Comment
Thursday, October 23, 2003
CHARLES ONYANGO-OBBO/ WHAT OTHERS SAY
Child of two mums, one dad
It was a serious violation of local custom that forbade the touching of the chief�s head. The chief was so enraged, he lured Baker to the bush and, aided by his warriors, hacked the missionary to death with battle-axes.
Baker was cooked and eaten. Determined warriors, The Times reports, even boiled down the missionary�s leather shoes for a month but still found them too tough to eat.
Now 136 years later, a modern Navosa chief has announced that there will be a ceremony in the South Pacific next month to offer apologies to Baker�s descendants.
As you would have expected, controversy has broken out. Some locals are embarrassed. They believe that opening up the Baker incident only hobbles Fiji, called the "Cannibal Isles" by early explorers with the image of a "savage" country.
The more capitalistic islanders, according to The Times, want Fiji "to capitalise on its grisly history".
Indeed the bowl in which Baker is believed to have been served, and the curled leather sole of one of his boiled boots, are still on display in Fiji�s national museum.
From the remote southern town of Sanghar in Pakistan last week, we received reports of a very unusual wedding "present". Shazia Hason and Mohamed Hason Solangi, her husband, were abducted by their relatives, tortured, and shot in the forehead shortly after they returned from Karachi where they had fled to have their wedding.
The elders in Sanghar sat and found the couple "guilty of marrying for love instead of following the custom of arranged marriage!"
I took a cold shower to ensure that I was fully awake before I read this report in The Sunday Observer. After nearly 100 years of struggle for the vote, equality, and independence by Western women, a recent survey by CosmoGirl finds that today, teenage girls are turning their back on all that.
A survey of over 5,000 teenage girls found that their main aim is to complete university education, then go home and be housewives.
More than nine out of 10 girls believe it should be up to their husbands to provide for them. Nearly 85 per cent of the girls maintained they would rather rely on their partner for financial support, than be successful, independent women.
The survey found that girls today plan to be married by the age of 25 - three years below the current average of 28.2 years old in a country like Britain. They also desire to have children earlier, and more of them than the present feminist generation.
And, perhaps, most surprising of all, 50 per cent of them say they would never dream of having children before seeing a ring on their finger.
Those who are not gung ho about science, would then find it difficult to reconcile the results of that survey with news from Texas that scientists have created the first pregnancy that would have produced babies with three genetic parents.
This is done through a process called "nuclear transfer". In lay man�s language, the process involves taking out the nucleus from Woman A�s egg because the egg is unhealthy. This is then inserted into the eggs of a donor, Woman B, but from which all genetic material has been cleaned out.
The resulting embryo contains the genetic make-up of Woman A, and the DNA of Woman B. In this way, nuclear transfer creates an embryo with the genetic make-up of two mothers and a father.
Governments quickly banned the process. Scientists who oppose the process say the children born through this process would suffer "severe psychological damage", and that the researchers behind the procedure are "playing God".
I have heard that one many times before. While I remain neutral in this dispute, I have always wondered why, if indeed God created us in his image, He would again not like us to try and do what he did - create humans.
Less controversial are reports about successful experiments with ovary implants. The experiments open the way for doctors to remove ovarian tissues rich in eggs from a woman. This would allow the woman to undergo treatment, for cancer that would have left her sterile, then have the thawed egg implanted in future when she is ready to have a baby.
The procedure would also benefit women who suffer early menopause, or want to postpone having babies beyond the natural limits of their fertility.
In other words you can have your ovaries taken out and put in a freezer when you are 24, then go and do your thing, and when at a late 45 years of age you decide to be a mother, you just call up the "eggs" and you are in business.
Last weekend, the illusionist David Blaine, left his suspended box near The Thames river in London, after 44 days without food - only water.
Blaine spent 3,801,600 seconds in his box. Among other vital statistics, eight female admirers bared their breasts (or more - one removed all her clothes) in an attempt to cheer up Blaine. And the men? They outdid the women; 68 of them bared their bottoms to insult Blaine.
As the row over the election of Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire in the US threatens to tear the global Anglican communion apart, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, has revealed that a former prostitute has been ordained as a vicar in the Church of England.
Carey first met the woman in a church group when he was still archbishop. She told him she had been a prostitute since she was a teenager, but she wanted to serve the Lord and join the priesthood while he was Archbishop.
"She�s now a priest in the Church of England", Carey said during a debate on prostitution in the British House of Lords. "It is a miracle she is now a reformed person who can speak of God�s love with an authenticity most sermons lack."
I truly admire the courage of some bishops in the Anglican Church.
Finally, a woman prison officer at a jail in West London has been awarded more than �300,000 (Sh37m) after being bitten on the arm by a guard dog while on duty. One should never wish for a dog bite, but that type of money makes it a worthwhile risk.
Email: i [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Mr Onyango-Obbo is Nation Media Group�s managing editor for media convergence and syndication.
Want to chat instantly with your online friends?�Get the FREE Yahoo! Messenger
