference to Americans. One of the theories she mentions, leads her to conclude that Americans are medieval and backward and warlike, because they became free before they learnt how to control themselves. Risking the loss of friends, I wish to say the very same thing about post-slavery, post-colonial West Indian society. But I have a caveat.
Whenever freedom comes, it must be grasped with hands and feet and whatever else. Freedom must be wrestled away from the enemy, taken and celebrated. Immediately thereafter, the real battle to win the war begins. The battle is to build a society so that we can move from an disparate, murderous ten to one to an attempted oneness of civility, accepting as our battle cry that we will still be imperfect, but less so.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Badness Forever
I SHOT THE SHERIFF
Dr. Lester CN Simon
Show me a country where the majority of the populace comprises descendants of slaves, slave masters, and indentured workers, and where law and order is not a major problem, and Beelzebub will show you the kingdom of heaven on earth. Is there some historical element in our psyche that forces us to defy law and order? Have we inherited this inalienable right?
You can read tomes of literature on the causes of crime. You might even be a victim of crime, or worse, (or is it better?), a perpetrator of crime. You can agree with the experts, like Jamaican Dr. Bernard Headley, that the cause of all street-level crime and violence resides “in the nature of society itself, not in the mental or emotional states of its citizens”. Yet when you confront the corollary that the recipe for preventing crime would be the creation of a social-economic system that can deliver social and economic justice to all, you embrace your head in worrying doubt.
Can it be that a society that has not engaged in reconciliation and reparations for past wrongs, continues to live out the past? The foes may change but the forces of evil remain the same. How else can you explain the way we treat each other? It’s not that criminals do not know their neighbours as themselves. Indeed, they have to study them very well before executing (pardon the pun) their jobs. It’s simply, according to Dr. Headley, that the neighbour is a removable, depersonalized obstruction standing between the criminals and their prize. It’s akin to traversing a nasty pothole on route to a prime, crime destination. Fix it, for badness sake.
Another expert, Dr. Obika Gray, writes about the concept of badness-honour. He notes that defiance among the urban poor is remarkable for its preoccupation with matters of identity, honour and respect. Tie this to the treatise by Dr. Orlando Patterson that to understand slavery, we must grasp the importance of honour. He contends that slavery is a great deal more than an institution allowing property-in-people. It is “the permanent, violent domination of natally alienated and generally dishonoured persons”. “Dissing” is not new and it has always carried a heavy price. Criminals, including dons and their subjects, understand “diss”.
Badness-honour, simply put, is the idea that there is honour and respect in badness. It is the securing of power, honour and respect by use of intimidation. This intimidation may be overt or covert; covert even to the point of passive vulgarity. I recall a Jamaican who visited Antigua in the 70’s complaining to me in Jamaica how he initially found Antiguans tame and almost respectfully docile. He had passed a dread on the street and shouted, “Hail de dread”, to which the dread replied, “Goodnight Sir”.
He received the obverse, classically and uniquely Antiguan response, when he was ignorant enough to ask a saleslady (so he thought she was) in a bread shop, if she sold needle and thread. Her response was bombastic, fantastic and iconoclastic, “Arwe na sell dem subben ya”. Figuring out the dialect and the dialectic response from “the look” of her voice, he readily apologized by saying that he was a stranger who had just arrived in the island. Such a feeble admission earned him the coup de grace response, “Ana fu me fault that”.
It must be registered that badness-honour is not the currency of the vast majority of the poor, but rather, of a tiny minority. It should also be placed on record, as Dr. Gray does, that badness-honour is not a resource available only to the disadvantaged. Power holders from slave masters, to colonial authorities and party bosses in postcolonial societies have employed it.
Badness-honour can take the illusion of goodness. As my dear father told it (God rest his soul), a bank customer, who just happened to be a white English man, complained to the bank manager that my father had opened the bank door late. It was sympathetically explained to the bank manager and the English gentleman that the bank opened by, and only by, the wrist watch of my father, a timepiece that carried BBC time. Moreover, massaged my father, if he were to open the bank door by the gentleman’s time, he would be compelled, by the inimitable logic of the bank, to close the bank by the same gentleman’s time. My dear father suggested to them that for the sake of good customer service, he was not averse so to do. But, and he slowly kneaded and injected the coup de grace, he would have to go searching all over the island for the good gentleman because he had no knowledge whatsoever of where he lived. You see the problem?
It is ironically remarkable, until you understand badness-honour, that some of the demonstrators, right up front with giant placards, chanting and waving, in public marches against the UPP government, are the very same ones who benefit most from the policies of this government. Be silly enough to point this out to them and you will earn an unadulterated dose of our second national motto, “Me na kay”, sometimes adulterated by a concoction of expletives delivered with an adagio that only a badness-honour symphony can play.
Justification of badness-honour is ubiquitous. With all the wrongs meted out to Jews, and they have meted out their share, it took me an extra hour to fall asleep to BBC radio when an American Jew rebuked President Obama for comments about Jewish settlement in occupied territory. After all, the territory was given to the Jews by God and was once “occupied’ by King David. You see the problem.
Badness-honour takes all forms of expression. When you hear talk on the radio that rape is not about sex, and that it is all about power and control, you wonder if these people have actually had sex. Sex is all about power and control. But in rape, the power and control is neither shared nor consented. Rape hijacks the native power and control ingredients of sex, and perverts them to and beyond the most imaginable extreme, to a vile and inhumane form of badness-honour. Christian fundamentalism and badness-honour inform some dancehall proponents to kill homosexuals and yet the same self-appointed social gladiators are unsighted of their depersonalization of women, to which the dancehall queen contributes so much.
So again, is there some historical element in our psyche that forces us to defy law and order? Have we inherited this inalienable right? We have to know the answer because it seems strange to me that badness-honour exited from slavery time until now, that badness-honour can be used and manipulated, that in our attempt to prevent crime we will create a social-economic system that can deliver social and economic justice to all, and yet badness-honour will still throttle our existence.
It also seems strange to me that slavery has ended and yet, to at least attempt to remove or reduce badness-honour on all fronts, there is no reconciliation, no reparations to restore honour; not one communally rejuvenating thing. So, in the eyes of the criminal, we the majority are left with the empty solace that society should look on the bright side of life because he did not shoot the neighbour, he did not shoot up the police station (this time), he did not shoot the deputy (for “dissing” him). We are lucky. He just shot the sheriff.
Dr. Lester CN Simon
Show me a country where the majority of the populace comprises descendants of slaves, slave masters, and indentured workers, and where law and order is not a major problem, and Beelzebub will show you the kingdom of heaven on earth. Is there some historical element in our psyche that forces us to defy law and order? Have we inherited this inalienable right?
You can read tomes of literature on the causes of crime. You might even be a victim of crime, or worse, (or is it better?), a perpetrator of crime. You can agree with the experts, like Jamaican Dr. Bernard Headley, that the cause of all street-level crime and violence resides “in the nature of society itself, not in the mental or emotional states of its citizens”. Yet when you confront the corollary that the recipe for preventing crime would be the creation of a social-economic system that can deliver social and economic justice to all, you embrace your head in worrying doubt.
Can it be that a society that has not engaged in reconciliation and reparations for past wrongs, continues to live out the past? The foes may change but the forces of evil remain the same. How else can you explain the way we treat each other? It’s not that criminals do not know their neighbours as themselves. Indeed, they have to study them very well before executing (pardon the pun) their jobs. It’s simply, according to Dr. Headley, that the neighbour is a removable, depersonalized obstruction standing between the criminals and their prize. It’s akin to traversing a nasty pothole on route to a prime, crime destination. Fix it, for badness sake.
Another expert, Dr. Obika Gray, writes about the concept of badness-honour. He notes that defiance among the urban poor is remarkable for its preoccupation with matters of identity, honour and respect. Tie this to the treatise by Dr. Orlando Patterson that to understand slavery, we must grasp the importance of honour. He contends that slavery is a great deal more than an institution allowing property-in-people. It is “the permanent, violent domination of natally alienated and generally dishonoured persons”. “Dissing” is not new and it has always carried a heavy price. Criminals, including dons and their subjects, understand “diss”.
Badness-honour, simply put, is the idea that there is honour and respect in badness. It is the securing of power, honour and respect by use of intimidation. This intimidation may be overt or covert; covert even to the point of passive vulgarity. I recall a Jamaican who visited Antigua in the 70’s complaining to me in Jamaica how he initially found Antiguans tame and almost respectfully docile. He had passed a dread on the street and shouted, “Hail de dread”, to which the dread replied, “Goodnight Sir”.
He received the obverse, classically and uniquely Antiguan response, when he was ignorant enough to ask a saleslady (so he thought she was) in a bread shop, if she sold needle and thread. Her response was bombastic, fantastic and iconoclastic, “Arwe na sell dem subben ya”. Figuring out the dialect and the dialectic response from “the look” of her voice, he readily apologized by saying that he was a stranger who had just arrived in the island. Such a feeble admission earned him the coup de grace response, “Ana fu me fault that”.
It must be registered that badness-honour is not the currency of the vast majority of the poor, but rather, of a tiny minority. It should also be placed on record, as Dr. Gray does, that badness-honour is not a resource available only to the disadvantaged. Power holders from slave masters, to colonial authorities and party bosses in postcolonial societies have employed it.
Badness-honour can take the illusion of goodness. As my dear father told it (God rest his soul), a bank customer, who just happened to be a white English man, complained to the bank manager that my father had opened the bank door late. It was sympathetically explained to the bank manager and the English gentleman that the bank opened by, and only by, the wrist watch of my father, a timepiece that carried BBC time. Moreover, massaged my father, if he were to open the bank door by the gentleman’s time, he would be compelled, by the inimitable logic of the bank, to close the bank by the same gentleman’s time. My dear father suggested to them that for the sake of good customer service, he was not averse so to do. But, and he slowly kneaded and injected the coup de grace, he would have to go searching all over the island for the good gentleman because he had no knowledge whatsoever of where he lived. You see the problem?
It is ironically remarkable, until you understand badness-honour, that some of the demonstrators, right up front with giant placards, chanting and waving, in public marches against the UPP government, are the very same ones who benefit most from the policies of this government. Be silly enough to point this out to them and you will earn an unadulterated dose of our second national motto, “Me na kay”, sometimes adulterated by a concoction of expletives delivered with an adagio that only a badness-honour symphony can play.
Justification of badness-honour is ubiquitous. With all the wrongs meted out to Jews, and they have meted out their share, it took me an extra hour to fall asleep to BBC radio when an American Jew rebuked President Obama for comments about Jewish settlement in occupied territory. After all, the territory was given to the Jews by God and was once “occupied’ by King David. You see the problem.
Badness-honour takes all forms of expression. When you hear talk on the radio that rape is not about sex, and that it is all about power and control, you wonder if these people have actually had sex. Sex is all about power and control. But in rape, the power and control is neither shared nor consented. Rape hijacks the native power and control ingredients of sex, and perverts them to and beyond the most imaginable extreme, to a vile and inhumane form of badness-honour. Christian fundamentalism and badness-honour inform some dancehall proponents to kill homosexuals and yet the same self-appointed social gladiators are unsighted of their depersonalization of women, to which the dancehall queen contributes so much.
So again, is there some historical element in our psyche that forces us to defy law and order? Have we inherited this inalienable right? We have to know the answer because it seems strange to me that badness-honour exited from slavery time until now, that badness-honour can be used and manipulated, that in our attempt to prevent crime we will create a social-economic system that can deliver social and economic justice to all, and yet badness-honour will still throttle our existence.
It also seems strange to me that slavery has ended and yet, to at least attempt to remove or reduce badness-honour on all fronts, there is no reconciliation, no reparations to restore honour; not one communally rejuvenating thing. So, in the eyes of the criminal, we the majority are left with the empty solace that society should look on the bright side of life because he did not shoot the neighbour, he did not shoot up the police station (this time), he did not shoot the deputy (for “dissing” him). We are lucky. He just shot the sheriff.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
The Road to the Future
THE FUTURE OF THE CARIBBEAN
Dr. Lester CN Simon
We can predict the future. We do it all the time. The last time it rained and we ventured outside without an umbrella, we got soaking wet. We predict that the same thing will happen if we do the same thing the next time it rains. Predictions do not have to be absolutely correct all the time. They just have to be good or fair often enough to give our predictions an acceptable degree of credibility.
We recall there was a badly filled ditch across Friar’s Hill road many weeks ago and that it went from bad to worse. It was partly responsible for the death of two persons in a terrible motor vehicle accident. Immediately afterwards, Public Works (one of our oxymora) fixed the spot. There is a similar area in the road by the northern gate of the Anglican Cathedral. It’s unlikely that there will an accident here because of speeding since it is on the crest of an often congested hill. It’s also unlikely that someone will become so irate over the disrepair of the road that they will stop and put down one piece of cursing. After all, they would be just outside Big Church. We predict that it will not be before next Easter that the spot of bother will be fixed.
Next Easter, the church will enact the walk of Jesus to his crucifixion. Someone, preferably a worker at Public Works, and a churchgoer) will be asked to bear the symbolic cross, and he will stumble and fall at the very spot that needs repairing. When our predictions are generally good, we will occasionally make a knowingly false prediction to some people, in order to get the appropriate, opposite action from others. Let’s see.
The world is watching to see the future of countries like ours, comprising the descendents of slaves and slave masters and others. In particular, the world is watching to see the future of Antigua and Barbuda. Because of the unique mix of Caribbean nationals and other nationals living here, we are unwittingly the nidus of the future of the Caribbean. To see what our future will be like, we have to understand the journeys that descendants of slaves and slave masters must take whether or not they are aware of their fated rites of passage.
First, let us regard the descendants of slaves. Initially, we must recognize why we were enslaved and why and how we were freed. Then we will sing and dance and dress up like nobody else. Different forms of emancipation will last for varyingly long periods of time. You must have heard the story about the rapper, Talib Kweli, driving through the Mississippi delta and seeing a brother running with no shoes or shirt on. Stopping the car for fear that the man might be in trouble, and offering assistance, the man, unaware of the end of slavery, responded, "Shhhhhh... I’m escaping!"
Our self adoration, as a form of emancipation, will become so defining, a popular, local clothing store will cleverly advertise itself using the slogan, “We go kill dem wid clothes”. Our singing, dancing and dressing, as well as our conspicuous consumption, will be the life motif and motive of many. The next, future step away from the middle towards the end of our rites of passage will be the hardest. It demands the partial stepping out from ourselves, the truest emancipation of them all, and our beginning to see our environment as us and not just a place, a landscape, a geography.
We will know we are approaching our remarkable future when we stop littering and literally see beyond our noses whist smelling and abhorring the stench so close to us. We will redesign our cities and environs for business and for pleasure, in equal measure, primarily for us, as if we were the substance of a cake, and our visitors, guests, and tourists, the icing. Designing our environment will be a natural extension of the laying out of the inside and outside of our homes. Emancipating ourselves will be defined by our freeing of our environment.
When we look ahead at the burgeoning development along Friar’s Hill Road we will see that the entire eastern area needs to be circumscribed by major roads. In addition to Friar’s Hill Road itself, and Lauchland Benjamin Drive, two more roads paralleling these two should be added to form an embracing square or a quadrilateral roadway with a verdant oasis somewhere within.
Secondly, for their rites of passage, the descendants of slave masters will accept that there were various classes of slaves and that some of the ingenuity and expertise ascribed to slave masters were in fact engineered or modified by artisan slaves who came over with immense knowledge and high levels of skills. Until and unless the symbolic gesture of reparations is made, we will be denied the respect and the resources for the reconciliatory healing process. We will continue to wander though an economic, social and psychic deuteronomy. Interestingly, reparations will remove the pseudo-philosophy some of us espouse, refusing to repay loans we signed for and blaming others for every single, little error we make, including all the bad manners and all bad mindedness we harbour, and all our inefficiencies and misfortunes.
When, as a candidate for president, Barack Obama opposed offering reparations to the descendants of slaves and yet contended that, “The best reparations we can provide are good schools in the inner city and jobs for people who are unemployed”, was he being duplicitous, diplomatic or both?
We can judge people by simple, common actions and qualities. How many times after stopping our vehicles for someone, young and old, to cross the road, do we have to remind them, using a geometry of gesticulations, to say thanks? Our future will begin when we no longer have to remind others to give thanks (and praise, as our Rastafarian brethren remind us). Our future will begin when the indecent haste to dig up the road to lay utility pipes will be followed by an equally decent haste to repair the damage.
We predict that the emancipated future of the Caribbean will be assured when, in our Sunday-best clothes, going to mass in an edifice described as "the most imposing of all the Cathedrals of the West Indian Province”, after 28 years of independence, we do not accept driving or walking for weeks over lumps and bumps and patches and pitches of stone and dirt, in a major road, at the steps of a cathedral whose cornerstone was properly laid more than 165 years ago.
Dr. Lester CN Simon
We can predict the future. We do it all the time. The last time it rained and we ventured outside without an umbrella, we got soaking wet. We predict that the same thing will happen if we do the same thing the next time it rains. Predictions do not have to be absolutely correct all the time. They just have to be good or fair often enough to give our predictions an acceptable degree of credibility.
We recall there was a badly filled ditch across Friar’s Hill road many weeks ago and that it went from bad to worse. It was partly responsible for the death of two persons in a terrible motor vehicle accident. Immediately afterwards, Public Works (one of our oxymora) fixed the spot. There is a similar area in the road by the northern gate of the Anglican Cathedral. It’s unlikely that there will an accident here because of speeding since it is on the crest of an often congested hill. It’s also unlikely that someone will become so irate over the disrepair of the road that they will stop and put down one piece of cursing. After all, they would be just outside Big Church. We predict that it will not be before next Easter that the spot of bother will be fixed.
Next Easter, the church will enact the walk of Jesus to his crucifixion. Someone, preferably a worker at Public Works, and a churchgoer) will be asked to bear the symbolic cross, and he will stumble and fall at the very spot that needs repairing. When our predictions are generally good, we will occasionally make a knowingly false prediction to some people, in order to get the appropriate, opposite action from others. Let’s see.
The world is watching to see the future of countries like ours, comprising the descendents of slaves and slave masters and others. In particular, the world is watching to see the future of Antigua and Barbuda. Because of the unique mix of Caribbean nationals and other nationals living here, we are unwittingly the nidus of the future of the Caribbean. To see what our future will be like, we have to understand the journeys that descendants of slaves and slave masters must take whether or not they are aware of their fated rites of passage.
First, let us regard the descendants of slaves. Initially, we must recognize why we were enslaved and why and how we were freed. Then we will sing and dance and dress up like nobody else. Different forms of emancipation will last for varyingly long periods of time. You must have heard the story about the rapper, Talib Kweli, driving through the Mississippi delta and seeing a brother running with no shoes or shirt on. Stopping the car for fear that the man might be in trouble, and offering assistance, the man, unaware of the end of slavery, responded, "Shhhhhh... I’m escaping!"
Our self adoration, as a form of emancipation, will become so defining, a popular, local clothing store will cleverly advertise itself using the slogan, “We go kill dem wid clothes”. Our singing, dancing and dressing, as well as our conspicuous consumption, will be the life motif and motive of many. The next, future step away from the middle towards the end of our rites of passage will be the hardest. It demands the partial stepping out from ourselves, the truest emancipation of them all, and our beginning to see our environment as us and not just a place, a landscape, a geography.
We will know we are approaching our remarkable future when we stop littering and literally see beyond our noses whist smelling and abhorring the stench so close to us. We will redesign our cities and environs for business and for pleasure, in equal measure, primarily for us, as if we were the substance of a cake, and our visitors, guests, and tourists, the icing. Designing our environment will be a natural extension of the laying out of the inside and outside of our homes. Emancipating ourselves will be defined by our freeing of our environment.
When we look ahead at the burgeoning development along Friar’s Hill Road we will see that the entire eastern area needs to be circumscribed by major roads. In addition to Friar’s Hill Road itself, and Lauchland Benjamin Drive, two more roads paralleling these two should be added to form an embracing square or a quadrilateral roadway with a verdant oasis somewhere within.
Secondly, for their rites of passage, the descendants of slave masters will accept that there were various classes of slaves and that some of the ingenuity and expertise ascribed to slave masters were in fact engineered or modified by artisan slaves who came over with immense knowledge and high levels of skills. Until and unless the symbolic gesture of reparations is made, we will be denied the respect and the resources for the reconciliatory healing process. We will continue to wander though an economic, social and psychic deuteronomy. Interestingly, reparations will remove the pseudo-philosophy some of us espouse, refusing to repay loans we signed for and blaming others for every single, little error we make, including all the bad manners and all bad mindedness we harbour, and all our inefficiencies and misfortunes.
When, as a candidate for president, Barack Obama opposed offering reparations to the descendants of slaves and yet contended that, “The best reparations we can provide are good schools in the inner city and jobs for people who are unemployed”, was he being duplicitous, diplomatic or both?
We can judge people by simple, common actions and qualities. How many times after stopping our vehicles for someone, young and old, to cross the road, do we have to remind them, using a geometry of gesticulations, to say thanks? Our future will begin when we no longer have to remind others to give thanks (and praise, as our Rastafarian brethren remind us). Our future will begin when the indecent haste to dig up the road to lay utility pipes will be followed by an equally decent haste to repair the damage.
We predict that the emancipated future of the Caribbean will be assured when, in our Sunday-best clothes, going to mass in an edifice described as "the most imposing of all the Cathedrals of the West Indian Province”, after 28 years of independence, we do not accept driving or walking for weeks over lumps and bumps and patches and pitches of stone and dirt, in a major road, at the steps of a cathedral whose cornerstone was properly laid more than 165 years ago.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
YOUR CHOICE OR MINE
DANIEL’S CHOICE
Dear Editor
We are often warned not to discuss religion and politics. Sexuality, and homosexuality in particular, should probably be added to the list. When religion and homosexuality are combined, as in the article, “Homosexuality: When The Jealous God Retaliates” by Shelton Daniel, in the Daily Observer of Thursday, October 29, we should probably not discuss his article at all. But we do not just observe The Daily Observer.
There are probably enough homosexuals here to defend themselves without any assistance from me. However, I find Shelton Daniel’s argument worthy of comment. He posits and quotes scripture to show that homosexuality “is a punishment from God upon those who have chosen to reject him”. He also refers to persons flaunting their celebrated homosexuality in self-delusion as a “liberated personal choice”.
For an all-inclusive discussion of homosexuality, it is good to seek the opinions of homosexuals. And who better than the celebrated comedienne, Wanda Sykes? Just before we get to Wanda; the way is which homosexuality is regarded in many parts of the Caribbean, forcing homosexuals to hide or literally be stoned to death or be killed in any other way, suggests that homosexuals are fighting a serious battle. And let’s not think we can win the war on HIV/AIDS without discussing, at the very least, all forms of sexuality. So let’s not cloud the issue. If homosexuality is God’s retaliation, them leave it at that (with its corollary, noted below) and leave out the “liberated personal choice”.
The argument from Wanda is this: Homosexuality is not a choice. If it is, then maybe sexuality in all its forms is all about choice. In which case, imagine a man saying this to his wife or girlfriend: My dear, you know what? I really feel like having sex with a man; but I choose, I choose to have sex with you instead.
Maybe we should not just compare homosexuality to other forms of sexuality, we should also compare sin to sin. The idea that homosexuality is a punishment from God should be extended to point out all those other forms of punishment God metes out to those who have rejected him. According to the same first chapter of Romans that Shelton Daniel quoted, these other sins would include: “unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,” etc.
If we call homosexuality a sin, all of us are not homosexuals but all of us are sinners. Hence all of us, not just homosexual, must repent according to the epistle of Shelton Daniel to the homosexuals. In this regard, homosexuals might just realize that they have no choice (liberated or otherwise) but to think that they are just like the rest of us sinners. This is not a “liberated” view. To me, the concept of a homosexual marriage is an oxymoron. Call it something else. But we must follow the logic of Shelton Daniel’s argument, even if it leads to the conclusion that, in some ways, in our many sinful ways, the homosexuals and the rest of us are all in the same den.
Thank you
Dr. Lester CN Simon
Dear Editor
We are often warned not to discuss religion and politics. Sexuality, and homosexuality in particular, should probably be added to the list. When religion and homosexuality are combined, as in the article, “Homosexuality: When The Jealous God Retaliates” by Shelton Daniel, in the Daily Observer of Thursday, October 29, we should probably not discuss his article at all. But we do not just observe The Daily Observer.
There are probably enough homosexuals here to defend themselves without any assistance from me. However, I find Shelton Daniel’s argument worthy of comment. He posits and quotes scripture to show that homosexuality “is a punishment from God upon those who have chosen to reject him”. He also refers to persons flaunting their celebrated homosexuality in self-delusion as a “liberated personal choice”.
For an all-inclusive discussion of homosexuality, it is good to seek the opinions of homosexuals. And who better than the celebrated comedienne, Wanda Sykes? Just before we get to Wanda; the way is which homosexuality is regarded in many parts of the Caribbean, forcing homosexuals to hide or literally be stoned to death or be killed in any other way, suggests that homosexuals are fighting a serious battle. And let’s not think we can win the war on HIV/AIDS without discussing, at the very least, all forms of sexuality. So let’s not cloud the issue. If homosexuality is God’s retaliation, them leave it at that (with its corollary, noted below) and leave out the “liberated personal choice”.
The argument from Wanda is this: Homosexuality is not a choice. If it is, then maybe sexuality in all its forms is all about choice. In which case, imagine a man saying this to his wife or girlfriend: My dear, you know what? I really feel like having sex with a man; but I choose, I choose to have sex with you instead.
Maybe we should not just compare homosexuality to other forms of sexuality, we should also compare sin to sin. The idea that homosexuality is a punishment from God should be extended to point out all those other forms of punishment God metes out to those who have rejected him. According to the same first chapter of Romans that Shelton Daniel quoted, these other sins would include: “unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,” etc.
If we call homosexuality a sin, all of us are not homosexuals but all of us are sinners. Hence all of us, not just homosexual, must repent according to the epistle of Shelton Daniel to the homosexuals. In this regard, homosexuals might just realize that they have no choice (liberated or otherwise) but to think that they are just like the rest of us sinners. This is not a “liberated” view. To me, the concept of a homosexual marriage is an oxymoron. Call it something else. But we must follow the logic of Shelton Daniel’s argument, even if it leads to the conclusion that, in some ways, in our many sinful ways, the homosexuals and the rest of us are all in the same den.
Thank you
Dr. Lester CN Simon
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
AFTER 28 YEARS
INDEPENDENCE MY FOOT
Dr. Lester CN Simon
Can it be that after twenty eight years of independence, we suddenly wake up to the realization that independence is not a single, ceremonial night of becoming, not a boisterous walking away from England, not an annual celebratory event, but rather, a gradual process of extracting and filtering a way of life that on one hand, makes us different from others, but on the other hand, makes us establish and cherish an amalgam of values, common to all humankind?
Consequent on the recent passing of the last matriarch of my maternal family, I have been rediscovering pathways and places in my village that I had long abandoned and forgotten. After the funeral, I was forced to park so close to the yard where I grew up, a wave of nostalgia almost blew me over. This reconnect has taken me from nursery-school road to primary-school ground, from family and friends I took for granted, to villagers whose names had become uncomfortably unfamiliar, but whose familiar faces collectively painted a landscape from which I had exited with indecent haste and improper and impolite closure.
It is not enough to say you are independent of a noun (a person, place or thing) if you have just walked away, even if you said goodbye. You have to return. Going back ensures that you are truly independent because it pitches the memory of things past, against the reality of things present. It brings to quick attention, and into sharp focus, an understanding of living that is different in its method from the past, but an understanding nonetheless, that is identical in outcome. It simply says that these are my people, my tribe. As different as other tribes and villagers may seem, we all come to a singular state from myriad roads and all roads lead to the one homeland we call the nation of Antigua and Barbuda.
Recently, there have been all kinds of talk about native Antiguans and Barbudans versus non-nationals. Some have even gone as far as to talk about xenophobia. Talk is cheap. Hence I take my expensive time to write and say that, yes, there will be unwanted and unwarranted excesses in the claiming and re-claiming of nationhood after long periods of unchallenged quiescence. This is not xenophobia. I will call out these occasional excesses but I will not genuflect and offer exuberant excuses for them, anymore than I will offer guests at our home the appropriate excuse for the torrents of rainwater that flood our yard after a long drought.
You cannot come into a country, you cannot even sleep in a house or stand at the bus station, for a short time and claim knowledge and familiarity. Such instant familiarity is deeply contemptuous and is a registration of mockery. Worse, is the vulgar and wanton disrespect for our culture and blind deference for yours as if you are a peninsular of non-nationals jutting out from a mainland of nationals. That can’t work.
You have to become foot soldiers. You have to walk for affirmation and walk again for confirmation. You have to walk to, and through places in this land, taking instinctive pictures of nouns, and then go back, after a time, to see the transformation of these persons, places and things. It is this distraction, this voluntary separation and distinction over time, between the past and the present that helps to create a view of life that is truly independent, because it tests your affirmation.
This is why we can never say we are independent until we revisit our separation from England over long periods of time, such as twenty eight years. We will come to the realization that as much as we disliked many things English because of our history, the differential of time tells us an independent fact. There are just so many ways to do anything. There are just so many ways to ride a bicycle; and even the number of ways to skin a cat is not infinite. There are just so many ways to unite people. We must have a regional radio broadcasting service before we have a Caribbean Court of Justice, or at least have both at the same time.
Indeed, some ways are not particularly English; some ways are simply human. But this independent thought and associated action can only come with proper closure of our servile, historical links with England and other colonial states, and opening of a relationship rooted in the common values and virtues of humankind. This is why reparations are as inseparable from independence as our future is inseparable from our past.
It is in returning to our places of growing up and measuring our growth that we establish the notion that whilst we no longer speak as children, and even though we have put away childhood things, the charity that we display as adults is actually the very same charity (probably less now) that we displayed as children; only now, as adults, the method of distributing that common charity (greater than faith and hope), is simply different.
The next time you hear non-nationals talk about their instant love for Antigua and Barbuda, ask them a few questions; and ask some Antiguans and Barbudans the same too. How many trees have you seen grow? How many children have you witnessed and helped pass through the rigors of life? How many roads, byways and pathways and buildings have you seen altered or transformed? How is your view of today, in this land, different from yesterday, to allow you to arrive at a viewpoint of our present, if you do not know our past? How can you help us surge into the future if your view of our future is dependent only on what you see and hear today?
Some things in life take time. Independence of thought, word and deed takes a long time. You have to get up, get out, and walk about all over this country over periods of time and mingle, to know it and its people. So the next time anyone says they know Antigua and Barbuda and Antiguans and Barbudans and they want to share our independence, ask then to show you the motion and emotion of their long walk for more than a mile and a half around this country. Ask then to show you their feet.
Dr. Lester CN Simon
Can it be that after twenty eight years of independence, we suddenly wake up to the realization that independence is not a single, ceremonial night of becoming, not a boisterous walking away from England, not an annual celebratory event, but rather, a gradual process of extracting and filtering a way of life that on one hand, makes us different from others, but on the other hand, makes us establish and cherish an amalgam of values, common to all humankind?
Consequent on the recent passing of the last matriarch of my maternal family, I have been rediscovering pathways and places in my village that I had long abandoned and forgotten. After the funeral, I was forced to park so close to the yard where I grew up, a wave of nostalgia almost blew me over. This reconnect has taken me from nursery-school road to primary-school ground, from family and friends I took for granted, to villagers whose names had become uncomfortably unfamiliar, but whose familiar faces collectively painted a landscape from which I had exited with indecent haste and improper and impolite closure.
It is not enough to say you are independent of a noun (a person, place or thing) if you have just walked away, even if you said goodbye. You have to return. Going back ensures that you are truly independent because it pitches the memory of things past, against the reality of things present. It brings to quick attention, and into sharp focus, an understanding of living that is different in its method from the past, but an understanding nonetheless, that is identical in outcome. It simply says that these are my people, my tribe. As different as other tribes and villagers may seem, we all come to a singular state from myriad roads and all roads lead to the one homeland we call the nation of Antigua and Barbuda.
Recently, there have been all kinds of talk about native Antiguans and Barbudans versus non-nationals. Some have even gone as far as to talk about xenophobia. Talk is cheap. Hence I take my expensive time to write and say that, yes, there will be unwanted and unwarranted excesses in the claiming and re-claiming of nationhood after long periods of unchallenged quiescence. This is not xenophobia. I will call out these occasional excesses but I will not genuflect and offer exuberant excuses for them, anymore than I will offer guests at our home the appropriate excuse for the torrents of rainwater that flood our yard after a long drought.
You cannot come into a country, you cannot even sleep in a house or stand at the bus station, for a short time and claim knowledge and familiarity. Such instant familiarity is deeply contemptuous and is a registration of mockery. Worse, is the vulgar and wanton disrespect for our culture and blind deference for yours as if you are a peninsular of non-nationals jutting out from a mainland of nationals. That can’t work.
You have to become foot soldiers. You have to walk for affirmation and walk again for confirmation. You have to walk to, and through places in this land, taking instinctive pictures of nouns, and then go back, after a time, to see the transformation of these persons, places and things. It is this distraction, this voluntary separation and distinction over time, between the past and the present that helps to create a view of life that is truly independent, because it tests your affirmation.
This is why we can never say we are independent until we revisit our separation from England over long periods of time, such as twenty eight years. We will come to the realization that as much as we disliked many things English because of our history, the differential of time tells us an independent fact. There are just so many ways to do anything. There are just so many ways to ride a bicycle; and even the number of ways to skin a cat is not infinite. There are just so many ways to unite people. We must have a regional radio broadcasting service before we have a Caribbean Court of Justice, or at least have both at the same time.
Indeed, some ways are not particularly English; some ways are simply human. But this independent thought and associated action can only come with proper closure of our servile, historical links with England and other colonial states, and opening of a relationship rooted in the common values and virtues of humankind. This is why reparations are as inseparable from independence as our future is inseparable from our past.
It is in returning to our places of growing up and measuring our growth that we establish the notion that whilst we no longer speak as children, and even though we have put away childhood things, the charity that we display as adults is actually the very same charity (probably less now) that we displayed as children; only now, as adults, the method of distributing that common charity (greater than faith and hope), is simply different.
The next time you hear non-nationals talk about their instant love for Antigua and Barbuda, ask them a few questions; and ask some Antiguans and Barbudans the same too. How many trees have you seen grow? How many children have you witnessed and helped pass through the rigors of life? How many roads, byways and pathways and buildings have you seen altered or transformed? How is your view of today, in this land, different from yesterday, to allow you to arrive at a viewpoint of our present, if you do not know our past? How can you help us surge into the future if your view of our future is dependent only on what you see and hear today?
Some things in life take time. Independence of thought, word and deed takes a long time. You have to get up, get out, and walk about all over this country over periods of time and mingle, to know it and its people. So the next time anyone says they know Antigua and Barbuda and Antiguans and Barbudans and they want to share our independence, ask then to show you the motion and emotion of their long walk for more than a mile and a half around this country. Ask then to show you their feet.
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