Author: VOA Contributor

The sound of Aids: Lesotho’s mourning bell

(Pic: Flickr / World Bank)
(Pic: Flickr / World Bank)

During summer in Lesotho, the perfect time to go running is just before 6am, when the sun has reached a point where it warms the earth without damaging the skin; and just before the traffic of a thousand textile factory workers swarms the road. Five days a week at six in the morning, I go for a run. I pass suburban lawns, the police training college, a small village school and The Clinic. At this clinic, I hear sounds that I recognise from many places, but never bother to identify. The sounds of a creaky wire gate, the voice of an eager vetkoek hawker, a gurgling baby on its mother’s lap, cold instructions from a male nurse, the moaning of a tired and thin woman, the tuberculosis cough of an old man and, as  always, the frightened silence of desperate hope. All of these, to me, resemble the sound of Aids.

This sound is loud as it is soft. It is as ordinary as it is uncanny and only those who have heard it before will recognise it. One recent morning, I ran my daily route past the clinic and was annoyed that my earphones were failing to block out the sounds around me. That was when I heard it, this repetitive and unchanging sound of Africa’s silent massacre-leader. I ran faster because I recognised it – I was not in the mood for a reminder. On the way back from my running loop, I decided to stand at the corner of the fence surrounding the clinic. I was compelled by curiosity. After all, this impulse kills cats and not humans.

There were those oh-so-familiar sounds again: the gate, hawker, baby, man, moan, cough, and silence, all at once. The noises were coming from faceless figures, someone’s mother or uncle or niece. I tried to catch pieces of dialect, everyone seemed to be discussing everything but the reason they were there. One woman was joking about how, during the 1998 Lesotho Riots, she used to ward off soldiers with her rear end.  Another was telling the uninterested boy beside her how Basotho love the word of God but detest God himself. There was a man holding a newspaper with the headline ‘Lesotho food security at risk’. Everything seemed so normal, only it wasn’t. Of the first 10 faces I looked at, about seven had hesitant and pained expressions painted on. Not the kind of angst that comes from telling a big lie, or running out of money mid-month, but the kind that screams “Surely Not”.

I’d witnessed this kind of angst plenty of times while working shifts at my mother’s pharmacy. My mother maintained my grandmother’s vision of having a pharmacy that keeps its prices especially low in order to make medicine accessible to the poor. Lesotho’s poor, who account for most of the population, have a painful and neglected history with medicine. Anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) have become a sort of staple on the government’s agenda. This dates back to the early 2000s, when there was a limited supply of the drug and it was matched with the greatest despairing demand. In order to ration supply, many laws were put into place with the intention of serving those who were most affected first; or most affluent, depending on where you were standing. During this period, only certain districts were able to receive and distribute ARVs. The problems that followed still linger in the morgues of Lesotho’s hugely successful funeral businesses. The knowledge of this information makes working at my mother’s pharmacy a bittersweet and tiring experience.

My trip down I’ll-never-work-for-my-mother-again lane was cut short by an irritating political campaign car blaring some half-baked manifesto through a megaphone. It was so loud and imposing. The sound shook me and I decided to continue with my run. I couldn’t help but lead my mind back to the leaking promises that were being yelled through the megaphone. Lesotho is a boisterous arena and the world watches as kinsmen pit themselves against each other to ensure mutual defeat. The greatest tragedy is that in this battle, the voices of politicians and their empty-vessel promises mute the sounds that deserve attention. The sounds of persistent hawkers, tired moans and violent coughs. The whimpering of thirsty issues, drowned out by the overflow of political manifestos.

It was not curiosity that stopped me outside of that clinic that day. It was the innate response of a Mosotho deafened by the continuous and corrupted clatter which filters through the radio stations, televisions, newspapers and megaphones. An automatic reaction to a battle between two voices: one booming and the other broken, neither making any sense. I stopped outside the clinic that morning because Lesotho is mourning, and I needed to mourn with Her. The sobs of the nation are not loud and desperate like the fatal promises of the politicians. Rather, they are quiet and tired, resembling a morning run or the sound of Aids.

Tsepiso Secker is final year economics student at the University of Cape Town. She is a citizen of the beautiful mountainous Kingdom of Lesotho but spent most of her schooling years in South Africa. She occasionally writes for The Money Tree magazine. Connect with her on Twitter: @Tsepspeare

FGM stops when the holistic recognition of girls’ and women’s rights begins

Women attend a meeting for eradicating female genital mutilation in the western Senegalese village of Diabougo. (Pic: Reuters)
Women attend a meeting for eradicating female genital mutilation in the western Senegalese village of Diabougo. (Pic: Reuters)

Her name is Suhair al-Bata’a. The 13-year-old Egyptian girl dreamt of one day becoming a journalist. In 2013, she was taken by her father to Dr Raslan Fadl Halawa’s clinic to undergo female genital mutilation, also known as FGM. She senselessly died at the hands of Halawa. The doctor, who was initially absolved of any wrongdoing in December 2014, was recently sentenced to three years of “hard labour” for manslaughter and three months for FGM by an Egyptian appeals court. Suhair’s father received a suspended sentence.

This is the first conviction of its kind ever handed-down by an Egyptian court, even though FGM has been illegal in Egypt since 2008. While this may seem like a win on the surface, the reality is that practice of FGM remains endemic not only in Egypt but also in many parts of the world. FGM is known to be practised in more than 27 countries, mostly in the Middle East, Africa and some parts of Asia and Europe. The World Health Organisation estimates that over 100 million girls and women have been subjected to FGM, with an estimated three million at risk of undergoing the practice every year.

FGM happens because families and communities choose to have their young girls undergo this practice. A practice that denies girls the right to physical and mental integrity; freedom from violence; freedom from discrimination on the basis of sex; freedom from torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment; and the right to life when the procedure results in death, like in Suhair’s case. With all these rights denied, it’s almost inconceivable to think that medical or religious justifications for this vile practice still persist to this day.

The Centre for Egyptian Women’s Legal Assistance (Cewla), alongside other women’s rights organisations and campaigns, advocated for a ban against FGM which was successfully passed in 2008. The organisation also advocated to get Suhair’s case to court. Sara Katrine Brandt, international advocacy coordinator for Cewla stated, “As much as we succeed back then in getting a ban, many, many years of just not implementing the ban really shows how big of a task it is to eliminate this and that it is very embedded in the tradition and in the culture that this is the ‘right thing’ to do.”

Women’s rights advocates from Egypt and across the globe have long named FGM for what it is: a gross violation of the human rights of girls and women. FGM seeks to subordinate and control women. And in places like Egypt, women’s bodies have been consistently used as a tool for oppression.

Amal El Mohandes knows this all too well. She is the director of the women human rights defenders program at Nazra for Feminist Studies, an Egyptian non-profit feminist organisation. El Mohandes argues that the Egyptian penal code normalises violence against women. When it comes to FGM, there are loopholes within the current law which state that FGM is a crime unless it was performed due to a medical necessity, which leaves the door wide open to interpretation. Whilst El Mohandes says the conviction of Halawa was a step in the right direction, she stresses that it is simply not enough. “Definitely, holding the perpetrator accountable is a step forward however what is really needed is a holistic approach.” For El Mohandes, a holistic approach in Egypt means a comprehensive national strategy to combat ALL forms of violence against women, be it in the public or private spheres.

Even though Nazra for Feminist Studies and other feminist groups want to directly help in crafting a comprehensive national strategy, they have been so far ignored by the Egyptian National Council for Women that has been tasked to work on this. None of the feminist groups that Nazra works with have even been consulted. El Mohandes says this is a lack of transparency on the government’s part at a time when Nazra’s experience in the field of gender-based sexual violence is urgently needed to halt violent crimes against girls and women. “Hospitals in Egypt are not equipped with rape kits, physicians and nurses do not know how to deal with survivors of sexual violence, the police themselves, even with FGM, they are not trained on how to deal with reports of such cases, they tend to sidetrack these cases or not even understand the fact that they are crimes of violence,” she explains.

Brandt agrees that a law banning FGM is only a tiny piece of a larger puzzle. Cewla recommends that the Egyptian government should “take strategic steps in order to be able to campaign and to let people know that FGM is illegal and to educate Egyptians on implementing this ban”. On this International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation, many governments will pay lip service to stopping FGM. Egypt will valiantly point to the conviction of Dr Fadl Halawa as proof that FGM is being ‘dealt with’. But little will concretely be done to link this crime as one of violence against girls and women and getting at its root causes.

Until mentalities change radically to embrace women’s bodily integrity as a non-negotiable human right, we will sadly still have to underline that zero tolerance for FGM is needed, for years to come, all the while still seeking justice within corrupt judicial systems and with governments that don’t see women’s rights as important enough on their political agendas. Somali poet Hudhaifah Siyad sums it up best: “They called it circumcision, I retorted mutilation, They called it dignity, I retorted inhumanity, They shouted, “get out of our sight!” Sorry sister, none couldn’t hear my plight.”

Nelly Bassily is a member of the Association for Women’s Rights in Development. Connect with her on Twitter: @nellybassily

Africa, can we speak?

A man holds a placard reading "I am Nigerian, stop Boko Haram" during a gathering at the trocadero place in Paris on January 18, 2015 to protest against Boko Haram islamists after a large-scale attack in Baga. (Pic: AFP)
A man holds a placard reading “I am Nigerian, stop Boko Haram” during a gathering at the trocadero place in Paris on January 18, 2015 to protest against Boko Haram islamists after a large-scale attack in Baga. (Pic: AFP)

According to Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights presented by the UN, everyone has the right to freedom of speech. But with every right comes a responsibility hence the classic philosophy that our freedom ends where the next person’s freedom begins. This of course is not easily understood.

The Charlie Hebdo episode is important as it awakened intriguing debates – arguments of freedom of speech, Europe’s Islamophobia issues and the hypocrisy of politicians in attending a march for freedom of speech whilst condemning freedom of expression in their respective countries, to name a few. These issues mirror our global village and are worthy of media attention. However, around this same time frame a debatable 150 to 2000 lives were claimed in Nigeria through yet another attack orchestrated by Boko Haram, and debates about the tragedy’s little media coverage quickly surfaced. We hastily saw the emergence of #JeSuisNigeria, #IamNigeria and #IamAfrica in reaction to #JeSuisCharlie.

This response summons reflection on the presentation and representation of African issues in the world media and most importantly global reaction to our issues.

Not too long ago we saw how the world ignored Ebola until it became an intercontinental concern and this speaks volumes on our status as the “dark continent”. Many of our salient issues are misreported or simply overlooked. We want our stories reported too, the same way that events that shake the world or just a country are reported, according to their relevance and impact. An outcry for coverage, however, is not always an appeal for international intervention.

Alas…”according to their relevance and impact”…perhaps African stories are deemed to be neither essential nor impactful to the world.

But!

“Let he who can speak, speak for himself.” So says a Somali proverb.

Several broadcasting powerhouses that have branches dedicated to reporting African narratives on an international scale are not African. And one must wonder about the whereabouts of rich African tycoons who are qualified to invest in the creation of African broadcasting panels that can inform the world on a global scale, since our governments give us little hope.

Those who have toiled for this cause have done a fine job and it is good to see different news outlets both in the physical and in the cyber world committed to African narratives but can we see something as big as Euronews focused on our stories?

Some events are hard to tackle.

Reporting on Boko Haram is challenging as it is difficult to obtain information under the circumstances of terrorism, there is scarcity of information and accuracy even in Nigeria.

The Nigerian government’s failure to promptly pronounce themselves on the attack in Baga but President Goodluck Jonathan’s rush to publicise his solidarity with France is something alarming and distasteful, unpardonable.

Although #BringBackOurGirls turned into a case of viral humanitarianism let’s remember that the world stood with us and it amounted to nothing. This because the politics of politics is what takes place behind the scenes and it comes complete with shenanigans, schemes, executive brouhaha and the struggle for resources, power and influence. Despite the anger and frustration remember that politics is a system affected and influenced by various elements and components.

Sadly we sometimes pay for governance at the expense of our very lives.

The world occasionally stands with us with their display of short-lived solidarity, so it is our responsibility to remember when the world has forgotten.

Many times our respective countries do an average job. Everyone is rightfully preoccupied with their internal affairs, hence the necessity for central panels that can go in-depth and minimise the ignorance and mediocrity, reporting not only the calamities but the successes too.

Above the famous ignorance from the West, what is far more insulting is African indifference, the one we try to obscure.

Our sorrows are many and we have become complacent as experience has silenced our voices.

Where is our accountability? Ubuntu? General concern?

Instead of being outraged about the lack of coverage we get in the West, let’s scrutinise the lack of coverage we get in Africa concerning African issues. There is much to deconstruct here and before we demand and expect our voices to be heard let’s evaluate the value of our opinions. What are the factors influencing our freedom of speech? What are the factors affecting our solidarity? What has driven so many of us to stagnancy? And to those who are speaking, why are we not familiar with their voices? Where are the evils? Let’s start recognising and fighting the enemy within.

Because before we expect he who can speak to speak for himself we need to be wise enough to analyse his ability and right to speak in the first place. Can we even speak?

Clênia Gigi is a student, avid reader, poet, spoken-word artist, Pan-Africanist and feminist. Connect with her on Twitter: @Clenia_Gigi 

iGay, iLesbian, iBisexual: The Xhosalisation of English

The 11 official languages of South Africa on display at the Constitutional Court. (Pic: Flickr)
The 11 official languages of South Africa seen on a wall of the Constitutional Court. (Pic: Flickr / AfricanGoals2010)

A few months ago I received an e-mail asking my advice about IsiXhosa equivalents of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender. IsiXhosa equivalents of these words do not exist, and I am not talking about derogatory terms. Growing up I had no language to talk about sexual identity; even the concept of having a “sexual identity” was a revelation in my late teens. Although visibly gay while growing up, there was no concrete articulation of my gayness as a sexual identity. I have often struggled with articulating sexual identity terms like gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) in my mother tongue.

I have had an ongoing conversation with my close friends about the issue of not having a “language” to talk about LGBTI issues. The language we use to talk about LGBTI issues and the terms we use to classify sexual identity are English language words. When people use the terms lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) in the vernacular people just add an “i” or “u” in front of the English word. So gay is then iGay (a gay) or uGay (he is gay), or iLesbian (a lesbian) or uyiLesbian (she is a lesbian). The same is done with all the other letters in L-G-B-T-I.

Now, although there are no specific terms, all of the terms in the L-G-B-T-I acronym can be described in the vernacular. Which is something people do when they talk about LGBTI people – they describe what gay people “do”. So if I am to answer the question – what is a gay man? – in the vernacular, I would describe a gay man in the vernacular as “umntu oyindoda othandana namanye amadoda” which translates to “someone who likes or falls in love with other men”, which means gay. There are multiple ways in the vernacular in which people say “gay” by describing what the term means – or what the person who is gay “does”. This is more or less the same process or application to the other letters in the L-G-B-T-I acronym.

Homophobes People have often raised the issue that because there are no equivalent specific terms in indigenous languages for L-G-B-T-I terms, homosexuality must be a Western import. This is a complicated point and needs to be addressed carefully. While it is true that the terms gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, transgender are all from the English language, what these terms name and describe is a phenomena that takes place in many cultures around the world. So although there are no equivalent words in the vernacular for gay, lesbian, or transgender, that doesn’t mean that there are no gay, lesbian, or transgender individuals amongst Xhosa people. So saying that because we don’t have a specific word for “transgender” in the vernacular therefore transgender people do not exist is lazy logic that won’t move us forward in making sense of the world.

Equally important is keeping in mind that the words gay, lesbian, transgender, and bisexual are also “new” words in the English language. The word “gay” and the word “lesbian” only become a reference for homosexuality in the late 19th century and increasingly in the 20th century. These words are less than 200 years old. The word “transgender” is even more “new” as a word because it comes to life in late 20thcentury and increasingly becoming part of our daily vocabulary.

New words are introduced into a language as new human phenomenon is discovered. New words are introduced as cultures find ways to explain people’s behaviours. Life is constantly evolving. The problem with IsiXhosa and other indigenous languages is that there are not enough people who are writing and producing knowledge in the vernacular, which is one of the ways new words are coined. The irony is not lost on me that I am writing this piece in English discussing IsiXhosa language issues. It pains me to admit that as awesome as my Xhosa is – I can read, write, and speak – it’s not as good as my English. It takes me twice as much time (if not more) to write a Xhosa piece than it does an English piece. Glancing over at my bookshelf I can’t spot a single Xhosa book. I used to read more Xhosa books when I was younger, but that changed as I grew older and went to mixed school and was required to read English books.

Xhosalisation
The language issue is a national issue, or at least it should be treated as such. IsiXhosa like all other indigenous languages of South Africa is not evolving by additional words being added in the language. Instead we see what my friends and I call the Xhosalisation of English words (which is a phenomenon that needs dissecting). Xhosalisation takes place in different ways, one of the ways it happens is the placing of the prefix “i” or “u” on English words. There is also the creation of “new” words by amalgamating English words with IsiXhosa words like the word “Xhosalisation”. Xhosalisation of English is useful for immediate everyday conversation but I wonder about its sustainability.

It is impossible to talk about language in this country without talking about the effects of colonisation and apartheid on indigenous languages. These systems of oppression have negatively affected the organic development of indigenous languages in epic proportions. Unlike English and Afrikaans, there are no structures in this country to ensure that indigenous languages continue to evolve. Universities like Stellenbosch are the bastion of the Afrikaans language and ensure that the language is moving with the times. There are no equivalent indigenous language institutions.

The post-1994 government has also failed to prioritise education and indigenous languages continue to be neglected. I think we need to think of ways in which we can articulate the struggles with gender inequality, sexual identity, and the changing culture in this country in indigenous languages. We need to be able to articulate the complexity of human sexuality in indigenous languages and maybe this will lead us in a direction where people gain a better understanding of sexual diversity.

It is a big problem that no academic work takes place in indigenous languages, as this is where ideas and new ways of being are articulated. This is not to say that people in the streets are not contributing towards the evolution of language, but it is knowledge producing centres that coin terms for human phenomenon and in the process helps us understand that human phenomenon. A few years ago, for the first time,  a PhD thesis was written and submitted in IsiXhosa at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University. The sad reality is that even if you wanted to write a sociological PhD thesis in IsiXhosa you will struggle to find supervisors who would be able to read it. Not to mention the struggle you would encounter with trying to explain “deconstruction”, “queer theory” or “intersectional analysis.”

Universities and indigenous languages
There are ways in which we could try and improve the language situation in this country but that demands political will and that is sorely lacking. Universities in this country are in a good position to create language/cultural centres for indigenous languages. This could start a project of taking indigenous languages seriously and slowly introduce knowledge production in indigenous languages. Universities could collaborate with people who speak indigenous languages to learn more about the languages and the cultures behind them. At times it seems to me that the nine indigenous languages of the 11 official languages in this country are only decorative. Imagine if all nine of the indigenous languages had a language institute.

Also as people who speak indigenous languages, we should really seek ways in which we maintain indigenous languages in our everyday lives. Imagine a South Africa with IsiXhosa book clubs and IsiXhosa reading rooms at universities in the Western and Eastern Cape. Imagine a South Africa where students can study sociology in the vernacular. Having IsiXhosa centres could also serve as great instruments in diffusing the alienating white supremacist culture of former whites only universities in this country because black people will then feel part of institutions and not just needing to adapt to a white world. What we need is a vision of the kind of South Africa we want to live in and work towards that vision. Creating language institutes will probably not be easy, but creating a healthy South Africa that is content with itself requires hard word and an ongoing conversation about our difficult past and where we want to go. We also need to make peace with the fact that the great South Africa we want to create will be enjoyed by future generations. Just like we are enjoying a democratic South Africa that was created in part by many people who died in the process of creating it and never had a chance to experience it.

Lwando Scott is a PhD candidate in sociology at the University of Cape Town. He blogs at http://queerconsciousness.com. Connect with him on Twitter: @lwandoscott 

I have decided to leave Zimbabwe

(Pic: AFP)
(Pic: AFP)

I am a Zimbabwean and I have decided to leave the country! Yes, you heard that right, I have decided to leave the country!

But first things first.

My name is Jimmy, and I am an ICT professional (an Internationally Certified Computer Programmer). I have had my fair share of good fortune in Zimbabwe. I have worked for the financial services industry, from the stock market, asset management, to the banking sector. I have even worked for software houses that are into fulltime software development. Yeah, yeah, one can say I have prospered in the republic.

But why leave the beloved Republic of Zimbabwe?

I can promise you it has nothing to do with my hatred for this country or because I have always wanted to leave, or because some friend or relative has decided to send me a ‘ticket’.

No.

At this point I can only tell you of a few reasons why I decided to leave the beloved republic.

Trust me, I am patriotic to Zimbabwe. I love Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe is in my heart.

After all, I have lived for over 30 years in the beloved republic. I was born here. I was raised here. I was educated here. My entire life has been in the republic. In fact, when all my peers and former school mates left I stayed because I was patriotic to the land. I saw a future where others couldn’t see one. I told myself that whatever we were going through as a country would soon come to an end and that in no time things would be better.

For a long time I didn’t even wish to get a passport. I didn’t see the need for one. I wasn’t going anywhere, and no one could convince me to step outside the borders of the republic.

And then most of my cousins started leaving.

Some of my friends left too. Within about two years or so of their leaving, they started sending us pictures of their nice cars, houses, the fancy restaurants, the food they ate … blah blah blah.

But that didn’t bother me. I wasn’t moved. I was a patriot. I loved my country. I was optimistic and very hopeful that in a few years things would change. I told myself that I too would one day, in the republic, drive a Range Rover.

But then things changed for me.

In short, allow me to say I married and along came two children. Life in Zimbabwe is something else once you start having kids and you need to feed them. Suddenly you need a two- or more bedroom house to rent. Of course in the republic we don’t buy houses, they are very expensive, and the banks are not giving mortgage loans.

Then came the 2012 elections. Then came the company closures. Then banks started closing.

Of course the factories have been closed for a while and I sort of winked at that because I worked for a bank. But when my bank started facing the liquidity crisis and closure I knew at once that no one was immune to the environment.

Then I started realising something about the republic.

No one cares for the public. We have dirty water in the taps and no one cares. We have erratic supply of electricity and no one cares. The roads are in shambles and no one is doing anything about it. Fuel prices go up and we can’t do anything about it. New taxes are introduced and we can only comply. Internet is very expensive. The public hospitals, the ones which we can afford, provide crappy service and people are dying because the nurses don’t care. I know because I watched my mother-in-law die at the hands of poor service delivery. And no one cares. Not them, not you, not the minister of health. No one. The company CEOs get treated outside the country now. But what about me? What about my kids?

Become an entrepreneur, they keep telling us. Start your own business. Create your own job.

But not everybody has dreams of owning or running a business. Some of us are just content to be the spanner boys and the foot soldiers. Some of us are content just doing our jobs and getting paid for it.

I don’t know about you but I am tired of the dirty tap water. I am tired of seeing all those potholes in a road. I am tired of sometimes available power supply. I am tired of walking the streets of a capital city that are infested with ‘bhero-stalls’ and cheap, crappy, Chinese products. I am tired of calling the national electricity department for a fault and they come 10 days later. I am tired of poor internet speeds. I am tired of expensive fuel. I am tired of working for ‘hand-to-mouth’ pay-outs. You can’t have savings accounts in the republic. Your bank could just close tomorrow. I am just tired of struggling for everything. Why does it cost me an arm and a leg to buy a flat-screen TV?

And guess what, my children have to grow up in such an environment and go to schools whose teachers don’t even know why they are doing what they do.

No.

I am sick and tired of it all.

Surely I wasn’t born to suffer. I just want a better life, that’s all.

And where am I gonna go?

Anywhere outside Zimbabwe.

Perhaps Botswana? Perhaps South Africa? (Wait, those guys don’t want us anymore). Perhaps Zambia? Perhaps Kenya? Perhaps Namibia? Take me anywhere where the visa application is not a hassle and I’ll gladly go.

Once again, my name is Jimmy and I am a Zimbabwean. I am an ICT professional and I am leaving Zimbabwe!

This post was first published on 263Chat