Teaching about LGBT

There has been a lot of pressure, campaigning and activism to stop some schools from teaching Relationships and sex education, primarily in the Muslim community and mainly Birmingham.

Few friends forwarded to me an online petition about the matter and I was surprised by their attitude and ignorance! When I challenged their motives, they would argue that the age is not appropriate! Asking them how old is appropriate and how old were they when they started hearing and learning about sex from other kids? "it is now different" is usually the answer I get. And it is different, porn is very accessible and god knows what kids are watching on their iPads most of the time.


Last Friday I lead the prayer in my local mosque and despite the tragedy that took place in New Zealand I couldn't avoid talking about this issue as well. I asked the congregation if any of them didn't know about same sex relationship and if they rather their children hear and learn about it from the other kids on the road (like we did) or in a more proper and structured way? I also asked people to acknowledge that we are a minority in this society and we witness a lot of prejudice and discrimination, so do we want other minorities to be subjected to the same? do we support freedom for ourselves but deny it to others? Should we not work with other minority groups rather than against them?
I could not understand what the Muslim community in Birmingham (and in the UK) priorities are: four mosques attacked during the last week in Birmingham, 50 Muslims killed in a terrorist attack in New Zealand, and the thing that got people on the street is sex education!

It reminded me of a friend who told me that her parents in law did not eat meat for 15 years because there was no Halal butchers in the area , still they didn't pray (which is one of the five pillars of Islam)!


Ahmad Baker
London
23.03.2019

Ps: Outsiders is more than just "sex education" but even if it was, this is my response. 

Terror on Friday..

New Zealand


I am sad, scared and scarred.

I am sad, when I heard the news I imagined myself being there, among the dead and injured, and I felt sad. In a place of safety, peace and worship, people were killed. Not because of something they did, or did not, but because of how they were perceived, how they are portrayed, and for being different.

And yesterday I was scared, when I attended the Friday prayer, when I walked to my car in the car park, and every moment I thought about the future, I was scared.

Today I woke up pierced with pain, I felt my face and body for the scars of the bullets, and I could feel them on me, felt them many times before in the hatred and vile speeches and headlines that filled our papers, media and Internet.

I do not want to die, or at least not be killed. Not because I love life but because I deserve a chance to life, like everyone else.

People will say do not be defeatist, do let the terrorists win! Save me the rhetoric, they have won, and have been winning all the time, let's accept that to know how to move on.

We allowed this to happen, all of us, and it will happen again. There are 7 billion people on earth, thousands of religions, languages, cultures, ways of life and through out history we have always looked down at some of our fellow humans because they are different, because we are different, because we are right and they are wrong, because we are better. Century or two later and the right became wrong, the better worse, and another group of fellow humans becomes subject to vilification and humiliation and the circle of violence never stops. Maybe now more than any other time we should accept that " humans are one of two, your brothers in faith or equal in humanity".

Life is not beautiful, it is terrible and full of pain and suffering wherever you look. It becomes beautiful when your purpose of being is to help others, I know that sounds like preaching and its boring. So let me try this, don't be an asshole, be nice, do not support, elect, share, watch, read or buy what assholes produce, and be nice, especially to the ones who are "different"..

Ahmad Baker
London 16.03.2019

Agreeing with the far right:

Ahmad Baker

It was troubling to bring myself to the idea of listening to Steve Bannon’s lecture at the Oxford Union. I despise the guy, his harmful and dividing rhetoric, and his dangerous ideology. But one must admit that he is successful, he succeeded in putting Trump in the White House, despite all the odds he united the “deplorables” under common goals and got Trump elected. His thoughts and views are sought out by the far right and right groups in Europe (including the UK, we still part of that continent) and he provides them with advice, strategies and methodology to win elections.

Still I listened to his talk and the Q&A session, and it was not surprising to me that I agree with him, on a lot of stuff. But I mainly agree with Steve Bannon in his diagnosis to the problems we face in our societies, not the treatment, not his way of resolving these problems, or even addressing them.

In this country we have Theresa May, a robot who is supported by major media outlets and rich donors, and most of the British public feel sorry for her, but do not trust her. On the other hand, is Jeremy Corbyn, who has been consumed by internal fights and disruptions that showed what a week leader he is, but still he offers genuine politics that can improve our day to day lives.

Steve Bannon and Trump campaign saw Bernie Saunders as a real opponent who could easily defeated Trump, because like Trump he offers real alternative to the current political status, he was talking about the same problems Trump talked about, but providing different answers, the “deplorables” could trust him because he did not treat them with contempt.

That is what we need in this country, people who are willing to talk about the injustices in our communities, in details, and offer real solutions that do not just blame the immigrants. We need the likes of Corbyn and Saunders who do sympathise with the hardly pressed sections of the society, and willing to take money from the rich and invest it in our present to improve our future.

Extremism is on the rise, the far right is gaining more and more grounds and becoming normalised every day in the UK, because they are able to talk about the problems we face and offer a simple straight answer to most these problems: it is the OTHERs to blame. This simple answer is divisive, harmful, and clearly wrong; however, many people are buying into it because it is an answer, not any answer, it is an answer to their problems that they are living through ever day.

Steve Bannon says in this talk that to win those people, to win elections, you do not need Facebook and the massive media, you need to knock on people’s doors, talk to them, the ones you disagree as well as the one you agree with, sympathise with their concerns and offer them answers to their problems.

He is right and make a start by listening to his talk, do not fall for his white wash of the many things he or Trump said or did, but listen to his passion in addressing a congregation of students who most of them disagree with him, but he was willing to make the effort to reach out to them.

I am always astonished by this say which summarise our state of affairs  “Oh god I seek refuge in you from the laziness of the righteous and the perseverance of the wrong doer” (Omar bin Alkhattab). Yes, those who are right and honest and truthful hardly move, they are the silent majority. On the other hand, the wrongdoers, the liars, the narcissist the xenophobe racist scums are the ones with the loudest voice, taking part in every rally and campaign.

Footnotes on “to kill a mocking bird”

Say something Scout! I found myself shouting inside, but instead, she helped her aunty with serving the cakes and as if nothing has happened. Outraged by the miscarriage of justice and widespread racism, I expected an 8 year old to say or do something,  forgetting that she was a child.

Atticus said after the trial: they have done I t before and did it tonight, and they will do it again, and when they do- it seems only the children weep.  He was right, and instead of doing something, we wait for the children to do the right thing!

It feels strange writing about “to kill a mocking bird”, I heard and read so much about it that I had very high expectations when I picked it up, soon I was disappointed! More than a hundred pages through and  the story is moving in a very steady slow build up. Even the poetic expressions are not that great, only line I copied into my notes was from the first few pages describing the front gate of Raddley’s as “drunken gate”.

Things then suddenly peaked through the trial and the few nights before, I could not put the book down. As the trial concluded and Maycomb returned to it is “normal” live, the book pace returned to what it was before.  But with the benefit of hind insight, you know that underneath this slow unremarkable life there is so much brewing. It reminded me of a scene from 12 years a slave: Solomon was whipped and then was left in pain and misery  on the post while in the same shot you could see the children playing and workers picking the cotton in the fields.

And in Maycomb Alabama things were not the same, an innocent man died unjustly, his peers continued to live the same injustice, and many people realising the injustice and wanting to do something about it. Also in the same place, the people living on the far side of society, who thought they became hero for oppressing the already oppressed, soon realised that they are not wanted in the society,  only used for a purpose, only important once compared to other humans, but otherwise, they belong outside and once they played their role, they should (no choice) retrieve to their dungeons !

As I finished the book, I had an urge to read it again, that slow steady flow of life in Maycomb in the first 100 pages seems to be very relevant to understand life in the south, life in the thirties, and why people do what they do. The prejudice, racism, self-righteousness, ignorance are not the real problems, they are manifestations of much deeper rooted issues in that society and every society, and they are as relevant –if not more relevant as they were then.

I do not know what Harper Lee’s politics are? I don’t know who she thought has the power to change things? Or who’s duty is it to change things? But she managed to use the children to illustrate all sections of society, because children are innocent, not yet morally corrupt, or because they see things in a less complicated way than adults. The bottom line is that children’s passion and honesty should guide us to the truth.

Last month the children in the UK took action on the street about Global Warming, last year after the shooting in Parkland the children in America took the lead in taking actions, and this month as the adults are failing to do anything meaningful  about knife crime, the children might do something about it. Every time we fail in our duty towards our fellow humans, we see the children weep and we do nothing.

Harper Lee succeeded in telling a great story in a great way, and I have enjoyed reading it specially on the many occasions when the children do not do what you want them to do, when the great magnificent things you want to happen, do not happen. One thing in particular I found astonishing the book, is how the most scary evil thing in the story was the most righteous.

There is so much more to say about this very interesting story, but I don’t want to ruin it for you, once you read it, we can talk about it ;)

Ahmad Baker