By Franklin Sone Bayen
This past week, two outcasts (well, an “outlaw” and an “outcast”) in the eyes of the dominant West and a world organization, were given vexing heroic home-coming receptions. As news reports carried the anger of the US and the UK over the popular reception given the “Lockerbie Bomber” Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi in his home country, another African, Caster Semenya of South Africa was receiving the trauma of her life prior to and after she had a clean win of the female 800m race in the World Athletics Championship in Berlin. She has today been given a heroine’s welcome (mind the precision – a heroine’s welcome, not a hero’s welcome – she’s a woman) in Johanesburg, South Africa. Like the “bomber”, the runner was also received by the head of state.
What they fail to remember is that a people's revival may begin somewhere, just somewhere, yet is it the revival of a people and who knows how far it would go? Here it's been sport. But they seem to have forgotten how Obama happened in a whirlwind that they couldn't hold back, tried how they did.
I’m going to seem supportive or condoning of two practices horrible to me: terrorism and homosexuality. (The place of the latter in this write up is not obvious this far.) If Abdelbaset dies three months from now of prostate cancer as his doctor predicts, he may not have the chance to go to a court of appeal to disprove his earlier conviction as the man who orchestrated the mid-air explosion of the US Pan-Am plane over Lockerbie in Scotland, UK in 1988 leaving 270 dead, most of them Americans. So he would die a convicted bomber.
And if he really is a terrorist, I have no business with him. I hate terrorists. They often kill with “spray bullets” harming even the innocent. I won’t want to be blown up in plane because a terrorist is targeting Yankees or Brits or Jews on board, most often their only crime being their origin. If they die and I die, we all died. My family mourns as theirs do. That’s not the only reason I hate terrorists. But that’s not the issue here.
The point here is the disclosure (revelation?) by the son of Kaddaffi (who should know), that trade interests were at the root of the “bomber’s” release on purported “compassionate grounds”. If nothing else, that disclosure comes to reinforce our increasing understanding that the dominant powers preach values but practise interests. Were it the case, why shouldn’t Libyans celebrate their government’s use of their own power – the power of their natural endowment – to counterbalance western arrogance? In their eyes, Abdelbaset was worth making Scotland (UK) defy “instructions” from the US. And that came within days of Switzerland’s apology to Libya (for similar reasons) for their “abusive” arrest, weeks ago, of Kaddaffi’s son.
And what if Libyans, rightly or wrongly, consider Abdelbaset an innocent victim of western victimization, convinced that following Abdelbaset’s appealing of his conviction, he remains innocent, shouldn't that be reason enough for their airport hurrays at the “bomber’s” arrival?
Caster Semenya
When controversy broke that the girl is a boy, voices rose from TV screens, radio sets and living rooms blasting racism. I felt so too, yet I was more bemused than angry. I found occasion to learn something new. I was wondering why all the fuss about an athlete’s gender when all they needed do was look at her genitals (sought of “forget the genes – pull down the jeans!” as Alice Dreger of the New York Times puts it). Now I’ve come to learn that it goes beyond all that. Now I know that certain human chromosomes and hormones can make even a woman with physical (visible) female organs a man biologically. That’s what takes weeks for scientists to prove and that’s proof that could be brought against Caster Semenya in the coming weeks.
Yet the argument remains, that even that scientific proof won’t seal a case against the South African girl. If hormone composition - not physical proof - should be considered an undue advantage, some have argued, why are girls, unnaturally as tall as boys or even taller, not disqualified from competing with fellow girls. And I’d add, that one advantage only brings another disadvantage. Semenya is clearly disadvantaged when it comes to feminine looks. When Miss Semenya’s age-mates are whistled and courted by naughty boys on street corners, the same boys surely mock at her for her mannish looks, more so perhaps, after the Berlin disgrace. So why shouldn’t she enjoy her muscles advantage in sport?
(And in some society, faced with now stigmatizing questions over her womanness, Miss Semenya could in a short while become Mr Semenya. She could be tempted to use her Berlin-earned dollars to undergo surgery that could add value to her handsome muscular body that even turns on some women, and thus become one of the world's famous homosexuals or transsexuals.)
A report on skynews.com said some placards by South African fans at Jo’burg airport this Tuesday read: "Casterology science of running", "Caster first lady of sport" and "100% female woman". Sarcastic words to shame detractors.
No less sarcastic than the listener who wrote to BBC Focus on Africa after Jamaican Ussain Bolt, another black sensation at the Athletics Championship, won his third gold in the 4X100 relay. The listener said he could carry out a test to prove Ussain was a horse, not a human being. And how Jamaicans, our African folks also had their share of Caucasian scorning for their astonishing showing at the Championship, beating the US at its traditional sprint events and only five medals short of the US catch! There were claims Jamaicans might have been bolstered by drugs. OK, marijuana is consumed openly in Jamaica, but there are routine tests to do. Check them or stay quiet. Don't be sore losers, OK? The Jamaican prime minister also announced plans for their heroic welcome.
So, it turns out, this is a tale of three home-comings.
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