Gore Vidal, who died this week, was often scathing in his attacks on US foreign policy. In April 2002, Index on Censorship magazine was the first English-language publication to feature this essay, written after 9/11
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Suddenly, bad African leaders are under the torch of public scrutiny: George Clooney is arrested while trying to draw attention to Sudan’s president Bashir. Former Kenyan ministers Uhuru Kenyatta and Willam Ruto are on trial at the International Criminal Courts in the Hague. Blogs and websites are teeming with criticisms of Museveni in Uganda, who is being slated for many reasons: massacres against the Bunyara and Achioli people, and generally letting his country slide into “Big Man” rule. The king of Swaziland has faced renewed criticism for siphoning off the sugar taxes for his own use, (after lobbyists demanded Coca-cola revisited their activities there, since they were effectively propping up a dictatorship). Piracy and despotic warlords in the Indian Ocean are big news. The EU is upping the resources and naval might to counter piracy in the East Coast of Africa and now considering land strikes too.
Perhaps most visible Joseph Kony. The leader of the Lord´s Resistance Army (LRA). The short web film Kony2012 was been watched more than 100 million times in a week, (presumably mainly in the Western world, given the pathetic internet connections for most of us here). After Osama Bin Laden, Kony’s probably now the best known baddie in the world.
Millions responded to the call earlier this month to share the video, upload a personal response, or buy an “action kit”. A clear marketing success, apparently. At the same time, a Kony2012 screening in Lira in northern Uganda provoked outrage among thousands of spectators. The victims of Kony in Northern Uganda dismiss the project as humiliating and incorrect – a campaign at the expense of the people it claims to help.
This is not good. There is a real, and serious, grievance with ‘Western Paternalism’. Why were the makers of Kony 2012 not able to show it to the people it was supposed to help, before it went out on You Tube? Dialogue is wonderful, criticism, and the method of “shaming” leaders into change a valuable strategy, but there must be more equality. The conversation must be more two –way.
There’s nothing new about Kony, or the Lord’s Resistance Army, (LRA) or child soldiers. Though he’s left now, he was in Uganda for 26 years. International NGO’s (responding to work with their sister organisations locally) have been talking about these issues for over fifteen years. Today, eight years after abandoning northern Uganda, the LRA’s depleted band of a couple of hundred barefoot fighters is now somewhere in the borderlands between the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan and Central African Republic. According to the “LRA Crisis Tracker” they have killed 98 civilians in the last 12 months and abducted 477.
The reason why Kony, and other crap African leaders are suddenly interesting for media in the Global North, is frankly a bit of a mystery for those of us who live here in Africa. Do issues only become important when the Global North decides so? Or when ‘White Messiahs’ living away from the messy complexities and loyalties of African life decide they can save us? As the Kony debate shows there are already many people and organisations established, connected, familiar and good at what they do here on the ground. Support them. Don’t start up new ones.
Frank, fierce and honest debate is needed, power-crazed maniacal leaders need challenging, bad democracies and weak civil societies do need changing and improving. If we don’t know how, or are too scared to complain, monitor, or just check on our leaders, or the legal structures and public media don’t exist, we can’t do it. A well-funded independent media, and constant discussion between Africa and Europe/USA is needed, but how about responding to what we are already doing, supporting existing efforts, and not barging in with all the ‘answers?’
Listen to what the people who live here are saying, and let the Global South, Africans, steer the debate. Women’s Civil Society Groups in Uganda have launched the “Kony2012 campaign, Blurring Realities”, and issued this statement :
” We have watched the campaign video and we believe that at the present time, it is out of context regarding the real issues of the conflict in Uganda. We therefore want to draw the world’s attention to the issues that we believe are of importance to the sufferers and survivors of this conflict.
For the last twenty six years, a lot has been done by different stakeholders in Uganda including the women’s movement, human rights organisations, academics, international development partners and bilateral agencies, in response to the atrocities of the Lord’s Resistance Army. The government of Uganda made an effort to end this war through the Juba peace process. …It is therefore not correct to say that nothing has been done in the last 26 years.
Some of the work by the civil society movement includes supporting the reconstruction efforts for the victims, and advocating to hold the government of Uganda accountable while working towards ending the conflict. …. While the idea of this campaign against the LRA leader Joseph Kony is welcome, the steam it has created overshadows the real concerns of the sufferers and survivors of this conflict in Uganda. Many former child soldiers and former abductees, women and girls, are now struggling with so many challenges such as reproductive health problems, post traumatic stress disorders, food insecurity and livelihood support among others. Due to war, there are many infrastructural challenges facing the entire population, and health problems like the nodding disease now affecting children in North and North Eastern Uganda. Capturing or killing Kony however does not put an end to the suffering of these survivors immediately.
We do realise that a lot of money has been/may be raised through this campaign dubbed Kony 2012. As the women’s movement, we believe that the biggest percentage of this fundraising should be used to support the various recovery efforts mentioned above.”
What kind of success is a film whose intended “beneficiaries” would rather do without?
Last month the Secretary-General of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) expressed alarm at the escalating intensity and popular appeal of anti-Islamic rhetoric from politicians in the USA and Europe. This critical issue has long acted as an animus for the OIC and, in December, the General Assembly of the United Nations passed a resolution titled, “Combating intolerance, negative stereotyping, stigmatisation, discrimination, incitement to violence, and violence against, persons based on religion or belief”.
This resolution, which was similarly accepted by the United Nations Human Rights Council last March, was sponsored by the OIC, the second largest inter-governmental organisation after the United Nations with a membership of 57 states spread over four continents. For more than a decade the OIC’s push for such an outcome has met with resistance from western states – in particular, the USA. These members of the General Assembly objected to the inclusion in the previous drafts of a provision that States should commit themselves to “combat the defamation of religion” (p. 355). It was, they argued, an affront to free speech. They reasoned that ideas and beliefs, such as religion, should not be afforded the same protection and rights as individuals.
The amended text put forward by the OIC, which urges efforts to face down prejudice and incitement to violence against religious believers, has been deemed acceptable by the Obama administration — mindful of the second amendment — and is perceived as a sign of progress by a number of human rights and secularist advocacy groups. The influential Human Rights First declared that the UN “tackle[d] religious intolerance without limiting free speech” and praised the resolution’s omission of the ‘the harmful concept of ‘defamation of religions'”.
The Center For Inquiry similarly congratulated the General Assembly for approving measures that both opposed incitement to violence and protected our right to “defame” (i.e. disagree with) religions, whilst worrying that the opacity of the language employed could be used to justify the persecution of dissidents and religious minorities.
The hopeful reactions of these organisations dwelt little on the resolution’s sponsor. In the words of UN Watch, the NGO which exists “to monitor the performance of the United Nations by the yardstick of its own charter”, “the problem is not with the document per se, but with its sponsor“.
It is often stated that the OIC has pushed this resolution so zealously in order to combat anti-Muslim and anti-Islamic feeling in the West since 9/11. Indeed, a quick glance through the OIC’s most recent “Observatory Report on Islamophobia” will reveal the focus is entirely upon the USA and Europe. It appropriately points to the radicalisation hearings of Congressman Peter King, the pointless torching of the Koran by Terry Jones, and countless acts of vandalism against Mosques. No doubt next year’s report will justifiably express grievances at the treatment and suspicion of New York’s Muslims at the hands of the NYPD, the Islamophobic statements of a Republican Presidential candidate, the thuggery of the English Defence League and, perhaps, the state-sponsored murder of Iranian scienticists.
But the important part of the resolution, which encourages the USA to make efforts to fight “incitement to violence, and violence against, persons based on religion or belief”, is much more likely to be adhered to in the US and Europe than in most of the OIC nations. There are scores of enforced laws and policies in western countries that prohibit multiple forms of discrimination against people based on numerous protected characteristics, including choice of religion. It is self-evident that an Ahmadi Muslim is safer and freer in Pennsylvania than Pakistan, and an Assyrian Christian in Italy than Iraq.
But it seems that the assorted countries of OIC do not prevent the persecution of religious believers or protect the right of an individual to practise their chosen religion very well.
In December, the House of Lords discussed the situation of Christians in the Middle East. The Archbishop of Canterbury described the “flow of Christian refugees from Iraq”. Lord Parekh noted that “there are 14 million Christians in the Middle East, which is roughly equal to the number of Muslims in the European Union. In recent years, they have been subjected to discrimination, harassment and violent attacks. We know all this.” Lord Turnberg quoted Andrew White, the Anglican “Vicar of Baghdad”, who said “the only place in the Middle East that Christians are really safe is Israel”.
A similar tale emerges from the pages of the most recent “World Watch List” compiled by Open Doors, a charity that works for and with the world’s persecuted Christians. The organisation asserts that the “focus is on persecution for their faith, not persecution for political, economic, social, ethnic or accidental reasons” and it has determined that this year nine of the top 10, and 38 of the top 50, countries where Christians face the “most severe” persecution are OIC members.
Last January, Indian migrant workers in Saudi Arabia (number three on the list) were accused of converting Muslims to Christianity and were subsequently arrested, interrogated and beaten. In the UAE (number 37), to convert from Islam is — speaking legally — to risk the death penalty and expatriate Christians who openly proselytise face arrest and deportation.
When Colonel Gaddafi’s tyrannical rule collapsed, David Gerbi, a Libyan Jew who went into exile in 1967, returned home full of optimism and ready to restore the Dar al-Bishi synagogue in Tripoli. A rabble of bigots, however, lacked his nonpartisan solidarity, turning up at his hotel and protesting that “there is no place for Jews in Libya”. The National Transitional Council, which now represent Libya at the OIC and which Gerbi joined at the start of the uprising, has shown no sign yet that it will “recognise the valuable contribution of people of all religions” (as instructed by the UN resolution) in post-Gaddafi Libya.
The situation of Ahmadi Muslims, often considered heretics and non-Muslims, further demonstrates the problems that a number of OIC members have with enshrining the freedom to practise religion. Ahmadis are subjected to regular persecution in multiple forms, including murder, banning of publications, prohibited proselytising and vandalism of mosques, in countries including Indonesia, Pakistan and Egypt.
The picture is not much prettier with regards to other basic freedoms. According to Freedom House’s newest annual report on global political rights (participation in the political process, freedom to stand for office and to join parties etc) and civil liberties (freedom of expression, belief and association etc), only five OIC members and only one of any global significance —Indonesia — can be described as “free”. And even Indonesia has Suharto-era blasphemy laws.
So, what about freedom of the press? According to the most recent Press Freedom Index published annually by Reporters Without Borders, the OIC’s big players, Saudi Arabia (157th); Egypt (127th); UAE (87th) and Turkey (138th) are pretty tough environments for journalists.
What vision for entrenching religious freedom does the OIC leadership have? If, by defending “freedom of religion”, we mean protecting the individual’s right to practise a chosen religion, then many OIC states seemingly lack either the resources or the political will to apply this principle universally beyond the majority. It is more likely that the conservative governments of the OIC mean by “freedom of religion” the right to have their versions of state-sanctioned religion, namely Islam, unoffended and uncontested by impudent dissenters.
This is especially probable given that, although the “defamation” clause may have fallen out of the UN drafts early last year, the OIC’s “Ten-Year Programme of Action” from 2005 emphasises “the responsibility of the international community, including all governments, to ensure respect for all religions and combat their defamation”. Moreover, during the 2010 meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers, the OIC adopted a strategy to broaden support for its Resolution on “Combating Defamation of religions”. This illiberal cause, it appears, is still explicitly on the agenda and, right on cue, the nasty implications of this attitude are made flesh in the latest phase of the Rushdie affair. Yet again zealots feel entitled and empowered to unilaterally declare ideas off limits — and, worse, to respond to “offence” with a punch, bomb or lawsuit, rather than debate.
This is not a sinister appeal for European and American Muslims to stop whining and to thank God for relative mercies. The whole matter should be quite simple, in principle. As long as the individual is protected and permitted to participate fully in society, every single idea is up for endorsement and desecration. It does not take an atheist to say it and to think it is right.
But, then again, perhaps the OIC and the UN are well suited. A Human Rights Council that counts Mauritania and Saudi Arabia amongst its members finds a natural bedfellow in a group that displays no shame as the representatives of Sudan and Iran scold the world for its religious intolerance.
William Clowes was an intern at Index on Censorship before he became a researcher in the Security Unit at Policy Exchange. He is currently writing in a personal capacity and writes sometimes for Think Africa Press
In East Africa, Homosexuality and lesbianism is totally taboo. At best the the attitude is to ignore homosexuality, at worst, there are deaths, “corrective rape” of lesbians in South Africa, and communities vilifying and occasionally killing gay citizens.
‘We’ve been together for 15 years,’ says Amina*, 35, married with two children, adjusting her burkhah and niquab. She is fully veiled; only her mobile phone, customised with trinkets and baubles, hint at individuality. ‘We knew each other from school,’ says Amina. ‘I courted her slowly, watched her, gave her clues with my eyes, sent her SMS (text) messages, brought her gifts, oud (perfume, usually jasmine or frankinsense). It was, and is, really important it’s secret; we meet only in my bedroom, I would bring shame on my family if they knew.’
Although lesbianism is not actually illegal on Zanzibar, it’s taken over six months of Chinese whispers to set this interview up. The deal is that it has to be done in private, in a place far from any interviewees neighbourhoods, and in the middle of the day, with no real names or photos. And yet, ironically, anyone with an interest in lesbianism will happily tell you it’s everywhere here in Zanzibar, an island off the coast of Tanzania in East Africa.
At Raju; the only gay and lesbian bar on the island, the atmosphere is staid. Everyone is seated, the atmosphere quiet and the women older, some in burkahs, many dressed to the nines in glittering dresses and low necklines. There are couples, some women in matching clothes, but no outward displays of affection. There are no exclusively lesbian clubs, bars, cafés, no social or political associations offering support, counselling and social networks for lesbians, nor gays at all in Zanzibar or Tanzania. Women and men rely on secrecy and international internet sites for information and support. Tanzania is slightly more accommodating than our neighbour Uganda, where gay citizens risk death or imprisonment if a recently-revived Bill becomes law.
Across the African continent homophobia seems to be burgeoning: both ideologically, and violently. Barak Obama said this week he is deeply alarmed by the treatment of lesbian, gays and transgender people, and will be looking at linking aid with the treatment of lesbian and gay citizens. This is important as many NGO’s here ignore homophobia and are actively conservative, preaching against the use of condoms in a bizarre leap of logic between abstinence and heterosexuality. Condoms, for many here. gives permission to people to sleep around, including having gay (male) sex. The reaction of the Ugandan Presidential Advisor, John Nagenda — “If the Americans think the can tell us what to do, they can go to hell” — is not, sadly, unique, or unusual (though Malawi did announce today that it will review it’s anti-gay laws).
And David Cameron’s sentiments, whilst worthy, do not really bear scrutiny — there are no Lesbian, Gay or Transgender projects supported by DFID here on the continent anyway.
In Nigeria, where homosexuality is already illegal, a new bill has been approved that will imprison for 10 years “Any person who registers, operates or participates in gay clubs, societies and organisation, or directly or indirectly make public show of same sex amorous relationship in Nigeria”. Nigerian Lesbian activist Osazeme O speaks for many when she says “ The bill is a distraction. There are so many other things our government could be doing right now Nigeria, people here are concerned with, ‘Will I have light when I get home? Will I have running water?’ Things like that. If we open this gate to this kind of discrimination, what next?”
A common perception here is that it’s illegal under Islam or that gay people are indoctrinated or “Westernised”. Homosexuality is “unnatural” and a threat to social, moral and cultural values. With the exception of South Africa, where lesbians and gays are the cultural emblem of liberal, party-loving Cape Town, and global ambassadors for all kinds of radical HIV activism and arts work, much of Africa has a long way to go. South Africa is the only country on the continent that has a group of active, out HIV positive gay men, who do much to uncover the hypocrisy of the homophobia present.
The rise of Pentacostal and Evangelical churches, (with active strong links to the USA) here in East Africa has seen a growing intolerance of gays and lesbians, which is associated with Westernism, paedophilia, sodomy, insanity and colonialism. The Muslim mosques and Christian churches in East Africa are vociferously, and often violently, against gays and lesbians. Workshops are held to “make people straight”. It’s even regarded as a mental illness. Variously associated with witchcraft, “shetani” (evil spirits), being “Kafir” (a non-believer, an infidel) or anti-culture, homosexuality is not just a sexual preference, it’s a lifestyle that can cost your life.
Anecdotally, many men and women in Tanzania and Zanzibar are killed by the Askari Jamani (a vigilante community police force) for having same sex affairs: This is not even considered newsworthy, so accepted is it.
When a local Zanzibar radio phone-in recently tackled this thorny issue of lesbianism, only one caller over five hours had anything positive to say, and she was a Kenyan lesbian. In South Africa the “corrective rape” of lesbian women has received media attention.
But the evidence of lesbianism and gays in Africa is centuries old. The chronicles of the Ibo in Nigeria, the Kouria in Tanzania, members of the Sudanese elite — all feature lesbians. And in Zanzibar, where strict segregation of men and women is the norm, there are plenty of places where people meet illicitly for sex: hair salons, each other’s homes, after the mosque. Massage in hair salons is very common here, and one thing often leads to another…
One completely culturally specific perk of being gay on Zanzibar, Lamu and other Tanzanian coastal areas, is that an older lesbian lover brings status, security and respect.
According to Fatima*, “Older, strong women, with good jobs, salaries and status, often take younger lesbian ‘wives’. They support the younger woman with food, social connections and help getting work, and in return, there’s sex involved. But we would NEVER call it lesbianism; it’s just one of those things in Zanzibar. We were colonised by the Persians and the Omanis; lesbianism is in these Arab cultures — look at the poems — but it’s behind closed doors. Behind the veil, if you like! We are socially isolated, we are teased, talked about, but I don’t care, I am strong.”
Maryam* is a prominent artist and civil servant. She says she’s happy to be seen as lesbian when she travels abroad to America and Europe, but would never dream of being out in Zanzibar. She organises the women’s football team that plays in Zanzibar’s main football ground. It’s a place where lesbian women meet. The team are a collection of women playing football in full hijab. Only “Father” is dressed like a man: she’s an out transgender woman, and has relationships with women. “I am able to marry women because really I am a man. I know I am, they know I am, so it’s ok. It’s not wasagaji,” she explains, using the local perjorative slang term for lesbianism — it means grinding. So here’s the rub; anything goes, as long as you keep up heterosexual appearances.
Women’s sexual pleasure is a completely taboo subject, although it wasn’t in the 50s and 60s, when Zanzibar was “the Paris of Africa”. Older Zanzibari women recall the “kibuki” and “kidumbak” – highly secretive nocturnal rituals from which men are excluded. The kabuki is a spiritual invocation for sexual power and attractiveness. Over copious cups of konyagi (the local gin), women harness the mystical power of female sexuality. The kidumbak is a night-long event of overtly sexual music, seduction techniques and dances, where women mimic explicit sexual positions with each other.
Through the grapevine, I speak to a lesbian Taarab singer, Khadija Buruma*. She tries to explain the contradiction to me. “We live in an intensely private and secretive society, where gossip is everything. If you are public about being a lesbian then you bring shame on yourself and all your family and neighbours, it’s completely un-Zanzibari. But if you do it in private, or at a Taarab, no-one really cares. You need to keep your reputation and ‘face’ in order to function in society – deal with the government, do business. The only other people who know if you are lesbian are at the Taarab or kibuki too, and they won’t talk. They can’t take the risk of being called lesbians too.”
Uganda’s outrageous Anti-Homosexuality Bill was rejected last year in parliament, and with the death of activist David Kato in January 2011, for a brief moment the issue hit the global press. However since October 2011 there are moves to reinvigorate it: in Uganda gay citizens repeatedly caught having sex face execution, while people “who touch each other in a gay way” could be jailed. The death penalty will apply automatically if one partner is under 18, has a disability or is HIV-positive. This punitive and regressive law seems to reflect the feelings of many in Uganda and the surrounding countries; there’s a shocking disconnect between what people in this part of the world do behind closed doors and what they will admit to in public.