From: People For Peace
BY JOSEPH ADERO NGALA
NAIROBI-KENYA
Colleagues Home & Abroad Regional News
As DH Lawrence (author) writes: “The future of humanity will be decided not by relations between nations but by relations between men and women”, as a journalist turned academician l have learnt to leave with Africa story and today after covering the continent there are a lot of things hidden in the continent.
A number of Africans are suffering from secrecy and fear either from African government who are oppressive or churches. Name it, Nairobi, Harare, South Africa Tripoli the story remains the same when it comes to fear and secrecy.
Even in small village in Jera where I was raised up secrecy are there. Even among the catholic religious especially in what is called the mini Vatican there are a lot of secrecy, the best example is what happened to one of the lecturers at Catholic University in Nairobi. He was recently dismissed because of his stand on current debate on draft constitution.
His article was run in one of the local dailies supporting the constitution while on the parallel column a catholic priest who is also a lecturer at the same University wrote the article opposing the constitution. Coincidently it happened that the one who supported the draft was a Luo while the priest opposing was a Kikuyu.
The Assistant Minister in the Ministry of State for Planning, National Development and Vision 2030 Hon Peter Kenneth was brave enough to say that the issue is not because the draft constitution is bad, the issue is that Prime Minister Hon Raila Odinga has said ‘Yes’. Had he said ‘No’ according to Kenneth those who say ‘ No’ now would definitely say ‘Yes’.
Peter Kenneth who made the remark on Saturday in Kasipul Kabondo constituency during special prayers at SDA church in Kabondo division was convinced beyond doubt that the issue is rivalry vs Luo-Kikuyu. It can explain why church leaders in Luo Nyanza have said ‘Yes’ to the draft while their counterpart from Mt Kenya region have said’ No’.
That is why Higher Education Minister Hon William Ruto has said ‘No’ because of his political rivalry between him and Raila. Evangelical church leaders majority of whom come from Mt Kenya region have also said ‘No’. Some sections of NCCk led by Canon Peter Karanja have also said ‘No’.
The argument by Sunday Nation political analysts Mutahi Ngunyi that he is going to vote flat ‘No’ given that he is previously from the Gema Nation, before becoming a Kenyan can confirm the fear and secrecy I am trying to address.
While some politicians and church leaders fear that if this constitution is passed then automatically Raila would be the president, something they are totally against, Ngunyi on the other hand wonders how can this happen when the Rift Valley vote is 2.9 million while the Kikuyu vote is 2.7 million and the Luhya and Luo vote combined does not equal the Rift Valley vote. In other words, Luo alone and Luhya cannot get Raila to be the president, then why fear?
However, my topic today is to address the story that has been running in Africa and especially in Kenya local press, l have my own impressing and also l have a lot of respect for the two writers who have been in the midst of war namely Kwamchesti Makokha and Dorothy Kweyo both are Kenya best outstanding writers that l have known for many years and also stood by their article whenever l read.
But l was stopped aback on the issue what Khamchetsi Makokha call in his article in the Saturday Nation (dated 22 May 2010) “How to invite public odium and make life difficult”. One thing I intend to disagree with my friend Makhokha is what describes to be his own egos that “sometime gay people pretend they can be parents too, if they adopt children.
Nothing could be more preposterous because the children would automatically become gay in their adult life. Gay parents’ raises gay children, just as heterosexual parents raise straight children. The way children could even begin to think being gay is normal, and tolerating gays is okay.
Makokha just thinks of the gay children, he is not thinking of children roaming in the street left with Aids parents in the village. Let him try to visit rural areas where children eat from dustbin then he can really stand straight and write what I have pointed out.
After attending several workshops l can share my experiences that gays and lesbians need not to live a secret lives. It is high time they just come out in open without fear to say what they are. This includes night runners-why should they run in secrecy and fear? Why don’t they just do it during day time so that people can know who they are?
Recently when I attended one of the workshops that included gays and lesbians, I was so touched when one of them said how they have been excluded from the society and when they come in the open people want to lynch them-even parents and relatives wish they were dead.
Dr David Russell puts it very clearly that in countless household in our country men regard themselves as the ones to ‘rule the homes’ they are liable to get angry and threatened if this is questioned. The degree of domestic violence and assumed rights of sexual imposition is very widespread. We are familiar with HIV Aids and the ominous assertion- “This is our c culture!”
The degree to which the HIV/Aids pandemic has ravaged homes and communities is a significant degree due to patriarchal attitudes and behaviors. Dr Russell said the hostile culture prejudice against gays and lesbians, leading to hate crimes and murder, are in no small measure, due to arrogant attitude, and macho beliefs that are the hallmark of crude patriarchy. There is nothing dated about this focus on patriarchy as a social disease that needs to be seen for what it is and deal with.
Dorothy Kweyu a writer that l have also admired so much for years and even after writing this articles l will still uphold her, in other words she is good write, especially on upcoming young writers who should really read her articles to articulate the Africa situation. Swahili word says Kuteleza si mwisho wa Dunia-means slide is not the end of the world. In Daily Nation 26 May 2010 is what l call kuteleza si mwisho ya duni- she sights this big word “Homosexuality an abomination in the sight of God and Man”.
If I may ask, which God was Dorothy Kweyo sighting. Where can she categorize people who rape women, children, people who walked naked at night in the rift valley and burn churches with people including innocent children?
Dorothy and other writers who think the same should learn to know that homosexuality is not a choice and this is not the place to review hundreds of researchers that have proved such is not the case. I hate to quote from the Bible because l am not a Bible scholar and writer who adds in a school of Diplomacy that why l have taken the school of thoughts of using the words that African needs to listen to one another its not an expensive to do so than to tame the night runners.
If is abomination then why did Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika pardoned a gay couple who were sentenced to 14 years in jail after he held a meeting with United Nation secretary general Ban Ki moon. Was this crime against God or “our cultures”, or religion, laws?
Steven Monjeza 26 and Tiwonge Chimbalanga 20 –were arrested after celebrating their engagement in a traditional ceremony in late December. “I have done this on humanitarian grounds but this does not mean that I support this” he added. At the time of filling this story the United Chief was convince Malawi President was to consider changing the laws on homosexuality which seems to be too harsh.
In order to pass judgment as writers we should learn how cope up with realities and how to live with sins. I cannot for example leave catholic because priests are molesting boys or mistresses of the priests write to the pope to do away with celibacy rule. I must learn to live with all these. Instead the media can be one of the fastest ways to educate the broader public on gender issues, patriarchy, LBGTI issues and sexual diversity instead of passing judgment.
That is why I concur with a catholic Kenyan sister of Loreto who wrote in her book the following: “We need ritual Healing in the church-in other words we should concentrate very much to bring healing to the wounded because the more we condemn them the more we wound them- “For anyone who has not sinned to be the first to cast stone on them”.
The sister writes a stunning book on Female Genital Mutilation sold by Daughter of St Paul’s worldwide, as rite of passage and how the church can shift it- Because in Kenya, laws have forbidden female genital mutilation. The church can actually take over these rites of passage in a healing way. By dealing with these rites of passage often these gender stereotype are fixed.
CONGRATULATORY MESSAGE
People for Peace in Africa take the opportunity to congratulate Kenyan Lily Mabura for having being shortlisted for the prestigious Caine Prize of 2010 for her work-How Shall We Kill the Bishop?
She joins fellow short-listed writers, Ken Barris (South Africa), Namwali Serpell (Zambia), Alex Smith (South Africa) and Olufemi Terry (Sierra Leone) as this year’s nominees for the prize, also known as the “African Booker” and highlights the best in short story fiction from Africa and the African Diaspora.
The ultimate prize winner will take up a month’s residence at Georgetown University, Washington DC, as a ‘Caine Prize/Georgetown University Writer-in-Residence’. Lily’s book was published in issue 53 (Spring 2008), previous Caine Prize winners and nominees published by Wasafiri include Brian Chikwava, Segun Afolabi and Mukoma wa Ngugi.
Lily Mabura received her undergraduate degree from the University of Nairobi, Kenya, her MFA in Creative Writing (Fiction) from the University of Idaho, and has just completed her Ph.D. in English (African and African Diaspora Studies & Creative Writing, Fiction) at the University of Missouri-Columbia.
Last year the Caine Prize was won by Nigerian writer EC Osondu for his short story ‘Waiting’ from Guernicamag.com, October 2008. Previous winners include Uganda’s Monica Arac de Nyeko, for Jambula Tree from ‘African Love Stories’, Ayebia Clarke Publishing, 2006, and Brian Chikwava, from Zimbabwe, whose first novel Harare North has just been published by Jonathan Cape.
People for Peace in Africa (PPA)
P O Box 14877
Nairobi
00800, Westlands
Kenya
E-Mail news@ppa.or.ke
Tel 254-20-4441372
Website : www.peopleforpeaceafrica.org