Year: 2014

Black girl privilege

(Pic: Flickr / epSos.de)
(Pic: Flickr / epSos.de)

When I was a kid, my mother told me I would have to work harder in this life because I was black girl – a warning I am sure many others of my gender and race have received. I should mention that, at the time, I was living in a country where the majority of people were white. As I grew up, I heard the same message in the media – on the news, blogs, in songs and films – it was clear that everyone believed that at the top of the economic food chain were rich white men and at the very bottom were poor black girls.

I moved to my country of origin, Rwanda, when I was 22. It is a small developing country at the heart of Africa that has been recognised for its impressive economic grown in the last decade. As a young adult, I found myself in a world full of charities and NGOs that had pictures of girls that looked just like a 10-year-old me, only no one had brushed their hair or got them to put on their prettiest clothes before taking the picture. I read disheartening statistics that told me that most girls my age and from my region had already given birth to their first child, had dropped out of school, had been subject to sexual violence, domestic abuse – do I need to go on? So what happens to me – a university-educated, single, entrepreneur with a face that world believes belongs to a victim?

This is what happens: rather than suffering the negative discrimination I was promised, the opposite has happened. People want to help me – not because they think I’m intelligent, or driven, or skilled – but because they believe I must need it, being an African woman. I can’t tell you how many times I have been approached (often by white men), with offers to invest in my business or with other valuable opportunities before they’ve had had a chance to get to know me or my business – to know if I really need it or even deserve it. On top of the freebies thrown at me, I often get asked to represent groups that I am a part of, because having a young black woman on the cover will give the impression of diversity and goodwill. You see, as an African woman, there are many people who want to help you through “the struggle” (or at least be photographed helping you through it).

Contrast this with the issues faced by the young white men here in Rwanda and in other African countries. The prejudice they face is that they are all rich, hard working and of course, very generous! I can’t tell you how many times I have been asked by some of my African friends to ask my white friends to help them out financially – a scholarship, a job, a gift, etc. On top of this, white men (and women, too) are often subjected to “muzungu prices” – inflated prices believed that only a white person can pay – no, should pay, because, after all, they have more money than they know what to do with, right? Interestingly, many of the white friends I have in Rwanda are missionaries and volunteers (a few are business people but I don’t know if they are rich… and if they are, they haven’t told me!). The other day, a friend of mine, a white woman, visited Rwanda from the UK. Soon after I was seen with her, I was asked by a Rwandan friend to get my British friend to sponsor her child’s education. She did not ask me if my British friend could afford it or if she was the kind of person to do that – she had seen enough when she saw the colour of her skin.

Many Rwandans have a glorified image of white people – and why wouldn’t they? After all, when we Rwandans visit Europe or America or Australia, we take photos in the capital cities, in front of gleaming skyscrapers, expensive cars, and posh houses. To pose with of a random child playing in the dirt or a homeless man in rags sitting in the street and make that our Facebook profile picture would seem ludicrous!

As a result, white people visiting Africa continue to suffer under the stereotype that they all live on 100 dollars a day. Meanwhile, rich – well, okay, I’m not rich so let’s say “financially stable” –  black girls like me must continue to have money thrown at us. So, I guess you’re wondering – what’s the secret? How can you know whether or not a white man that just walked by is here on an expensive holiday or a missionary trip? How can you tell if that black girl is wearing torn jeans as a fashion statement or because she can’t afford new ones? Well – here’s the secret: get to know them!

Akaliza Keza Gara is the founder of a multimedia company called Shaking Sun, a member of Girls In ICT Rwanda, the Kigali Global Shapers hub and kLab, an ICT innovation hub. She loves open source technology, animated films and chocolate milkshakes. Follow her on Twitter: @AkalizaKeza

Zimbabwe church leader jailed for rape

Zimbabwean court officials say a church leader has been sentenced to 50 years’ imprisonment for raping female congregants, forcing them to engage in sex orgies at his home, and for possessing pornography.

According to court documents viewed on Tuesday, Magistrate Hosea Mujaya described Robert Gumbura, leader of RMG Independent End of Time Message, a religious sect, as a “wolf in sheep’s skin” who abused his followers’ trust.

It is alleged Gumbura coerced the women to perform sex orgies with him threatening to “commit them into Satan’s hands” if they refused.

Gumbura (57), who has 11 wives married under cultural tradition, and 30 children, pleaded not guilty to the charges maintaining the sexual acts were consensual and led to marriage if the women became pregnant, as part of his sect’s doctrine.

Of the 50-year sentence, 10 years were suspended on condition of good behaviour. Read more here.

– Sapa-AP

 

Nigerian authorities arrest online romance scammer

(Pic: Flickr / Don Hankins)
(Pic: Flickr / Don Hankins)

Nigerian authorities have arrested a 28-year-old man suspected of defrauding an Australian widow in a fake online romance, a year after she was found dead during a trip to South Africa where she intended to meet him.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) said it had arrested Orowo Omokoh on January 28 on suspicion of conning 67-year-old Jette Jacobs out of $90 000 after they met on an internet dating site.

Jacobs, a grandmother, flew from her home in Western Australia to meet Omokoh in South Africa last February, but died four days later under circumstances still being investigated by South African police.

Omokoh had arrived in the country two days before her death.

“We received a complaint about the fraudulent relationship from police in South Africa. We tracked him for a while, then we closed in,” EFCC spokesperson Wilson Uwujaren said.

He stressed the Nigerian commission only had power to investigate the alleged fraud committed on its territory but would co-operate with South African police on any extradition request.

Fake online romances are common form of advance fee fraud in Nigeria – generically called “419 scams”, after the section in the penal code. Authorities say they have become more popular as the classic emails promising impossibly good business deals become less effective.

Will Uganda really ban the miniskirt?

Lydia Asano sashays down the red carpet at Kampala’s luxury Serena hotel, wearing an “Afrocouture” black lace gown, partially see-through and with a slit up her left thigh. Onlookers are captivated by the 6ft model. “It’s my favourite piece that I’ve ever modelled,” gushes Asano (21) backstage after the fashion parade. She regularly goes out to Kampala nightspots in this kind of outift. “It could be something little and cute, anything goes,” she says. Fast forward to Saturday night and Lilian Mubende (25) is sipping a cocktail in De Posh Bar in Kabalagala, Kampala’s party area, sporting a purple above-the knee dress. “When I wear my short dresses I feel free,” she says.

But if a bill passed by the Ugandan Parliament in December becomes law, fashion parades such as that at the Serena hotel may be threatened and Ugandan women will have to cover up or face arrest. Passed the day before a more notorious anti-gay bill, the government-backed anti-pornography legislation has a broad definition of “pornography”. According to the 2011 version, retabled in parliament last year, this includes “any cultural practice, radio or television programme, writing, publication, advertisement, broadcast, upload on internet, display, entertainment, music, dance, picture, audio or video recording, show, exhibition or any combination of the preceding that depicts sexual parts of a person such as breasts, thighs, buttocks and genitalia”, among other meanings. The 2011 draft bill reportedly proposes that anyone found guilty of abetting pornography face a 10m shilling (£2,473) fine or a maximum of 10 years in jail, or both.

Simon Lokodo, Uganda’s ethics and integrity minister, insists the bill in its current form will be signed by President Yoweri Museveni, and therefore come into force, very soon. “Maybe he will take some time to sign the anti-homosexuality bill, but for that anti-pornography [bill] we are sure he’s going to sign,” he told the Guardian. “He has not commented on this [publicly] as he has with the anti-homosexuality bill. That means he is comfortable with it.” Lokodo says that the bill targets “irresponsible” women wearing clothes above the knee in public because they are “hurting the moral fibre” of Uganda.

“So today if I met somebody putting on a miniskirt, a miniskirt that explains a lot of what that person has in one’s mind, that person should be arrested,” he said. “What we want to condemn is the provocativeness, that they want to draw somebody to desire them. We are saying that we are blaming and condemning any of these girls who dress so indecently, especially in public areas. We shall not accept it, whether it is fashion or what.”

Last April, when the bill was reintroduced in Parliament, Asano sported a “save the miniskirt” T-shirt and went to many save-the-miniskirt parties. Despite Lokodo warning that people will be “sensitised” by the law so they report others breaking it before police catch them, Asano is not letting down her hemlines yet. “We should be focusing on getting thieves and rapists off the streets instead of bringing in a miniskirt bill,” says Asano. “It violates our rights. If they refuse to let us wear miniskirts, why should the guys be able to wear little shorts?”

Protestors in London at a Slut Walk event in 2011. The Slut Walk initiative serves to protest against the perception that the way a woman dresses can justify rape and sexual violence. (Pic: Flickr / msmornington)
Protestors in London at a Slut Walk event in 2011. The Slut Walk initiative serves to protest against the perception that the way a woman dresses can justify rape and sexual violence. (Pic: Flickr / msmornington)

Mubende thinks that certain politicians are just trying to whip up fear. She is more cautious than Asano, saying: “The minister is serious about it [the bill] but the president’s not. When the president is serious about this we shall stop wearing them.

But Rita Aciro Lakor, the executive director of Uganda Women’s Network (Uwonet), argues the issue is about more than whether women can wear miniskirts. “It’s about going back to controlling women,” she says. “They’ll start with clothes. The next time they’re going to remove the little provisions in the law that promote and protect women’s rights.” She says the more people talk about miniskirts, the more people wear them, and that the law will be hard to implement.

Human rights lawyer Peter Magelah believes the bill, which he stresses is also largely about press freedom, will be used “selectively” and “for political reasons” if it becomes law. “Idi Amin had a miniskirt law in Uganda and a lot was written and said about it, but it wasn’t removed from the statute books until 2002,” he says. “It was in place and no one enforced it. And, of course, the law doesn’t provide for how short a miniskirt should be, so in a court it’s one thing a lawyer would have a field day challenging.”

Amy Fallon for the Guardian

Dispelling stereotypes about Africans

(Pics: Gallo)
(Pics: Gallo)

What makes an “authentic” African? Who is an “authentic” African? I often spend hours asking myself : Will I be an “authentic” African if I put away my biological individualism and refer to myself as one? Will I be an “authentic” African when I become familiar with all her countries? I speak fluent Hausa (the most common language spoken in northern Nigeria), I wear pants from Senegal, walk in Moroccan slippers and eat South African pap, yet I am not starving. I did not witness genocide. I have never suffered from drought. I do not cook using firewood and I do not live in a shed. I’ve had malaria more than three times and I am still alive and healthy. Am I not “authentically” African?

Upon my arrival at the African Leadership Academy, between feelings of excitement and expectation, I carried my single stories bundled in a sack, imprisoned, yet striving to get out. In this fictional sack, a South African was demanding an HIV test to declare her negative status and a Nigerian was swearing upon his sister’s grave that he had never been in possession of drugs. Also in my bag was a Kenyan, whose entire life was spent trying to get a long-distance medal because, apparently, true Kenyans have speed in their DNAs. Then, the all too familiar prey: a Muslim woman was caught up between covering herself as the  Qur’an instructed, or wearing less clothes so as not to be referred to as a terrorist.

Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie said: “To create a single story, you show a people as one thing and only one thing over and over again and that is what they become.” Of course we cannot say that these widespread stereotypes are completely fictional, but they are just pigments of the truth. As I unpacked this sack during the course of my first term, I made friends with Kenyans that were proudly Maasai, who spoke fluent Swahili, but never even attempted to run. I met many South Africans who were HIV negative, but had in mind that Nigerians were drug addicts. I was born a Nigerian Muslim, and so I represent all the perceptions about both Nigerians and Muslims. However, I am neither a drug addict nor a terrorist.

People of my generation are defacing their natural forms just to feel accepted into the society. In Nigeria, it is very conventional to think that the noble people come from the Hausa tribe, while the people that seem to be after almost nothing but money are of the Igbo tribe. Stereotypes are the over-generalisations created towards a particular group of people due to class, race, gender, country, religion, looks and any other feature we may not openly relate to. This behavior comes with a belief that whatever we do not immediately identify as “normal” should be recognised and, possibly, corrected. It emphasises how different, rather than similar, we are from one another. Stereotypes can be used to create or destroy us, but we must not let them define us as a country, race, gender or class.

During my African studies class, we were asked to conduct research on African countries we had never heard of and observe the image and information being given to people that have never been there. The dominant images were of indigenous people, mostly naked or half -dressed women with black, sagging bosoms who lived in huts. Natives who suffered from famine and many easily identified diseases such as malnutrition, malaria and HIV and Aids. There were images of African mothers, in tears, deciding between which child to feed and which one to let go. Child soldiers, genocide and slums represented the “accurate” definition of what our beloved African continent is really all about. And of course there were pictures of wild animals, which many in the West believe are the only appealing thing in Africa.

I did not see a picture of Wole Soyinka, the first black man to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986, or Nelson Mandela, who spent 27 years in prison for the freedom of his country. I looked for Haile Selassie, who resisted the Italian invasion of Abyssinia (now Ethiopia) in the 1930s and saved the country from colonisation, but not a picture of his was found. What of Dr Christiaan Barnard, the South African who performed the first heart transplant in 1967? Nollywood, the Nigerian film industry that produces more movies annually than Hollywood, striving to promote the African culture, was not even acknowledged.

Mandela once said: “No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can be taught to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes even more naturally to the human heart than its opposition.” It is very easy for us to intensely dislike people for the stereotypes that they have, but we must also understand that they are only acting upon the single stories they are exposed to. What if they had heard differently? What if we give them the truth, rather than pigments of it? What if they learn about the earlier civilisations of African countries before the ruthless arrival of the British? As a society, we can seek to dispel stereotypes through education and a social action. We can seek to give the world the full stories of Africans – how many children actually attend schools and sit for both the SATs and the Cambridge International Examinations, for example.

Another Nigerian novelist, Chinua Achebe, said: “If you do not like someone’s story, write your own.” I will write my own stories because I do not condone the oversimplified image of Africa. Stereotypes divide us as countries, continents, cultures, nations and most importantly, as individuals.

Khadija Sanusi is a first-year student at the African Leadership Academy.