Pity Nigeria, with its Christians in the South and its Muslims in the North, as the population gets squeezed more and more into an extremist religious mould.

There’s an excellent post by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie about a new Nigerian bill

.. that would criminalise “indecent” dressing: necklines must be two inches or less from the shoulders, and the waist of a female over 14 must not be visible. It would be hilarious if it weren’t so dangerous.

She says that the

…. Judaeo-Christian-Islamic notion of controlling the female temptress so as to save the helpless male dehumanises women and insults the dignity of men ….

So true.So elegantly put as well.

Culture is the other justification for this nonsense. Chimamanda Adichie refers to the absurdity of the reference to traditional “culture” by people who have no real knowledge of pre-colonial culture and who use all the artefacts of the 21st century.

By the standards of CIF commenters – frequently several pages short of a G2 supplement – there are some really thoughtful comments. Several commenters take up the issue of the talebanisation of Nigeria, as well as the role of the conservative Anglican church leaders in opposing the more liberal US Anglicans over homosexuality.

old expat says:

One wonders where Bishop Akinola comes in on this. He has been supporting anti-gay laws in Nigeria, and aggressively exporting his conservative brand of Anglicanism to the American church. I have wondered if the competition between Islam and Christianity over souls in Nigeria is leading to a race towards extremism.

stuart h said:

As various cultural commentators have noted (Bikhu Parekh and Homi Bhabha commenting on ‘Satanic Verses’ springs to mind), the mistake may be to see fundamentalists as defending ‘archaic’ values or ‘tradition’, when, in truth, they are creating a contemporary culture which preys on fear of modernity and change.
Certainly there seems nothing ‘archaic’ about a number of UK and US evangelical outfits who seem keen to ally themselves with the Nigerian bishop in order to gain access to a new and lucrative ‘market’ in Nigeria. I have even seen the bizarre phenomena of white pentecostal preachers from my tiny British offshore island heading for Nigeria and surrounding African countries to supplement their incomes.