Pan African Parliament (PAP) President Gertrude Mongella speaks with a mischievous, Swahili-accented voice reminiscent of Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, in whose government she served as a young woman.
Her feminist heart ever-present on her sleeve, the diminutive convent-educated mother of four clearly enjoys raising eyebrows.
”I’m a Catholic,” she said at a dialogue with members of church groups and civil society in Pretoria this week. ”So imagine my surprise when reading my Bible I found that as a woman I only have to obey nine commandments.
”I cannot covet another man’s wife.
”I’m risking being guilty of blasphemy to make my point,” she said. ”There are realities and then there is what is written.”
Mongella is full of homilies about the task awaiting her.
Despite a distinguished career in Tanzanian politics — she held five Cabinet posts — and at the United Nations, she returns easily to her roots as a secondary school teacher.
”A wise woman told me about a monkey trying to eat nuts off a plate.
”It was so eager to get them all that it kept grabbing and spilling. Then it spent so much time picking up the spilled nuts, it forgot that the whole purpose of the exercise was to eat them.
”We have so much to do in the PAP that we should be careful to avoid being monkeys.”
Mama Mongella, as she is popularly known, plans to use her considerable organisational skills to maximum effect with the nascent PAP.
She demonstrated this prowess as one of the chief drivers of the 1995 Beijing Women’s Conference, for which she gained the added appellation Mama Beijing.
Her years as an international civil servant have taught her circumspection that overrides her evident delight in polemic.
At this week’s dialogue she would not answer pointed questions from Zimbabweans in the audience asking what the PAP would do to address the human rights abuses in that country.
”Should I be answering that or is it something for PAP members to speak about? I’m not trying to evade the question. I’m just trying to avoid becoming a one-woman parliament,” she said.
Barely able to see over the top of the podium, Mongella handled questions with aplomb and never appeared to be flustered.
”The PAP is one of the great landmarks in the history of people. No continent has experienced as many struggles as Africa. Women have been in all those struggles — against slavery and colonialism and for democracy — so we can say that no one can deny us our right.
”Of course, with the PAP I’ll have to be more gender neutral.
”The PAP is being established for you, the ordinary people, to get your ideas across. We want to be sure we have everybody aboard. This is not for the governments and their ambassadors; it is for local society.
”We are leaving behind the struggles. We are now moving into a globalised world in which we have liberated ourselves.
”At this stage we need a new organisation that looks beyond individual countries and integrate Africa economically, politically and socially.
”The New Partnership for Africa’s Development [Nepad] is an attempt at African economic empowerment. To those critics of Nepad I ask: ‘Do you have an alternative? Do you have something better?’
”The African Peace and Security Council allows Africa to deal with its own issues.
”Darfur is one of its first challenges. This is where we will succeed or fail as African people. I don’t think Africa has room for failure. Without resolving the conflicts in Africa we cannot move ahead.
”We have hope that those pockets of conflict in Africa are its last.
”We ask those states supplying arms to African countries that cannot even feed themselves: ‘Should you not be giving water pumps instead of guns?’
”This is the kind of debate this Parliament will have. For the first time we will reflect openly and publicly the thinking of Africa.”
Some of the issues
When will the Pan African Parliament (PAP) achieve gender parity and how will it represent the youth?
PAP President Gertrude Mongella (above): How many women apply for jobs or are put up for them? If you don’t run for elections how can you say you want 50/50 representation?
As activists we have to improve this and aim for gender parity on a natural basis, rather than from a quota. To women and the youth I say, you have to get involved to get into power. No one will give you power. You have to grab it.
What is the PAP’s involvement in combating HIV/Aids?
There have been appeals, appeals and appeals for legislation. But that has not worked. Combating HIV/Aids is a personal decision and individuals have to take charge of their own person, their security and protect [themselves] against HIV/Aids.
What is civil society’s role in the PAP and how will it address poverty in Africa?
If we really want to call this a peoples’ Parliament we have to find the mechanism to bring in civil society.
To strengthen the national struggles against poverty will obviously involve the PAP. But I’m afraid of the PAP turning into another venue for seminars about Africa’s problems.
I do not think it should be a forum for whingeing. I believe we will best contribute by doing something and by creating a mechanism to make governments accountable.
What is the agenda for the first session?
Rules of procedure will be the first item. You cannot have a parliament without them.
We then have to understand our role in the African Union together with the governments. We know individually what our function is. But to play a role we have to have a strategic plan for the PAP.
If we are to have oversight of the AU and we are to play consulting and advisory roles, we cannot do that without understanding the vision and mission, Nepad, the African Peer Review Mechanism and security issues facing the continent.
After this we can operate in a more informed way.
Should there be direct elections to the PAP?
In less than two years 46 of the 53 AU members ratified the protocol for the PAP.
PAP members have a mandate from their people because they are all elected parliamentarians in their own countries. They then have a mandate from their respective parliaments that send them here.
But the door will remain open on direct elections.