Whose Anti-homosexuality bill?

On December 20, 2013, the parliament of Uganda passed the anti-homosexuality bill that had been on the floor of parliament since 2009. The bill will become law if the president of Uganda, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, assents his signature to it. This private member bill, among other things, provides for a sentence of life imprisonment for anyone convicted of homosexuality, which covers gays and lesbians. This article explores the politics of the bill other than its morality, il/legitimacy, ethics and legality.

Since the bill was passed, there has been extensive debate about its moral, ethical and legal standing. On the one hand, human rights activists across the world have condemned the bill saying that if it is passed into law, its implementation and enforcement will amount to blatant abuse of human rights.  On the other hand, proponents of the bill and a wide section of Ugandans have applauded the passing of the bill, and reiterated its necessity and importance in upholding and fostering cultural and religious values.

Resistance against homosexuality in Uganda and other parts of Africa is part of European religious colonial legacy and a result of deeply entrenched cultural and traditional beliefs and practices. In a bid to spread Victorian morality in Africa, European missionaries through religious movements, teachings and crusades preached against homosexuality and sodomy. This formed the foundation on which the currents faiths were built. Uganda's population is highly catholic (33%), Anglican (33%) and Muslim (16%), and most followers of these religious faiths still view homosexuality as a practice that is against their religious values, norms, procedures and biblical teachings. As a matter of fact, ever since the bill was passed, the archbishops of both the catholic and Anglican churches in Uganda have come out to condemn acts of homosexuality, and have called for redemption and of homosexual individuals in society.

This lack of acceptance of the gay community is compounded by very conservative cultural beliefs that are rooted in the philosophy of continuity of life.  Uganda’s tribal communities are founded on clan system, genealogical lineage, and ancestral history. The three form the tenets on which social and cultural identity is built and sustained. The sense of being is not only derived from individual existence but also through procreation, having a wife or wives and a husband or husbands, and getting subjected to cultural rituals such as rites of passage. Patrilineage, which is common in most African societies has roots in procreation and vice versa. An African clan or tribe cannot imagine that their son or daughter can live ad grow up with having biological children. Reproduction ensures this continuity of life and orientation into earthly and ancestral life and worlds. Any practice that threatens this belief is vehemently resisted, fought, and discredited.

Whose anti-homosexuality bill?

Debate about anti-homosexuality bill has focused on the ethics, morality, legitimacy, and legality of the bill. Yet, the bill seems to be serving political interests than the purpose for which it is purportedly drafted (to preserve the cultural and religious values of the people). Because the bill appeals to the cultural and religious sentiments of majority of Ugandans, politicians and legislators are using it to mobilize political support among Ugandans as we move towards the 2016 general elections. Ever since the bill was passed by parliament, a largest percentage of Ugandans have come out to show their full contentment with the bill on social and electronic media. The approval rate for legislators has drastically increased.

The government of Uganda is also using the bill to divert attention away from continued abuse of human rights, collapse in rule of law, and violent political harassment of members of opposition that Uganda has witnessed in the recent past. The international media and Western government seem to be obsessed with the bill each time it is debated in parliament and have not given other pressing human right abuses the attention that they deserve. this serves the current Kampala regime well. With this bill in their hands, the government of Uganda has added another weapon to their arsenal (in addition to having military troops in Somalia) to keep Western government, media, and organisations in check.

Is homosexuality a western imposed practice?

There is a popular belief among sections of Uganda's population that homosexuality is a foreign practice imposed on local communities to serve the ulterior motives the West (Europe and north America). This is contrary to the reports that homosexuality existed in pre-colonial African society. In fact, while appearing on BBC and CNN in 2012, the president of Uganda, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, acknowledged that homosexuality has always existed in Africa, but people never had debates about it in public (he calls this exhibitionism).  The more Western governments and human rights organisations directly intervene to ensure that the rights of sexual minorities are observed, the more the belief that homosexuality is a Western imposition gets entrenched within the local community. LGBT activists whose local campaigns are funded by western organizations also vindicate this suspicion. The west has also turned  blind eye on other forms of human rights  abuse in Uganda. Hesitancy by Western government and human rights organization to come out and strongly condemn other forms of human rights abuse is seen as betrayal, playing double standards and being insensitive to the plight of other many Ugandans who suffer grave injustices, abuses and violence. As one of the Ugandans commented in one of the debates about the bill: “The proponents of gay rights are as wrong as the proponents of anti gay law, when political opponents are killed and persecuted, those bazungus [people from the West] are silent. Are gay rights more important than other human right?” 

Uganda's armed forces breaking up a meeting of unarmed protestors. Such abuses are rarely condemned by Western governments and human rights organisations.

Western governments and organizations making mistakes

Ever since the bill was tabled before parliament, western governments and organizations have been calling for cuts in foreign aid to Uganda with aim to mount pressure on the Ugandan government and parliament to shelve the bill. By tying human rights to aid money and handouts, the West is making three mistakes and disservices to the gay community in Uganda and beyond: 1) the West is creating an impression that human rights can be bought or negotiated using financial and logistical resources and handouts. Human rights are human rights. Using money and other resources to gain them is setting a wrong precedent that if these rights can be commoditized and negotiated using money they can be taken away; 2) they are putting the gay community at risk in cases where countries may decide to do away with aid, mobilize local resources and continue to enforce and implement laws against sexual minorities; 3) the West is confirming the longstanding suspicion that homosexuality is a Western idea that is being imposed on local communities using threats to cut aid, and financial and logistical facilitation of gay right movements and campaigns.

The proponents of the anti-homosexuality bill are making the Ugandan society more homophobic. Those who are challenging the bill (both locally and internationally) are radicalizing local homophobia. Advocacy, publicity and activism for and against homosexuality will only leave the gay community in a more precarious position. Local politicians will continue to front this bill to cover up for their legislative and political failures as we move towards 2016 general elections. The anti-homosexuality has a lot to do with local politics than the moral, ethical and legal status of the people of Uganda. 

Did South Sudan ask the real questions?

For more than a week now, South Sudan has been embroiled in a military conflict that has claimed more than 500 lives. This conflict is a result of what the South Sudan government alleges to be a failed military coup/mutiny orchestrated by Riek Machar, South Sudan’s former vice president.

The roots of this conflict reside in the military struggle between military groups in South Sudan and the Khartoum government that started more than 30 years ago.  Whereas SPLM/A was the dominant force in this struggles (with its military leader, John Garang at the forefront), there were so many other military groups and ethnic militias that were engaged in this struggle such as South Sudan Defence Forces (SSDF). It is worth noting that these different military groups controlled territory, some of which was and is still mineral rich.

After signing the Comprehensive Peace Agreement  (CPA) with the Khartoum government in 2005,  SPLM/A was trapped in a conflict of interests. Some leaders within its ranks such as John Garang pursued the idea of a new (unified) Sudan whereas others preferred secession of South Sudan from North Sudan. John Garang pushes the idea of a new Sudan with hope that he would be the first black president of the new Sudan. Both Arabs and non Arab Sudanese endorsed his ambition and vision when they massively welcomed him and the SPLM/A leadership to Khartoum on July 08, 2005, a gesture that shocked the Khartoum regime.

Dr. John Garang. Maybe his dream of a new/unified Sudan had solutions to the crises in Darfur, South Kordofan and South Sudan

It seems that after signing the CPA in 2005, the SPLM/A leadership preoccupied themselves with finding a compromise between these two interests. This may have weakened the internal capacity of the new state to fully focus on the existing political and military challenges of the time.

One of the areas that the SPLM/A government needed to urgently address was how to assimilate and integrate other military groups and militias into one military structure. Instead, the SPLM/A created a structure where the military groups and militias remained militarily semi-autonomous with all the infrastructure and fully fledge chains of command. SPLM/A just coopted leaders of these groups into government but never dissolved their military structures into one unified force.  Worst of all, these leaders wielded influence authority and control over their respective groups. As such, these semi-autonomous units became a bargaining tool for political and economic self-aggrandizement by their respective coopted leaders.

This volatile arrangement created internal dislocations and instability and fed secessionist sentiments and threats of breaking away inside South. This fragility was compounded by the fact that some military groups were tribal in composition, and they controlled territory and mineral wealth.

It should be born in our mind that ever since she attained independence in 2011, South Sudan has been under siege from Sudan (north) over disputed border territories. The tension between the two countries reached its peak in 2012 during the Heglig crisis when soldiers of both countries clashed in the border town of Heglig. Additionally, South Sudan has been a ground on which the Ugandan government and that of Sudan have continued to settle their military scores. Since 2011, SPLM/A government has been engaged both internally and externally, an act that has denied it ample time and space to concentrate on finding solutions to internal challenges facing South Sudan.

Mineral dealers who bankroll leaders of different armed groups and militias in exchange for unconstrained access to mineral resources have also fueled the internal conflicts in South Sudan. If the current crisis is not resolved this behavior will do none but escalate.

As planes evacuate foreign nationals from South Sudan, let's remember that there are millions of South Sudanese whose only home is South Sudan. The danger with this crisis is that it might energize or be energized by other armed conflicts in nearby areas such as Democratic Republic of Congo, Chad, Central African Republic, and Darfur.

South Sudan people are caught in the middle of this conflict. It is only a political solution that can deliver peace and hope to their hearts

It is politics that brought all these warring military factions together. The same politics can help these same groups to mend fences. Politics is the only womb that will give birth to peace, hope, and prosperity for the people of South Sudan. The current crisis is begging for a political solution.

Alfdaniels Mabingo is a Fulbright Fellow at New York University  

The Struggle for Global Economic and Military Superiority: Implications for Africa's 'Rich-Poor' Countries.

The contest for global economic superiority has just started. As Western economies sink into economic recession, Africa, which had been alienated from global trade for ages, seems to be their savior. The exodus of Western and Eastern investors to Africa is surging. Are these foreign investments in Africa beneficial to Africans? Will these investments situate Africa at the centre of global economic enterprise or relegate it to the periphery?

The credit crunch that hit North America in 2008 and the recurring Eurozone crisis has left a spin in global economic, military and political power play. When the financial crisis hit the world’s biggest economies, the developing economies, especially in Africa, thought that they were far away from the collapsing economic debris. As it turned out, this fervor was false. Most developing economies have been smacked by the ever increasing global oil prices and the imbalances in global trade.

In Uganda, for example, the economy was hit by runaway inflation that swung to alarming double digits in just a space of five months, owing in part, to domestic mismanagement of the economy and high global food and oil prices.

As developed and developing economies are entangled in this economic quagmire, the struggles for global economic, political and military superiority will not but intensify. Apparently, the crown for global superiority is slowly but steadily sliding through the hands of the US and Europe, the two global players that have for long dominated the global economic enterprise. “European Union’s current members accounted for 31% of the world economy in 1980 (measured by each country’s GDP, adjusted for purchasing power). By 2011, the EU share slid to 20%, and the Fund projects that it will decline further, to 17%, by 2017.” (Jeffrey D. Sachs, A World Adrift, The Independent of May 5, 2012).

This startling economic squeeze has stretched beyond Europe. “The US share of global GDP, around 25% in 1980, declined to 19% in 2011, and is expected to slip to 18% in 2017, by which point the IMF expects that China will have overtaken the US economy in absolute size (adjusted for purchasing power).” (Jeffrey D. Sachs, A World Adrift, The Independent May 5, 2012). Consequently, “The US, characteristically these days, insists that it will not join any new IMF bailout fund. The US Congress has increasingly embraced isolationist economic policies, especially regarding financial help for others. This, too, reflects the long-term wane of US power.”, Sachs notes. Even with austerity measures in Europe and government bailout plans in the US, there are no prospects of economic recovery on the horizon.

As the US and Eurozone slide into economic chasm, other powers are emerging to challenge this global dominance and claim their share of the global economic enterprise. China, for example has made economic inroads in Africa. Dambisa Moyo has observed that, “In 2009, China became Africa’s single largest trading partner, surpassing the United States. And China’s foreign direct investment in Africa has skyrocketed from under $100 million in 2003 to more than $12 billion in 2011.” The Zambian born economist has further noted, “Since China began seriously investing in Africa in 2005, it has been routinely cast as a stealthy imperialist with a voracious appetite for commodities and no qualms about exploiting Africans to get them. It is no wonder that the American government is lashing out at its new competitor — while China has made huge investments in Africa, the United States has stood on the sidelines and watched its influence on the continent fade.” 

The new African Union Headquarters in Addis Ababa that was constructed with $200 million donation from the Chinese government.

The biggest threat to the US and Eurozone may seem to be China on the surface, but underneath, the rise of the entire BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) economies is destined to alter the global economic, political and military dynamic. The positive economic strides made by economies in the Middle East in sectors such as: oil and gas, tourism, manufacturing, sports, and entertainment in the last two decades cannot be overlooked. As Sachs has noted, “The shift to such a multipolar world has the advantage that no single country or small bloc can dominate the others. Each region can end up with room for maneuver and some space to find its own path. Yet a multipolar world also carries great risks, notably that major global challenges will go unmet, because no single country or region is able or willing to coordinate a global response, or even to participate in one.” The global economic ignominy is threatening to send more hard punches. What is yet to be seen is whether global economies will stand this force.

Africa's 'rich-poor' countries within the context of global economic and military contest.

In his book The African Predicament and the American Experience: A Tale of two Edens, Ali A. Mazrui posits thus “Africa in the twenty-first century is likely to be one of the final battlegrounds of new forces of globalization – for better or for worse.” The story of Africa and her mineral resources is a tale of plunder, manipulation, and exploitation. A continent endowed with natural mineral resources harbours the world’s most poor, illiterate, disadvantaged and vulnerable. One may even think that African mineral resources are still lying idle beneath the feet of continental Africans. Alas, the minerals are exploited day and night, and money and whatever it is exchanged for, is swindled.

The increasing global resource constraints have led to massive exodus of genuine and sham foreign investors (some people refer to these klepto-capitalists as harvesters) from the West and East to the African continent. In June 2011, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton gave a speech in Zambia warning of a “new colonialism” threatening the African continent. Referring to China’s increased influence in Africa, Clinton noted, “We saw that during colonial times, it is easy to come in, take out natural resources, pay off leaders and leave.” Whether China’s presence on the African continent is going to transmute into the second scramble and partition of Africa is a tale that posterity will tell.   What is certainly clear is that there is greater than ever clamor for Africa’s mineral resources from players from the West and East.

The claim that the West is guilty for the economic and political plight of African states is as valid as the assertion that the continental African political elite are responsible for the continent’s economic and political misery. Over the years, African governments through a handful of African political class and elites have signed clandestine deals with Western and Eastern multinational companies, to allow these companies full and unabated access to Africa’s mineral wealth.

 African leaders at the inauguration ceremony of the new African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Clandestine oil agreements, land give away, tax exemptions, and other government subsidies between African political elites and multimillion corporations from the west and the East is rampant. In some cases, foreign governments and corporations have been given total admittance to extract resources for mere exchange of military arms by African political charlatans under the guise of universal economic and social multilateralism. This is compounded by the fact that legislation in African countries is too weak to protect people from any form of economic exploitation and manipulation.

Money that is generated through these transactions does not filter down to the rightful recipients. In Africa, the trickle-down theory has failed to work especially when political elites are at the top of the trickle-down chain. As such, majority of African natives have capsized in trenches of poverty, famine, and limited or no access to public good and services. African governments have become agents of self- human destruction and sabotage.

The rift between the rich (minority) and the poor (majority) has done all but widened, while money from these economic deals, which is routinely swindled through corruption by the political elites, is lying in foreign banks in Europe and America. Sadly, with access to these furtive proceeds, African political elites have succeeded in entrenching authoritarian rule and dictatorship that is devoid of rule of laws, respect for human rights, empowerment of people, and economic development.

Africa is rich in mineral resources but her people will remain poor until, maybe, the mineral resources are exhausted; Africa will have fertile soils but her people will remain impoverished and malnourished; Africa’s mineral resources will have market in the West and East but her people will remain less educated; African governments and political elites will always make a bite out of dealings with foreign governments and multimillion companies but they will not provide public goods and services; in some cases, natural resources will continue to be exchange for arms and the sons and daughters of mother Africa will continues to swim in a murky and bloody ocean of armed conflicts.

A very good case in point is Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). DRC is considered to be the world’s wealthiest country boasting with mineral resources worth 170 trillion dollars (this is bigger than the economy of the US and Europe combined). Contrastingly, majority of the 70 million people that live in Congo live in abject poverty. Yet Congo’s mineral resources have been exploited since the colonial period. 

The global economic barometer indicates that the current global economic constrictions are here to stay. The more these existentialities manifest themselves in economies in the West and the East, the more voracity for Africa’s resources will heighten, and the more people in Africa’s ‘rich poor’ countries will be wrapped in rugs of poverty and hopelessness.

I hope the winds of posterity will turn the African dice to a much better plane!

Africa needs more female leaders, not great men.

For many years, Africa has grappled with establishing a continent-wide democracy that would shove her population into social, political and economic sumptuousness. A number of interventions have been made at macro and micro levels to achieve socio-political and economic transformation but the results have not been proportionate.

It seems the fissure in this endeavor is lack of full involvement of women in the management of political and non political enterprises. Yet, Desmond Tutu, a South African Clergyman and human rights activist reminds us thus: “If we want to see real development in the world then our best investment is women.” It is this strength that women richly posses that Orville Richard Burrell aka Shaggy reiterates in his famous musical hit ‘strength of a woman.’  

The strength of a woman is a historical precedent. When society entered Neolithic age from monolithic era, women took up the responsibility of attending to agriculture (gatherers).  Men continued to live as hunters. Here is the thing. With agriculture, you have to invest in the garden, take good care of it in order to get a good harvest. With hunting, you do not need to invest at all. You just go to the grassland and poach. It is in this reality that the view that women are naturally investors and not exploiters, service providers and not plunders, and caregivers/takers and not opportunists, finds a home.  Because of this natural knack to facilitate life, women in sub-Saharan cultures are considered to be ‘the custodians of the earth.’

From a theological perspective, it is women who gathered bits and pieces of bravery to approach the tomb in which the great spiritual giant, Jesus Christ, had been buried. They are the ones who broke the news that the tomb was empty, the man had resurrected. Therefore, it is women who midwifed the highly celebrated EASTER holiday.

Fast track to politics. The continental political barometer indicates that women, if given chance can preside over the much needed change. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the Liberian president has been able to pull the West African country out of trenches of political instability that Charles McArthur Ghankay Taylor, her predecessor, had dumped it into. Liberia had become the ‘mad-man of West Africa.’ Taylor was sentenced to 50 years in prison by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in Hague for masterminding military and political mayhem in Liberia and Sierra Leone.

But nobody has captured the eyes and hearts of her admirers and adversaries than Maama Joyce Hilda Banda, the president of Malawi. Maama Banda rose to political acme after the sudden demise of her predecessor, Bingu wa Mutharika. Banda was Bingu’s vice president.

When Banda fell out with Bingu wa Mutharika, her former antecedent and boss over political management of the country, politics reared its ugly head.  The president opened the political den, and let out sharks to slice Banda into pieces with aim end her political ambitions. The vultures persistently hovered over Banda’s political umbrella

Malawian President Joyce Hilda Banda

Like a serene wife in an abusive marriage, Maama Banda let patience, calmness, and judiciousness prevail over emotional fury and political anguish. She was saved by her levelheadedness, and the constitution - which bared the President from firing the vice president.

As fate and luck would have it, President Bingu wa Mutharika succumbed to heart attack, and the constitution delivered Maama Banda to the highest office in Malawiland.

In office for hardly 3 months, Maama Banda’s desire to make sagacious reforms leaves even the most vigilant person to doze in complacency. She knows very well that you cannot have a starving/malnourished family and line up to buy a pet – a German shepherd. Or, you cannot be a vagabond and live like Kim Kardashian.

Maama Banda has moved to sell of all luxurious coupés that the former president had invested most of Malawi’s little money in. She is also determined to sell or lease the $13 million presidential jet, which Bingu wa Mutharika, her late predecessor, had bought in 2009. “I can well use private airlines,” she reportedly said. She has a master plan to inject all the proceeds in grassroots projects that will kick start transformation of Malawi.

The recurring excuse that the women that have proved themselves as able leaders are too few to warrant assurance that women can deliver Africa is tired, spurious, and tenuous. It nauseates. It must be retired. The point here is that the number of men who have wrecked havoc, messed up, and violated the political power vested in them by masses is overwhelming.  

 

  An interior view of the multimillion mansion of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe

Africa’s male presidents are experts in immersing themselves into privilege of living. Their political survival is fundamentally dependent on corruption and patronage, and not delivery of public goods and services. Of course, there are some male leaders that have caused the much needed change. But these visionary leaders have been let down by their counterparts, the vast majority, who plunder their countries to facilitate their gluttony for luxury and self economic aggrandizement. 

They live a deluxe and snobbish lifestyle that would make dotcom celebrities such as Kanye West, 50 Cent, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Nikk Minaj, David Beckham etc to faint in envy. These charlatans are never bothered about the plight of the people that they lead. 

Africa is yearning for not only the mindset of visionary ladies like Maama Banda but also their active leadership in body politic, social and economic bureaucratic at all levels. The last bullet that Africa has in her chamber is women. Men have had their opportunity and they have flagrantly squandered it.

Let the continent give women a chance!