Tag: Southern Africa

‘Mathabiso Mosala: 50 years of activism in Lesotho

'Mathabile Mosala. (Pic: Meri Hyöky.)
‘Mathabiso Mosala has championed Basotho women’s rights since 1963. (Pic: Meri Hyöky.)

Eighty-three-year-old ‘Mathabiso Mosala lives in a bustling, chaotic part of Maseru. Her house is located on one of the city’s main roads, crowded with shops, pedestrians and heavy traffic. Street vendors line the pavement outside her gate, their shouts mingling with the incessant hooting of taxis driving past.

Mosala, or nkhono, as many fondly call her, is quiet and dignified in her appearance. The interior of her home is cool, silent and immaculately tidy, in sharp contrast to the noisy street outside. Polished ornaments sit still on shelves, and the smiling faces of her grandchildren and great grandchildren peek out of picture frames in the living room.

Despite her age, Mosala speaks with clarity and strength, and holds her listener in a steady gaze. She has many stories to tell. For the past five decades, she has been at the forefront of the Lesotho National Council of Women (LNCW), a coalition of women’s organisations that has worked tirelessly over the years to advocate for the rights of women in Lesotho, and to provide them with meaningful skills, opportunities and training.

The story of the LNCW begins in 1963, three years before Lesotho gained its independence, when Mosala and three other Basotho women boarded a flight to Israel. As the presidents of four separate women’s associations, they had been sent by King Moshoeshoe II on a study tour to observe some of the work being done by Israeli women’s organisations.

After six weeks, they returned to Lesotho feeling energised and inspired. Amongst the many things they had seen, they had been particularly impressed by the existence of an umbrella body that co-ordinated the efforts of a number of different organisations. The four associations joined forces, and the LNCW was born.

The women set to work, and steadily the LNCW grew. They began by establishing nursery schools, and then shifted their focus to opening vocational training centres. Four of these are still in operation, providing young people from poor backgrounds with training in a range of skills, including sewing, carpentry and business management.

Women’s money, women’s rights
“We’ve successfully trained more than 5 000 people,” says Mosala proudly, her face breaking into a wide smile. “We’ve made it possible for women to make money for themselves, thanks to the skills that we have given them. Our centres are not expensive, and we’re not concerned with academic qualifications. If people have hands, they can be taught to use them.”

For the past fifty years, the LNCW has also played a key role in pressuring the government of Lesotho to pass a number of laws that protect women’s rights. Among these is the Legal Capacity of Married Person’s Act, passed in 2006, which gave Basotho women the right to own and manage property. Another milestone was Lesotho’s 1995 ratification, albeit with reservations, of the Convention of the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (Cedaw).

Mosala speaks about these achievements with a hint of pride, but mostly with a firm and realistic view of how much still needs to be done.

“In the past, a woman used to be her husband’s wife, her father’s daughter, and even her son’s daughter, because by law the eldest son was the head of the family,” she says. “Now, a woman can go to the bank or buy a site without being accompanied by a man. Many things have changed for the better, but we still won’t be satisfied until Cedaw is ratified without reservations.”

“Women who live in rural areas need to be educated. Rural women still bring their husbands with them when they want to open a bank account, because they don’t realise they have the right to do it on their own. Another issue is that many legal documents are written in English, and especially in jargon. Just this morning I was reading the constitution; there are laws in it that even I don’t understand.”

Over the years, the LNCW has expanded, and it now serves as an umbrella body for 13 member organisations who work with diverse sectors of society on a range of issues, including HIV awareness, women’s rights and caring for orphans and the elderly.

Mosala’s experiences and achievements are just as varied. Her work with the LNCW has seen her deal with a long list of foreign donors, and she has travelled widely, representing the LNCW at seminars and conferences around the world. In 1993, she was nominated by King Letsie III to serve as a member of Lesotho’s Senate, a position she held for five years. She has also received many awards in recognition of her work, including the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Lesotho African Women’s Awards ceremony in 2012.

“I am proud because I have helped many people put bread on the table,” Mosala says with a quiet humility. “I know that I have done something to make a difference in the lives of others, and I think that is something that people should aim for.”

Modern-day Lesotho
However, despite her hard work and long list of achievements, Mosala’s voice often sounds tired, and her forehead creases into a frown at many points in our conversation. Her commentary on modern-day Lesotho is harsh, and paints a bleak, unforgiving picture of many aspects of the country.

“I have lived in this house since 1976,” she says. “Back then, this street was nice and clean. I used to be able to plant flowers outside my yard. It’s terrible now. I want to move. I am too old to live in such a dirty place. Our environment has degraded horribly. There are plastic bags everywhere, and there is no recycling of waste.”

Mosala outside her home in Maseru. (Pic: Meri Hyöky)
Mosala outside her home in Maseru. (Pic: Meri Hyöky)

“We are a country with many resources, and yet the majority of Basotho don’t benefit from these. We produce wool and mohair, but there is no processing plant in Lesotho. Our blankets are made across the river and sold back to us. The same thing happens with our water. I don’t have a vegetable garden because I can’t afford to pay for water, and yet we sell water to South Africa. We don’t even know how much we’re getting for the sale of that water, and what it is doing, for who?”

Mosala’s commentary comes at a pertinent time: Lesotho is about to hold its national elections, brought forward by two years after a politically turbulent 2014 saw an attempted coup and the dissolution of parliament. Her advice to voters is sharp and straight to the point.

“This country is in dire poverty, so why vote for somebody who is not going to take you out of poverty? Our politicians spend years in office and they do nothing. People complain that they have no food and no water, and yet they elect the same politicians back to power. Are we stupid? Are we brainwashed? Basotho need to be aware of their rights. They should elect people who will ensure their long-term empowerment, and they should hold those people accountable.”

“If the government is doing nothing, it doesn’t mean that you should sit around, complain and not take action. It took 30 years for our vocational schools to be officially accredited by the Ministry of Education, but we never tired in our efforts, and we continued with our work. Some things have changed for the better in this country, but many things haven’t. The next generation of young Basotho activists have a lot to do for the next 50 years.”

Leila Hall is a freelance writer living and working in Lesotho.

Anger in Zimbabwe over ‘obscene’ Mugabe birthday bash

President Robert Mugabe cuts his birthday cake with his children and his wife Grace Mugabe during a 21st February Movement celebrations rally held in honor of his 89th birthday at Chipadze stadium in Bindura on March 2 2013. (Pic: AFP)
President Robert Mugabe cuts his birthday cake with his wife Grace Mugabe and his children during a 21st February Movement celebrations rally held in honour of his 89th birthday at Chipadze stadium in Bindura on March 2 2013. (Pic: AFP)

Zimbabwe’s main opposition party on Wednesday denounced as “obscene” a planned bash to celebrate President Robert Mugabe’s 91st birthday at a time the economy is on a downturn.

Mugabe turns 91 on Saturday and each year his Zanu-PF party lays on a lavish party using funds raised through public donations.

This year a belated feast is set for February 28 at a hotel in the prime resort town of Victoria Falls where guests will be served with game meat donated by a local farmer.

But the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), the country’s main opposition, wants the funds raised for the party to be used instead to fix infrastructure such as hospitals.

“All the money that has been collected to bankroll this obscene jamboree should be immediately channeled towards rehabilitating the collapsed public hospitals, clinics and rural schools in Matabeleland North province,” Obert Gutu, spokesperson for the MDC party said in a statement.

Victoria Falls is in Matabeleland North province where public facilities such as clinics and roads are in a state of disrepair for lack of funds – as elsewhere in rural Zimbabwe.

The town is home to one of the world’s largest waterfalls, the Victoria Falls.

Gutu also suggested that food donated for the birthday be “handed over” to charities for the disabled and to orphanages.

A businessman in Victoria Falls last week reportedly offered two elephants, two buffalos, two sable antelopes and five impala to be slaughtered for Mugabe’s birthday party.

He also promised Mugabe a lion trophy.

The businessman was reported by the state-owned Chronicle daily newspaper as saying the donation was “our way of supporting the function and to ensure a celebratory mood in our community as well.”

An all-night music concert in Harare this Friday will preface the celebrations which in the past have included a fashion show and a football match.

Africa’s oldest ruler Mugabe has been in power since 1980.

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

Robert Mugabe: Man of the people?

Robert Mugabe (Pic: AFP)
Robert Mugabe (Pic: AFP)

Africa’s leaders have appointed Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe to the largely ceremonial role of chairman of the 54-state African Union.

Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe since 1980, is still respected by many for leading his country to independence from Britain. But critics believe the ‘president for life’ is out of touch with the people the African Union claims to represent.

Age is not a factor is the selection process for position for chairman of the Africa Union, but Africa is the world’s youngest continent, and at 90 years-old, Mugabe is among the estimated 5% of Africans who manage to live past their sixtieth birthday. In 2012, 85% of the population was under the age of 45, and life expectancy across the continent was 58 years.

Wealth Mugabe’s government has been widely blamed for mismanaging Zimbabwe’s economy, plunging the country into desperate times. Though the extent of his personal wealth is not known, his penchant for expensive and “insensitive” parties is well documented. Lavish celebrations for the leader’s 90th birthday were said to have cost Zimbabwe taxpayers $1m, despite around 70% of the population living in poverty.

Rights The African Union’s main objectives include the promotion of good governance, democracy and human rights. Under Mugabe’s rule, Zimbabwe has consistently ranked as one of the worst countries in the world for civil liberties. “The police use outdated and abusive laws to violate basic rights such as freedom of expression and assembly…” according to the Human Rights Watch 2015 World Report. “There has been no progress toward justice for human rights abuses and past political violence.”

Democracy Africa is home to half of the world’s longest serving leaders, including Mugabe, who was sworn in as Zimbabwe’s president for the seventh time in 2013. Protests against veteran leaders have recently flared in Democratic Republic of Congo and Burkina Faso, when president Blaise Compaore was forced to step down after a failed attempt to extend his 27-year rule. Zimbabwe’s first lady, Grace Mugabe, has indicated she may try to succeed her husband as leader one day.

Resources In his acceptance speech for his new role as chairman, Mugabe spoke of the need to guard Africa’s resources against foreign exploitation. Zimbabwe’s Zanu-PF party was accused of siphoning millions of dollars in profits from state-owned diamond mines to finance Mugabe’s re-election campaign in 2013. Officials deny the claims.

Women’s empowerment is the theme of the African Union summit being held in Addis Ababa. In an interview with Voice of America, Mugabe said it is “not possible that women can be at par with men.” It was unclear whether he was endorsing the status quo, or lamenting the lack of opportunities for African women. Either way, in a continent where gender discrimination remains widespread, it’s not the best choice of words.

Conflict Another of the African Union’s vows is to promote peace and stability across the continent. Mugabe and his associates are subject to EU and US sanctions following Zanu-PF’s victories in the 2002 and 2008 elections, which were marred by allegations of vote-rigging, violence and intimidation. Mugabe denies any wrongdoing, and accuses the west of trying to encourage regime change.

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