Sometimes, when I post
something here some of us do not even bother to read it in detail before
heaping mountains and oceans of insult on me. Though I am gradually getting
used to those insults, it is important that I explain something. First, if you
do not read my post, you can never understand what I am saying. It is not
enough to read others reply and then go on attack. The best policy would be to
read all the post before you begin your third world war on me. Secondly, I have
a background in Mass Communications, Journalism and at the moment I am in the
law school. These three disciplines demand a high level of reasoning and I mean
a very deep logical reasonable reasoning not just that type of reasoning based
on what my father, tradition, religion or culture said. It is a powerful type
of empirical reasoning that takes into account facts as it is being witnessed,
as it happens, as it develops and as it is being discussed.
Secondly, I have read a
lot and I still read. At the moment, I have over thousands of collection in my
library and reading hundreds of books, journals, magazines yearly is a
pleasurable challenge to me. One big advantage I have acquired over the years
is that I am able to learn from the way others think. I am also able to compare
ideas and using empirical evidences I am able to come to my own conclusion. The
implication of this is that I speak with audacity because I know that I will be
right in at least 99% of the time. Yes! Because what I am saying has been
subjected to scientific analysis and held to be nothing but the truth! There is
no way many experts in a field will get it absolutely wrong. Two good heads
maybe better than one!
I therefore do not
understand why some people chose as a passion to deliberately misunderstand me.
It is not actually a sin to misunderstand someone but I guess it is foolhardy
and an idiotic not to subject other party’s opinion to research before heaping
oceans and mountains of insult upon him; that is exactly what is meant by being
stupid and idiotic and that is why I am so quick to delete from my friend’s
list those who chose as passion to be stupid and idiotic. Even as a lawyer, I
do not agree that freedom of expression also include the right to talk nonsense
and rubbish. We are here to learn from each other. You cannot expect to gain
from well researched opinion of others and when it comes to your turn you begin
to insult others. You do not have to agree with everything I say here but then
you owe me a duty to disagree with me in a very polite and educated manner and
not in a manner that is very common to monkeys in the wild. If I wanted monkeys
to be my friends here, I know where to find them but because am very eager to
learn from you, I demanded and accepted you to be my friends. I wish therefore
you do not let me down.
To get the facts right, I
am not at all offended by this but am concerned that having been my friend here
for quite sometime now, it is high time people began to appreciate the love of
learning, the art of reading, the joy of disagreeing in an intellectual manner
and the beauty in thinking with our magnificent, natural and God-given brain.
It is quite interesting to note that I am actually not alone in being
misunderstood in this way. In fact, many English judges have lamented on number
of occasions that British journalists have either persistently refused to
understand them or have taken leave of their brain. Twenty five years ago, Sir
John Donaldson, then Master of the Rolls got so pissed with this deliberate
lack of understanding by the British media that he deemed it wise to explain
himself in detail in his judgement in (1) Nadarajah Vilvarajah, (2)
Vaithialingham Skandarajah v Secretary of State for the Home Department [1990]. He said:
"This court has
before it two applications for bail by Tamils, Vaithialingham Skandarajah and
Nadarajah Vilvarajah. Before dealing with those applications I would like to
try and clear up two fundamental misunderstandings about what it was that this
court decided on 12th October 1987. Reading the newspapers the next day and
listening to the radio and television (with, I am bound to say, the notable
exception of Law In Action) as far as I could make out either no-one had read
the judgment- this, I am bound to say, included the Secretary of State, who
broadcast on the radio at one o’clock -or they did not want to understand the
judgment. So let me make it quite clear what we decided-or rather what we did
not decide.
We did not hold that any
of the Tamils were genuine refugees. We did not hold that any of the Tamils
were entitled to asylum. What we did do was to set out the scheme of the
relevant immigration rules which, as we saw it (I am not sure how much dispute
there is about this aspect), went in two stages. First the Secretary of State had
to examine whether the applicant was a refugee, based on the formula to be
found in the Convention of well founded fear of persecution on various grounds.
Secondly, if he was a refugee as defined in the Convention, the Secretary of
State then had to consider whether or not he was going to grant him asylum. The
fact that he was a refugee did not entitle him to asylum. The only circumstance
in which he, being a refugee, was entitled to asylum was if he could bring
himself within Article 33 of the Convention, which adopted an entirely
different formula related to fear of death or loss of freedom.
What we said was that
when the Secretary of State said that none of the Tamils were even refugees,
let alone entitled to asylum, he had applied the wrong test, and that each of
the Tamils was entitled to have the question of whether or not he was a refugee
decided in accordance with the right test, although it might very well be-we
had no means of knowing-that, applying the right test, the Secretary of State
would still have concluded (this time rightly) that the Tamils were not
refugees. But it was not for us to decide that and we did not decide it. We
certainly never approached the question of whether they were entitled to
asylum, because that was the next stage down the line.
I hope, without any great
confidence, that, having set it out again, it may be understood what it was
that we were deciding. It is in the judgment, and nothing that I have said now
is intended to modify one word of the judgment which we gave on that occasion.
I am merely indulging in an effort at communication, but as I say without any
great confidence that I have succeeded".
Thanks for reading and
now you can behave yourself!
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