Privilege, stereotypes and recognising you will never know how it is for someone else.

Has anyone been watching 'Timeless'? It's a new E4 programme where three people chase a 'criminal' through time and, like art should, it uncovers the many prejudices which have existed throughout history. 

The team is made up of a woman who comes face to face with the old school sexism, the black man who ends up in scrapes simply because of the colour of his skin and finally the white good looking man who realises he does not have these barriers. Finally, they come face to face with an 'Old Boys Club', inherited wealth and the advantages this gives its members. 

While it may have shown how far we have come (and how far we have to go). It also showed something else - how privilege affects everything. However much empathy one may have, you will never understand someone else's life. 

If you were born a man, you will never know how it really feels to be a woman. You will never know how it is to be felt up, objectified, feel scared when being followed home, look at your outfit and question if you are asking for it, know that you are earning less than your male contemporaries, be asked when you will have kids, know you only have so long to have kids, know you don't have control over your body, wait for your period to see if you're pregnant, be called a slut, be called frigid, shave or wax over 50% of your skin, have to go to work while feeling like your stomach is being stabbed repeatedly etc etc. 

If you were born one race, you will never know how it is like to be born another. How it is to be suspected by police because of your skin colour, how it is to have friends who have been shot by police, how it is to have people cross the street, how it is to hear from your family how they were forced into worse schools etc during segregation. 

If you were born into a certain religion, you will never know what it is like to be anything else. If you aren't Jewish, you don't know what it is like to have family lost in the Holocaust. If you aren't Muslim, you don't know what it is like to be stared at with fear when you board a plane or say a prayer, or see your religion dragged through the mud when ever a terrorist attack occurs. If you aren't Christian, you don't know what it is like to be questioned on your purity by every male you come into contact with. 

If you have money you will never know what it is like to not have enough for food. If you have an education you will never know what it is like to be illiterate. If you have a country to call home you will never know what it is like to run for your life. If you have a loving family you will never know what it feels like to be truly alone. If you have running water you will never know what it is like to get risk your life because you are thirsty. 

That's the thing you see, you will never know what it is like to have someone else's life. You will never know what it is like to be grouped into another stereotype. You will be in your group, whether you asked for that or not. 

So what can you do about it? Try and show empathy. Try and understand that some groups get it better than others. Try and imagine what it is like to be in their shoes. Then try and challenge it. 

If you were the one at a disadvantage, what would you want someone else to do?

If you were being judged by a police force by your skin, you would want someone to look beyond that and look at the facts. If you were treated like a bad person just because of your religion, you would ask people to look at you as an individual. If you were scared because you had a vagina, then you would want that vagina to be protected. If you had spent years running for your life, searching for a new home, you would want to be welcomed to somewhere safe. 

We are all stereotyped, there is no denying it, but right now some people get it easier. But it could be on the other foot. You could be the one who is being judged on something they can't control, the one who needs help or the one who needs inclusion. 

So recognise your privilege and treat others as you would want to be treated if you weren't so damn lucky, because you are really really lucky, trust me. 

Written by a privileged girl from the UK. 

Is Trump a good Christian man? What should we pray for? Where do we go from here?

How are you meant to look at the American political situation right now? As a Christian I mean.

Well there are the evangelical Christians who supported Trump. Those who are celebrating a control on abortion as God’s will. Those who celebrate the tirade against homosexuality, trans-sexuality, Muslims and the reminder of women’s place in society.

Then there are those sitting there looking at this situation and asking – is this God’s will? Is there any good in this man?

I am sure somewhere inside Donald Trump there is some good. His love for his children and his grandchildren is apparent. His keen business acumen could be celebrated. His obsession with the American worker could be worked as a care for those less fortunate.

But, at the end of the day, in my mind a Christian is defined by love. Yes the bible speaks of judgement and punishment, but not at the hands of other men, but at the hands of God himself. Trump is not God.

His love for others can be questioned. Does he love the Syrian refugees running for their lives? Does he love the Muslim countries he has just put border controls on? Does he love the journalists who were arrested? Does he love the animals who climate change will affect? Does he love the women who will die from unsafe abortions? Does he love the women who accused him of sexual assault? Does he love the disabled who will no longer be covered with Obamacare reforms? Does he love the children being taunted for being different after the rhetoric of his election campaign? Does he love his wife after the social media taunting? Does he love the people he posts mean tweets about? Does he love the other politicians in the world or see them as pawns in his game? Does he love his own daughter when he commented he was proud of her to “a lesser extent” than her siblings? Or does he even think about them at all?

Does he just think of himself? Is he egotistical? Has he created an idol in his own vision? This is the man who used charity money for portraits of himself. This is the man who has his name on every building he owns. This is the man who tweets angry remarks when someone disagrees with him. This is the man who funded his own presidential campaign. This is the man who ran up to the White House instead of holding his wife’s hand. This is the man who stopped organisations tweeting when they didn’t tweet the right remark. This is the man who accused the press of lying when they showed photos of his inauguration.

So does he has respect and honour for the position he holds? Since taking office, he has banned many state departments from using social media. He has spoken out against climate change and reduced funding from the US. He has talked about making America great again, but forgot that he could make the whole world great again. He has moved to build a wall alongside Mexico. He has stopped abortion funding. He has reduced funding for many Diversity boards. He has threatened war with China, indirectly. He has called his lies, alternate truths. He had rioters arrested and then released the man who stabbed an anti-fascist protester. He has said torture works and talked of reinstating it. He has made moves to reject Obamacare and stop the covering of pre-existing conditions. He has done many things, whether he has signed the piece of paper or these things were done under him, but it is his government and in turn his actions.

So is this man a good Christian man? Maybe he is but currently I see little evidence to support that. I really wanted to go through this article and think this man loves, he is not egotistical and he respects his position and the good he can do with it, but the evidence thus far does not show that. I see he shows little love or understanding for the majority of the human race. He seems obsessed with himself and his values rather than what is best for the country, or world as a whole. He seems to lie at every turn and twist the truth for his own benefit. He seems to back policies which segregate, punish and hurt innocent human beings and in turn animals and the planet.

So I hope that through the next year he can show a love to the world that he has shown to his grandchildren. I hope he can show the intelligence he has shown to his business empire to the big problems facing America and the world. I hope he can share the lack of prejudice of his daughters and spread that to all groups in society. I hope that he can be mature and stop tweeting when something doesn’t go away. I hope he shows respect to all those who deserve it, compassion to all those who don’t and becomes a good influence on the world. I hope that he cares for the world with all its differences and problems.

That is a lot of hope and when his actions thus far have brought about more comparisons to Hitler than to a Christian, it seems a jolly long way to go. So if I convert all of those hopes to a prayer maybe that’s a little step there.

So what else can a do a Christian do, when you look at these questions, these statements, the news, what can we do? I think we should stand up and show that he does not represent what Christians are all about! We should show love and support to the groups he is persecuting, whatever race, religion, gender or sexuality. We should pray that he is helped to do some good with his power. We should speak out when we don’t disagree with him. We should rally our politicians to stand up to him. We should extend a hand of friendship to the Americans scared of living under him. We should help fundraise for the causes which are now underfunded. We should ensure that his rhetoric is not normalised, or respected, or permanent. We should show that God made this whole world with all its inhabitants and not just one country, one gender, one race or one religion. Essentially we should love and show what being a Christian really is all about. 

Top 15 quotes of the 'Girls' Education Forum 2016'

"Let's ensure every country has a proper girls education system.. Let's give them the life they deserve." Lord McConnell 2016

"The reason I am a minister is because I went to school. I went in place of my elder sister. I am a guilty man" HE Hon. Deng Deng Hoc Yai. Education Minister of South Sudan.

"We must achieve gender equality. Let's do it for the human race, and above all the girls" HE Hon. Deng Deng Hoc Yai. Education Minister of South Sudan.

"A girl who is educated is able to control and make choices." Bonavitha Gahaiha. Tanzania In-country ICS volunteer. 

"We must create a new normal, where girls overcome the beliefs that hold them back" Maria Etel. CEO of The Nike Foundation/ Founder of The Girl Effect 

"Inequality is destroying our world, but we have the power to change that" Theo Sowa, African Women's Development Fund 

"Every girl has a dream. What do we need to achieve that dream? Education" Muzoon Almellenan. The Malala Fund 

"Education cannot wait for peace to be achieved because there is always war" HE Hon. Deng Deng Hoc Yai. Education Minister of South Sudan.

"The best people to advocate for young people are young people" Justine Greening. UK Secretary of State for International Development. 

"We no longer want to be the exception. We want to be the norm" Nyaradzayi Gombonzvanda. African Union Ambassador for Ending Child Marriage 

"Education in Afghanistan is educating three generations. The parents, the sister and brothers, and the children when that educated girl becomes a mother" HE Minister Assadullah Hanif Ballehi. Education Minister for Afghanistan 

"Men in positions of responsibility need to be responsible" Nyaradzayi Gombonzvanda. African Union Ambassador for Ending Child Marriage 

"We can't keep putting it off nor wait for someone else to put it top of the agenda. Because I can, I will... I mean I am." Justine Greening, Secretary of State for International Development. 

"Investing in girls is not the smart thing to do. It is the right thing to do" Julia Guillard. Global Partnership for Education. 

"We must never be afraid to challenge cultural norms if they don't benefit all members of that society." Eleanor Booth, returned ICS volunteer, aka moi. 

Why are hate, fear and anger an OK justification right now?

There is so much hate in the world at the moment: Trump talking of walls and bans for people of a certain religion, ISIS killing people in general, benefit cuts, MPs voting against taking refugees. It is a sad time. A time where the media can focus on all the hate in the world, in turn allowing people to believe that is all there is. But what about love. 

Love is the most important thing in the world. Not hate, fear or anger; at the end of the day none of that will matter. It will be merely a reason behind a bad decision, an excuse to act out without compassion for your fellow humans, it won't matter. It will be nothing. 

Why do you think we have prisons? Academically we could put that down to social conditioning, control, a decision of those in power and their desire to stay in power. But those crimes that prisons punish: murder, rape, burglary, assault. They are all based around hate, a split second disregard for that other persons feelings, that others persons individual feelings, emotion and right to safety and life. Now let's ask a question: why are there not more people in prison? Should we be arresting those responsible for cutting benefits, isn't that a disregard for a persons rights and emotions? What about those who speak out against relocating refugees: why do we have more rights than those people? Why do we have a right to be in this country more than them? They are the same being, they breathe, eat and poop. What about Trump? A few have said he is the anti-Christ, his views to not let Muslims into his country or Mexican immigrants, well that shows a disregard of their rights and a belief that his rights, and those of people like him, are more important. 

So now let's ask a question. When did this hate start? When did we start believing that hate, fear and anger were reasonable justifications for actions, and not feelings we should overcome? When was that OK? 

People say Trump is succeeding because he is speaking out, he is saying what other people couldn't because it wasn't politically correct. So this backlash might be saying that saying something is politically correct or not is not the best idea. So should we just trust that people love and have compassion for theirs fellow humans enough that they wouldn't ban people from entering a country because somebody else with a similar name or religion have done something bad? Apparently not. 

So let's take that to mean that hate, fear and anger existed before we classified things as politically correct or not. It existed in world war two, well it existed in one regime, one man Hitler functioned on hate, fear and anger; he blossomed under those conditions. We said that he was wrong. Classifying people by race was wrong, not protecting disabled people was wrong: so why is it ok now? 

What about Stalin? We say he was wrong too, we say genocide is wrong, we say Jack the Ripper was an evil man. But now we live in a world where we are sitting there and allowing people with the same motivations function in the acceptable side of society, 

It is not acceptable, it is not right to hate people. It is good to fear people or justify your actions because of it. Being angry doesn't make something right, it just makes us think irrationally. These emotions are natural, they happen, and there is no surprise they happening now. But then again maybe if we loved instead of hated, if we forgave instead of getting angry and we forgot instead of fearing then maybe the world could be full of love.

Maybe the world would look like a brighter place if we shared that love for other people. Maybe the world would be a stronger place if we loved every human being, hey every animal, as if they were our husband and wife, our sister or brother, our mother or farther. 

I am going to start sharing love. Simple love at the-love-channel.blogspot.com. I'd rather read about love right now, I hope you will agree. 

I love you. 

Othering, the fear of difference and a call to celebrate it.

 This is written in response to Zia Haider Rahman's article 'Oh, so now I'm Bangladeshi'  
(http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/10/opinion/oh-so-now-im-bangladeshi.html?mwrsm=Facebook&_r=1).

I read it, thought about it and ran a long way away from the original starting point with it. 

I am sorry if any wording is deemed offensive, it isn't meant to be in anyway. At the end of the day my main point is every human being should be celebrated, and not judged on something they have no power over. 

The ‘other’, it’s a dangerous concept isn’t it. This incessant need of humans to label differences, to provide strength to our individualities, to be deemed normal.

I read an article this morning. It was shared by an incredible woman who I went to a May Ball with in my final year. This article, ‘Oh, so now I’m Bangladeshi?’ by Zia Haider Rahman, was published in 2016, yes 2016. Yet it is still about a subconscious racism. The line “What more is it do you want of us? To be white? To be you?” couldn’t make this clearer. While we may not have racial-hate-statements written across the walls, we might not live in an age where schools, hospitals and buses are segregated by skin colour, we might even be in an age when to a naive white girl Racism no longer exists; yet it does, just now it is more hidden. It is hidden, but not absent, it is there, in all the authority of classifications of every job application, reward, and university application. While that may be to “encourage equal quotas”, how is that any less racist. The lack of racism will be the day when skin colour and heritage are not a topic of conversation, or a rite of passage. It will be a day where colour is not seen as a sign of difference but an optional topic of interest.

So this article is, in very simple terms, based around the announcement of Zira as a judge for the PEN panel. The announcement, as seen below, points out not only the country of birth, but the education and working history of said judge:

“Born in rural Bangladesh, Zia Haider Rahman was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, and at Cambridge, Munich and Yale Universities. He has worked as an investment banker on Wall Street and as an international human rights lawyer.”

Now I remember reading that announcement and had one question, “why does it say where he was born?” To me Zia is qualified to be a judge on his incredible achievements. Those achievements are the fact that he went to some of world’s leading universities, that he has worked as a banker and then qualified as a human rights lawyer. Those are achievements, others could be that he has published influential novels and written articles. They are the achievements that we cared about.

Now if it had said that he was born into poverty in rural Bangladesh and went through the Bangladesh school system, receiving a scholarship for Oxford, then yes that would also be impressive. But it doesn’t say that, it says “Born in rural Bangladesh”. The first four words you read about this man are completely unnecessary but could come with many presumptions on his character, appearance and history. I do not know if he came from a poor village, or his family were wealthy land owners; I do not know if he went to a local school, had no schooling or was sent to boarding school internationally. I don’t even know if actually he was born in Bangladesh on a two week holiday to the country. I know nothing about him from that statement, the only things that statement could provide would be that he was born in a country, which by some would be deemed as less normal than the UK, US, or wherever the other judges were born.

Because, lets question this, would they bother putting those four words in for me if I had been in that judging panel? “Born in rural England, Blah studied at Cambridge….” The answer is no, but what presumptions would you make if they had? That I had a good schooling? That I grew up on a farm? That I spent hours ensuring that all my extra-curricular and academic activities would enable me to go to Cambridge, from around age 4?

Probably some of those and not others, because that is what that statement welcomes: presumptions and othering. Othering based on his heritage, an invitation to ignore or excuse his other achievements.

I thought that one day in my life time we would realise that othering people does not do us any favours. Judging someone on their skin colour, heritage, religion or country of birth is completely redundant. What does that really tell you about someone? Maybe that they celebrate some different holidays, maybe that they have been brought up with different customs or beliefs, maybe that they wear a different foundation: but at the end of the day every person on this Earth is a human being. We all breathe, eat (if lucky), love, hate, cry, smile, laugh, learn, and think. We are all inherently the same. The processes in our bodies are the same. So why do we need to place people as different? More than that, why do we need to publicise some differences and not others?

We have come to cross-roads in history. This year is a year where things can change. If you watched the ‘Queen at 90’, you will see that this woman has seen many disasters based on difference, and I wonder did she one day hope that those in her Commonwealth would not be judged on their differences, would not need to be labelled in a judging panel or on official forms? She has seen World War Two, an age when six million, yes six million, Jewish people were killed in the Holocaust. If we included their fellow camp inhabitants, for example those who were disabled or homosexual, we are bringing that figure to eleven million. That is a third of all the people living in Oceania at the moment.

That should have been a warning to the world to the effects of othering. But then the apartheid happened, also in the Queen’s lifetime. 46 years where Black and White people were separated on the basis of their skin colour. That is one difference which isn’t a sign of anything but a different amount of melanin in ones’ skin.

She is now living through two disasters based on difference. One the refugee crisis where 59.5 million people are currently displaced due to conflicts all over the world. 59.5 million people who are causing fear in receiving countries, because guess what: they are different. What is so different? The fact that they are running for their lives, or the fact they haven’t come from the same country, might not look the same, might have a different interesting history to talk about (like the different history of your colleagues or classmates)? Then we have ISIS: something else entirely, or is it the same? ISIS has managed to recruit over 30,000 foreigners. How? Many survivors reports say it is because they wanted to belong, they were being victimised for their religion at home… the reasons could be endless and sometimes not understood.

But can we justify this all with one thing: difference is dangerous?

Yes, that is a justification for all these crimes, right? difference. That difference is inherently dangerous? But let’s make that a bit more specific.

Difference is not dangerous, the othering of difference is dangerous.

At the end of the day every human being is the same. God made us all the same, hey he even sent us the best warning we could have asked for when Jesus Christ, aka our saviour, our Lord, in many peoples opinion the greatest human being to ever step on this Earth, was put to death, for guess what, being different.

There are three quotes from the bible which could maybe back this up:

When you next argue that you don’t want immigrants or refugees in your country:

“…God… made every nation of men to live all over the earth…” (Acts 17:24, 26).

When you next try to justify this fear, or the crimes of the past, or the labelling of people as Bangladeshi-British in every document, or you try to justify a child crying because they are being bullied for ginger hair and freckles, or try to explain to albino child why they are being hunted for their body parts (in some countries in the world), aka justify these because of difference:

“So God created man in His own image; He created him in the image of God; He created them male and female” (Genesis 1:27)

When you try to say that every human on this Earth does not deserve the same, remember that Jesus died in order to provide forgiveness and grace for every single living thing on this planet:

“Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:19-20).

The only biological difference between us is male and female, and that is not a reason for discrimination either (another time...). The things that make us are our actions: like Zia’s incredible achievements. So let’s not justify othering any more, let’s not repeat the mistakes of our predecessors. Let’s not fear difference, but celebrate it, embrace it. Othering is dangerous, acceptance is key.

As Said said:

“Past and present inform each other, each implies the other and  ... each co-exists with the other.” (Said, 1994)

So let’s not use this as justification for racism or othering, but instead look at it as a reason that we can live differently today, without discrimination, and view each person’s past and experiences as an optional topic of interest, rather than a topic of judgement.

Thank you, and for those of you who would read that as a prayer, Amen. 

The people in our moments. The moments in our lives.

Life is made up of moments. Moments we laugh, cry, yawn, sleep and love. Moments we hate, envy, eat, pity and dream. Every moment of our life makes up the person we are at the end of it. When those lights finally go out you don’t know which memory will come to your mind. Will it be that boy you loved at the sweet age of 22? Will it be that child you so desperately wanted through years of IVF? Will it be that friend you had but lost contact with? Or will be a stranger: a nurse? A refugee you saw on the TV? A child you met on your travels? We don’t know, we will never know. That is the beauty of it.

Deaths and mourning bring out on reflection, not on only the life that has passed but our own. The life that we are still living. The moments that make it up.

I have been thinking about the people who make up those moments. I remember spending a night in a hostel in Manchester. I met a group of guys who were there to watch the match and they took pity on the girl there to do her dissertation research. I remember going to a bar, going clubbing and having a fantastic evening. But I don’t remember them and that makes me quite sad. For all the moments that made up that evening, it was them who made them. Total strangers who decided to extend a hand of kindness to a girl working away on a laptop in the common room on a Friday night. Yet my memory decided to put them out of my mind and replace them with people they deemed more important. What is more important than kindness? Maybe love.

I remember the few people that I have truly loved in my life. I remember the moments they made me smile, the moments of passion and the many, many moments I cried. I cried over the loss of them, the loss of making more of those moments and the loss of that time. But what about the people we only love for a moment. The people we kiss in a bar when we are 18 and it is the done thing to do. The people you dance with and swap numbers but never follow up. The people you spend a cold, lonely evening messaging on tinder but never meet up. For those moments they were the centre of our universe, so where are they now? What could they have been? Who could they have been?

Whenever anyone makes up a moment in our life, they enter the pool of candidates for the last person we remember. While I hope that will be the soul-mate sitting by my bedside, or the grandchild holding my hand, or my Mother who has always been there; it could be that boy I loved at 22? That child I held in my arms in Uganda? That person who taught me the true meaning of life without even sharing a name. We never know, so maybe no one should stay a stranger, or drift into becoming an acquaintance, what would the world be if everyone became a friend? 

Grief and Pills. Pills and Grief.

Pills.

This week has all been pills, pills, pills.

I wake up unable to walk and reach for the codeine.

I end up in the doctor's chairs and magnesium vitamins are making their way down my throat.

I wake up with a cracking headache and I reach for the paracetamol.

The next day it’s the cold and the lemsip capsules are jumping into my hand.

When we get to the final day and its all body aches, fevers, and swollen glands there’s not much left, so hey lets take them all together.

But what happens when there is no pill you can take to get rid of the pain. The pain inside. The pain of losing your inspiration. The pain of losing yourself. The pain of being hurt.

This week has been the worst week of my life. I might have fought off malaria this year. I might have had my kidneys start to fail. I might have been forced into cold turkey from my addictions. But no, this week was the worst.

Why. Well I never want to have to go in a broken circle again.

You break up with someone and the cuddle you want is your Grandfather.

Your Grandfather dies and the person you want to talk to breaks up with you.

It goes on and on. Again and again. No release until you realise you are just empty and upset. No cure for that if you want to keep your soul. But is your soul even there to keep. Not really.

When I look at why I am sitting here shivering grabbing that lemsip an hour too soon, I am not surprised my body just gave up. I would have if I was trying to run round in circles after my emotions.

There aren’t any left, no tears left to cry, no migraines left to start, no pills left to take.

Grief. That’s the illness, and memories are the only cure.

Memories of greatness, inspiration and strength. Strength you have to channel when that person steps out of your life, and just feel their comfort and their happiness of taking that next step. Because while this is one journey, there next one has just begun, hand-in-hand with the one they love. I love you Grandfather, thank you for making me dream and stand on my own two feet.