This is an SOS to the whole world: Help the LGBTI community survive this “sexuality genocide” in Uganda, writes a transgender woman from Kampala.
The situation in Uganda is horrible, with people getting harassed, detained and forcefully evicted.
The morning after President Yoweri Museveni signed the anti-gay Bill, we woke to the news of a gay friend of ours that had been lynched by a mob. His partner was badly beaten up and is now in hospital in critical condition.
I am not surprised by this. Signing the Bill at a fully televised function and the comments he made during the event, Museveni made it clear that LGBTI people are considered an anomaly, suggesting that violence against them would not be frowned upon. More than ever, LGBTIs are a target. Over the past two days, the Red Pepper, a popular local tabloid, has taken to publishing the names and photos of LGBTI people, including their places of work and residence.
The tabloid ‘Red Pepper’ plays a lead role in the witch hunt for LGBTI Ugandans. (Pic: AFP)
Two hundred people have been forcefully outed so far, making us easy targets for blood hungry homophobes. We have heard cases of people fleeing to Kenya. Some in a refugee camp at Kakuma in Kenya have suffered even more, since all refugees fleeing Uganda are apparently considered to be LGBTI. We have heard a case of a trans man’s travel documents being taken away at an airport.
The situation is dire. The cutting of aid from overseas has only served to exacerbate issues as now every ordinary Ugandan will blame LGBTI for their economic plight, further validating their prejudices of western imperialistic imposition on African states.
The whole debate has been misconstrued and our health and identities moralised and politicised. With emotions running high, it is hard to even hold any conversation around LGBTI issues in Uganda right now.
Constitutional challenge
All that remains is the constitutional challenge to the Act in Parliament but it will take ages for a positive ruling to materialise – if ever.
In the meantime, the safety and security of LGBTI people is of the utmost importance and we need countries to loosen their asylum regulations and grant the exposed LGBTI people an emergency exit as the fight continues.
That is the message we need to get out there as no foreign mission has come out clearly on this. They fought alongside us against the legislation and it would be unfortunate for them to abandon our members now.
There are several warning signs of a sexuality genocide brewing, incited by the government, including the president, the media and religious leaders.
This is an SOS to the whole world. My boyfriend and I have been under self-imposed house arrest since the passing of the Bill. My mum comes over at night to bring food.
We need to get out to safety, but not just me. It needs to be a collective mass action. If there is any help you can offer – the need is so urgent! Everyone, please get the word out there.
There is concern that the work of small farmers as custodians of diversity will be undone by the G8 New Alliance, writes Claire Provost
Inside the Ethiopian Institute of Biodiversity’s unassuming office complex in Addis Ababa, a series of vaults houses tens of thousands of seed samples tightly sealed into small envelopes and neatly catalogued in cold storage – a treasure trove of genetic diversity painstakingly assembled and set aside for future generations.
Founded in 1976, Ethiopia’s national seed bank is the oldest and largest of its kind in sub-Saharan Africa. It is also part of a pioneering experiment to link scientists with small-scale farmers to collectively revive and conserve traditional, indigenous seeds in the face of drought and other threats.
Melaku Worede, the former head of the seed bank, says recurrent droughts have put the country’s agricultural diversity at risk, a problem compounded by farmers in some areas abandoning their local varieties for new, high-yield, commercial seeds.
Hundreds of other respositories, including the famed Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway and the UK’s Millennium Seed Bank, have cropped up around the world to store and save samples of major crops and their wild relatives. But funding shortages and political upheaval have threatened collections in some countries. Other samples have been in storage for decades, and may be dead, prompting fears that seed banks are turning into seed museums or morgues.
In Ethiopia, scientists have taken a different approach, opening their doors and collections to farmers and spearheading new partnerships with rural communities.
Farmers’ knowledge has been discounted by too many for too long, says Melaku. “They are underestimated out of prejudice … but we have to give due credit, and farmers also have to be rewarded for being custodians of our natural wealth.”
Melaku was head of the seed bank in the 1980s, when drought and acute food crises threatened the lives of hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians. “I thought, what are we doing? We have one of the best facilities and yet cannot help. I thought then of doing more than just storing seeds.”
Melaku and his colleagues left the capital for rural areas where they found farmers eating the seeds they would have normally planted or saved. Alarmed, they gave out raw grain in exchange for the farmers’ seeds, to be returned after the drought.
Soon the scientists were launching rescue missions and expeditions to collect and conserve seeds. They also experimented with community banks that could house bigger volumes of seeds and keep them in farmers’ hands.
Just south of Addis Ababa, hundreds of dark, tightly sealed jars are filled with legume, pulse and cereal seeds and stored on tall wooden bookshelves at the Ejere community seed bank. After each harvest, local farmers deposit samples, and in exchange get access to the bank’s stores.
Regassa Feyissa, who worked with Melaku for several years, says community seed banks offer the chance to conserve genetic diversity at the level of local farmers, where seeds are dynamically and frequently exposed to changing environmental conditions rather than held in suspension at sub-zero temperatures, while serving as a grain reserve in times of crisis.
Outside the Ejere bank, Tadesse Reta is planting wooden stakes in the ground, labeling sections of tilled land with the names of crops planted. Tadesse, 47, a local farmer, says he is looking forward to the bank’s forthcoming “field day”, where up to 400 farmers are expected to inspect crops, and debate the merits of the various seed varieties.
This is how participatory plant breeding works, Regassa says. “There is no recipe for developing varieties. It depends on who wants what.”
It is also an interesting approach for scientists, he adds. Unlike formal research, which looks for seed varieties that can work across different climates and soil types, farmers are constantly selecting for diversity, conserving a range of varieties and choosing them not just for their yields but also for their taste or because they are particularly resistant to disease or drought.
A new push to commercialise agriculture in Africa could, however, put the future of the continent’s diverse, indigenous seeds at risk.
New regulations Regassa says the “indiscriminate push of technology and inputs” by industrial farming schemes and their supporters has proved costly for farmers and needs to be challenged. “Seed security is more important than anything at this point, especially when the government is under all of these external pressures.”
In September 2013, the Common Market for East and Southern Africa (Comesa) ministers approved regulations that would require all seeds to be registered and deemed “uniform, stable and genetically distinct” before being traded and sold. Critics say this could, in effect, criminalise farmers’ traditional practices of saving and exchanging their seeds, while allowing corporations and those who can afford the registration process to capture the market.
Private investment in seeds is one of the stated indicators of success for the G8’s landmark agriculture and poverty plan in Ethiopia. Under the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, Ethiopia is to change its seed law and policies to increase and incentivise private investment in the development, multiplication and distribution of seeds.
This could spell disaster for small farmers, says Million Belay, co-ordinator of the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa. “It clearly puts seed production and distribution in the hands of companies … Yes, agriculture needs investment, but that shouldn’t be used as an excuse to bring greater control over farmers’ lives.”
In the wake of the recently passed “anti-gay” law by the Nigerian government and President Goodluck Jonathan, there has been much speculation online as to how Fela Kuti, my father, would react. So let us get this clear, and I will also express my own views on the matter.
My father would not support this law. He would know why the law was passed: as a way of distracting the population from the main problems we face today – poverty, lack of electricity and services, corruption, mismanagement, and so on and so forth.
That being said, Fela may have had some reservations about homosexuality itself. Who is to say? No one can speak for him. But Fela would not have had any reservations about upholding and protecting basic human rights. The right to choose your own sexuality and sexual behavior – as long as it is between consenting adults – is one such human right.
It’s a difficult topic for a lot of people in Nigeria to understand as it’s a very new issue that has never been quite public. Our culture and traditions and certain religious values make it more difficult for many to accept or understand, and it will take some time for those people to learn to respect the fundamental human rights of others to express themselves freely. People have said that being gay is “un-African” – I’m not an expert on our history, but I don’t know of any [instance] where the topic is mentioned in our history (I am not referring to Christian orthodoxy that was brought by non-African missionaries).
The gay community in Nigeria will have to be patient and realise acceptance of homosexuality is a gradual process which will take a very long time – especially in the north of Nigeria. But they must slowly put their case forward. They will need a lot of diplomatic support, and they will have to fight the law. They might definitely lose, but they will just have to keep on fighting for their fundamental right to live. There is no other choice.
We have to keep talking about the issue of gay rights, but it’s the government’s responsibility to take the lead to defend people’s fundamental rights. Citizens must have the right to be who they want to be.
Femi Kuti for okayafrica, ablog dedicated to bringing you the latest from Africa‘s New Wave.
“Africa is the final frontier in food,” says Malcolm Riley, a Zambia-born, Devon-based chef. He has a point. Trend-hungry Brits have latched onto everything from Korean to Peruvian cuisine in recent years, but Morocco (and perhaps Ethiopia) aside, we have yet to turn our culinary antennae towards Africa in a big way. Riley is on a mission to change all that, by spreading the word about African ingredients and cooking techniques. According to him, eating more sustainably-sourced baobab, shea butter and moringa could have health benefits for Britons and help create jobs in Africa. He hopes to achieve both with his line of African Chef products and so far, he is doing most of it from his kitchen in Newton Abbot, where he is now cooking me a traditional Zambian lunch and waxing lyrical about pumpkin leaves and Ray Mears.
Riley, whose father is English and mother is half-Indian, half-Zambian, moved to the UK when he was 25. Following stints working for Planet Organic and Riverford, he was itching to set up his own company: “I wanted to source an ethical product that rural communities in Africa could benefit from”. The first lightbulb moment came eight years ago when he was watching a Ray Mears documentary: “He was in the Sahara with the San tribe, using baobab seeds to make a coffee drink. I ate baobab as a kid but I’d never seen it used like that before.” Baobab trees grow all over Africa, and their fruit pulp is a rich source of Vitamins C and B2, iron, calcium and antioxidants.
Shortly after lightbulb moment #1, Riley took a trip back to Zambia and met Margaret Zimba of the Mthanjara Women’s Co-operative. Lightbulb moment #2: Zimba was making baobab jam and donating the surplus to children with HIV. She showed Riley how to make it and he decided to produce and sell baobab jam in the UK. He has since worked with Phytotrade Africa and the Eden Project (which has a tree in its Rainforest Biome) to source baobab sustainably and says that “harvesting the fruit can help double the income of 2.5m households in rural Africa”.
Riley is at pains to point out that promoting African ingredients and techniques is not the same as suggesting African food is one homogenous cuisine. “Across Africa the diversity of the food is phenomenal. We have influences from the Persians, the Portuguese, Dutch, English, French, and all the same spices that landed on the shores of India. There’s also great diversity among tribes. It could only be a village away where a dish totally changes.”
He shows me a baobab fruit – it looks like a hairless coconut. Inside are clusters of white, marshmallowy stuff: the pulp. This crumbles to a powder when you touch it. You can add the powder (which tastes a bit like mango, but tarter) to porridge, yoghurt, smoothies or condiments, like Riley’s fiery Baobab chill jam.
A fruit from a Baobab tree in the village of Thiawe Thiawe in Senegal. (Pic: AFP)
But baobabs are not the only ingredient he wants to shout about. There’s “smoky, fruity, complex” moringa, packed with B Vitamins and iron. The moringa tree is grown widely in hot countries and can be used in everything from curries to soft drinks. He also has some shea butter to show me – it’s not just for hand creams. This white, waxy substance from the nuts of the shea tree (found in many countries, including Ghana and Nigeria) “can be used for frying and roasting, or add a touch to a sauce before serving”. Riley is also hoping to visit Cameroon to learn more about the Safou – a type of plum.
Moreover, the health benefits of adding African influences to your cooking go beyond these exotic ingredients. According to Riley, the typical African diet is low-fat and high-fibre. Today he’s cooking us a typical Zambian meal of pap with village chicken (substituting thighs for the gamier bird you’d get in Zambia) and pumpkin leaves. Pap is a thick, white porridge made from maize meal (it’s also known as nshima in Zambia and sadza in Zimbabwe). “This is what fuels most of the continent. It’s high-fibre, gluten-free and extremely rich in a lot of vitamins.” It also stretches, as you need only one part maize to three parts water. “I can make a bag last two months,” says Riley who gets it from a South African shop (you can also find it on Amazon and eBay).
With shocking UK food-waste stats emerging almost daily, we can learn from such thriftiness – stretching ingredients, using cheaper cuts of meat (“My mum worked in a butchery, I grew up with brisket and shin”) and using neglected bits of veg. “Millions of pumpkins are grown for supermarkets – all of their leaves are left to rot.” Today Riley is cooking pumpkin leaves from his allotment with tomatoes and onions – a traditional combination in Zambia. They have a subtle, smoky flavour and you can use them instead of spinach.
What Riley has dedicated the last seven years of his life to, first with a brand called Yozuna, and now with the catchier African Chef, is bringing the best knowledge and ingredients from Africa to UK kitchens. If his ideas catch on, then both British cooks and African workers stand to benefit.
Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe, celebrating his 90th birthday before thousands of people at a soccer stadium on Sunday, said he felt like a young boy and urged the nation to shun homosexuality.
“I feel as youthful and energetic as a boy of nine,” said Mugabe, at the event in Marondera, 75 kilometres east of Harare. More than 45 000 people gathered at the stadium, said organisers from Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party.
President Robert Mugabe talks during celebrations marking his 90th birthday in Marondera on February 23 2014. (Pic: AFP)
Mugabe gave his trademark clenched fist salute to the crowd, as he and his wife, Grace, stood at the back of a truck that drove around the stadium. Mugabe holds a giant birthday party in a different city each year, to take the festivities around the country.
He cut a 90-kilogram cake, one of five cakes served, and 90 cows were butchered for the massive party, estimated to cost $41-million.
Mugabe’s actual birthday was on February 21 but he was away in Singapore for a “cataract operation” on his left eye, according to his office. He returned to Zimbabwe on Saturday.
Mugabe claimed to be as “fit as a fiddle” in an interview broadcast on state television, although at times he appears frail. On Sunday he looked robust, speaking to the crowd for an hour.
“We don’t accept homosexuality here. God made men and women so they can bear children,” Mugabe said.
Retirement In the birthday broadcast, Mugabe insisted he isn’t ready to retire.
“Why should it (retirement) be discussed when it is not due?” he said in an interview broadcast on state television. “The leadership still exists that runs the country. In other words I am still there … When the day comes and I retire … I do not want to leave my party in tatters. I want to leave it intact.”
Mugabe claimed he is the harbinger of good tidings for the nation, as the country has been soaked with rains around his birthday.
“My mother told me I was born during a year of plenty, in a year of a good harvest,” he said. “Now we see rains coming down as I turn 90, this is going to be a year of good harvests.”
Mugabe’s 90th birthday comes amid intense speculation about Zimbabwe’s future when his grip on power loosens.
Vying to replace him are Vice President Joice Mujuru and Justice Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa.
In July Mugabe, who has ruled the nation for 33 years since 1980, won disputed elections for another five-year term that will take him to age 94.
Zimbabwe’s economy In his early years in power, Mugabe expanded public education and health services that were the envy of the continent. But Zimbabwe’s economy went into meltdown in 2000 after Mugabe ordered the seizure of thousands of white-owned commercial farms, leading to the collapse of the agriculturally based economy, once the region’s breadbasket.
Unemployment has soared to an estimated 80%. Hundreds of long established industries have closed, often blaming Mugabe’s new black empowerment laws that compel companies to give black Zimbabweans 51% control.
Mugabe has blamed the economic slump on Western economic sanctions, mostly travel and banking bans imposed on him personally and his closest associated to protest human and democratic rights violations.
In recent weeks the country has seen allegations of massive corruption in state enterprises at a time when many Zimbabweans are surviving on less than $2 a day. – Sapa-AP
