Climate Change at the UN

As a global ambassador for Oxfam, Djimon has travelled in sub-Saharan Africa and seen the direct links between climate change and human suffering. "I've witnessed firsthand devastation with drought," Mr Hounsou told reporters after he helped to kick off the UN Summit on Climate Change. "Year after year, local farmers are still expecting rain to come pretty much as it used to. Its not coming, so they adapt, with their crops and plantings."

I share Djimon's opinion about the human cost of climate change and I too am passionately aware of the enormity of the problem that it poses to mankind and to our home, the Earth. I applaud him for the good work he has been doing as a humanitarian and as a climate activist. He has let people know what the rich industrialised nations need to be doing to help the less rich developing nations adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change, a very real problem that is creeping up on us slowly but surely. "Climate change threatens to roll back years of development gains", the UN Secretary General said during his address to the General Assembly at the UN climate change summit. The entire continent of Australia has been in the grip of a drought for the best part of a decade.

Parts of East Africa have experienced successive years of failed rains. In West Africa, desertification is a serious problem in the arid Sahel regions, causing the migration southwards of large numbers of people; whereas flooding is becoming more frequent in the coastal regions. Africa is the continent that is least prepared to deal with the effects of climate change, yet the people of Africa are those who will suffer most severely from its impact. And this is already being felt in many parts of the continent.

This is a global problem, the cause for which the rich industrialised nations must accept responsibility. It is a problem that we must work together to tackle, rich and less rich nations alike. However, it is trite that because the rich industrialised nations bear a greater responsibility for the problem, they ought to be providing assistance more actively to the less well-off countries in the fight against climate change. The idea being mooted that Western nations should pay for investment in technologies designed to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of emergent economies such as India and Brazil is encouraging. It is important that people recognise the seriousness of this problem that our generation has on its hands.

For C'est Moi

Untold suffering of children in Kenya, victims of sex tourism

I was taken aback by this news report this evening. I'm lost for words.. Please read the report on the Channel 4 website, its quite informative. The New York Times carried this opinion on the same subject earlier this year..

At the UN

Oxfam global ambassador & actor Djimon Hounsou and Oxfam International spokesperson David Waskow speaking with the press at the UN Summit on Climate Change. UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon said actor Djimon Hounsou is doing a dramatic reading to "set the tone."

Isn't this cool..

This blog translated in Swahili

Lingering thoughts

I was thinking over the weekend about how more apparent it is becoming that I am dissimilar to those with whom I have to work, but more so, from those with whom I have to interact in social situations. Yes, I live in the UK, but the social circles within which I find myself are comprised mostly of people of African descent, African and Caribbean men and women, for many of whom the very idea of same-sex attraction is anathema. For this reason my sexual orientation is not a matter that I am able to discuss openly with many of the people around me, those whose association I value. It is a problem because it appears to me that there is a vital part of my person that is hidden from them. And in a strange way, I am uneasy about this since I cannot help thinking of it as untruthfulness on my part. I suppose in their minds I am thought of as just another bachelor, and at my age I should soon qualify for the honour of being referred to as a "confirmed bachelor", lol. And 'bachelor' is a status that is seen as inherently 'junior' to the status of 'married man'. But I cannot blame them, since they can only see the world through their own eyes and interpret what they see using their minds.

In an ideal world, I would wish to be among them, on the arm of the man I love, being seen together, me and him, as a couple, on equal terms with any of the heterosexual couples around us. Thoughts of this kind have lurked in my mind for years, but as time has gone by and one has become older and more mature in mind and body, the thoughts have become more poignant, and more frequent. It was the anniversary celebration of my church last Sunday. After the usual Sunday service, which had an unusually large number of people present in the congregation many of whom were invited guests, there was a function in the church hall where the guests were feted and people stood around chatting and socialising generally; the clergy and the church members mingling with the invited guests. It struck me as I stood among all these people how glaring it was that I was different, since I seemed to be the only grown up male who was unaccompanied by his partner.

Africans (and especially Nigerians) have a way of making a show of their couplehood, (does such a word exist?). Wives make a point of wearing matching outfits with their husbands, asserting their spousal union with the person whose outfit matches theirs. This made my solitariness even more pointed at the church function yesterday. There is one particular lady, extremely friendly and a member of the church who is herself happily married with four children. She has mentioned a few times, in passing, that she has some cousins whom I might be interested in. I know she means well, and I hold nothing against her. Clearly she sees me as in need of a wife, but I just laugh it off and say, "You're so kind, but I'm not ready yet..." or something like, "I'm happy the way I am at the moment...". But this is exactly what I meant earlier when I said I feel as if I'm being untruthful. How I would have wished for her knowing who I really am, suggest to me that she has a male cousin whom she'd like me to meet.. (wishful thinking eh? lol..) But it doesn't stop there.

I'm not writing this post because I'm lamenting the fact that I'm not currently in a relationship. Even if I was in a relationship and I attended that church function in the company of my partner, we both would still be seen as two bachelors, regardless that we were in a deeply committed and meaningful relationship. Our relationship (assuming people understood the nature of it) would still be regarded as not at par with a heterosexual relationship, whatever the state of that heterosexual relationship. It seems that it is the heterosexual marriage that sets you up for social upward mobility. I heard on the news today that Elton John and his partner David Furnish with whom he has entered into a civil partnership, (which is a formal union recognised in law as equal to a marriage between a heterosexual couple), were denied a proposed adoption of a Ukrainian child by the Ukrainian authorities. Why? You might ask. Wait for it...because Elton John is not married. So it appears then that the Ukrainian authorities (and Ukrainian law, apparently) believe that the child's future is better secured when he remains in an orphanage throughout his childhood, while being denied the warmth and security that two loving parents could provide.

Anyway coming back to what I was saying before I digressed, there is an unhealthy situation that needs to be rectified. A situation which leaves people like me feeling left out of society's mainstream; and where for me and others like myself to climb up the social ladder, we must conceal what is our true nature and pretend to be something that we are not. I cannot change my sexual nature, so asking me to do this is like saying to the straight man that he must become gay in order to make progress with his life, or in his career. I am fortunate that I live in a country where my sexual orientation is not a bar to my career advancement, but it is still an issue in my social life, since I am reluctant to limit my social contacts only to others who are like me, and since I understand keenly that there's a lot more to this world than just whom we fall in love with, or who we are attracted to as individuals. Sexual orientation is just a natural attribute, so it should not be all defining. 

What in fact can be changed is the way people perceive same-sex attraction and same-sex love. But again, maybe this too is wishful thinking. I know I've been rambling in this post, but I needed to let that out somehow. 

Have a great week ahead everyone.

Promise me

An apology long overdue

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown offered a posthumous apology today for the "inhumane" treatment of Alan Turing, the World War II codebreaker who committed suicide in 1954 after being prosecuted for homosexuality and forcibly treated with female hormones. The mathematician helped crack Nazi Germany's Enigma encryption machine — a turning point in the war — and is considered a father of modern computing. In 1952, however, Turing was convicted of gross indecency for having sex with a man and offered a choice between prison and "chemical castration" — the injection of female hormones to suppress his libido. His security clearance was revoked and he was no longer allowed to work for the government.
Two years later, he killed himself at age 41 by eating an apple laced with cyanide. Gordon Brown’s statement came in response to a petition posted on the Number 10 website which has received thousands of signatures in recent months.

Gordon Brown's statement

2009 has been a year of deep reflection - a chance for Britain, as a nation, to commemorate the profound debts we owe to those who came before. A unique combination of anniversaries and events have stirred in us that sense of pride and gratitude which characterise the British experience. Earlier this year I stood with Presidents Sarkozy and Obama to honour the service and the sacrifice of the heroes who stormed the beaches of Normandy 65 years ago. And just last week, we marked the 70 years which have passed since the British government declared its willingness to take up arms against Fascism and declared the outbreak of World War Two. So I am both pleased and proud that, thanks to a coalition of computer scientists, historians and LGBT activists, we have this year a chance to mark and celebrate another contribution to Britain’s fight against the darkness of dictatorship; that of code-breaker Alan Turing.

Turing was a quite brilliant mathematician, most famous for his work on breaking the German Enigma codes. It is no exaggeration to say that, without his outstanding contribution, the history of World War Two could well have been very different. He truly was one of those individuals we can point to whose unique contribution helped to turn the tide of war. The debt of gratitude he is owed makes it all the more horrifying, therefore, that he was treated so inhumanely. In 1952, he was convicted of ‘gross indecency’ - in effect, tried for being gay. His sentence - and he was faced with the miserable choice of this or prison - was chemical castration by a series of injections of female hormones. He took his own life just two years later.

Thousands of people have come together to demand justice for Alan Turing and recognition of the appalling way he was treated. While Turing was dealt with under the law of the time and we can’t put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him. Alan and the many thousands of other gay men who were convicted as he was convicted under homophobic laws were treated terribly. Over the years millions more lived in fear of conviction.

I am proud that those days are gone and that in the last 12 years this government has done so much to make life fairer and more equal for our LGBT community. This recognition of Alan’s status as one of Britain’s most famous victims of homophobia is another step towards equality and long overdue. But even more than that, Alan deserves recognition for his contribution to humankind. For those of us born after 1945, into a Europe which is united, democratic and at peace, it is hard to imagine that our continent was once the theatre of mankind’s darkest hour. It is difficult to believe that in living memory, people could become so consumed by hate - by anti-Semitism, by homophobia, by xenophobia and other murderous prejudices - that the gas chambers and crematoria became a piece of the European landscape as surely as the galleries and universities and concert halls which had marked out the European civilisation for hundreds of years. It is thanks to men and women who were totally committed to fighting fascism, people like Alan Turing, that the horrors of the Holocaust and of total war are part of Europe’s history and not Europe’s present.

So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to Alan’s work I am very proud to say: we’re sorry, you deserved so much better.

Gordon Brown

Semenya update

I heard these words on the radio this morning driving to work ..."An Australian newspaper has claimed that Semenya is a hermaphrodite - someone who has some or all of the primary sex characteristics of both men and women." I quickly logged on to the BBC website on arrival at my desk and found this.. "Semenya tests as 'inter gender'. 

This situation is becoming more complicated than one would have hoped for. I read an article a few weeks ago where it was suggested that although some may think that determining if someone is a man or woman would be as simple as looking to see if they have breasts and a vagina or a penis, in reality it is far more complex.

The external genitalia of a person can be "ambiguous". For example, the clitoris may be enlarged so that it looks like a small penis or a female's labia may be fused, resembling a scrotum. There are also chromosomal and hormonal variations and conditions.Then there is the condition known as congenital adrenal hyperplasia, a condition in which the body produces more androgen, a type of male hormone. If a girl has it, she will usually have normal internal female reproductive organs, but may not have periods and may have a male appearance. I understand that this together with a number of other conditions are recognised by the IAAF as giving an advantage to the individual athlete, but are accepted nonetheless. 

There are other conditions, including polycystic ovaries and androgen producing tumours, where a woman can have higher than normal levels of testosterone which are not thought to offer any advantage to athletes. In addition, there is a condition called androgen insensitivity syndrome where someone may have internal and undescended testes - and high levels of testosterone - but look like a woman and have a vagina and a uterus. (No, I'm not an expert. I just happened to read this).

The Majorelle Gardens

I used a photograph of these lovely gardens on the front page of my blog and I thought the least I could do is to share some information about the place. The Majorelle Garden is a botanical garden in Marrakech, Morocco. The garden was designed in 1924 by Frenchman Jacques Majorelle (1886-1962) during the colonial period when Morocco was a protectorate of France. The special shade of bold cobalt blue used extensively in the garden is named after him bleu Majorelle.

In 1980 the famous French fashion icon Yves Saint-Laurent and his lifelong partner Pierre Bergé acquired the gardens. After Yves Saint-Laurent died in 2008 his ashes were scattered in the Majorelle Garden. His partner Bergé said during the funeral service: “But I also know that I will never forget what I owe you, and that one day I will join you under the Moroccan palms". The gardens have been open to the public since 1947.

The garden also houses the Islamic Art Museum of Marrakech, whose collection includes North African textiles from Saint-Laurent's personal collection as well as ceramics, jewelry, and paintings by Majorelle. The garden hosts more than 15 bird species, which can be found only in this area of North Africa. There is an extensive array of images of this wonderful place to be found on the Internet. Examples are here and here.

Putting her critics to shame

The new look of Caster Semenya, silencing those who dared to doubt that she's a woman. She appeared on the cover of South Africa's You magazine. For the shoot Semenya sported a less ambiguous hair style, a designer black dress, jewelry, makeup and nail polish. Despite what you think about the whole situation, it's safe to say that in this photo Semenya truly looks like an 18-year old woman.

Now there can be no doubt that she is actually a woman, but it angered me to learn that she was not informed early on that she was being subjected to gender tests.

EIS

"The Extreme Ice Survey (EIS) is the most wide-ranging glacier study ever conducted using ground-based, real-time photography. EIS uses time-lapse photography, conventional photography, and video to document the rapid changes now occurring on the Earth's glacial ice. The EIS team has installed 27 time-lapse cameras at 15 sites in Greenland, Iceland, Alaska, and the Rocky Mountains. EIS supplements this ongoing record with annual repeat photography in Iceland, the Alps, and Bolivia."

I understand that these cameras are to remain in situ until the autumn of this year. The images captured when played back provide a vivid picture of the extent to which the Earth's warming climate is affecting glacial ice and the world's ice sheets, with the potential for disastrous consequences for our planet in terms of rising sea levels if something is not done. It is feared that we might have even passed the tipping point, which is a really scary thought. I've been following James Balog and his colleagues for a while now..

James Balog Speaking Demo from Extreme Ice Survey on Vimeo.