first chapters...
For those yet to lay hands on a copy of Uzodimma Iweala's debut novel, Beasts of No Nation - the first chapter is available to read online.
Some other first chapters from notable novels:
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Abyssinian Chronicles by Moses Isegawa
When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Icarus Girl by Helen Oyeyemi
Some other first chapters from notable novels:
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Abyssinian Chronicles by Moses Isegawa
When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Icarus Girl by Helen Oyeyemi
posted by Wordsbody at 9:21 pm
5 Comments:
Wordsbody, just read four weddings and a Gisim divorce (hope I got the title right). It made very interesting reading and I enjoyed it.
Atiku's "divorce" of his wife is approved under the law, islamic law, that is.
The word, "Talaq", meaning "I divorce thee" has to be said 3 times. Before the days of mobile phones, there were judicial cases where this manner of divorce was recognised even in the western world when these pronouncements were made over landlines and sometimes even across the borders of countries. I know little or nothing about Atiku's motives but sms divorces appear to be a natural progression of phone divorces.
Laspapi,
It's not often someone takes me up on a piece written more than two years previously. Not being Moslem and bearing in mind the nature of our world these days, I offer this cautious answer.
The article does not argue against the 'I divorce thee' x 3 declaration... which you tell me is the 'Talaq'. What is clear is that Islam allows 4 wives... Atiku, technically, was marrying his 5th. In order to do so, he divorced the '2nd' wife. If I remember correctly, what some Moslem leaders in Nigeria said at the time, was this: Islam does not allow a man to divorce one wife 'purely to marry another' - there has to be a more significant reason than that, gedddittt?
As for the gsm divorce... you say it's just a 'natural progression' from the phone divorces. Now, there's something I didn't know! I didnt know there were phone divorces... you're a lawyer; how many phone divorces have you handled? In the article, I answer back some of those who claimed that Atiku's divorce was not by gsm at all, but by phone. My reply? "Gentle reader, is the poison any sweeter if administered by telephone?"
Don't ask how I remeber the above, I've not read the piece in ages. Anyway, some person wrote an article-length rejoinder to my piece on the Vice President, soon after publication in 2003. I thought it was hilarious. So everyone's had their say, if you get my meaning.
Now Laspapi, I know modern life is eroding into every aspect of religion as well as life, but are you saying phone/gsm divorces are acceptable? Jesu Kristi! Remind me not to marry you anytime soon o :-)!
M
MW,
The way you use ways, it is as if you are enmity with someone.
Don't sound like that, anymore, simply becuase you have written an article.
For what?
Dear 'Anonymous',
I don't know if you are commenting on this particular thread... or something else. My guess is the latter.
If it's any help, 'Laspapi' with whom I was having this exchange (above) - before you came along - is actually my friend. Laspapi and I understand each other. No harm done, therefore.
I trust this satisfies,
mw
Lay-woman of the law, this is your first lesson in Private International Law. I feel like being contrary.
Firstly, how can you say for certain that Atiku divorced one wife solely to marry another? If you were a "city people" reporter, you could speculate, what you have is purely circumstantial. Don't forget that "He/She who alleges must prove"- That's the law of evidence. He could have divorced her for his own reasons and co-incidentally married another at about the same time.-My defence might be annoying but is entirely possible.
Secondly,"is the poison any sweeter if administered by telephone?" -Again, you speculate- Why do you imagine it to be poison? Why not a mercy-killing? or by mutual agreement? I'm not being frivolous here. We are not seised of the facts in this matter but you write from the standpoint that the woman is always at a disadvantage and the victim in a divorce. I disagree. She might have been unable to leave her husband and he graciously provided her an escape route. Again, I repeat you cannot be absolute here.
Thirdly, Wordsbody, you'll come to the painful realization that the law is the law no matter how "strange" it may seem and what form it may take. The Talaq is not new to Islamic law and since ancient times, it has been acceptable for a moslem man to stand with a cleric of the faith as witness and give his wife an oral divorce.
Not being a moslem, I shall not expand on this, (though I think every man of every faith sometimes secretly wishes it was so easy) Don't call me a chauvinist.
Now, I have never met the Turaki before and I am not a secret admirer of him, his wives or any other Nigerian pol.
And by the way, you're safe with me, I care too much to Talaq you even if I could ;)
ps. Traditional law allows men here to marry 12 year-olds. If the child-bride is carried to Britain on holiday, what happens? Will the man be arrested for attempting to exercise conjugal rights perfectly acceptable in his country because it is against the law and public policy of the west?
pps. Molara, I'm not into children o! But these are established judicial cases and the objects of bitter contention.
But that'll be the topic for another lesson. Called you in the afternoon yesterday, went to voice-mail. Go listen to your messages. Co-incidental that you'd written at about the same time.
laspapi.
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