Robert Sharp

Pupil Barrister

Tag: Debate (Page 22 of 27)

Ebenezer

26 June 2006 / / 6 Comments

Following my post regarding names and over-achieving name-alikeys, a correspondent of mine writes:

I wanted to call my son Ebenezer. I wanted him to have a unique name, and I don’t know any other kids called that. When he grew up, he could shorten it to ‘Ben’ if he wanted, or if he fancied something a bit more street, he could call himself ‘Ezey’, like if he was a DJ or something. It would be a good stage name. It would look good on a book jacket. Everyone he met would remember him. He would be talked about. People would say “Do you know Ebenezer?”
…
But my wife wasn’t having any of that. She said that kids at school might bully him. So instead we named him John, after my Dad. My son John, who must now compete for attention with the billions of other Johns out there.

Earlier this year, sitting on a bus winding through the hills of Sri Lanka, I met a British couple who were expecting a baby. He was a Scotsman, while she was of Sinhalese Sri Lankan parentage. They were discussing what name to give the baby. Part of the discussion was to find a combination of first and middle names which acknowledged their disparate heritage. Would the child take on the father’s monosyllabic Scottish surname, it’s mother’s polysyllabic Sri Lankan second name, or a hyphenated tongue-twister which combined the two? I wondered to what extent the origin of the name would affect the child’s relationship to the world around them. In those weeks before a decision was made, the baby had as much chance of being named Christopher or Angus, as being named Dilip, or Hasantha. Born into the twenty-first century UK, he would not, I hope, suffer any prejudice, had his parents chosen the latter moniker. However, it would serve as a constant reminder of his heritage in a far-off continent. What effect would this have on his approach to life, his politics, his “identity”? I imagine it would be quite significant, and positive. EbenezerJohn’s father clearly agrees… as did Johnny Cash when he wrote “A Boy Named Sue”.
Or; Would Cassisus Clay have won as many fights as Muhammed Ali?

Pod-Fisking

7 June 2006 / / 0 Comments

Andrew Sullivan, has taken the art of ‘fisking’ a medium futher by recording a pod-fisk – that is, a podcast that criticises a public broadcast by someone else, clause by clause. In this case, the subject is President George W Bush, defending the malicious proposed constitutional ban on gay marriage.
I am not usually a fan of lengthy fisks. It is ironic that it was apparently Sullivan who coined the term, since he crafts some fantastic self-contained essays, which I prefer.
The genre works well in audio form, however, especially when the subject matter is all style and no substance. Sullivan does an excellent job, arguing that the entire point of the federal system is to allow diversity of law and lifestyle, and that an issue as divisive as gay marriage should be solved at the state level. His assessment of why the President is supporting the ammendment – as a short-term political smoke-screen – is damning.
I have always thought that the existence of homosexual relationships would be life- and love-affirming for everyone else. They demonstrate that love is not the same thing as the base desire to procreate. It is a higher thing.
Sullivan also takes Bush to task over the suggestion that ‘activist judges’ are somehow overriding the will of the people. The British Judiciary have been accused of the same thing recently, as their interpretation of the Human Rights Act has led to some politcally damaging court rulings. In both cases, the argument is that since existing laws have led to counter-intuitive court rulings, then clearly it is the law that is wrong, and not the political attitudes that consider those rulings undesirable. In these cases, no-one dares to suggest that the values enshrined in documents such as the US Bill of Rights, may better capture the values of the people to whom they apply. If those same people have a differing view of a particular case, then perhaps it is they who are the hypocrites. It is not the fault of their existing laws, or the judges who apply them. In this situation, we seem short on conservative pleas to “respect the rule of law”. But as The Daily Dish continues to point out, that has never been on King George’s agenda.

The Goddess, the Spokesmen and Censorship

26 May 2006 / / 5 Comments

[photopress:mfhusain_motherindia.jpg,full,alignleft]It is well worth highlighting another case of an artist causing offence to minority communities. Asia House has seen fit to close an exhibition by MF Hussain, after Hindu Groups protested against the depiction of Indian Goddesses in the nude. Many in the Indian community have found this offensive.
What is worrying is that the exhibition has had to close because of “threats” from offended Hindus. This is an unfortunate development, as it once again has the effect of portraying those from the Asian community as being intolerant and unintegrated. I await with resignation the familiar cries of “multiculturalism doesn’t work”.
As I have said before, if multiculturalism is simply about two groups living side-by-side without integration, then clearly it is not going to work. But if it is about two groups changing each other due to their co-habitation, then a more interesting process is at work.
In this case, the refusal of a vocal minority to uphold ideals of free speech, critically undermines the wider multicultural argument. Thankfully, the Pickled Politics blog is refusing to put up with this kind of sabotage, and a counter-protest and petition against the threats are being planned. In a related post at Comment Is Free, Sunny Hundal explains that the problem stems from various groups competing for victim status:

[The campaign against MF Hussain’s work] was backed by the supposed representative of British Hindus, the Hindu Forum of Britain, whose spokesperson, Ramesh Kallidai, has trotted out the familiar line that Hindus are being maligned in favour of Muslims and other religious groups … This competition for victimhood status has almost become de rigueur.

It is interesting to read how Hundal and others separate the issues of freedom of expression, from the issue of taking offence at an affront to Indian culture. If young progressives come to replace the religious conservatives as the de facto spokespeople for the Asian communities, then the multicultural debate could become much more productive. At present it seems to have entered a religious cul-de-sac which can never be resolved.
Finally, it is worth emphasising that these protests are hilariously counter-productive. As with the Mohammed cartoons, the furore has only served to advertise the exhibition to the likes of me. Now it comes to pass that the first image I have ever seen of Mother India is a nude!
I don’t know the intentions of the artist. However, it is worth pointing out that this is a classic case of how morality and sensibilities change with geography. In Europe, depicting a goddess nude is not just inoffensive, but almost essential. Instead of complaining of “hurt sentiments”, perhaps those who complain should rejoice that icons from Indian culture have achieve parity with the beacons of Western European art, such as the Venus De Milo, and Rodin’s ‘Kiss’. If I, an ignorant Occidental, am to learn about Mother India, Durga and Draupadi, what better way to begin the dialogue by presenting an image of Them in the classical style? Where did I read that early missionaries to India presented Jesus with blue skin, so He more closely resembled the existing deities?
UPDATE: Ah yes, I remember now. It was Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie. Who’d have thought?

Slave trade and national pride

12 May 2006 / / 13 Comments

Longrider makes some points about the slave trade, specifically whether the City of Britstol should apologise for its role in the ‘slave triangle’:

Why should a twenty first century population apologise for something that happened two hundred years before they were born and therefore cannot have any responsibility for? There is also rank hypocrisy here that stinks like a slave ship. The Bristol slavers did not act alone. Their slaves were rounded up and sold to them by Africans. (via DK).

Quite true, but a question springs to mind: Does this hold when the opposite scenario occurs, and the 21st Century population wants to take pride in something achieved by the 19th century population? Ideas of patriotism, the sense of pride in one’s nationality, seem to be rooted in having some connection with our forefathers. If we’re not going to take responsibility for their misdemeanours, in a way we sever that connection. “Cockle-doodle-do!”
On a related point, what I find odd about the particular dialogue in Bristol is this: Was anyone operating under the assumption that the current residents were pleased by this particular piece of its history!? Of course not. Our political discourse takes slavery as an obvious ‘wrong’ – surely its abolition carrys an implied apology? I might go further, and ask that if the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act 1807 is not an apology for slavery, what is? I hardly think a memo from Bristol City Council will cut it…

Whining on the left, whining on the right

5 May 2006 / / 12 Comments

If there’s one thing worse than a whining lefty, its a whining righty, whining about how all lefties are whiners. Over at The Devil’s Kitchen, DK takes issue with the idea that the British (and specifically, the English) should overcome their delusions of grandeur.

I think that one of the things that I dislike about Lefties is their absolute fucking debilitating misery; for Lefties everything is awful and unfair, and the world is a horrible place because we filthy, wasteful, greedy humans inhabit it.

This is a variation on the ‘self-hating white liberal’ cliche, and it really doesn’t stick. To repeat myself: Just because we might feel ‘guilty’ about the evils of our own history, that does not mean we cannot celebrate and take pride in the positive aspects too. While we are indeed pissed off with “filthy, wasteful, greedy humans” it does not mean we cannot or do not delight in the amazing things that humanity does achieve.
Indeed, wonder at humanity’s capacity to achieve great things is the foundation for the Left-whiners’ obsession with equal opportunity. If half of the world’s population are living in poverty, then somewhere there is a Hendrix, dying of AIDS in a Zimbabwean township. Somewhere in Glasgow there is an Einstein, overdosing on heroin. There exist people who are born to fail, and no amount of hard work or focus will allow them to escape the downward spiral. Yes, this makes me miserable, but it is not a prior state of mind. The misery is borne of a lament for humanity’s wasted generations. I feel bad about it, but it is a noble shame.
Nor do I wallow in this misery, and neither does Chicken Yoghurt, the target of DK’s ire. If Justin complains from time to time, it is nevertheless a wholly pro-active complaint, and ultimately a positive thing.
In the same post, the idea of tribalism is invoked as a reason for why we should co-operate to make Britain great again. This tribalism is a result of our evolution from lower primates, says DK. However, he also points out that:

This planet and its inhabitants are a tool for humankind to advance itself: no other creature even comes close to our capabilities.

And this is precisely the point. We have evolved to a stage where we do not need to behave like animals anymore. Tribalism is not politics. It is not about ideas, just random geography. We have evolved to the stage where we should be able to overcome these tribal differences. With the birth of every mixed-race child, with every child born to parents of different nationalities, the tribes mix. The fact is, we shall soon reach the point where there is only homo sapien, and nothing more.
This is an anathema to many right-whiners, who are in thrall to tradition and want to preserve their little clubs/countries. While paying lip-service to the idea of free markets and unfettered investment, they deny the labour market the chance to move in the same way. Instead, ideas of tradition and Way Of Life are invoked to first keep people at home… and then again at the very moment they perceive “another tribe” moves in next door! If we are to itemise ‘ Reasons Why People Piss Me Off’ then the attitude of many right-whiners to ‘The Other’ would be top of my list.
DK asks us to unite and make Britain great again. Why so little ambition? If you’re going to be a benevolent dictator, you may as well conquer the entire world. Borders hamper free-trade, stopping human beings from interacting, trading and working with one-another. Abolish them, and allow innovations in one place to more easily foster progress elsewhere.
More on nationality coming soon… DK continues the debate over at his place. There are a few interesting comments there on the nature of human ‘tribalism’ and whether we can, indeed, overcome it.

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