Current Issue

System change not climate change

Ama Biney

2009-12-23

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/61235

cc oxfam internationalA capitalist economic system dependent on fossil fuels and the exploitation of natural resources to generate profit has left people and ecosystems across large parts of the planet – including swathes of Africa – vulnerable to climate change, Ama Biney writes in this week’s Pambazuka News. The ‘derisory’ funding developed nations have offered to ‘assist developing countries to adapt to climate change’ is not enough to solve the problem, Biney argues. The real focus, says Biney, should be on ‘transforming the exploitative, unsustainable, profit-driven ethos that underpins the current system of wealth accumulation that simultaneously damages the environment’.

Why is it that trillions could be found to bail out the banks by both President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Gordon Brown? Is bailing out the banks to the tune of trillions more important than climate change? Why is it that millions have been spent waging wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and continue to be spent, yet sufficient funds cannot be offered to assist developing countries to adapt to climate change with clean technology, other than the derisory US$100 billion a year? If we have sent a man to the moon, how is it not possible that the global community with research capabilities and technology have invented wind turbines as a source of energy but cannot enable African countries to harness the one thing they have in abundance – sunshine – into solar energy?

The fundamental cause of global warming and carbon emissions has been perpetrated by the developed nations of the world and most critically the profit motive they are wedded to. In other words, it is the neoliberal capitalist system of overproduction in the North that has damaged the planet and continues to do so.

Capitalist accumulation is based on the inexorable rape of the world’s resources in terms of fossil fuels to power industry and create products; oil energy to transport via sea, land and air such goods; pillage of forests such as the Amazon and those forests in Africa that are rarely mentioned in relation to climate change. Yet, African forests take in 20 per cent of carbon absorbed by trees across the world and therefore Africa has a central role to play in the collective endeavours to save the planet.

The colossal exploitation of the resources of the planet has been waged by the drive for increased profits. The juggernaut of capital searching for greater returns for its money in markets, and human beings transformed into consumers purchasing goods is the ruthless logic of the capitalist system that has evolved for over two hundred years. It is aided in the North by the arm of powerful subliminal advertising agencies that are effective in getting consumers to become modern slaves to materialistic objects to the extent of buying such goods (cars, TVs, computer games, etc) on credit. For in neoliberal capitalism there is never a cut off point for maximum profit – it is infinite. Corporations simply swallow up whatever stands in their way in takeovers. Neither is there a moral compass nor ethic in capitalist production, other than ‘greed is good’. If there was, such an ethic would have resolved world hunger when ‘milk lakes’ and ‘butter mountains’ existed in the 1970s and 1980s with such overproduction in the European community, whilst others starved and died in the ‘Third World’ as it was then called.

Africa’s contribution to carbon emissions is a mere 3.8 per cent. Yet we are all aware that the continent, along with other developing countries such as the tiny Association of Independent Island States, is highly vulnerable to future climate changes. Vulnerable countries are likely to be wiped off the face of the earth if there is not a commitment by richer nations to 2 degrees Celsius as the maximum temperature of global warming. Lumumba Di-Aping, chairman of the G77 group of nations, has said that such a figure entails both a ‘certain death for Africa’ and a type of ‘climate fascism’ imposed on Africa by high carbon emitters. Di-Aping states that in reality 2 degrees Celsius means 3.5 degrees Celsius for much of Africa.

Exacerbating the future of Africa’s ability to deal with climate change will be the need to ensure that the ongoing land deals by Saudi Arabia and other rich Gulf States do not make particular communities in Sudan, Kenya, Ghana, Ethiopia and elsewhere, even more vulnerable to poverty and hunger. In northern Kenya, the UN has estimated that 400 people have died this year as a result of conflict between ethnic groups over grazing rights for cattle in areas that have seen decreasing amounts of rain. The director of the UN Environment Programme, Achim Steiner, has pointed out that the consequences of climate change for Africa and other developing countries will be desertification in the Sudan, rainfall decline in the Horn of Africa, freshwater evaporating in the South, droughts, heat waves, epidemics and floods. He says climate change ‘amplifies and escalates vulnerability.’ There is no doubt that such pronouncements paint a doomsday scenario. However, he says ‘It doesn’t mean that conflict is inevitable, but it’s much more likely.’

Similarly, should we not consider the implication of toxic waste dumping in Africa by companies such as Trafigura, which dumped truck loads of sulphuric sludge in Ivory Coast in 2006, and the damaging consequences it has for Africa, or the ecological damage caused by Anglo-Dutch Shell in the extraction of oil in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria? Surely any deal at Copenhagen should ensure that richer nations are made to dispose of toxic waste safely? Equally important should be fair compensation for the victims of environmental degradation and not the paltry £100 million paid by Trafigura to the Ivorian government in 2007.

African NGOs such as the Pan-African Climate Justice Alliance and Northern NGOs genuinely committed to climate justice in an egalitarian global community need to consistently mobilise post-Copenhagen to ensure that the movement for climate change does not become a business opportunity for the corporate world to profit from. There is a need for all of us to be aware of the smokescreen that will be presented by the elaborate carbon emissions accounting.

For example, developed countries can claim they have ‘cut’ their emissions without actually releasing lesser CO2 emissions by paying a poor country to discharge less. It could be argued that theoretically this is acceptable as we all breathe the same air. However, whose interests does this really serve? Doesn’t the earth continue to suffer under such an arrangement? If the developing countries seek to imitate the model of capitalist development often pushed by the North, it will need another planet to pillage and plunder in order to catch up with the West.

Another creative carbon emissions accounting that developed nations can adopt is to trade their allocated permits in carbon emissions. For example in 1990 the Soviet Union and several Eastern Europe countries such as Romania and Poland were issued such permits. Some have used them. Those who have not can sell them to rich countries to use. Consequently, the US or UK can buy them from Poland and proudly claim they have reduced emissions. We must not be bamboozled.

Therefore reading the fine print that comes out of any Copenhagen deal and holding all to account, particularly the rich nations, is necessary.

Climate change is the single most important threat to human existence today. It is one of the myriad problems facing the African continent and it acutely exacerbates other long-term problems in Africa. I do not accept that some US$100 billion per year until 2020 – or whatever figure – is a key to addressing the fundamental problem. It is simply applying a sticking plaster to a world suffering from a brain haemorrhage. Transforming the exploitative, unsustainable, profit-driven ethos that underpins the current system of wealth accumulation that simultaneously damages the environment is the real focus. Helping countries in the South to develop greener technologies – whilst the North does the same is a cosmetic tinkering with the capitalist economic system that remains intact. We must recognise and accept that it is the way wealth is created and distributed in our world that causes the devastating impact of climate change as well as huge social, economic, and political global inequalities.

With the implosion of the banks, the capitalist system has been discredited and the people of the North and the South must lead the way in finding another fairer economic system that is in harmony with the environment. The challenge of progressive forces both in the South and North is to demand the realisation of the slogan on one placard hoisted at Copenhagen: ‘System Change Not Climate Change!’

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* Dr Ama Biney is a Pan-Africanist and scholar-activist who lives in the United Kingdom.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

The mouse that roared in Copenhagen

Alemayehu G. Mariam

2009-12-22

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/61230

cc BabbNetDespite earlier combative language involving 'walking out' of the Copenhagen climate conference, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's heading of the 'African delegation' in Copenhagen resulted in nothing more than mere 'servile on-looking', writes Alemayehu G. Mariam. Roundly criticised by representatives from organisations such as the G-77 and the Pan-African Climate Justice Alliance, Zenawi's 'leadership' simply facilitated developed nations in discarding Africa's needs in the battle to tackle climate change, Mariam stresses.

The 'delegation of African negotiators' rumbled into Copenhagen rubbing their palms and licking their chops to load up tens of billions of dollars in carbon blood money and make a quick exit. They were disappointed. There was no gold at the end of the Copenhagen rainbow. At the end of the day, the industrialised countries pledged chump change in the amount of US$30 billion to the poor countries for the 2010–12 period.

In the run up to the Copenhagen conference, the trumpeted bravado to the world was that the 'African delegation' will 'walk out' and 'de-legitimise' the proceedings unless the industrialised countries forked out a cool US$40 billion. The delegation and its leader, Meles Zenawi, were prepared to strong-arm, outwit and outplay the industrialised countries in their usual zero-sum game. This time the game backfired. The wily 'neocolonial' Westerners outmatched, outplayed, overpowered and slickly finessed the African negotiators and others from the developing world.

Nobody walked out of the conference. The 'African negotiators' let off a whole lot of steam and huffed and puffed in the frigid Copenhagen winter, but they stayed in. Zenawi's vaunted Copenhagen showdown at high noon with the rich countries never materialised. The bravado about 'walking out' and 'challenging' the industrialised countries proved to be just hot air. When push came to shove, all the bravado was replaced by servile grovelling. Some representatives of African countries refused to walk into ('boycotted') the conference. But they did their 'boycott' during their lunch hour. They complained that the industrialised countries were railroading them into signing a deal that would be 'against the interest of Africa'. A couple of days later, chief African negotiator Zenawi stood attentively clutching the podium at a farcical French–Ethiopian press conference as President Nicolas Sarkozy harangued his industrialised country partners for not being more forthcoming on emissions limits and mitigation aid.

At the press conference, Zenawi and Sarkozy buttered each other up. Zenawi said that he and Sarkozy mirrored each other so much on the issues that they were 'preaching to the converted'. In a joint communiqué they declared 'France and Ethiopia, representing Africa' and appealed to all participants 'to adopt an ambitious agreement limiting the increase of temperatures to 2°C above pre-industrial levels'. They proposed 'the halving of global CO2 emissions by 2050 compared to 1990 levels.' This would require the developed countries to commit to an 80 per cent emissions reduction by 2050.

On the cold cash end of things, Zenawi and Sarkozy proposed 'the adoption of a "fast-start" fund of 10 billion dollars per year covering the next 3 years'. The fund will be used for 'adaptation and mitigation actions, including the fight against deforestation'. Africa would get a cut of '40% of the fund'. They called for the 'creation of a tax on international financial transactions and [to] consider other sources such as taxes on sea freight or air transport'. They proposed 'the development of carbon markets, which will be a major source of capital flows and investments between the North and the South'.

Throughout the negotiations, the rich countries threw out dollar figures at the poor countries as one would throw bones to hungry dogs. The US offered the developing countries US$85 million as part of a combined donation of US$350 million from the industrialised countries to support clean energy technologies (wind and solar). Japan said it will kick in US$15 billion a year over the coming decade. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton promised a contribution of US$100 billion a year to a long-term fund by 2020 to help poor countries deal with worsening floods, drought, storms and rising seas. The catch was that the developing countries had to sign on the Copenhagen deal and agree to transparency and emissions-verification standards.

Other African countries and negotiators saw the Sarkozy–Zenawi deal as an outrage, an unconscionable trick to sell 'Africa's future' down the proverbial river. To borrow Zenawi's pre-conference phrase, they said the deal would lead to another 'rape of our continent'. Rising to Africa's defence was Algeria, with the support of South Africa and Nigeria. The trio accused the industrialised countries of conspiring to 'kill' the Kyoto Protocol and get away with an agreement in Copenhagen that does not have strict and legally binding commitments on emissions cuts.

Zenawi was whipsawed by various representatives of the developing countries for barefaced double-dealing. Lumumba Di-Aping, the chief negotiator of the G-77 bloc of countries, representing some 130 nations, mauled Zenawi for selling out Africa to the rich countries:

'Meles agrees with the EU perspective and the EU perspective accepts the destruction of a whole continent plus dozens of other states… The EU's very moral foundation is deeply questionable because she accepts that a large section of the human family should suffer in order for her to continue to thrive and prosper… The African Union has not accepted this. Meles is not the author of this proposal, the EU definitely is, along with the UK and France.

Mithika Mwenda of Pan-African Climate Justice Alliance, citing a study of the Working Group I to the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, lashed out at Zenawi:

'The IPCC science is clear – 2 degrees is 3.5 degrees in Africa – this is death to millions of Africans… If Prime Minister Meles wants to sell out the lives and hopes of Africans for a pittance – he is welcome to – but that is not Africa's position.'

Zenawi's befuddled response was drenched in crocodile tears:

'I know my proposal today will disappoint those Africans who from the point of view of justice have asked for full compensation for the damage done to our development prospects. My proposal dramatically scales back our expectation with regards to the level of funding in return for more reliable funding and a seat at the table in the management of such funds.'

Compare this to Zenawi's braggadocio in September 2009:

'We will use our numbers to de-legitimise any agreement that is not consistent with our minimal position… If needs be we are prepared to walk out of any negotiations that threaten to be another rape of our continent… Africa's interest and position will not be muffled as has usually been the case… Africa will field a single negotiating team empowered to negotiate on behalf of all member states of the African Union… The key thing for me is that Africa be compensated for the damage caused by global warming. Many institutions have tried to quantify that and they have come up with different figures. The sort of median figure would be in the range of 40 billion USD a year.'

The farcical saga of the 'African delegation' at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen (COP 15) is reminiscent of the story in Leonard Wibberley's 1955 book, 'The Mouse that Roared'. In that satirical work, the fictional little duchy (a territory ruled by a duke or duchess) of Grand Fenwick in the French Alps declared war on the US so that it could lose the war and receive US aid. Following a series of wacky and comic twists and turns, Fenwick wins the war and forms a League of Little Nations which dictates its own peace terms to the US and Russia and blackmails them into a general nuclear disarmament.

The 'African delegation' came to Copenhagen with pipedreams of billions of dollars in carbon blood money. They left with pledges and promises of chump change. As the Copenhagen drama drew down its curtains, the 'African negotiators' learned a valuable lesson: They may huff and puff and try to blow the Copenhagen house down, but in the climate change theatre, they are nothing more than servile stagehands. After two weeks of hanging around Copenhagen, the 'African negotiators' became mere sideline onlookers to a hollow agreement, the 'Copenhagen Accord', signed by the US, China, Brazil, India and South Africa dubbed a 'historic step forward' with 'much further to go'.

The accord affirms the continuation of the Kyoto Protocol and sets a maximum of a two degrees celsius average global temperature rise. Following a review in 2016, that could be reduced to 1.5 degrees celsius. The rich countries pledged to commit US$30 billion in new funding to help the poor countries during 2010–12. They also promised to support 'a goal of mobilizing jointly 100 billion dollars a year' by 2020. The rich countries committed to a minimum 80 per cent in emissions reductions by 2050. There were other vague provisions for supporting national mitigation actions and verification procedures.

As the shiny limos scampered in the dark towards Copenhagen airport on 18 December with their freight of the world's high and mighty, John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK, lamented: 'The city of Copenhagen is a crime scene tonight, with the guilty men and women fleeing to the airport.'

So ended the great adventure of the mouse that roared in Copenhagen.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Follow Alemayehu G. Mariam on Twitter.
* This article was originally published by The Huffington Post.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

What happened at the summit

Cuba's view of COP15

Fidel Castro

2009-12-23

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/61233

cc Wikimedia Commons’Until very recently, the discussion revolved around the kind of society we would have. Today, the discussion centres on whether human society will survive.’ In this week’s Pambazuka News, Fidel Castro writes on the experiences of the Cuban delegation at last week’s United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.

Until very recently, the discussion revolved around the kind of society we would have. Today, the discussion centres on whether human society will survive.

These are not dramatic phrases. We must get used to the true facts. Hope is the last thing human beings can relinquish. With truthful arguments, men and women of all ages, especially young people, have waged an exemplary battle at the Summit and taught the world a great lesson.

It is important now that Cuba and the world come to know as much as possible of what happened in Copenhagen. The truth can be stronger than the influenced and often misinformed minds of those holding in their hands the destiny of the world.

If anything significant was achieved in the Danish capital, it was that the media coverage allowed the world public to watch the political chaos created there and the humiliating treatment accorded to heads of states or governments, ministers and thousands of representatives of social movements and institutions that in hope and expectation travelled to the summit’s venue in Copenhagen. The brutal repression of peaceful protesters by the police was a reminder of the behaviour of the Nazi assault troops that occupied neighbouring Denmark in April 1940.

But no one could have thought that on 18 December 2009, the last day of the summit, this would be suspended by the Danish government – a NATO ally associated with the carnage in Afghanistan – to offer the conference’s plenary hall to President Obama for a meeting where only he and a selected group of guests, 16 in all, would have the exclusive right to speak. Obama’s deceitful, demagogic and ambiguous remarks failed to involve a binding commitment and ignored the Kyoto Framework Convention. He then left the room shortly after listening to a few other speakers. Among those invited to take the floor were the highest industrialised nations, several emerging economies and some of the poorest countries in the world. The leaders and representatives of over 170 countries were only allowed to listen.

At the end of the speeches of the 16 chosen, Evo Morales, with the authority of his indigenous Aymara origin and his recent re-election with 65 per cent of the vote as well as the support of two-thirds of the Bolivian House and Senate, requested the floor. The Danish president had no choice but to yield to the insistence of the other delegations. When Evo had concluded his wise and deep observations, the Danish had to give the floor to Hugo Chavez. Both speeches will be registered by history as examples of short and timely remarks. Then, with their mission duly accomplished they both left for their respective countries. But when Obama disappeared, he had yet to fulfil his task in the host country. From the evening of 17 December and the early morning hours of 18 December, the prime minister of Denmark and senior representatives of the United States had been meeting with the chairman of the European Commission and the leaders of 27 nations to introduce to them – on behalf of Obama – a draft agreement in whose elaboration none of the other leaders of the rest of the world had taken part. It was an antidemocratic and practically clandestine initiative that disregarded the thousands of representatives of social movements, scientific and religious institutions and other participants in the summit.

Through the night of the 18 December and until 3:00am of 19 December, when many heads of states had already departed, the representatives of the countries waited for the resumption of the sessions and the conclusion of the event. Throughout 18 December, Obama held meetings and press conferences, and the same did the European leaders. Then, they left.

Something unexpected happened then: At three in the morning of 19 December, the prime minister of Denmark convened a meeting to conclude the summit. By then, the countries were represented by ministers, officials, ambassadors and technical staff.

However, an amazing battle was waged that morning by a group of representatives of Third World countries challenging the attempt by Obama and the wealthiest on the planet to introduce a document imposed by the United States as one agreed by consensus in the summit.

The representative of Venezuela, Claudia Salerno, showed with impressive energy her right hand bleeding from strongly slamming on the table to claim her right to take the floor. Her tone of voice and the dignity of her arguments will never be forgotten.

The minister of foreign affairs of Cuba made a vigorous speech of approximately one thousand words from which I have chosen a few paragraphs to include in this reflection:

‘The document that you, Mister Chairman, repeatedly claimed that did not exist shows up now. […] we have seen drafts circulating surreptitiously and being discussed in secret meetings…

‘…I deeply resent the way you have led this conference.

‘…Cuba considers the text of this apocryphal draft extremely inadequate and inadmissible. The goal of 2 degrees centigrade is unacceptable and it would have incalculable catastrophic consequences…’ ‘The document that you are unfortunately introducing is not binding in any way with respect to the reduction of the greenhouse effect gas emissions.

‘I am aware of the previous drafts, which also through questionable and clandestine procedures, were negotiated by small groups of people…’

‘The document you are introducing now fails to include the already meagre and lacking key phrases contained in that draft…’

‘…as far as Cuba is concerned, it is incompatible with the universally recognised scientific view sustaining that it is urgent and inescapable to ensure the reduction of at least 45 per cent of the emissions by the year 2020, and of no less than 80 per cent or 90 per cent by 2050.

‘Any argument on the continuation of the negotiations to reach agreement in the future to cut down emissions must inevitably include the concept of the validity of the Kyoto Protocol […] Your paper, Mister Chairman, is a death certificate of the Kyoto Protocol and my delegation cannot accept it.

‘The Cuban delegation would like to emphasise the pre-eminence of the principle of “common by differentiated responsibilities”, as the core of the future process of negotiations. Your paper does not include a word on that.

‘This draft declaration fails to mention concrete financial commitments and the transfers of technologies to developing countries, which are part of the obligations contracted by the developed countries under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change […] Mister Chairman, by imposing their interests through your document, the developed nations are avoiding any concrete commitment.

‘…What you, Mister Chairman, define as “a group of representative leaders” is to me a gross violation of the principle of sovereign equality consecrated in the United Nations Charter…

‘Mr. Chairman, I formally request that this statement be included in the final report of the works of this regrettable and shameful 15th session of the Conference of the Parties.’

The representatives of the countries had been given only one hour to present their views. This led to complicated, shameful and embarrassing situations.

Then, a lengthy debate ensued where the delegations from the developed countries put a heavy pressure on the rest to make the conference adopt the abovementioned document as the final result of their deliberations.

A small number of countries firmly insisted on the grave omissions and ambiguities of the document promoted by the United States, particularly the absence of a commitment by the developed countries on the reduction of carbon emissions and on the financing that would allow the South countries to adopt alleviating and adjustment measures.

After a long and extremely tense discussion, the position of the ALBA countries and Sudan, as president of the G-77, prevailed that the document was unacceptable to the conference thus it could not be adopted.

In view of the absence of consensus, the conference could only ‘take note’ of the existence of that document representing the position of a group of about 25 countries.

After that decision was made – at 10:30 in the morning Denmark’s time – Bruno, together with other ALBA representatives, had a friendly discussion with the UN secretary to whom they expressed their willingness to continue struggling alongside the United Nations to prevent the terrible consequences of climate change. Their mission completed, our foreign minister and Cuban vice president Esteban Lazo departed to come back home and attend the National Assembly session. A few members of the delegation and the ambassador stayed in Copenhagen to take part in the final procedures. This afternoon they reported the following:

‘…both, those who were involved in the elaboration of the document, and those like the president of the United States who anticipated its adoption by the conference…as they could not disregard the decision to simply “take note” of the alleged ”Copenhagen Agreement”, they tried to introduce a procedure allowing the other COP countries that had not been a part of the shady deal to adhere to it, and make it public, the intention being to pretend such an agreement was legal, something that could precondition the results of the negotiations that should carry on.’

‘Such belated attempt was again firmly opposed by Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia. These countries warned that a document which had not been adopted by the convention could not be considered legal and that there was not a COP document; therefore, no regulations could be established for its alleged adoption…’

‘This is how the meeting in Copenhagen is coming to an end, without the adoption of the document surreptitiously worked out in the past few days under the clear ideological guidance of the US administration…’

Tomorrow our attention will be focused on the National Assembly.

Lazo, Bruno and the other members of the delegation will be arriving at midnight today. On Monday, the minister of foreign affairs will be able to explain in details and with the necessary accuracy the truth of what happened at the summit.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Fidel Castro is a Cuban politician and former president of the Council of the State of Cuba.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

More oil, less migrants

Emanuela Paoletti

2009-12-23

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/61239

cc Wikimedia CommonsImmigration from Libya to Italy in 2009 has decreased by 90 per cent, compared to 2008. In this week’s Pambazuka News, Emanuela Paoletti looks at explanations for the dramatic decline in “illegal” migration between the two countries, in particular ‘Libya’s selective enforcement of restrictive immigration policies as a means of gaining foreign policy concessions from Italy.’

Since the late 1990s, immigration from Libya to Italy had increased significantly, from less than 5,000 in 2000 to 30,000 in 2008. In May 2009, Gaddafi made his first trip to Italy, which was followed by a second visit on the occasion of the meeting of the G20. Concomitant with these visits, there was a drastic reduction in migration from Libya. From 1 May 2008 to 31 August 2008, 15,000 people arrived to Italy from Libya; in the same period in 2009 only 1,400 have landed on Italian shores. The Italian minister of interior, Roberto Maroni could recently announce, immigration from Libya in 2009 has decreased by 90 per cent compared to 2008. What explains the drastic decrease in ‘illegal’ migration from Libya to Italy?

This reduction partially reflects broader trends across the Mediterranean. According to the European border agency, Frontex, the overall number of migrants via the sea to Europe dropped by 16 per cent, from 24,000 in the first quarter of 2008 to 20,200 over the same period in 2009. One explanation relates to the global economic downturn – but there is another factor: Libya’s selective enforcement of restrictive immigration policies as a means of gaining foreign policy concessions from Italy. The Friendship Agreement of August 2008 marks an important turning point.

On 30 August 2008, in a tent in Benghazi, Silvio Berlusconi and the Libyan leader, Muammar al-Gaddafi, signed a historic agreement, according to which Italy will pay US$5 billion over the next 20 years, ostensibly to compensate Libya for the ‘deep wounds’ of the colonial past. The agreement concluded a tortuous 10-year history of diplomatic exchanges, which included a number of formal and informal cooperative arrangements on a variety of issues, such as migration, culture, colonial issues and joint-business ventures.

However, since 2000, Libyan officials have treated irregular migration as a domestic security issue, justified on the grounds (despite very limited and contentious empirical evidence), that migrants are responsible for increased crime, worsening health and educational standards, and heightened unemployment rates. Accordingly, Libyan authorities have implemented tougher policies against migration at time when this policy would enhance its bargaining position with Europe. For example, in March 2004, Law No. 2 introduced severe penalties for irregular migrants. Undocumented migrants, and agents facilitating their stay, faced at least one year’s imprisonment or a €1,160 fine; and a new unit was created to enforce this law. Notably, these were enacted just before the lifting of the European arms embargo.

Other examples of Libya’s ‘restrictionism’ are worth mentioning. On 16 January 2008, Jana, a Libyan news agency, reported a governmental decision that ‘all foreigners illegally residing in Libya’ would be rounded up ‘for immediate deportation.’ According to the same source, Libyan officials had agreed ‘to take several stringent measures to ensure the implementation of legislation and decisions concerning foreigners' entry and departure in Libya, and regulations employing non-nationals.’ Housing authorities were instructed to destroy makeshift shelters on the outskirts of Tripoli and in other coastal cities. There has also been an increasing pace of deportation of migrants from Libya to third countries. Anecdotal information indicates that some of these are put on planes, buses and others are simply thrown across the border.

On the one hand, immigration had become perceived as ‘out of control’ and thus as a central domestic politic issue. On the other hand, Libya had to convince Italy and Europe that it was serious about migration. Thus Libya’s commitment to tackle migration is partly related to the broader and deepening relations with the EU. On 23 July 2007, the memorandum of understanding jointly signed by Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner and European Affairs Secretary El Obeidi provided for the possibility of a new framework agreement between the two parties. The bilateral negotiations were officially launched on 12-13 November 2008. As a Libyan senior official pointed out to me, in agreeing to collaborate on migration, Libya would be able to make a stronger case on the need for further international assistance on a number of fronts.

These developments notwithstanding, up to the beginning of 2009, migration from Libya to Italy continued unabated. The reason why since 2009 arrivals to Lampedusa have suddenly decreased is partially related to the Friendship Agreement signed in August 2008. Libya had long made its cooperation on migration dependent on the settlement of the colonial past. Hence, once Italy had formally apologised and, more importantly, committed to pay the colonial reparations, Libya had somehow to honour the ‘special and privileged’ relation it had long promised. One clear and ‘easy’ way to do so was by acquiescing to Italy’s requests to reduce migration across the Mediterranean. This give-and-take bargaining partially explains why since 2009 Libya has implemented harsher migration policies.

Italy has not been disappointed. In 2009 Libya has introduced fines against undocumented foreign workers. In order to enter Libya, foreigners must now pay 150 Libyan Dinars and in order to obtain a residence permit 500 Libyan Dinars per person. As a result of these fines, in 2009, large numbers of foreigners have left the country. Many irregular migrants have also been detained. In August 2009 the Ambassador of Nigeria to Libya told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that 2,700 irregular migrants were kept in various deportation camps in Libya. There are also reports indicating that Nigerians are being executed for violating immigration laws in Libya. Other sources indicate that 20 migrants from Somalia were killed in a prison in Benghazi during an attempted jailbreak on 11 August 2009. This is also confirmed by recent reports on Libya produced by Human Rights Watch (HRW). While the latest report published in December 2009 states that ‘the past five years have witnessed an overall improvement in the human rights situation,’ HRW also laments persistent abuse against migrants by police and by guards in Libya.

Another example of a reversal of Libya’s foreign policy vis-à-vis Italy has been its position on ‘push backs’. In May 2009 Italy began returning boats carrying migrants arriving from Libya that had been intercepted in either international or national waters. Where previously push-backs were considered an infringement of Libya’s sovereign power and migrants were not allowed to return to its shores, Libya now has accepted boats with undocumented foreign nationals who had departed from Libya.

Hence the combination of the push-backs with harsher migration policies implemented in Libya helps us answer the question as to why Lampedusa now is nearly empty. This however raises a further question: Does the sudden decrease of migration to Italy mark a new phase in the Italo-Libyan relations? To what extent are these developments really unprecedented? A brief look at the broader historical picture shows that they are not. Migration management has often affected, and has been affected by, other foreign policy issues.

By promising and delivering special aid programmes to neighbouring countries, Italy succeeded in either initiating or deepening cooperation on migration policies. Aid and development programmes have been granted by Italy as both an inducement and a reward for the efforts made by third countries to tighten border controls and fight irregular migration. The principle of conditional development cooperation was turned into law in Italy in September 2002 with the passage of Law 189/2002. In other words, development aid has been linked to migration ‘as a containment tool’, targeting some of the areas that put the strongest migratory pressure on Italy.

Libya is not the only country that Italy has used the carrot and stick approach to reducing migration from North Africa. As Paolo Cuttitta has documented, the combination of readmission agreements and annual quotas of immigrants has provided Italy with a ‘diplomatic weapon’ with Egypt and Tunisia as well. By increasing or cutting down the quotas from Egypt and Tunisia, Italy has sought to either reward or punish these countries for their conduct with regard to migration control.

Libya has done the same with other African states. In the 1990s Gaddafi was busy fostering relations with African countries and promoting his role as a regional leader. In 1998, the Libyan leader announced publicly the abandonment of Pan-Arabism in favour of Pan-Africanism. His slogan ‘Africa for Africans’ became the theme of his speeches and foreign policy rhetoric. To further substantiate his role as the ‘artisan de la paix’ and ‘sage africain’, on 9 September 1999, in Sirte, Gaddafi presented his grand vision of a ‘United States of Africa’, with a single army, currency and powerful leadership. On the same occasion, Gaddafi expressed Libya’s intention of welcoming migrants of African origin, while continuing to accept also Arab migrants. The abolition of frontiers, and the free circulation of people, as responses to the economic exploitation of Africa by the Western world, were the key tenets of the African project proclaimed by the Libyan leader. African passport-holders were allowed to enter Libya without visas for three months, and enjoyed easier access to residency and work permits than did other foreigners.

The reaction of the Libyan public to the migration that followed, however, gave short shrift to this idealism. In 1995, one third of the Sudanese population in Libya, around 70,000 people, was forcibly conducted to the border after relations between Tripoli and Khartoum deteriorated. As CNN reported, the expulsions appeared to be motivated by ‘Libyan suspicion that the Sudanese government was involved in clashes with Muslim militants in Libya’. The same fate befell 10,000 Mauritanians when Libya wanted to condemn the rapprochement between Israel and Mauritania. Libya also closed its embassy in Mauritania and imposed economic sanctions on the country. During 1995 alone, of the 335,000 foreigners who left the country, 200,000 had been expelled.

Italy’s and Libya’s migration management policies corroborate Loescher and Monahan’s observation that people’s movements are often used as foreign policy tools: ‘refugees are often used, both symbolically and instrumentally, to pursue foreign-policy objectives’ and ‘can be used to embarrass or destabilise enemy governments.’ This analysis has demonstrated the numerous ways in which migration intertwines with states’ interests and power. On the one hand, receiving states, such as Italy, are actively engaged in carrot-and-stick attempts to influence migration flows by appealing to sending countries’ interests. It then comes at no surprise that the Italian Prime Minister welcomed the Friendship Agreement as a guarantee of ‘more oil and less migrants.’ On the other hand, sending states, such as Libya, have also used migration to expose the vulnerability of the receiving ones, with a view to extracting specific concessions through the wider bargaining mechanisms.

We are thus led to look back at the drastic decline of immigration to Italy in a more critical way. Contradictions apply to different countries and at different levels in the policy-making cycle. This cycle is complex and practices vis-à-vis migration relate to broader social, economic, historical and ideational factors. It is therefore important to go beyond polarising accounts of state practices on migration and beyond the sensationalist and ‘moral outrage’ stance taken, to differing degrees, by the media, politicians and advocacy groups alike. The loss of life of migrants on the sea, at the centre of media accounts and political discourse, needs to be located in the broader appreciation of the inherent political nature of migration.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Dr Emanuela Paoletti is a junior research fellow at Somerville College, Oxford.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

16 demands to end violence against women

Salma Maoulidi

2009-12-23

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/61237

cc Wikimedia CommonsAnnual campaign ‘16 Days of Violence Against Women’ has raised the profile of violence against women through Tanzania’s local media, Salma Maoulidi writes in this week’s Pambazuka News, but there’s no guarantee that greater visibility of the issues will change attitudes and spark political to stop violence against women. Raising alarm over the ‘intolerable multi-dimensional culture of violence’ that women experience, Maoulidi makes a series of sixteen demands ‘to underscore fundamentals in changing an ideology and deeply seated culture of violence against women’.

Some time has passed since we marked 16 Days of Violence Against Women. Uncharacteristically articles are still appearing in the local media about the commemoration. In fact, this year the 16 Days of Violence Against Women commemorations obtained decent coverage in the local media and the coverage did not just end with the issue of violence against women (VAW), but also the related issues of HIV/AIDS, human rights violations, the rights of people with disabilities especially in the context of the killings of albinos; and gender-based violence (GBV) generally.

But does all this acknowledgement and hype comfort me or make me feel any more empowered? Sure it gives me heart that there is greater visibility of the issue at different levels but whether this translates into change in attitudes and political will to arrest violence against women is a different matter all together.

And it is not just about the reports of the countless women who are systematically raped in the Congo and in other contexts of civic strife. Nor is it about the unusually high rates of sexual assault suffered by women in South Africa that has come to typify the political, economic and social transition. Or about the obsessive regulation of women’s conduct through flogging or stoning in Somalia, the Sudan and northern Nigeria among others. The attack on women and women’s bodies is not just gruesome in nature but also covered in charm and luster as is evident in the myriad beauty pageants sold as the 21st century salvation for young women.

As a woman, assaults of a sexual nature have come to signify my daily existence, such that I often find myself bracing automatically when I walk in certain places, or when I greet certain people, because the risk of unwelcome touching or comment is great.

To be clear lest we make it a class issue, inappropriate sexual conduct is not something ‘uneducated men from the low classes’ engage in, it is the ultimate sophistication of the educated class who think that their social status privileges them to claim any woman they may fancy. It is also a tradition that successful people – be it in politics, business, academia and all the other prestigious professions – feel obliged to pursue, lest their ultimate credentials as virile men come into dispute.

My intention is not to make generalisations and put all men in one basket. However, my personal experience strongly suggests that something is amiss and needs to be fixed as the viciousness with which young men – and well-to-do men in particular – attack women is alarming. My fingers and toes are not enough to count the incidents that would amount to violence against women my five-foot frame has endured this year alone. Nor are they enough to account for all the incidents amounting to violence against women I have witnessed on the streets, on television and other media, at places of work and in learning institutions. To my chagrin, these incidents are largely ignored and in some cases justified as ‘normal’. In fact, society becomes angry when you object, protest or fight back.

I attended my first 16 Days of Violence Against Women commemoration in 1991, when I was a student at the university. A fellow student, Levina, had just committed suicide after some male students harassed her incessantly and the university authorities did not respond accordingly to help her end the abuse. It was also a time when I began volunteering for the Tanzania Media Women Association (TAMWA) Crisis Centre and I became acquainted with the phenomenon of spousal abuse and other types of domestic violence. Hence began a decade long process of activism against violence against women specifically, and later gender-based violence more generally, that culminated in the passage of the Sexual Offences (Special Provisions) Act in 1998 in Tanzania.

But almost two decades after the issue of violence against women and gender-based violence was bared and the legal framework reformed the situation has not changed nor improved. What angers me more is the extent to which violence against women and gender-based violence is being normalised in different spaces. Political speech, for example, is loaded with anti women-epithets and relegates religious leaders who are normally associated with anti women language to an amateurish level.

Also, new media – including the local sitcoms that are modelled after the ‘Nollywood’ genre of drama – are replete with sexist stereotypes. These productions are replayed in most local stations during prime time as well as in upcountry buses where the audience is glued to their seats and unable to escape its message. The music scene is not immune, with young local and foreign wannabe divas assuming poses that are clearly pinup style to impress a sexed-up audience, while young and old male performers re-enact their sexual fantasies in lyrics and performances that are but pornographic. If there is no grinding, it is not a hit. If there is no cleavage or naked hips, it is not chic. Our weak protests are silenced by claims of: ‘This is art!’

Perhaps one area in which I have felt increasing violated in the last year is dress. My body has been metamorphosing, necessitating new apparel. But to my horror, ‘comfort and fit’ is no longer what sells lingerie any more, but SEX appeal. All bras I touched came with a MUST cleavage and push up. ‘I am amply endowed,’ I complained, ‘give me something with firm support’. Store after store I searched, nothing. The specialty stores with something I thought comfortable wanted me to pay heavily for choosing to dress out of style. And even then, suffice to say, I have been suffering a lot from heart burn lately, as my breasts are squished together unnaturally and I find myself going braless more often that with one.

I don’t want to even begin with the pants in style. I was sickened when very recently I saw a prepubescent girl wearing the pants that the fashion world now compels consumers to buy hugging her young body in a vulgar, very obscene embrace. Indeed, the cut of these new pants for women are nothing but vulgar, emphasising the posterior and the crotch, sexualising all bodies 24 hours at a stretch. Consequently, in the past year I have seen more naked bottoms than I care to see. I have seen more skimpy underwear than I ever hope to wear. I have seen more waist flab than I care about. If this is not vulgar what is? Who told the fashion industry that women necessarily want their bodies exposed or made grotesque to be fashionable?

I wish to add another type of violence that although less visible is devastating in the brutality it unleashes against African women and women of colour. This violence concerns the messages conveyed about our human worth as women relative to others, messages parroted either in political speech, in development speak, in the global media, in common speech, in activist rhetoric, in global governance institutions and many more.

Indeed the face of poverty is of an African woman. The face of hunger is of an African woman. The face of illiteracy is of an African woman. The face of sexual brutality and deprivation is of an African woman. The face of dispossession is of an African woman. The face of conflict is of an African woman. The face of HIV/AIDS and other diseases is of an African woman. The face of sexual ambiguity and caricature is of African woman. The global obsession with sexuality is meted on the bodies of African women. Epithets such as ugly, ignorant, insolent, loud, filthy, passive, dumb, powerless, whore, victim and primitive are commonly associated with African women or women of colour. Rarely are we celebrated as survivors, despite strong odds. I find this assault on our integrity as a people, on our pride as women and on our confidence as a gender debilitating, an unwelcome legacy to bequeath our daughters (and sons).

Perhaps it is time for another message à la The Vagina Monologues. I will not attempt to be as artistic but I will try my best to convey that which I think is pertinent to raise alarm over this intolerable multi-dimensional culture of violence I experience as a woman. I make a series of demands, sixteen in all, for each day of the commemoration but really to underscore fundamentals in changing an ideology and deeply seated culture of VAW. And while I speak and write as an African woman from a particular region, background and persuasion, I have no doubt that women from other corners and contexts will strongly identify and possibly act on some of the demands.

My sixteen demands to end sexual impunity and violence against women and girls are as follows:

1. Of immediate effect, I demand all orifices to STOP taking the Vagina in vain. I do not want to hear the mark of my womanhood continuing to be the key reference of every verbal abuse; and foul and vile language on mother earth and the linguistic cultures that permeate it. How is the site of pleasure and life reviled so mercilessly? Perhaps we need to consider criminalising this indiscriminate taking the vagina in vain, urging instead that it be accorded well deserved respect!

2. My body is mine, every centimetre of it and no one else’s. I therefore don’t want to be touched or handled in an inappropriate manner or without my invitation or consent by people who may think that they are being macho, up to date, cute, charming or exercising misplaced chivalry.

3. I am an intelligent person with a healthy appetite for respectful and open conversation. I don’t need nor want to be addressed or spoken to in a vulgar/unflattering sexually explicit or suggestive manner/tone as if this is the only way I can heed to or respond to light conversation; or someone coming on to me.

4. I believe in the inherent equality of all people no matter their outer or inner differences. I strongly protest my sex being used by my country, my community and my family as a basis to continue to put me at a disadvantage, at risk or in a position of heightened vulnerability instead of my amplifying and affirming my humanity. Surely, in this age, we cannot continue to uphold discriminatory practices when we are governed by concepts of human rights that are universal!

5. I am a constitutional and national subject. Under what basis does my country refuse to recognize my full humanity and citizenship in awarding/providing/promoting and protecting constitutional and legal guarantees at par with male citizens? I demand the full recognition of my citizenship status and entitlements as a citizen of a free nation.

6. I am a human being endowed with an inherit dignity. I reject the continuing use of my body as a tool, a sex toy, a possession, a chattel or a commodity to be abused, played with, disposed of, exchanged or sold.

7. My unique physique confers me triple roles; production; reproduction and caring all in service of humanity. Yet my work continues to be unaccounted for, unrecognised, uncompensated and under valued in a context where equal pay for equal work universally governs private and public labour relations.

8. Human beings are male, female and fusions of the biological states. But in the minds and practice of media and market forces the female body exists to be commercialised. These institutions can only conceive the female body in its sexual function a practice that should be condemned for its pervasion.

9. I am rarely on the tables that dictate war or policy. But all too often my body is the ultimate weapon of war, an object of political or class reprisals, robed of its dignity… I demand for a reconfiguration of these skewed, sexist rules of war and the full force of international resolutions to come to bear against those who dare use of women as weapons of war.

10. My function as mother, consort, and bearer of the human race is sacred. But I continue to die or to suffer harm for fulfilling the most basic human function- human reproduction in the most despicable conditions. And my death at the service of humanity hardly attracts mention or notice in government quarters as does men who die in war or on soccer pitches. I demand what value is attached to my reproductive role?

11. Sexuality is experiencing sexual and reproductive health. Yet, science and its associated industries like lucrative pharmaceuticals continue to ignore my need to access safe, affordable, accessible reproductive health technologies and services. I demand to know where the morality in this is.

12. Single, married, divorced or widowed; young or old; rich or poor women face violence at all stages of their lives, in most cases resulting in death. But local and national responses to protect women from violence are absent, inadequate or unsuitable 30 years after CEDAW and almost 15 years after the Beijing Platform for Action. I demand to know if states across the world assume women are collateral damage in the power equation that defines gender relations.

13. Marriage is and should be a voluntary act between two people. It baffles me that my changed marital status should condemn only me, not my better half, to poverty and unspeakable indignities in violation of my rights to own, acquire, inherit and control property. I demand to know if marriage constitutes contemporary bondage.

14. I was born free, an autonomous being. But in life, my identity and status continues to be pegged on others – my father, my husband, my brother or my son/child – condemning me to a life of perpetual dependence. I want the state to declare am I not a free, sovereign being?

15. I am over half of humanity. However I remain invisible to the world, its rulers and institutions. The continued absence, invisibility, under representation and non participation of women, in both private and public life constitutes a violation of my/our right to exist, to be represented and to be heard.

16. My humanity bestows on me the capacity to dream, desire and do. Consistently, my hopes, dreams, needs and desires continue to be denied, delayed, derailed and denounced in favour of the priorities of others who are seen to be more important, more deserving, and perhaps more human. I reclaim my unimpeded right to dream, dare and demand for all that is natural, God given, constitutionally conferred and human.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

© Salma Maoulidi 2009
* Salma Maoulidi is a member of the Gender and Education Office of the International Council of Adult Education, member of Femnet a Pan African Women’s Advocacy Network and member of Sahiba Sisters Foundation, a community of women’s learners operating in 13 regions of Tanzania.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

South Africa and the pseudo-intellectuals

Leslie Dikeni

2009-12-23

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/61234

cc United Nations Photo‘What constitutes an intellectual in the South African context?’ asks Leslie Dikeni in this week’s Pambazuka News, ‘Who is an intellectual and who isn’t?’ In an extract from a new book of essays, ‘The Poverty of Ideas’, Dikeni separates the ‘real intellectuals’ from a new breed of ‘pseudo-intellectuals’ that have emerged in recent years: The ‘celebrity intellectual’, the ‘commercial intellectual’, the ‘policy analyst’ and the ‘new gender activist’.

Most of the recent public debates and discussions on the role of or the marginalisation of African intellectuals and ‘intellectualism’ have not only missed the point, but are also too narrow in content.[1] They are narrow because most of the debates place too much emphasis on whether the interlocutor is African and black. The current debate focuses rather narrowly on race. This misses the point because such an interpretation does not in any way structurally examine the dynamics around the dilemma of being an intellectual in South Africa today. Intellectual knowledge, it is assumed in this approach, is a body of facts from the laboratory or from some towering institution. Furthermore, such an outlook assumes, wrongly, that intellectualism is about the construction of literary texts only.

Rather, the debate requires us to pose a number of questions. What constitutes an intellectual in the South African context (and perhaps elsewhere)? Who is an intellectual and who isn’t? Indeed, who are the real intellectuals? My point is that in South Africa and elsewhere, intellectuals vary and are diverse in nature, rather than race- or ethnic-specific. At the same time, Bourdieu alerts us to the fact that ‘we all operate within a field within which there are struggles over ideas and scientific thought. This field has limits and delimits, there are inclusions and exclusions within this field and there are furthermore excommunications within the field.’[2]

One can argue that in the South African public space in recent years, four dominant types of intellectuals have emerged. They are, for lack of better descriptive words, the celebrity intellectual, the commercial intellectual, the policy analyst and the new gender activist. These groups in general constitute what I dub pseudo-intellectuals.

THE CELEBRITY INTELLECTUAL

Celebrity intellectuals are those who seek to gain face and not to lose face. Simply put, they make a point of always being at the right place at a particular moment, to offer the media soundbite that the issue demands. They include some media columnists who really have nothing constructive or useful to contribute, but for whom profit and celebrity are the main objectives. Others are on television screens. They invariably have the right style of dress and have mastered the language of television producers. They are the true ‘guardians of morality’ in contemporary South African society. Scandals are their pet projects. They are obsessed with analysing and treating social problems as scandals. They rarely decline television interviews on any topic (whether they know or don’t know anything about it). A brief examination of the historical and political events of the 1970s to 1990s is the best way of illustrating this point.

Among many other things, the 1970s and 1980s are often described in general as the most repressive and politically charged period in the history of South Africa. Much has also been said and written about the different ‘political’ and ‘ideological’ conflicts that existed during this period. It is this point that I seek to explore further here. I will do so from a perspective of understanding how the ideologies of that period have influenced and shaped the social behaviour of different individuals and groups and, through this process, have constructed the ‘celebrity intellectual’.

During this period, the most dominant progressive and anti-establishment ideological thought was Marxism. Almost all the main political formations and groups opposed to apartheid subscribed to Marxism. In the main, the apartheid regime as well as some sections of the international community identified all critical thought with Marxism. Equally, among the left at the time, anyone who remotely critiqued Marxism or posed the slightest questions about Marxism would be denounced as reactionary or individualist by the left. To take a pertinent example, in some circles it was almost taboo to talk about the relevance of religion to society and even the way religion could socially shape and sustain the lives of people. Following Marx, religion was regarded as an opiate of the people and therefore religious groups involved in the process of social change had to be merely tolerated (it was a strategic venture to involve them in this process of social transformation). Furthermore, it was considered almost scandalous to identify oneself with any religious group.

On the other hand, classic Marxism was fashionable and the subject of serious discussion. It was how you justified any theoretical argument, it was how you would start your first phrase at a mass meeting or community meeting. You read Karl Marx (available thanks to Progress Publishers) as your Bible, and when conditions allowed, your home would be covered with pictures of Marx or Lenin. You had to accept the concept of class as the only theoretical and methodological solution to social problems. Finally, if you did not understand Marxism or did not catch a popular Marxist phrase, you were excluded from the group. If you persisted and posed the right questions, in other words thinking with Marx, problematising Marx, you would be treated with suspicion and labelled a sceptic. One informant described this intellectual period in this way:

‘Mzala, you see my friend, during the eighties comrades used to read, discuss and debate issues [sasi rhabulisana]. Marxism was the order of the day and that was our line. We used to discuss Capital the whole night and solve problems spot on. We had a class consciousness that was biased towards the working class. Christians, as you know, were reactionary and we did not have much time for them. They had to follow ... the line. Abo Frank [Chikane] were the only ones we knew and understood. Those were the days ... Nowadays, comrades have changed, they do not even want to hear about Marxism and Leninism. Everyone is working for companies and drives BMWs. These days it’s everyone for himself. I have also changed. What can I do ...?’ [My own translation]

The release of Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners as well as the return of some of the exiles changed everything. The very same intellectual activists on the left became religiously more tolerant: Religion and the participation of the religious-minded in the process of social change were no longer a cause for scandal but they were now perceived as legitimate participants in the process. At the same time, the Cold War was coming to an end and the Soviet empire was collapsing. Marxism became less fashionable; it was an ideology of the past. The thinking of Francis Fukuyama, who employed an Hegelian end-of-history argument to signal that American-style liberal democracy had become the fulfilment of human achievement, was now cool and chic, and Marxism was suddenly unfashionable and outdated (if not a crime).

We have come a long way with the celebrity intellectuals: They have been with us for over a decade and are still pontificating in public forums. In this sense, we can see how ersatz the celebrity intellectuals are, how they always contrive to be in the right place at the right time and how they often change their views out of self-interest and not because of a compelling intellectual or scientific reason. Equally, we can see that it is ideology or theory that shapes their consciousness, not practice informed by social reality.

THE COMMERCIAL INTELLECTUAL

Commercial intellectuals are those who assume they have a monopoly of ideas and can control different forms of thought in much the same way as prices are manipulated in the market. For this group there are profits to be made in the intellectual field or marketplace. These profits are accrued in various ways and can be boosted by conforming to acceptable standards of conduct on television and radio talk shows and at public meetings, and by the servile way in which they defer to literary writers and prominent politicians (‘I met Ngugi wa Thiong’o/Nelson Mandela’). It is through these various ‘fuzzy’ means that they establish their authority to speak at any time. A brief examination of the 1980s is a good way of illustrating this point.

Key to the protest against apartheid and colonialism in South Africa during the 1980s in the mass democratic movement was a general boycott of artistic, cultural and intellectual products. The music and film industries were some of the internal sites of struggles where artists and intellectuals used to engage the regime. Many South African artists, writers and even journalists during this period refused to use their intellectual capital for the apartheid regime. They did so often at great personal risk. They gave up opportunities for personal financial gain, for fame and even at times for advancing their own personal careers (for example, by studying abroad). Some even languished in jail and were persecuted by the regime.

Albert Nolan, the South African-born Catholic priest, activist and prominent author, was elected master general of the worldwide Dominican Order in 1983 but he declined in order to continue his work against apartheid in South Africa. When interviewed about his reasons for declining, he had the following to say: ‘I did not accept the offer, because I wanted to continue my work of activism and doing theology in South Africa. I did this because the Apartheid regime used Christian Theology to justify their policies. It therefore seemed more important to fight this bad theology than to take up a prestigious international position in the church ... However, I have now [in the democratic South Africa] been awarded an Albert Luthuli presidential award for doing theology in South Africa ... [Laughs]’ (Fieldwork notes 2006)

Like Albert Nolan, many of the intellectuals and artists are still with us; some who had left the country and gone into exile have come back. Between the socially aware intellectuals of the 1980s and the commercial intellectuals of today there is a great contrast. Unlike the former, the commercial intellectuals do not have the same social consciousness. What we see today is a bleak picture of artistic and intellectual discourse – in fact a decline of intellectualism.

THE POLICY ANALYST

The pragmatic policy analysts, the ‘boardroom players’ and ‘masters of projects’ can be found in the universities, in government bodies and in private sector and research institutions that are mushrooming in South Africa. Here we have the typical guru and project specialist who is adept at writing quick-fix project proposals. For this group, anything conceptual and theoretical that requires thinking will be treated with scepticism and as a waste of time.

They often argue the need to focus on policies to reconstruct and build the country and claim that we do not have the luxury of time and money afforded intellectuals in the West and elsewhere to think about theory. They are quick to defend their ‘policy turf’. They are not likely to publish any critical policy research in the media, in case it upsets one or other authority or potential employer.[3] They also sit on many different boards that require a lot of meetings with various obligations attached to them. One wonders when they get time to read and think.

Related to the policy analyst is what I call the pragmatic intellectual, who does not belong to a separate and distinct social group of his or her own. Some of them genuinely seek to contribute towards the process of transformation in South Africa. However, their limitation is that they place policy analysis and construction above anything else. Thus, they tend to separate theory and praxis, something which is unthinkable and impossible. Their failure to grasp the need to think beyond current policy formulations and construct new policy frameworks and theoretical concepts is a serious shortcoming.

These intellectuals – whether professionals, business executives, civil servants, or staffers of NGOs – perform different functions within South African society. Socially, they are differentiated by class, status and position. But despite these differences, their current political and social grounding ensures a commonality, in that, whether they are for or against the dominant state discourses, they confine intellectual activity to an elitist and pragmatic paradigm.

Furthermore, among these actors there is also a tendency towards intellectual exhibitionism and the fashionable use of intellectual theory. One example of this exhibitionist culture is the constant commentary provided by them on television and radio talk shows and sometimes in newspapers and journals. Their comments are often based on current political events of the day and have very little to do with the historical background of these events. The language used is often borrowed from CNN and other Western media: In short, the language of the dominant class that does not seek to offend that class but to conform to it.

In addition, they have a chronic inability to grasp that as an intellectual one possesses intellectual capital (a specific form of power) and invariably influences society. As an intellectual, one is ethically accountable to a set of values which favour the disadvantaged, the poor and the marginalised. Instead, in their understanding of capital, the power invested in intellectual activity, they manipulate the terrain for their own gain instead of being non-elitist, selfless, inclusive, ethical and accountable to the marginalised in society.

The South African political and discursive transitions indicate that we all belong to a ‘post-colonial state’, a state proclaimed to be democratic, politically, socially and economically. However, for many pragmatic intellectuals the state is still politically colonised – hence their relentless negative critiques of the state and its various organisational practices, often similar to the old colonial critiques. Adopting a simplistic approach in describing relations between the state and civil society, they see the state as bad and the citizen as good.[4] This they do at opportune moments and when it is safe.

On the other hand, some pragmatic intellectuals operate within state institutions and act in a directly opposite manner. For them, anything or anybody remotely critical of the state (of state policy or state organisational practices) not only must be opposed, but must be rejected to the point of invisibility. No debate can take place. Both groups are intellectually opportunistic, hypocritical and without substance. Their conceptual approaches are not grounded in theory or substance.

A careful observation of how they act will quickly unmask how shallow, theoretically ungrounded and opportunistic they are. Typically, they might work for the state, say for five years, then leave, and soon oppose everything (mostly without merit or substance) from the safety of the private sector, research institutions or NGOs to which they now belong. Another example would be in the area of equity. Some embrace and defend affirmative action when it benefits them at a particular moment. But when the concept no longer serves their own personal interests, they reject it. This they do without concern for the plight of the broader South African society and the very same black and disadvantaged groups they belong to. Equally, there is no attempt to pose questions, historical and methodological, about the construction of concepts like Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) and affirmative action. Instead they use these concepts to benefit personally from them and carry on with daily life.

THE GENDER ACTIVIST

There is a specific intellectual whom I call the ‘new, late-arriving gender activist’ who can be distinguished from the female activists that have for years engaged in an organised way against the power of racial colonialism and patriarchal oppression in South Africa and fought alongside others[5] for social and political power. These new, late-arriving gender activists now have power and are quite capable of opportunistically manipulating the current legal system – which favours equity – for their personal interest and profit. They have constructed their own culture, their own language, exclusive of the other sex. Thus, they talk about women’s clubs, women’s caucuses, the creation of ‘women’s spaces’ and so on. Many of them are CEOs of companies or hold top positions in government departments or management positions in research institutions and NGOs.[6]

These black women are often the loudest voices at political rallies, in NGO forum meetings and in official and private festivities celebrating ‘traditional’ activities, now so much in fashion among the black elite. They often contradict themselves – they enjoy all the splendour and plumage of Western luxury but insistently argue for the acceptance of all traditional practices as a historical social norm that must be maintained by all. Those who don’t follow their slavish but opportunistic argument are suspect. The irony is that they pass over the uncomfortable elements of tradition, like traditional forms of polygamy.

Many seem to have memorised the plethora of ‘empowerment’ charters and declarations that have been put out by the state. They use these to advocate only one form of empowerment – giving deals to them and their friends – on the basis of their skin colour (and gender). For this group there is only ‘one form of right’ and that is a narrow definition of women’s rights. The struggle for the transformation of social attitudes and different patterns of social behaviour is low on their agenda. Equally, the existence of the other sex and their liberation are also taboo. And this is the point that requires interrogation.

During the 1980s, the United Democratic Front was formed as a broad-based organisation whose major objective was uniting different anti-apartheid formations and groups and mobilising them against racism and colonialism. These included religious groups, student bodies, women’s groups, and civic organisations. Amongst them was a small but very committed group of activists organised under the banner of GLOW, a loose coalition of both gay and lesbian people. Unlike the ‘new gender activists’, GLOW did not concern itself with only one right – the right to free gays and lesbians only. Instead, its members understood quickly that the social struggle for liberation also meant transformation of the whole oppressive system; that there was no escape from other forms of oppression; that even if they secured their own liberation, they would still be affected in their everyday life by other forms of racial or gender or patriarchal or economic oppression. They understood the limitations of fighting for one right, self-interest, and exclusive rights.

Today, GLOW’s social, political and theoretical approach has secured its cause, in that our new democratic political dispensation allows political and social space for different sexual orientations to exist. As one activist has said: ‘The gender struggles of the eighties helped a great deal. Though it was difficult at times working with other members of the mass democratic movement, because of often entrenched and hardened attitudes towards the gay community, even among the most progressive. We managed to place their issues on the agenda, not as gay issues as others may want to think, but as a people affected by all other problems affecting the larger community. It was not only about sex, but the whole system that affected all sexes [sic] in their different ways. The illegality of homosexuality, the Immorality Act, the harsh labour laws, the education system, the whole lot! However, today sexual discrimination does not come from the state, nor so much from the male partner, but more directly from our powerful sisters at work, in the church, at home and even sometimes from the unions, colleagues are telling me ... You think I will disclose my sexual status to these vultures ... [Laughs]’ (Fieldwork notes, 2004)[7].

What this conversation clearly shows is the difference in the conceptualisation of power between the activists of the 1980s and the ‘new, late-arriving gender activists’ of today. Whereas the progressives of the gender struggles in the 1980s conceptualised power for the broader interest of society, the new activists do so for personal gain and self-interest. Furthermore, the struggle for sexual liberation did not end in gaining state approval for sexual liberation, it was not a struggle determined by legal texts, and it was certainly not a struggle for an exclusive group as the new-comers want us to believe. Like all other struggles against repressive powers, it was an episode with no final stage, where attitudes and patterns of social behaviour supersede legal formulations and sometimes the rule of law.

UNPACKING ‘INTELLECTUAL’ AS A CONCEPT

Who then are the real intellectuals in South Africa? How do we define an intellectual within the South African public space? What role should such an actor play within our society? This certainly is an exercise fraught with problems and complexities. Furthermore, it does not have only one answer. However, solutions and means and ways of dealing with this intellectual problem have to be found. Failure to do so will lead to a further erosion of our democratic political discourse. The most urgent thing to do is to get rid of all the misleading arguments posed by the pragmatic intellectuals which suggest that we only need to focus on policy discourse, based on reconstructing and building the country, or that ‘we do not have the luxury that those intellectuals in France and elsewhere in the developed world have’. These arguments, these ‘theoretical bubbles’, are restrictive and redundant, as Edward Said cautioned in his Reith lectures on the representation of the intellectual. ‘One task of the intellectual is the effort to break down the stereotypical and reductive categories that are so limiting to human thought and communication.’

Equally, we need to guard against celebrity intellectuals who seek to ‘gain face and not lose face’, those who are at the right place at a particular moment – in a nutshell, our intellectual fashion-paraders and true exhibitionists. They are not true intellectuals, for they are incapable of filling what Said proposes as the public role of the intellectual, that of being an ‘outsider, a mature disturber of the status quo’.

The commercial intellectual, the monopolist of thought who only sees profits that have to be made within the ‘intellectual field’, is equally dangerous. The expert who uses ‘fuzzy’ social contacts to establish his authority and speaks relentlessly on radio and television talk shows, and so moulds public opinion, is certainly not the kind of intellectual who would strengthen our democracy. As Said puts it, ‘the world is more overcrowded than it ever has been with professionals, experts, consultants – with intellectuals whose role it is to provide authority with their labour whilst gaining great profit ...’

No doubt, there are obstacles for the true intellectual wanting to make a substantial difference. In producing their work or art, intellectuals and artists need to mobilise resources. At the same time, we need to avoid placing ourselves in a situation where we use our intellectual labour for personal gain and self-interest. We must refuse any attempt by those who control resources to force us to produce theoretical and conceptual works that seek to serve their interests and not the interests of society. Clearly, our new democracy with its various economic constraints deserves more than this and requires rather a socially aware intellectual – people who will continually think with and for society without concern for the self.

The misunderstood intellectual and artist It was the late South African painter and poet Fikile Magadlela who once, during a conversation, confided to me: ‘I am troubled.’ When asked what troubled him, he responded by saying, ‘My appetite for booze and those who judge me because of that. What they all do not understand is why one drinks and why alcohol is such good company.’[8] At the time when this conversation took place, I myself had entered a period of abstinence – otherwise I might have been, subconsciously or openly, one of those very same judges he was referring to. Coincidentally, when this talk took place there was an explosion of social activism and protest throughout the country, following years of apathy. The conversation dealt with the current public debates on the future of the country. Key to our own debate was the social consciousness of different artists, intellectuals and activists.

Fikile would often, during the conversation, express his anger about the way artists were treated by society. His concerns included the lack of understanding of his work (and those of fellow artists), lack of appreciation or downright misreading of his work. Running like a thread through the conversation was the financial constraints endured by most South African artists.

It took me a very long time to understand, appreciate and internalise the feelings of social alienation he bore. I felt (rightly or wrongly) at the time that to raise the issue of his pain caused by the social stigma of his drinking would be insensitive. A few years have passed since he died, anonymously. In the writings of today nothing is said about him. My social encounters with and reading of the biographies of other intellectuals and artists point to similar frustration, anger and despair. Karl Marx was equally misjudged and misunderstood by those in society who bestowed on themselves the title of the guardians of ‘intellectual capital’. Michel Foucault is another example of an intellectual who refused to lose or gain face, who passionately engaged with different levels of society, and at the same time ‘over-indulged’. Among socially aware painters we find the same social history: Pablo Picasso, Vincent van Gogh and Gerard Sekoto[9] lived through the same pain, social alienation, and had to endure the same rabid social judgements. In South Africa, there are many other artists who had similar experiences, including Dennis Mpale and Dudu Pukwana.

Lulu Gontsana, a prominent South African drummer from Port Elizabeth, has lived and worked with many of these local artists. My encounter with him goes back to 1986 and carried on until he died in 2005. Exceptionally, he never drank alcohol but understood why his other artist peers were ‘indulging’. He expressed himself in the following way on this problem:

‘To be what we are, you have to be strong, disciplined and committed to your cause. Some people use different ways of coping and alcohol is one of them ... As for myself, my drums are my methods of coping ... When no one understands your passion and love for sound, when they judge you for the choices you make in life to sustain that choice, you have no option ... ‘(Fieldwork notes 2002)[10].

James Matthews, the prominent South African poet and novelist, has undergone similar experiences. In his novel ‘The Party is Over’ he gives us an intimate and revealing insight into his life (and that of others) as an artist in circumstances of social drudgery and personal despair. Discussion with Matthews about his published books and about his role as a poet and novelist brought out the following:

‘When I started writing my poetry and novels none of these white people wanted to publish my work. They did not understand what I wanted to convey to the public, they did not understand the things I wrote about – the sufferings of black families in Dimbaza, Alexandra and elsewhere in the black townships of South Africa.

‘Hence, in one of my books I had to invite the likes of Wally Serote to join in. I had to convince them that as blacks we are capable and knowledgeable, we can do it and we must insist we can do it! ... That was when I was still drinking excessively. It really took me a long time to get them to understand ... I finally decided to establish my own publishing company ... ‘(Fieldwork notes 2005).[11]

There are both objective and subjective reasons for considering questions like these: Subjective, because critical evaluation of the self leads to observations or conclusions about the self; and objective, because numerous observations, conversations and events concerning a variety of artists and intellectuals have shaped my thinking, not only to look at their artistic and intellectual products but also to connect both product and output to their personas.

There is a danger in our society of glibly turning what are obvious social problems into psychological problems. We must also refuse to become social snobs who use their power to judge others and marginalise them. Various social groups and individuals in society make different aesthetic choices on the basis of taste and, through this process, ‘construct’ and sometimes ‘deconstruct’ particular reputations and therefore shape their own social lives.

Equally, the ability to understand how various social actors in society make different cultural and aesthetic choices to shape their lives is fraught with difficulties and problems.[12] Claims of being an intellectual in ‘good moral standing‘ (if that is possible) cannot be based on the social reputation of an intellectual and artist but rather on the achievements of each individual within the domains of intellectual and artistic space.

Furthermore, it is undeniable that the formation of an intellectual’s identity is a historical process and that past events contribute to the present image of a particular group of intellectuals. The misunderstood artists and intellectuals with whom I have dealt have positioned themselves within the general intellectual arena as intellectuals who seek to serve society as opposed to serving their own interests. Through this process, they have suffered labelling, misunderstanding and judgement. Yet their works have managed to gain ground and invariably have influenced others in society and through this process have contributed to changing society.

Labelling or judgement by others, whether based on authentic or inaccurate criteria, always carries some significance. Despite their different styles of work, different intellectual orientations, different historical trajectories, different habits and tastes, their personal differences and interests, this group of misunderstood intellectuals do have some distinctive characteristics moulded by the conjuncture of local and international influences.

Finally, whatever identity or standing these misunderstood intellectuals and artists may have will be determined by their wider audiences, and not by some journalist, celebrity intellectual, commercial intellectual or policy analyst. Such an identity can only be constructed by others on the basis of their profiles, thinking capacities and achievements in influencing society over the years. Claims to local, regional, national and international reputations are built on achievements, and not on journalistic and pseudo-intellectual judgements.

THE SOUTH AFRICAN INTELLECTUAL TRADITION

Thankfully, there have been many progressive South African intellectuals whose social characters are different from those of the pseudo-intellectuals who are so prominent today. They have varied in their social composition, because of their different political and ideological persuasions, their different class backgrounds and their various historical and political trajectories. Among the most noteworthy one can mention J.B. Marks, a veteran member of the South African Communist Party; Govan Mbeki, leading member of both the Communist Party and the ANC; Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe, Wits University lecturer and one of the founding members of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC); Nelson Mandela, first president of democratic South Africa; and Albertina and Walter Sisulu, giants of the liberation struggle. These are examples of intellectuals who used their intellectual power (both skill and capital) to serve society without the desire to gain face or to benefit personally. They did all of this at great risk to their lives, at great cost and at great personal sacrifice, for the collective good of society. Mention of their names provides perhaps the best practical and symbolic approach to defining what constitutes an intellectual within the public space and to demonstrating what role an intellectual should play.

Time changes constantly and thus historical discourse changes, too: We lose paradigms, yet we also often regain them. Perhaps it is time that we regain the old South African intellectual paradigm exemplified by the likes of these men and women.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* This is an extract from The Poverty of Ideas, edited by William Gumede and Leslie Dikeni and published by Jacana Media (ISBN 978-1-77009-775-9).
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

NOTES

[1] The author would like to thank Albert Nolan, a thinking partner, mentor and friend, for helping with the organisation of this chapter.
[2] Throughout this section, the concept of the field as defined by Bourdieu is used to analyse the various different social actors described as pseudo-intellectuals operating within the South African public space. Such a concept helps us better understand the various conflicts (e.g. domination, subordination, homology and so on) that take place between the various actors involved. For further reading on the notion of the field and how it is applied, see P. Bourdieu and L.J. Wacquant, An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1992).
[3] A serious intellectual error often committed by this group is sometimes using and defending concepts without understanding the historical and methodological basis of the concepts; for example, the way in which some of these policy pragmatists use a very popular but pragmatic concept affirmative action in South Africa.
[4] Contrary to the theoretical views held by these actors on the relations between state and civil society, I do not hold to a realist conception of the state as an entity embodying some unified rationality or world view. Such a conception of the state, in my view, has the drawback of counterposing dichotomous social constructs. In holding to a nominalist conception of the state I concentrate on the conceptions, organisational practices and idioms of authority exercised by certain actors in particular institutional settings and arenas. The state then is viewed as the shorthand for referring to a diversity of institutional projects, practices of governability and modes of legitimisation which have in common a particular language or discourse of power. When talking of state and civil society relations, I therefore refer to the idioms and practices of intervention used in struggles and negotiations between bureaucrats, specific actors of civil society and representatives of the private sector.
[5] Gender is used here in a cultural way, as a social set of relations between males and females and includes theories and practices of sexual orientation.
[6] They are the ones wearing African dresses underneath Levi jeans and those lecturing with overhead projectors on indigenous cultural local practices, not to omit those drinking Coke while expecting us to eat staple diet meals.
[7] This discussion took place in 2004 with an informant in Johannesburg while I was doing preliminary research for the Department of Social Development of South Africa.
[8] The author is grateful to the late Fikile Magadlela, a prominent South African painter and poet who died a year before the writing of this text (especially for confiding in me in such an open way). I had known Fikile since 1986 when he was still actively involved in the arts and culture field and was simply known as ‘Fikza’ the poet. The debates I had with him about the South African arts and culture discourse have partially inspired the writing of this chapter.
[9] For an interesting observation, and also an exceptional life history of the great African painter, Gerard Sekoto, see, for example, N. Manganyi, A Black Man Called Sekoto (Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 1996), who gave a social description of the painter’s artistic life, in particular examining the way in which the artist tried to remain truthful to his works under severe material conditions. Of importance is the impact on his life caused by different public misjudgements and misunderstandings of his art, which resulted in his undergoing psychological therapy.
[10] The discussions with Lulu took place in Melville, Johannesburg, while I was doing ethnographic studies for the Department of Arts Culture Science and Technology, on the role of arts and culture within the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad).
[11] This discussion with James Matthews took place in Cuba in November 2005. It was resumed in December 2005 in Athlone, Cape Town, at his house.
[12] On this subject, Bourdieu, La Distinction : Critique sociale du jugement (Paris : Les Editions de Minuit, 1979) provides a fascinating and enlightening argument on the social interpretation of taste and its judgments. He argues that the ‘social world functions simultaneously as a system of power relations and as a symbolic system in which minute distinctions of taste become the basis of social judgment’. His analysis is that social snobbery is everywhere within the bourgeois world. The different aesthetic choices people make are all distinctions; that is, choices made in opposition to those made by other classes.

Rights, the law and religion: Islamic courts in East Africa

Salma Maoulidi

2009-12-23

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/61238

cc ThiemeAs Muslim leaders across Kenya meet to discuss the status of Kadhi’s (Islamic) courts in the country’s draft constitution, Salma Maoulidi looks at the challenges of securing legal and human rights compliance within a religious framework in Tanzania, where debate has been raging over the introduction of the Kadhi’s courts in the legal and judicial system.

After a lengthy process, Kenya’s draft constitution is finally out for discussion. A contentious issue during the Kenyan constitutional review process has been the question of Kadhi’s (Islamic) courts.[1] In anticipation to this development, Muslim leaders across Kenya met to discuss the question of the constitutional status of Kadhi courts in the Kenyan constitution. It is, however, not just in Kenya that the question of Kadhis court is being thrashed out. Increasingly, it is assuming a regional character.

In Tanzania too there has been a raging debate over the introduction of the Kadhi’s courts in the legal and judicial system. Like in Kenya, the most vocal and visible opposition against Kadhi’s courts assumes a religious character, with the church being at the forefront of those most hostile to its introduction. But the motion to reinstate Kadhi’s Courts in Tanzania was first introduced by an opposition leader, the Honourable Lyatonga Mrema of the Tanzania Labour Party (TLP), undoubtedly as a political strategy to win Muslim support in the 2005 General Elections. The ruling party is said to have appropriated the motion, turning it into a campaign pledge to make the same a reality in exchange for the Muslim vote. Not surprisingly, as the 2010 elections loom, the issue is gaining renewed vigour.

Religious forces have kept the matter very much alive in various spaces, including pulpits, newspapers and blogs, intensifying the pressure on the government to concede on the issue. Using a variety of advocacy channels, some Islamic bodies institutions have embarked on a media advocacy strategy aimed at consolidating Muslim opinion over the introduction of the Kadhi’s court. Dismissive remarks by the Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda during the 2009 budget session on the issue of the Kadhi elicited a harsh reaction from Muslim quarters. To appease the situation, the chief mufti, Sheikh Shaaban Simba, formed a committee to advise and negotiate with the government over the matter. In response, the prime minister also formed a committee to engage with the Muslim Council.

Concrete proposals to introduce Kadhi’s courts failed to come up during the recently concluded parliamentary session in November. In the meantime, the government has directed the Law Reform Commission to collect views and make recommendations on the matter. Women’s voices are noticeably absent from the discussions. From available reports, there is no female representation on this crucial body, advising on the most intimate aspect of family and social relationships.

This absence of women’s interest in the ongoing discussion is not only a physical absence but also an absence of gender considerations in the overall content of the proposals in substance. Largely, the voices of women have been sidelined or muffled by political forces informing the debate. Yet, it is they who stand to loose the most from what is being proposed. Indeed, the overwhelming interest in Kadhi’s courts does not seem to be a preoccupation of Muslim women, but of sections of the Muslim community who seek political advantage both from political parties and in the larger community. Otherwise, it consumes most those sections of the community who stand to benefit the most from the existence of Kadhi’s courts.

WHY KADHI’S COURTS?

The jurisdiction of the Kadhi’s court involves questions of Muslim law relating to personal status, marriage, divorce and inheritance of and between Muslims who in most cases are citizens of a free nation. Voices for the introduction of the Kadhis Court cite ready examples of countries who are already implementing the system e.g. Zanzibar, Kenya and Egypt among others. The majority of Muslims supporting the reinstatement of the courts do so because they believe it guarantees them a degree of autonomy over an aspect of their life in conformity with religious dictates. Few go on to actually analyse the workings of these courts. Moreover, few examine in detail the experiences of specific groups, like Muslim women or non-Muslim women, before such courts.

Legal anthropologists like Erin Stiles and Susan Hirsh give us a glimpse of the experiences of women in Islamic Courts in Zanzibar and Mombasa respectively, even though their work is limited to their particular research interest. Additional information can be obtained from legal aid bodies and the experiences of legal activists like myself, whose particular preoccupation is working on issues affecting Muslim women or women impacted by Islamic laws. Just as the government feels it is important to consult and listen to mostly male religious bodies, it should equally invest in the experiences of individuals and organisations who actually work on these issues, not just those who moralise about them.

IMPORTANT CONSIDERATIONS IN REINTRODUCING KADHIS COURTS

Without doubt reintroducing the Kadhi’s Court raises the possibility of denying a section of the community their constitutional, legal and human rights in the most fundamental area of human relations – the family. Moreover, religious courts will create classes of women – Muslim and non-Muslim; married and non-married – which will further discriminate among classes of women. This reality struck home about 20 years ago when I had just graduated from law school and was approached by two widows, former partners of a Muslim man named Marijala, after they were unceremoniously denied the right to inherit; or share in jointly acquired matrimonial property after the man they had cohabited with in a relationship that is defined as matrimonial died.

One of the women, though Muslim, could not inherit because the late husband was found to have only performed cultural rites in respect of their relationship. The other widow was a Christian, who the courts decided could not inherit from a Muslim, even if such a union is recognised under the law of marriage. Much as we tried to argue their case, the court dismissed their claims in deference to the opinions of Muslims sheikhs. I remember thinking then how odd this reasoning was. Indeed, how could a man, though Muslim, but who voluntarily and happily chose to live with these women, the mothers of his children, on terms agreeable to him and them, be suddenly converted by his relatives and court to become an impeccable and observing Muslim in death so that he would disown his consorts?

This may not have been the wish of the deceased but countless women meet this fate because under existing laws and prevalent interpretations of personal laws – whether religious, cultural or legislative in origin – women do not have equal status before the law, in flagrant contravention of national constitutions. Accordingly, the wife and daughter rarely benefit on an equal basis with their male peers in any type of matrimonial or family property settlement.

This was brought home to me this Ramadhan when a friend’s neighbour in Zanzibar died, leaving behind three daughters and no son, and a profitable hotel business. To our shock and horror their uncles began harassing the children and staff, claiming that the wealth – including the hotel business – belongs to them. Officials from the department in charge of inheritance issues confirmed that in the Shafi School, which is prevalent in East Africa, should a man be survived by daughters and no son, her paternal uncles undercut the daughters in inheritance shares, something that would not happen if they had a brother.

The uncles did not have any constructive plans for the business or the children. I tried to find out if the girls could settle with their uncle by paying them the share of the inheritance. I proposed that they could be paying an amount from the income of the business over a specific time since this would also guarantee their livelihood as well as that of staff working at the hotel. The officials were not interested in such settlements but rather saw it expedient to close the business and sell it, so as to pay each heir their inheritance share. This case has left me deeply troubled and stunned, and more so the premise of its rigid reasoning.

Certainly, on its face, the rules for distributing inheritance shares contravene the Zanzibar Constitution, which prohibits any discrimination on the basis of sex. Further, it restricts the application of the Shari’ah, if contrary to the constitution. In practice, however, government institutions go on to apply predetermined formulas for inheritance and other matters without due regards to the principles of equity and justice. In the above case, female children were discriminated against in inheritance entitlements, solely because they are women, while male children are favoured in the same because they are male. It is this open favouritism that prompted the uncles to be vindictive towards their deceased brother, who had no son to protect the women under his care! Of course, during his life-time, they could not dare approach him or his affairs.

Possibly, under traditional ‘fiqh’ (jurisprudence), the rationale for awarding the uncles a hefty share in the absence of a male heir was to offer the girls the protection from want, a male guardian was required to afford them. But what happens if the uncles have no intention of taking care of their nieces? Or what if the nieces are in a better position financially, or are older and their uncles still young, and the nieces are in fact the ones taking care of their uncles? Or as happened in the Zanzibar case, what happens if the families are estranged, such that the girls have never had a relationship with their uncles during their father’s lifetime and the circumstances of his death makes reconciliation impossible?

Death is but one instance where the status of women in precarious. Divorced women too suffer dispossession at the hands of their estranged husbands. In many cases, a husband can, through a pronouncement of talak, unilaterally end a relationship and many claim it as his prerogative. To date there is no effort to check this arbitrariness, as if women have no interest in the continued subsistence of the matrimonial relationship.

Efforts to address this injustice have stalled because it concerns women and their ability to acquire and control resources. Those who benefit from the arrangement cry ‘religious observance’ at the slightest hint of reforms, effectively putting the practice beyond reproach. God, in the Qu’ran, warns believers against ascribing injustice to the Almighty (Qu’ran 2: 224). If this is so how we need to ask under what leagal and religious basis can we continue denying women equitable shares of wealth, benefits and property jointly acquired during marriage?

Perhaps a more fundamental question with regards to the application of Islamic Law remains the active denial of women’s equal human status by the use of sacred text even though the Qu’ran is clear that man’s humanity is equal to woman’s humanity. It is not surprising that when reading translations to the Qu’ran, as well as its exegesis, the text is assumed to speak to men. Thus, men become the subject of the text and women the other. Accordingly, most authors, scholars and jurists explain the text with the male as the norm with all the prerogatives, and in so doing, a woman becomes but an object of the grand plan between God and Adam to the exclusion of Hawa (Eve) and other lower beings. It is, therefore, not a coincidence that the rights of women are viewed relative to those of men and not separate from men or on an equal basis with men.

UNPACKING DOMINANT DISCOURSES OVER THE SACRED

Conversely, the inevitability of Kadhi’s courts is couched in sacred terms where they are an obligation under God’s law, as they are the avenue through which the Shariah can be interpreted and applied. Generally, it has been hard to advocate for reforms of Islamic Law because of the perception that Shariah is divine and thus immutable. Numerous scholars in Islamic law criticise this position, arguing that it is hard to pinpoint what constitutes the body of law that is termed Islamic Law. Religious officials tended to describe Islamic Law in general terms and would include provisions from the Qu’ran, the Sunna, Ahadith, the Fiqh of different ‘madhhab’ and local interpretations and practices of matters deemed religious.

This concern with preserving their heritage, avers Dr S. Parves Manzoor, has limited the ability of Muslims to envision a universal moral order consonant with the themes of ‘khalifa’ (representatives) and ‘amana’ (trust), with dire consequences to Muslims. Since the 10th century Muslim jurists have confined themselves to the study and elaboration of the work of early jurists, not in its reformation to reflect subsequent human and social developments. As a result, notes Asma Barlas, much of the religious knowledge Muslims regard as canonical today is the product of a method that is described as linear, atomistic, and hermeneutically flawed. However, because of how religious knowledge and authority came to be structured in Muslim societies historically, most Muslims continue to regard these interpretations and this methodology as Islamic and obligatory.

In addition, the dichotomy between secular and Islamic law gives particular challenges to Muslims with regards to upholding citizenship rights where all citizens are presumed equal before the law. Scholars like Professor Abdullahi an Naim speak to this dilemma where Muslims try to assert their religious identity and to coexist within a wider social reality. In this respect, the distinction made by the late Sudanese scholar, Mahmoud Taha is helpful. He describes Shariah as the law prescribed by God to regulate all aspects of public and private life, but distinguishes this from the law which came to be known as Shariah, which was created through the interpretation of jurists of the fundamental sources of Islam mainly the Qu’ran and Sunnah during the eighth and ninth century AD. He argues that historical Shariah law as known to Muslims today was based on texts of the second stage of revelation, which was responding to the emerging and evolving needs of the Medina community at a particular point in time.

Rapaport too challenges the dominant assumption and shows how the early Islamic state intervened, albeit indirectly, in social and economic transactions. Equipped with greater manoeuvrability, jurists were able to introduce reforms in family law, such as supporting marriage stipulations in the marriage contract or maintenance awards upon divorce. Hence, the development of Islamic legal codes, mainly fiqh, is more akin to current notions of upholding the rule of law, so as to avoid arbitrariness on the part of judicial officers and in no way meant to seal the possibilities of novel legal reasoning.

The religious establishment in Tanzania further argues that the Kadhi’s courts are a historical legacy, having existed in Tanzania until 1965 before they were unilaterally abolished by the independence government. Thus, although not always vocalised, the search for religious and political legitimacy fuels the debate over the Kadhi. Therefore, calls for its reinstatement should be understood as a continuation of Muslim demands for restitution against perceived injustices they faced as a group under colonial and the independence governments, including the disbanding of key religious institutions and the persecution of key Muslim religious figures, especially during Nyerere’s leadership. A key aspect of this incursion is the loss of legitimacy among Muslim institutions, which Kadhi’s courts are somehow championed to restore.

BROADENING THE SCOPE OF THE ANALYSIS

But does in suffice to argue for a system solely on the basis of what it should be and not what it is or its established outcomes? Numerous scholars, jurists and activists advance core principles in Islam to advance outcomes that are more just, equal or equitable, compassionate and merciful. The concept of ‘maslaha’, for example, has been explored by a number of Islamic thinkers at different times to address changes in the political and social environment. ‘Maslaha’ refers to public good/interest, wellbeing and welfare. It serves as a vehicle for legal and social change in that it looks into the intent or purpose of the law (‘maqasid shariah’). There are different models of ‘maslaha’ developed by jurists at different times, some building on previous models, while others break new ground. Reformist jurists who invoked ‘maslaha’ presented Islamic law as a comprehensive legal system that is flexible and adaptable, not immutable.

In recent times, this concept has allowed the state to legislate rules to facilitate governance and to confer rights across groups. This concept was in operation in recent legislative changes in Muslim majority countries like Morocco, Turkey and Iran. In upholding the divine purpose much larger than mundane preoccupations, ‘maslaha’ shifts between the concepts of benefit and harm (‘mafsada’) to determine the outcome of actions or reforms. Two main approaches are discerned in achieving legal certainty – formal or substantive legal rationality where legal rationality depends on the application of strict legal procedural rules while substantive rationality is concerned with the ethical purpose of the law. Importantly, universally, the concept is used as a mobilising force to unify the ‘umma’ and improve its status.

Social and gender justice are core principles under the Tanzanian Constitution. Indeed, the government is accountable for the well being of its citizen (Art 8 (b) and (c) of the Constitution). The Tanzanian constitution is committed to eradicate all forms of oppression, threats, discrimination, corruption, injustice and favouritism. The government is obligated to provide equal opportunity to all citizens, irrespective of sex, ethnicity, religion or status. Accordingly, all policy initiatives must ensure that individual dignity and rights are valued and respected; and human rights are promoted in line with the Declaration of Human Rights and similar national, regional and international commitments.

But the legal framework in Tanzania, as is the case in most African countries, is yet to recognise the full personhood of the woman, emphasising the need to advocate for an egalitarian legal system based on citizenship rights. Across the board – in official, religious or judicial quarters – women’s rights are still very much confined to traditional notions about women’s position and entitlements. The revolutionary reading of gender ushered in by the Convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women; the Vienna declaration on human rights; and the African charter on people’s and human rights on the rights of women are not yet a reality.

Patriarchal notions of male supremacy in the family is the basis of such disparities, the logic being that a woman will be taken care of by the men in her family. This outlook creates a perpetual class of dependants who are adults – sane, able and competent to administer their own affairs. Yet, it is a position that many want to uphold, arguing it constitutes a religious edict, not because of a sense of responsibility towards those ‘under their care’, but because they benefit from the status-quo. Indeed, there are countless examples that indicate that in practice, few women enjoy the protections that are arguably implied in men having bigger shares of inheritance. If the opposite was the case, then cases of maintenance and neglect would not top the charts of public institutions concerned with people’s welfare, religious or otherwise.

In Tanzania, as elsewhere, there exists a dominant discourse on Islam and women that leaves women, as well as sympathetic men, few avenues to demand for full citizenship rights even within religious paradigms that are progressive. Similarly, many women, human rights activists and interested observers have been silenced over matters involving the religious, for fear of offending religious sensibilities. Others feel they do not have the requisite arguments and expertise to challenge discrimination legalised on the basis of the religious or cultural. But is there no room in Islam to usher in change consonant with universal human rights ideals?

MAKING A CASE FOR REFORMING THE LEGAL AND RELIGIOUS FRAMEWORKS

As advocates for women’s rights, human rights and social justice we cannot afford to be disinterested in these discussions. Our primary interest is to ensure that the legal framework in Tanzania finally recognise the integrity and individuality of women as human beings and award them the protections that are due to every citizen. Nowhere is this more pressing than in the realm of personal relations. Also, it is to broaden the debate on rights and to introduce more progressive human rights and religious opinions to offer an array of possibilities under which women’s rights can be conceived at an individual level and within the family.

The intention is not to bash or discredit Islam as is the trend currently, but to encourage the development of a more progressive ‘fiqh’. In this regard, Mohammed Kamali posits that usul fiqh’s failure to encourage ‘ijithad’, demands that new and more pragmatic approaches should be explored. Influenced by Muhammad Rashid Rida, Kamali advocates for a methodology of harmonisation, which utilises the resources of ‘usul fiqh’ and the guidelines they offer for contemporary ‘ijithad’, whereby ideas of dignity of mankind (‘karama’), the right to live honourably, equality, justice and freedom of choice comprise basic rights of human being.

Certainly, religion does have special significance in the society but religious law does not operate in isolation. Social expectations of men and women today differ considerably from those of men and women over one thousand or one hundred years ago. Our context is of the 21st century, yet we justify applying ‘fiqh’ rules conceived in the 7th and 8th century, forgetting that such rules applied in a particular cultural and social context! As Muslims, how can we interpret legal rules so that they are more relevant to the present situation and also evidence the divine intention of upholding justice for women and men?

Moreover, instead of applying legal rules mechanically, the challenge is how to reflect the situation pertaining and not a preset outcome. Surely, the concept of justice should not just be relegated to the hereafter, as is commonly invoked to appease or silence women who contest blatant gender disparities, but it should be relevant to the present and actualised via universal, civil, legal, moral and ethical norms. For that reason, neither the state nor the courts should adopt a blanket assumption for an automatic application of religious and cultural law over personal law matters, as if women and men have no choice over the matter in life or in death.

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© Salma Maoulidi, November 2009
* Salma Maoulidi is a member of the Gender and Education Office of the International Council of Adult Education, member of Femnet a Pan African Women’s Advocacy Network and member of Sahiba Sisters Foundation, a community of women’s learners operating in 13 regions of Tanzania.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

NOTES
[1] I don’t believe that the question of religious courts pertain to Muslims alone since similar set ups, some official others less so, exist in other religious traditions. But I think that the dynamism inherent in Islam and its legal tradition makes such an investigation possible and necessary.

REFERENCES

Dr H.I. Majamba (2007) Possibility and Rationale of Establishing Kadhis Courts in Tanzania

Bunge la Tanzania, Majadiliano ya Bunge, Mkutano wa Kumi na Sita, Kikao Cha
Thelathini, Tarehe 21 Julai, 2004

Bunge la Tanzania (2006) Majadiliano ya Bunge, Mkutano wa Nne, Kikao Cha Thelathini na
Moja, Tarehe 27 Julai 2006

Salma Maoulidi (2009) Between Law and Culture: Reconfiguring Rights for married Women in Zanzibar presented at the IRW Weekly Seminars ‘The Culture of Rights and the Rights of Culture’ Rutgers University

(2005) ‘Why bring personal laws into the public space: episodes from Tanzania’ WLUML Dossier 27, December 2005, pp. 1-8.

Asma Barlas (2003) ‘Islam, women and equality’ The Daily Times, Pakistan, May 6, 2003

Felicitas Opwis (2005) ‘Maslaha in Contemporary Islamic Legal Theory’, Islamic Law and Society Vol. 12 No. 2 Brill pp.182-223

Yossef Rapoport (2003) ‘Legal diversity in the age of Taqlid: the Four Chief Qadis under the Mamaluks’, Islamic Law and Society Vol 10, issue No. 2 pp. 210-228.

Mahmoud M. Taha (1987) The Second Message of Islam, Syracuse University Press

Dr. S. Parves Manzoor (1997) ‘State and Human Rights: A guide for the perplexed Muslim’ www.algonet.se/~manzoor/HR-Diyarbaakir.htm

Dr. S. Parves Manzoor, ‘Faith and Law: at the cross section of transcendence and temporality’, www.algonet.se/~pmanzoor/index1.htlm

Mohammad Hashim Kamali (2007) ‘Sharī’ah and Civil Law: towards a Methodology of Harmonization’, Islamic Law and Society Vol. 14 No. 3

Erin Stiles (2005) ‘Marriage and Divorce Disputes in Zanzibar's Islamic Courts’ in Africa, Volume 75‎ - Page 582

Susan F. Hirsch (1998) Pronouncing and Persevering: Gender and the Discourses of Disputing in an African Islamic Court, Chicago Series in Law and Society

My body, my choice: Kenya's transsexuals

Audrey Mbugua

2009-12-22

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/61228

cc khym54In the face of sustained prejudice, Audrey Mbugua argues for the right of transsexual people to decide what is best for themselves. Having witnessed misplaced opposition to transsexual people's desire to access gender-reassignment therapy, Mbugua stresses that the decisions a person makes about their body are first and foremost their own.

'My notion of democracy is that under it the weakest should have the same opportunity as the strongest'
Mahatma Gandhi

One of Kenya’s notable heroic moments in history is undoubtedly the fight against white rule dating from 1900 to the early 1960s. Songs have been sung about this despondent time in Kenya’s history. Some of the heroes of this struggle have been immortalised by naming streets and institutions after them. Students have been forced to invest a great deal of mental energy in reading and re-reading about these heroic and gallant Kenyan warriors and of course there is the national anthem to habitually remind us of the sacrifices some Kenyans made in liberating Kenya.

To an intelligent Kenyan, all these would be meaningful to all were it not for the tragic and unwarranted atrocities committed by Kenyans on other innocent and hapless Kenyans. Take the example of women being circumcised while under sedation during childbirth at the behest of their husbands, whose community practises circumcision among women to 'tame' their sexual desires. Also, deconstruct the paternalistic attitude people have about transsexual people and you will have no doubt that some Kenyans simply picked up the paraphernalia of colonialism from the whites and are hell-bent on oppressing guiltless Kenyans.

Why do you Kenyans assume that transsexual people don’t know what is best for them? Why do you ask us whether our parents are okay with our gender transitions? How come you don’t do the same when non-transsexual Kenyans seek treatment for sexually transmitted diseases? How come you don’t ask non-transsexual Kenyans with cardiac arrests whether their parents will go pissy-pants on doctors who treated them? Unfortunately, it doesn’t stop them. I am a an 'out' and politically active transsexual woman and at times I do hear people (relatives, neighbours and work colleagues) making projections of trans folks and what we should do (wear, eat, watch movies, carry or our language) for us to be a 'real women' or 'real men'. Putative experiences of gender expression and gender roles sound sagacious to those with superficial analysis of transgender/transsexual discourse and who, sad to say, are patrolling the borders of the man–woman gender dichotomy. Such is the basis of transphobia and the colonisation of the trans community in Kenya. Giving primacy to the emancipation of transsexual Kenyans, we hereby state that it is up to us to grant ourselves identities that serve us well, both psychologically and biologically. In the same way that some man in the street would be offended if I referred to him as a woman, we get offended when you people continue to pigeonhole us into your gender binary system, or whatever identity you brand us with. And this is not just the preserve of Kenyans; Joelle Ruby Ryan, PhD, reveals this patronising attitude in the United States[1]:

'Cissexual "experts" treated transpeople like their subordinates, as objects who needed to be controlled, monitored and rendered subhuman. This tradition of paternalism made trans people into butterflies pinned to a cork board; we were rendered motionless and voiceless by the weight of a colonizing body of people who wanted to figure out why we were transsexual and what to do about it.'

This blatant lack of accommodation by non-transsexual Kenyans leads to conflict which then metastasises in the whole society, which with time manifests itself as gross human rights violations against transsexual Kenyans.

From my self-awareness of gender, I brand myself transsexual. It is for my own psychological, social and biological needs and if it's okay with me I don’t understand how it's suppose to affect anyone’s life. But a majority of Kenyans use it to disqualify us from the feast that is the equitable distribution of resources and opportunities. Yet these are the same people who screech loudest when Kenya’s police force shoots their sons and rapes their mothers and daughters. The instrumentation of human rights and good governance does not solely lie within the ambit of yielding to the 'distress' of religious and cultural fanatics and conducting some free and fair elections but: 'states have the mandate to eliminate inequalities and inequities entrenched in society that results in the exploitation and the marginalization of certain groups, depriving them of basic rights to guarantee protection for the human rights of all citizens'.[2]

A large majority of Kenyans regard themselves as religious and saved. They brag of how special they are to their gods and how assured they are of getting the green card to the land called heaven, a land where you have rivers of honey and milk, a land where baboons will mingle with crocodiles without the crocodile turning the baboon into its supper, a land where there is no hunger, drought, El Niño, hurricanes, gonorrhoea, post-election violence or political parties. I could excuse children for taking these fantasies seriously, but not adults, yet more so, for adult Kenyans who keep on singing that gender-reassignment therapy is 'ungodly' and should be discouraged by all Kenyans who believe in Christ and the saviour. Well, gender-reassignment therapy is not godly (and we don’t need it to be) and all sorts of medical interventions for any disorder, condition and disease. Just because something or a situation has been labelled ungodly doesn’t mean it's harmful or inappropriate to intelligent and rational people. The bible states that donkeys and snakes can converse with human animals. The bible states that it's possible for a human being to die and after a number of days the body to come back to life. Yes, it does. So if I said snakes can’t talk with human animals, then it's ungodly, but then it’s a fact that snakes and human animals can’t converse with one another. It's also a fact that it's impossible to beat a donkey so much that it spontaneously learns a human language. Yes, this means my utterances are ungodly, but that doesn’t necessary mean they are harmful or inconsistent with reality. Also, considering the ethnic cleansing committed by Samson as instructed by God, and the deification of these by God’s earthly delegates, no reasonable person would want anything to do with such a psychotic god.

For those transsexual people feeling the guilt of undergoing or contemplating gender transition because its 'ungodly', I urge you go ahead and be who you feel in the inside rather than succumbing to the mumblings of ancient shepherds and hobos. Just ignore these messages of madness and obsession. Imagine the honour of being God's sidekick and you will understand why nearly all Kenyans regard themselves as the truly anointed ones. Don’t get subjugated by these cheap lines and in the process give these people the air of respectability they crave. Simply, they are as useless as they are irritating.

Let's move to something else. Not uncommonly, most religious people will argue that transsexual people should accept their assigned sex and pray to God to help them cope with the psychological distress that accompanies gender identity disorders. The butter is having faith because chapter blah blah verse blah blah says whatever we ask God to provide to us he shall give in abundance. Everyone says amen, but I beg to differ. If transsexualism and gender-identity disorder are classified as a psychological disorder then it should be handled by people with the training to do so, not by any Kenyan at any level of ignorance. Why do we ringfence some disorders but when it comes to transsexualism we change the tune? I will be okay with the 'accept yourself the way you are' solution were it also dished out to people with diabetes, gonorrhoea, chlamydia, cataracts, HIV/AIDS, cholera, malaria and all diseases and disorders.

Another mentality that perturbs me is the idea that transsexual people can only work in the sex industry. I don’t have a problem with transactional sex and sex workers but I have a problem with the way Kenyans discriminate against us in employment simply because they deem us to fit well in the sex industry. Like any other myth, this is a fundamental lie and just as wicked as racist and sexist stereotypes. Sex work should not be the only option for us. There is no reason for us not to be computer programmers, teachers, accountants, drivers, lecturers and even traffic-police officers. What we have between our legs doesn’t in any way preclude us from been productive, either for trans or non-trans folks.

Another of the many patronising habits Kenyans have against transsexual Kenyans is this argument that they should not access gender-reassignment therapy because 'they can’t have babies afterwards'. So what harm do we inflict on you people when we don’t get babies? What harm has been inflicted on me just because there is a childless 50-year-old woman in Mombasa? And, in the first place, who told you all of us want babies? Don’t even dare to answer that question. I know you will sing that line of 'what if your parents were in your school of thought, you would never have been born'. I have nothing else to say to such hollow and daft arguments.

As I pen off, I urge Kenyans to stop throwing their spanners into work about which they don’t have the slightest clue. Stop filling our heads with messages of 'don’t fly too high because the wax holding your wings and feathers will melt'. Stop judging us before you even get to know us. And stop trying to scare us with threats of an apocalyptic future if we undergo gender-reassignment therapy.

The neat division between failures and high achievers is that one gets fixed on one way of undertaking a task and gives up after things don’t work out as expected. The other is open-minded to new ideas of executing an idea or task and whatever the results, new information – expected or unexpected – is generated on how life works within various different niches. The benchmark of non-transsexual people don’t have to be our benchmarks. We are different and unique. We are special and capable of changing the face of the earth in positive ways. Conway, Susan Stryker, Femke Olyslager, Whittle and others have done it, so why not us?

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* Audrey Mbugua is a member of Transgender Education and Advocacy, a Kenyan organisation formed to address social injustices committed against the country's transgender community.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

NOTES
[1] Ryan J. B. 2009. The Transgender Tipping Point: It is Not the Transperson Who is 'Disordered' but the Society in which S/he Live. Bowling Green State University
[2] The importance of Human Rights to Democracy, Governance and Development

Citation for the Order of the Holy Nativity to S'bu Zikode

Diocese of Natal Anglican Church of southern Africa

2009-12-22

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/Announce/61231

ORDER OF THE HOLY NATIVITY

Whereas by resolution of Diocesan Council in the year of our Lord 2003 the Order of the Holy Nativity was authorised for Distinguished Lay Service to the Diocese of Natal.

And whereas the name of our beloved in Christ, SIBUSISO ZIKODE, has been submitted to us by Citation for such recognition.

We, Rubin, by Divine Permission, Bishop of Natal, do by those present confer the aforesaid honour upon him on the following grounds:

S'bu Zikode was born in 1975 in Loskop near Estcourt in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands. He has become known to tens of thousands of shack-dwellers in South Africa, as well as admirers around the world, as the elected president of Abahlali baseMjondolo, the shack-dwellers movement. That movement, and the style and content of Zikode's leadership within it, has been a beacon of dignity and hope in the ongoing struggle for genuine freedom and transformation in our country. Zikode not only leads by listening and by taking action, he is also an extraordinary wordsmith capable of capturing and sharing the heart of a militant but quite beautiful and salvific poetics of struggle. We quite deliberately rely on his own words throughout this citation for he and Abahlali baseMjondolo have consistently made it plain that the poor can and should speak for themselves.

Zikode and his family first moved into a shack in the Kennedy Road settlement in Durban because the rental was affordable and the location was close to work and schools. “Life was much better because we could live close to work and schools at an affordable cost. But I told myself that this was not yet an acceptable life. ... It was not acceptable for human beings to live like that and so I committed myself to change things”1. A key to Zikode's involvement in that process of change was a thorough democratisation of the local development structure, the Kennedy Road Development Committee (KRDC), which had been in control of the settlement until then. “We mobilised the young people. We started with youth activities, like clean up campaigns, and then when the people were mobilised, we struggled to force that there must be elections, that there must be democracy”2.

In the early years of this democratised KRDC, Zikode and his colleagues worked with the local and regional party political structures of the ANC and the City of Durban to try and address the challenges the community faced. But the repeated lies and failed promises built up, and disappointment led to reflection and a commitment to taking action on the people's own terms. The Kennedy Road settlement made newspaper headlines in 2005 when they blockaded a major road nearby after yet another promise of better housing turned out to be a betrayal. That event also marked the decisive break from party politics to establishing a new politics of autonomous, grassroots action and reflection.

Zikode himself comments on how that day of the blockade felt: “It was good. ... It was difficult to turn against our comrades in the ANC but we weren’t attacking them personally. We wanted to make them aware that all these meetings of the ANC - the BEC meetings, the Branch General Meetings, they were all a waste of time. In fact they were further oppressing us in a number of ways. ... It had become clear that the only space for the poor in the ANC was as voters – there was no politics of the poor in the ANC. The road blockade was the beginning of a politics of the poor”3. And out of that politics of the poor emerged Abahlali baseMjondolo:

“I had no idea that a movement would be formed, no idea. And I didn’t know what form would be taken by the politics of the poor that became possible after the road blockade. Most people think that this was planned – that a group of people sat down and decided to establish a movement. You know, how the NGOs work. ... But all we knew was that we had decided to make the break. To accept that we were on our own and to insist that the people could not be ladders any more; that the new politics had to be led by poor people and to be for poor people; that nothing could be decided for us without us. The road blockade was the start. We didn’t know what would come next. After the blockade we discussed things and then we decided on a second step. That’s how it went, that’s how it grew. We learnt as we went. It is still like that now. We discuss things until we have decided on the next step and then we take it. ... In the party you make compromises for some bigger picture but in the end all what is real is the suffering of the people right in front of you. In fact it had become a shame. To say that ‘enough is enough’ is to walk away from that shame. Instead of the party telling the community what to do, the community was now deciding what to do on its own”4.

And this approach has shaped the movement's understanding of its politics – which it refers to as a 'living politics' – and its leadership style. At their heart, both flow from a common sense understanding that “everyone is equal, that everyone matters, that the world must be shared”:

“Our movement is formed by different people, all poor people but some with different beliefs, different religious backgrounds. But the reality is that most people start with the belief that we are all created in the image of God, and that was the earliest understanding of the spirit of humanity in the movement. Here in the settlements we come from many places, we speak many languages. Therefore we are forced to ensure that the spirit of humanity is for everyone. We are forced to ensure that it is universal. There are all kinds of unfamiliar words that some of us are now using to explain this but it is actually very simple. From this it follows that we can not allow division, degradation – any form that keeps us apart. On this point we have to be completely inflexible. On this point we do not negotiate. If we give up this point we will have given up on our movement”5.

This universality of equality, implied throughout the scriptures from Genesis' account of our creation in the image of God to Revelation's promise of a new heaven and a new earth, is the singular mark of genuine democracy and is the heartbeat of every genuine struggle for freedom and justice. In recognising S'bu Zikode and in conferring the aforesaid honour on him, we join ourselves with that struggle.

Our decision to confer the Order of the Holy Nativity on Zikode was made before September 2009 when the Kennedy Road settlement was attacked by armed vigilantes, and AbM was violently ejected with the connivance and support of police and local ANC leaders. These attacks have placed acute pressures on the movement and its politics. We have spoken out publicly against these developments and will continue to denounce them and to support Abahlali. It is our hope that this award helps to strengthen Zikode and the shackdwellers' movement - for we have seen before, in the history of struggle in South Africa, that concerted violent attacks on people's politics and movements can result in a certain sclerosis of decent, open and democratic politics. It is vital, not just for Abahlali itself, but for all of us concerned with the project of transformation and true democracy, that its 'living politics' is kept living, defended in principal and established in practice.

We give thanks for this dedicated servant of the people and servant of the Lord.

Given under our hand and seal on this Sixteenth Day of December in the year of our Lord Two Thousand and Nine in the Fifteenth Year of our Consecration.

Uyishayile!

To view the short video by Umhlanga Rocks on the attack on Abahlali baseMjondolo in the Kennedy Road settlement visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8gQv19cD4Y

Abahlali baseMjondolo, together with with Landless People's Movement (Gauteng), the Rural Network (KwaZulu-Natal) and the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign, is part of the Poor People's Alliance, a national network of democratic membership based poor people's movements. Abahlali baseMjondolo http://www.abahlali.org and Khayelitshastruggles http://www.khayelitshastruggles.com/

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* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

The deadly myopia of the climate brahmins

Rahul Goswami

2009-12-22

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/61232

cc Andrew*Having anticipated a predictable status quo of suits-and-presentations from the Copenhagen climate change conference, Rahul Goswami stresses the ultimate strength of local producers and their 'focus on food for people'.

There were to be few true voices from the South heard when the synchronised chatter began in Copenhagen. The idea of informed negotiation at a broad international level, and which is genuinely representative, is a dead idea. Such a gathering can bring no agreement, for such gatherings are no more than collections of incompatible definitions. We have different societies, different currencies of value, different cultural goods, different community goals, even different ideas about what a community is.

There are special interest groups (they've even taken to the labelling among more commercial farmers' associations in the South, for these are now called 'commodity interest groups'). These are people who have their hands on the levers of finance, of administrative influence, of legislative machinery and of powerful social networks. Some of them are ministers and senior bureaucrats, others are bankers and consultants, some are scientists and technical experts, some are from the North and some from the South. They are the only plural unity that was to be found in Copenhagen, and they will stand in the way of the smallest, feeblest attempt at finding common ground.

The role of the world's conventional media is to appear informed while setting new standards of shallow banality. Graphics help, so there will be plenty, as well as lurid posters, streaming video, podcasts, Twitters and what-have-you. The medium is very much the message, and this message was to be simulcast in 180 different languages (but no dialects) because we all presumably have the inalienable right to be informed. At the sorry end, when ringing statements were issued and moving short films were screened, the special interest groups took a few quiet decisions, filed into their business jets and got on with the business of saving the dollar, the yuan or the gold standard.

What will happen to the few folk at Copenhagen who have actually dwelt on what this all means, who do not as a matter of discourse rely on the powerpointed slideshow and the blackberried summary? They will be there, for their passage has been paid for, and they will seek one another out to mention music, philology, perhaps some culinary feat. They will not discuss climate change – for they do that anyway among themselves – and they know that for the great majority of us, there are stark and gritty matters of survival to be confronted every single day: food, clothing, shelter, medicine, electricity, water, sanitation, care and if possible a little love.

We will be reminded ungently that, immersed in our pedestrian lives, we don't really get it. These are sophisticated matters after all, dealing with gases and emissions, carbon credits and designated national authorities, clean development mechanisms and public-loan guarantees, protocols and certifications. Long years ago they told our great-grandmothers and fathers much the same thing as they drew lines on maps and parted them from their forests and fields, from their rivers and friends. Our poor ancestors didn't get it then either, the simple locals of the land, and then one day they did, and grew angry at such trickery and reached righteously for their spears and swords. That was when they were called mutineers and massacred for their insolence.

Their methods have not changed. In sub-Saharan Africa the special interest groups have thrown people off their homelands to grow plantations in the name of CDM (Clean Development Mechanism) projects, and they fence these off by the tens of kilometres, guard them with guns and shoot to kill, as in eastern Uganda. In sub-continental Asia they build new roads up hillsides and erect serried ranks of wind turbines on plateaus where only a few years ago simple shepherds took their goat herds to graze. There too, as in the state of Maharashtra in western India, these new totems to CDM are guarded by men with guns. In South America they move small mountains of cement into high river valleys, brutally clearing forests and then altering forever the flow and breath of fragile watersheds, as in Ecuador, to claim the benefit of CDM dams thrown callously across life-giving rivers.

What shiny new equations have all the clever consultants and their hirelings dreamt up this time? We know them for the blighted wastes that spread behind them, for the trail of ruin they have laid which runs from small town America to the sweatshops of Asia, the hot-money zones of Dubai and the Channel Islands, alongside which the farmers' widows of inner India and entire migrant hamlets of eastern Europe eke out the remainder of their tragic lives.

We were to be awash in lies from the very first day of the Copenhagen discussions on climate, for lies is the only global currency left which has no expiry date. We were to be swamped by promises to find deferred agreements and commitments to a stirring series of conferences that stretch invitingly into the foreseeable future, never mind El Niño. We were to be reminded that a Kyoto Protocol tax is a small and insignificant price to pay for the privilege of being instructed, in polysyllabic bullet-points, by the ranking brahmins of climate science and multilateral finance.

They must be stopped. No more Copenhagens and Kyotos. From Dhaka and Suriname and Bogotá and Luzon, it is the peasants who will reaffirm that it is the provisioning of local, ecological food which actually feeds the large majority of people all over the world, whether in villages or in towns. They will push the smooth-talking suits back into the hall to remind them that it is the strength of family farmers, of artisanal fisherfolk, of pastoralists, of indigenous peoples and youth, the strength of women especially and of agricultural workers, which sustain everyday practices that focus on food for people, not profit for corporations. They will call for food and agriculture to be kept out of the reeking clutches of the carbon market, and they will frame principles guided by peace, justice and community solidarity. And when they're done, and when the whirring, threatening, hypnotic spell of the climate merchants is shattered once and for all, they can return Copenhagen to its citizens and our fields to our farmers.

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* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Review of 'China into Africa: Trade, Aid and Investment'

Edited by Robert I. Rotberg

Lucy Corkin

2009-12-22

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/books/61229

Rotberg’s edited volume is interesting in that it is evident from the contents page that effort has been made to include African, Chinese and Western contributors, both academics and practitioners. This immediately lends credence to the debate that the authors seek to stimulate.

The discourse surrounding China’s relations with Africa that had been slowly emerging at the turn of the 21st century received considerable impetus following the holding of the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China–Africa Co-operation (FOCAC) in November 2006, viewed by many as the ‘coming-out party’ of relations that had been quietly strengthening. This volume is the product of a conference at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government in June 2007.

As with most such compilations, there are chapters which stand out, and those that might be best left unread. Those contributions that distinguish themselves either bring new research to light or re-examine existing data to challenge conventionally held wisdoms.

Brautigam, in her chapter ‘China’s foreign aid to Africa: What do we know?’ (pp. 197–216), speaks with authority on a subject she has been researching for many years, clarifying what for many is a mysterious process. This is complemented by Paul Hubbard’s piece investigating Chinese concessional loans (pp. 217–29). Hubbard seeks to probe the claim that Chinese aid is deliberately secretive. He ventures where too few Western scholars can or will go, to the consultation of Chinese language sources. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he finds a considerable amount of data and concludes that the ‘apparent lack of transparency in China’s aid programme is not driven by a deliberate policy of secrecy’ (p. 226). Many would perhaps disagree with such a statement; the Chinese ministries in question have yet to adopt international standards on foreign aid and other such measures that would make their Western counterparts more comfortable. Nevertheless, his findings are perhaps a warning to those who blame Chinese obfuscation when the data they seek is not available in English.

Similarly seeking to turn convention on its head are Rupp’s (pp. 65–86) and Brown and Sriram’s (pp. 250–71) contributions. Tackling uncharted territory, Rupp seeks to unpack the contentious claim that China is in fact a ‘neo-colonial’ power in Africa. Her findings that ‘[f]undamentally, relations between China and Africa are neither colonial nor neo-colonial’, while inviting challenges to the contrary, point out how the indiscriminate use of certain words within the discourse have caused them to lose their meaning. Brown and Sriram’s investigation of China’s legal versus its moral culpability in several African country case studies illustrates the difficulty with which China can be held legally responsible for the human rights abuses that have occurred there. While this does not detract from the moral reprehensibility of some Chinese actors in these situations, the authors draw attention to the fact that an examination of actions on the part of the Chinese state in Africa are rarely placed in context with other international actors. It also illustrates the power of constructed discourse in the case of China–Africa relations given the disparity between China’s guilt according to international law and the popular portrayal of its role in these African countries.

Some of the chapters could have done with more rigorous investigation, particularly in the arena of fieldwork. Davies’s chapter (pp. 137–54) on the special economic zones (SEZ) that the Chinese government seeks to establish across Africa relies predominantly on newspaper articles and a total of three interviews, one of which was not conducted by the author. Given the scope of the article and the controversial nature of the SEZ, the chapter could have done with additional references and interview respondents in order to render its claims more robust. In a similar vein, the authors of the chapter by Obiorah et al (pp. 272–97) on China’s relations with Nigeria admit that their sample size is small (‘twenty-three Nigerian and eight Chinese businessmen in all’) and point to difficulties of communications with regard to Chinese respondents. Nevertheless, while it is perhaps expected that Chinese traders should be able to speak English in a predominantly English context, this is no guarantee that they can. Particularly in the context of Hubbard’s findings in the same volume, a Chinese-speaking researcher should have been incorporated into the team in order to expand the number of accessed Chinese respondents, rendering the survey more representative.

The book could have used some additional framing. The volume ends rather abruptly with Huang’s chapter on the implications for the US of China–Africa relations, with no concluding words by the editor. Although the consensus may be that there is no overarching conclusion to the contributors’ findings, this in itself is worth commenting on. Furthermore, it may have been useful to group the 14 disparate chapters into themed sections; although there are references between the pieces throughout the volume, it is at times difficult to understand the connection or indeed the flow between some of them.

On the whole this is a very interesting read. The volume has paid due attention to the need to advance not only fieldwork undertakings, but also theoretical investigations of the constructs we use to explain China’s relations with Africa. Many of the chapters break new ground and are worthy contributions to the growing body of knowledge on Sino-African relations.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* 'China into Africa: Trade, Aid and Investment' (ISBN: 978-0-8157-7561-4), edited by Robert I. Rotberg, is available from Brookings Institution Press.
* Lucy Corkin is a PhD candidate at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and resident Macau Forum analyst for Fahamu’s China in Africa programme.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Storymoja: Publishers with a mission

An interview with Muthoni Garland

Tujuane

2009-12-23

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/African_Writers/61236

Over the past two years, Storymoja has become a household name around Nairobi; especially in the literary circles. Most of their events which have focused on local writing and reading have helped the company establish a niche within a society whose reading culture is said to be at peril. Tujuane had the privilege of interviewing the company's managing director, Muthoni Garland about Storymoja, its operations and her role in it.

FOCUS ON STORYMOJA

TUJUANE: Tell us about [http://storymojaafrica.co.ke/main/]Storymoja[/url]. What is it, when was it founded and by whom?

MUTHONI GARLAND: Storymoja is a private company that was formed in July 2007 by a collective of five writers with the dream of publishing contemporary East African writing of world-class standard that we then aggressively promote. Our children's books are printed under the imprint, Storyhippo.

TUJUANE: What are some of the main areas of focus that Storymoja addresses in our society? How do they seek to do this?

MUTHONI GARLAND: Our mission is to help, growing East Africa's reading culture and improving writing standards as this feeds our business, our personal call as writers, and our patriotic duty.

We go beyond the traditional publishing model in various ways.

We run workshops for writers to develop books to high standards addressing issues of topic or plot selection, craft issues, editing, presentation etc. So far we've run workshops for writing business books, crime writing, writing for children, writing motivational books… Our next workshop – writing for teenagers and young adults – will start late November.

We organise stimulating events to elicit discussions that can then form basis of books, and also create avenues to interact with readers and writers, and popularise books directly to them. The last two events were:

- 'Sexuality Speaking,' a frank talk about sex, moderated by popular columnist Valentine Njoroge
- 'Men Under Attack,' a debate about the changing role of men in our society, moderated by popular columnist, Oyunga Pala.


To popularise reading, we also use multiple delivery platforms including audio books, stage plays based on our books, and we offer plenty of 'free' reading content/stories online.

TUJUANE: What sort of individuals does Storymoja cater to?

MUTHONI GARLAND: (In terms of demographics and geographical groupings)Storymoja caters for the mass market. Our selection of books and events are targeted to men, women and children. Most of our books for children and adults retail Ksh300 and we hope to maintain this price long-term so that price is not a major barrier to purchase.

To attract the key demographic of future readers, we run various competitions targeting children and youth in areas such as storytelling, mchongoano, spelling etc.

TUJUANE: How do you finance the various projects you run under Storymoja?

MUTHONI GARLAND: Storymoja shareholders finance some of the projects. Others are run in partnership with various corporate entities, NGOs and Government bodies such as NCC and Kenya National Libraries.

TUJUANE: What are the various techniques you have used for promoting and creating awareness about Storymoja locally and beyond?

MUTHONI GARLAND: We offer our authors and managers to various media stations for radio, TV and print appearances and that has a positive impact.
Extensive online presence – we use social networks such as Facebook, twitter, blogs and our website.

To create a Storymoja Community, we've compiled an extensive database of those who attend our events and plays, and who write to our blog and website. We keep them updated on happenings at Storymoja and other news of interest.
Our managers attend international book-related festivals in Frankfurt, South Africa, West Africa and the UK to develop contacts for networking and distribution deals.

TUJUANE: What are some of the achievements of Storymoja so far? How do you measure this success?

MUTHONI GARLAND: Our stage shows have proved a hit both locally and internationally and created positive awareness of Storymoja.

Our annual festival in partnership with the Hay Festival – the largest festival in the English-speaking world, has also generated local and international interest in Storymoja.

Another achievement has been the spelling competition dubbed 'Spelling Safari' that we have been airing in collaboration with Citizen TV. Through the competition, we reached more than 100 primary schools in Nairobi. These schools have shown an increased interest in not only our books but in reading in general.

TUJUANE: What are some of the challenges you've encountered as Storymoja and how have you overcome them?

MUTHONI GARLAND: The biggest challenge we have faced in the business is the singular focus on text books by most readers - especially for books intended for adults. This means it is difficult to sell a critical number of such titles to sustain the business.

Another challenge is the relatively poor quality of manuscripts that we receive. We've thus had to spend significant resources on workshops to impart the skills for manuscript development.

TUJUANE: So far a lot of your events have been concentrated within and around Nairobi. Is this right? And if so do you have plans of moving outside this particular geographical area?

MUTHONI GARLAND: It is true that our events have been in Nairobi. This is because this is where we are based and we want to create a successful model here. Once we publish more titles and get proper distribution channels outside Nairobi, we will definitely roll out our events to other areas. Bear in mind Storymoja is only two years old.

TUJUANE: As promoters of the reading culture within Kenya and by extension Africa how involved are you with NGOs or government agencies that focus on this area?

We actively seek collaborations that help drive the gospel of reading and writing. We developed the Spelling Safari in partnership with Citizen TV and Nairobi City Council. We ran 'Land of the Kitchen' Peace workshops in partnership with UN-HABITAT. We've worked with Kwani Trust, The Godowm, NBDCK, and The Theatre Company on various projects.

ABOUT MUTHONI GARLAND

TUJUANE: Tell us about yourself? What's your personal background?

MUTHONI GARLAND: I'm married to Wallace and we have four children.

TUJUANE: What is your educational background?

MUTHONI GARLAND: Went to primary school in Ndundori and Nakuru. Went to secondary school in Maryhill Thika and Kenya Polytechnic. I have a bachelor's degree in business administration – marketing major – from Ohio University.

TUJUANE: As the managing director of Storymoja, what is your role within the organisation?

MUTHONI GARLAND: To draw up our strategic plan and take main responsibility for its implementation. To inspire, drive, challenge, organise and manage our Storymoja Crew. To find and mentor a successor.

TUJUANE: What experience in writing and literature prepared you for the role you now play at Storymoja?

MUTHONI GARLAND: Four key things prepared me for this role:
- I've been an avid and eclectic reader from childhood.
- I admire and enjoy the English language
- My writing is well received – both fiction and non-fiction – by writers I respect. Further, my work has been published in the UK, US, South Africa and Nigeria, as well as Kenya.

Fifteen years working the formal corporate sector prepared me (somewhat) for the business challenges that I now face.

TUJUANE: You have authored a book, called ‘Tracking the Scent of My Mother’, which received a lot of good reviews locally and abroad, and also received a nomination for the Caine Prize in 2006. Tell us about this book.

MUTHONI GARLAND: The plot is quite straightforward. A young girl growing up in rural Kenya is abandoned by her beautiful (and young) mother. She then faces extraordinary obstacles at home including incest. Readers like the fact that, while the girl is a protagonist she refuses to become a 'victim' of the impossible circumstances that life throws at her.

TUJUANE: What other books have you written? Do you have anything in the pipeline soon to come out?

MUTHONI GARLAND: ‘Halfway Between Nairobi and Dundori’ is now in the shops. It is about the strains in a contemporary marriage beset with economic and social difficulties. My stories can also be found in Kwani vol 1, 3, 4 and 5. I have several children's books in the pipeline, one of which – ‘The Matatu from Watamu that Drove into the Sea’ – will also be staged as a play.

TUJUANE: Any last words or advice for our readers?

MUTHONI GARLAND: Read. Read. And read widely, dangerously! Include books written by Africans in your repertoire. If you are a parent, read with your children or buy them audio books and listen to them together. Read some more!

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* This article first appeared in Tujuane.com.
* Muthoni Garland is managing director of Storymoja Africa
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Pambazuka News 128: Se libérer de la spirale de l'aide

2009-12-23

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/summaryfr/61240

Pambazuka News 25: Angola no paradoxo da corrupção

2009-12-23

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/summarypt/61241

Fahamu