8 Mar 2012 | Sub-Saharan Africa
Inspired by Tupac, Public Enemy and others in the USA around 2004, a new tsunami of music crashed over hit Tanzania. Bongo Flavah: raw, real, Swahili. It spoke to people, particularly the disenfranchised 3 million who live in slums and suburbs like Temeke and Mobibo of Dar Es Salaam. Kicking out the popular Congolese Rumba, Sebene (sung mostly in Lingala, a Bantu language spoken in some areas of Africa); Bongo Flavah was R & B mixed with pop, mixed with Puff Daddy, with a dollop of gangsta speak. Young men (and a few young women) performed live. Artists such as Lady Jay Dee, Professor J, Ray C, Fid Q and Juma Nature, shook, shimmied and got down in small local beer halls. The whole business was expressive, chaotic and random, like the streets it came from. Songs were about debt, jealousy, lunacy, power failures, teen pregnancy, corruption, albino body part trafficking. Dancing was lewd, grinding, obvious, as well as highly original, eclectic and thrilling. Critics called them “tsotsi”, hooligans, vandals.
Bongo Flavah. Bongo is the Kiswahili slang word for “brain” street smart, savvy, nous — what you need to hustle a living in the sprawling capital Dar es Salaam. Bongo music is edgy, swaggering, improvised to a CD backing track, spontaneous, aspirational and above all Swahili. It is Tanzania’s wild track, it is everywhere: daladalas (cramped rickety public minivans) shops, homes, cafes and bars.
Then came Mchiriku, it’s even more rowdy sister. Its roots are in Uswahilini, the less prestigious parts of Dar-es salaam, where residents are generally considered loud and uncultured, the music cacophonous. Read poor and voiceless. When it’s recorded, it gets massive airplay, and thousands of listeners.
But there’s a less savoury side to this very male, undoubtedly anarchic and truly democratic medium: blatant misogyny, and sexual favours for access. “It’s a kind of open secret in the music business” says Ayesha*, 19, a trainee journalist at a private radio station on Zanzibar “you have to sleep with radio producers, or station owners if you want to get airplay, basically sexual favours for airtime.”
Part of the reason for this is that women — dressed in tiny tops and lycra leggings — in Bongo Flavah and Mchiriku make much of their pelvic flexibility and suppleness: there’s not much doubt what they’re showing off. The versions of female sexuality are fairly standard rap stuff.
Maya Van Lekow, an established Kenyan blues and jazz singer has been in the music business for seven years: “Yes, absolutely, the music business for women is dreadful. It’s not even challenged, it’s blatant: of course you sleep with the whomever, for a record deal, for radio play, to get an interview. It’s unquestioned. A younger singer approached me recently, she said for two years she’d not been able to get airplay, at local stations for over two years, and was forced to sleep with older station managers. She was tearful and desperate.”
Male rapper and record promoter Mzungu K’Chaa concurs: “Bongo flavah started as hip hop; it’s definitely for men only, the music industry generally is very discriminatory to women, and yes, women do have to sleep with the music producers and radio station owners to get airplay. It does need to change.”
Khadija Othman, a sexual health worker on Zanzibar works with young people. “There are two issues here, the first is that women are kept in complete ignorance about their bodies, and their rights. Even to mention a condom a woman will get beaten. The second is that men here think it’s normal for young DJ’s and radio producers to expect sex. And for women to provide sex if the man wants it. Sex is extremely secretive in our society, and until we open up, confront it, we’re going to see more problems. We really really need to talk about these things.”
Her views are shared by young journalists, Salouma* and Carla* who work in the capital, Dar. For women music journalists, or aspirant journalists, the music industry is considered a den of vice. “Our parents literally think we are whores because we work in journalism. Things are very backward here. We don’t tell them about the music bit, it would literally terrify them, and yes, we do see young women coming in off the street, with their tapes, and maybe they get a ‘boyfriend’ for a night. We just try and ignore it. We’re not senior here, we’re female, there’s nothing we can do. It’s shameful really.”
Things are slowly changing. Music creation and production was once dominated by men in Tanzania, Kenya and Zanzibar, and women rarely got actively promoted or showcased. Research is probing into the hidden, and unspoken culture of teen pregnancy and gender based violence against women and girls in Tanzania and Zanzibar. The idea that “you need to sleep with your boss” to get anywhere if you are female is being questioned. Recent figures from local NGO Tanzania Media Women’s Association (TAMWA) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) indicates that more that 39 per cent of women aged 15-49 have experienced physical violence in the last 12 months, One in five women have ever experienced sexual violence, and 10 per cent of women had their first sexual intercourse forced against their will.
The last year has seen a marked change in discussion and debate. These issues are finally in the public sphere. Yusuf Mahmoud, Festival Director for the Busara Festival, and President of the Indian Oceans Festival Association: “When we started in 2004, it was difficult to programme women musicians as there were so few in the region. However, looking back, it’s the women who have provided many of the highlights. We have showcased some of the best from the continent including Thandiswa (South Africa), Chiwoniso (Zimbabwe), Nyota Ndogo and Muthoni the Drummer Queen(Kenya) and Tausi Taarab (Zanzibar) — the first all-women orchestra ever in East Africa made their debut at Sauti za Busara.”
Maya Von Lekow says: “I do see myself first as a musician, an artist, but I can also be an advocate, whether for women’s rights generally: in society, in refugee camps, and in the music industry, the two are not incompatible. I can sing, and I also can talk! We’re moving on, talking about our pasts, things are changing, we’re speaking freely, it’s inspiring really!”
28 Feb 2012 | Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa
Over 70 per cent of East Africa’s population lives in rural communities: despite the proliferation of radio stations, weekly and daily newspapers, and television stations, in Tanzania alone there are 17 radio stations, 61 national papers and 11 state and private TV stations. In Kenya and Uganda there are even more media outlets but despite this, and even though ‘freedom of information’ is being enshrined in constitutions (in Kenya and Tanzania), there are major challenges to free speech and accessing information.
Mwalimu Asya Mgongo is one of three teachers on the island of Chole Mjini, total population 950 people. Like many East Africans lucky enough to have a job, her monthly 120,000 TZ shillings (£45) teacher’s salary supports eight family members. She is listening to her phone as she sits on ‘the harbour’: a small slab of concrete overlooking the Indian Ocean, her headscarf covering her head — this is a 100 per cent Muslim island. “For me getting the information to teach my children really is a problem — Dar Es Salaam is over 12 hours away by boat, local bus and another bus. Books! You’re joking! They’re gold here. The government gives us text books, but there’s no postal system, and the even the newspapers arrive a day late, if they arrive, so there’s little point. I do have a radio, I listen to the BBC World Service and the German one, and I try and tell as many people as possible”. She looks out to sea a bit dreamily: “Internet, being able to get BBC news daily on the internet, I would love that.”
Her sentiments are echoed by Mama Dayema and Mama Mahogo, both cooks at the local Chole Mjini eco-lodge on the island, which, over the 20 years of its existence, has single-handedly raised the levels of education on the island by building a primary school and funding up to eleven people to go to university — a first for the island. Mama Dayema is clear about what information is missing from their lives: “We tend to rely on taxi drivers (on the sister Mafia island, a ten minute boat ride away) for information on staples like maize, rice, cooking oil. We’d really like to be able to chat to the guests in English. I am the only villager on the island with solar power, which I found out about through information from foreigners. The key is education, completely: my children need to get ahead and know how the world is, even if I don’t. We are cut off, ignored actually, by mainland government, and policies, but in some ways I don’t mind. We have abundant fruits — oranges, mangoes, and real trust here, we look after each other. On the mainland (Tanzania) there’s thieves, diseases, adulterers, bad people.”
Salma Meremeta left Mafia, for work in the capital; “Honestly we are isolated and abandoned here, the government doesn’t care about us one bit — when I come home I am shocked by the lack of information here, it’s bad.”
Certainly for tourists the island is as close to paradise as it gets, and the isolation a “feature” of the attraction. However, it’s a recognised problem that rural people, particularly women, are marginalised from the creation, circulation and consumption of information. Ironically rural people are often far more critical, and vociferous about political policy issues (water and the price of basics) because they are living so close to the breadline. Yet media houses and reporters are based in capitals like Kampala and Nairobi, and infrastructure — lack of good roads and the expense of flying — makes distribution of newspapers extremely expensive (thus impossible). It is rare for reporters to get the resources, support and incentives to report on “rural” issues.
On Chole Mjini island (which is 250km south of Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, 1.5 square km wide, in the middle of the Indian ocean) the main public space in the village is dominated by a television hooked up to one of the two electricity points on the island. Football results and news are the popular crowd-pleasers. Up to two hundred men at a time pay 200 TZ shillings (ten pence) to watch for the evening; for 100 TZ shillings they can also charge their phones. As Saidi, says “It’s not really ok for women to be in public watching television. But we are an oral culture, so for example things like health messages (recently the US government donated mosquito nets to the island) don’t get spread on tv on radio, but by word of mouth. Or by the Imam at the call to prayer. We’re extremely forgiving and compassionate here, as a Muslim culture, so our sick people, we have two HIV victims, they are looked after by us, they are not ostracised. If we feel our sheha’s (Chiefs) are being unreasonable or unfair, we ignore them, or get rid of them. The island is so small there’s a sort of democracy. Go to the mainland? Me! No, never, I love it here”.
Figures for east African internet useage are not entirely accurate, but according to survey group Afrobarometer Tanzania scores the lowest, with just one per cent of the population having access to internet, . On Chole Mjini no-one has a computer, thus there is no internet access. Mama Dayema’s daughter, Mwana, is a striking, educated 24 year old with her mobile phone neatly wrapped in a flannel and tucked into her bra. She is ambivalent “Yes, I suppose part of me is interested in the fact that slavery was only abolished here in 1922, or the Shirazi Persians built palaces here in the past, but honestly I am more interested in modern things, like music and fashion from Dar Es Salaam, or football results, not history.”
One of the downsides of lack of information is the prevalence of gossip. People pick up snippets of news, but it gets mangled through the rumour mill. It’s telling that despite the lack of media in Swahili there is no concrete way to say “I am bored”.
16 Feb 2012 | Sub-Saharan Africa
“It all comes down to reading! If you read properly, you evaluate, you notice, you critique properly. It’s depressing, flying across Africa there’s all these Wazungu (white people) on the plane reading, but our people are reading self-help books or newspapers or not reading at all!” Pili Dumea laughs.
It’s counter-intuitive: ask most politicians what Africa needs, they’ll say water, an end to wars, better food distribution and health provision, roads and a functioning tax system…
But ask Pilli, and you get a different answer. Mama Dumea is the Executive Director of the Children’s Book Project, one of the few NGOs in East Africa that promotes fiction writing and reading. A Tanzanian lady in a vibrant green kanga (local dress), she is chewing thoughtfully on her mango over breakfast. “Julius Nyerere, our ‘Mwalimu’ was a teacher. Intellectual and creative skills were valued twenty years ago. After his Arusha Declaration in 1967, the international publishers — MacMillan, Longman, Heinemann — all left Tanzania. It was terrible for us. What we need now is creativity, thinking, reading!”
She believes people lack creativity and innovation in East Africa. “We are taught to answer, not ask questions in schools. To cram, to copy, to rote learn. Our intellectual development and creativity is completely stifled. If a man sees his neighbour opening a shop, he doesn’t think, ah, how can I compete, no, he thinks how do I COPY!”
This is ironic since East Africa is a highly oral, wordy culture. Mamatiles, or jokes, are central to the lifestyle. Even the kanga Mama is wearing has a little provocative Swahili “poem” on it “Even if you hate me, God has chosen me!” A Muslim, Mama Dumea is aware of the problems facing people in the community “sticking out” by writing. She wants to get them young: “We have a saying, ‘bend a fish whilst it is still fresh’; in other words, work with young, lean fresh minds, not stale ones!”
The Children’s Book Project is backed by a Canadian NGO. They work across East Africa and Liberia in a three pronged attack: supporting writers and encouraging them to write and think creatively for children. Teaching teachers how to read to children, and lastly developing the publishing and distribution sector. They actively support women writers by training and mentoring them. A female Muslim writer, Ameena Minna, still unpubished, agrees: “In my community I am not encouraged to have a public voice, but I feel a calling to write children’s stories, to help my children appreciate and negotiate life. I ask my children directly for inspiration.”
Though there is approximately 60 per cent literacy to a basic level across East Africa, there’s not a reading culture here. Ameir H Ameir has tackled this problem by setting up reading clubs in Tanzania and Zanzibar. “For us the problem is still books: we desperately need books, they’re incredibly expensive. We have hundreds of young people and children who are desperate to read now, because we show them how wonderful it is, how liberating. The issue is sourcing the books — if you know someone who can send us books from Europe, we would love that!”
The scarcity of books has several causes. Publishers can’t make the profit margins; distribution suffers from poor infrastructure; poverty means there is no spare income for “luxuries” like books. Writers often print their own works or have to limit what they write about to appeal to their audiences. Making a living from writing in Africa is virtually unheard of. Space to be creative, the time and money to write, and the confidence to express what you really feel, evocatively and descriptively, are all hard to come by. And role models are now scarce: where once the curriculum bulged with writers like Chinua Achebe, Nyongi Wa Th’iongo, Shaaban Robert and Professor Kazalabi, few school children know now of their intellectual heritage.
In a hot ground floor room an old shabby gentlemen in a stained white kufia and kanzu and worn flip-flops mops his brow with an orange flannel. He is attending the Zanzibar Bookwriters Conference. The questions range from “can I submit a handwritten manuscript” to “should I write in Swahili or English?”. Only four of the 32 of the participants (who are undoubtedly members of the elite) have an email address.
Rumoured to be in his 70s, Mzee Haji Gora Haji is one of Zanzibar’s most prolific and popular writers. He takes 10 minutes to laboriously write his name for me. With no education at all, his numerous books have not earned him much money, but the themes of devils, ghosts, mgangas (witchdoctors) touch a chord with his audiences. “I write about the everyday, the local, I see stories in the daily. The gossip, the jealousy, the humour of the people around me.” Like his colleague Nassor Soud (who finances his own work by producing government textbooks) Haji has touched the popular psyche: the fear of “pollution” of tradition, the importance of leading an ethical life, the ever-present danger of “shetani” (devils) who corrupt with their lustful, material ways.
So what then, is the secret of creativity? “It’s important to educate, to nurture, to encourage, to make mistakes, it’s nothing to do with money,” says Nassor. “Creativity, writing and reading changes behaviour, changes society, asks people to think about the fundamentals: joy, respect, cultural issues.” Haji Gora Haji adds: “You must strive to keep your mind free, to concentrate, and to make time.”
8 Dec 2011 | Sub-Saharan Africa
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.
