Tuesday, July 22, 2008

More conservative religionist nonsense

This time emanating from that well-known centre of progress and democracy, Sudan - how much easier it would be to take anything African religious leaders seriously if their countries didn't do so very much to give succour to colonialist sympathisers! In this case we are talking about a country where the Christians are so right wing that their ideals are little better than Sharia law, and where the country has been plagued with religious and communal violence, encouraged by the Church. They are so concerned to appear even more conservative than fundamentalist Muslims that they expect Anglicans to go down the same path, worldwide.

They are trying to blackmail the American church by telling them to get rid of Bishop Gene Robinson.

This particular Bishop said that he knows no gay people and that in Sudan "we do not have them"

In other words, too scared to be anything other than hidden because of the Muslims and the Christians. Delightful. And he thinks it right that Christians essentially support Sharia law so they don't lose support to fundamentalist Muslims. He thinks that its OK to be homophobic so, according to his warped logic, less people will be murdered by fundamentalist Muslims.

What rot. The thing which gets people murdered is the war between two sets of premodern religious extremists. They are two sides of the same coin. Muslims in Sudan hate Christians no matter what they happen to teach. Using the presence of liberal Christians in the West is a shameful distortion of his own country's lack of civilised values. If he was any sort of leader, he would be rejecting those premodern values.

I have a better idea

How about all you pre-modern primitive thinkers fuck off and play fundamentalism with one another - and whilst you are at it, lets have you stop asking all these terrible liberal countries for money. Now, that's something African countries are very good at - other than internet corruption scams! No more aid from these dreadful Western countries with their horrible liberal ideas. After all, how can you condemn Western morality on the one hand and be happy to accept its assistance on the other?

In any case, aid should only be given as long as population control is part of the package, and no support should be given to governments who will simply waste the money and have no democratic foundation. Ludicrous amounts ogf money have been wasted in Africa, and I thiunk that sometimes, we have to stand back and ask some hard questions. And I think it is my colleagues on the Left who have the most to answer - particularly the third world can do no wrong brigade.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Such nasty language and ill-tempered remarks will do nothing to help debate and argument. The Archbishop is not responsible for the problems in The Sudan, indeed, he is working for reconciliation in the face of appalling violence. As for the Archbishop's comments on the lack of gay people in The Sudan, this may be due to an assumption that everyone has the same understanding of sexuality. Our Western concepts are very recent (ca. 150 years) and are just that, Western. Are we sure that, in this debate, all parties are using the same language to describe the same thing?

Merseymike said...

Excuses, excuses.

Interesting how African homophobia is always excused by cultural relativism, whereas gay equality is denied for exactly the same reason.

I am quite sure there are few openly gay people in the Sudan, largely because the cultural prejudices do not enable such openness. That is because of the deficiencies of pre-modernity - because Western development and progress has enabled an enlightened understanding of sexuality which this individual clearly does not have. And I have no intention of excusing him - because as someone supposedly with a PhD he should know better. As I have already said - leadership should involve dispelling premodern myth, not backing it up. I am tired of hearing excuses for colonialist Victorian values dressed up as Africanism!

Reconciliation - spoken like a true Christian! It is two sets of conservative religionists against each other - and his answer is to blame others for his own deficiencies. Christianity and Islam are equally part of the problem. They solve nothing.

Anonymous said...

Speaking of Sudan I found this Blog yesterday

http://black-gay-arab.blogspot.com

So there is hope.