A foreign intolerance
In the context of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, there is a great deal of ignorance and mythology about gay, lesbian and bisexual people in Uganda (‘Not safe to come out”, February 26).
The Bill’s proposer, MP David Bahati, states in the Bill: ‘Given Uganda’s historical, legal, cultural and religious values which maintain that the family, based on marriage between a man and a woman, is the basic unit of society.” The Bill aims to ‘protect our cultural, legal, religious and traditional family values against the attempts of sexual rights activists seeking to impose their values of sexual promiscuity on Uganda”. Proponents of the Bill say homosexuality is a threat to African culture.
The notion that heterosexuality is the only African and traditional form of sexual orientation is wrong. Homosexuality has been observed in a number of traditional African societies. The Azande of northern Congo practise a taboo-free form of male homosexuality, while a culturally accepted lesbianism takes place among Sotho women in Lesotho. The earliest homosexual relationship on record in history is Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum, an Egyptian male couple, alive in 2000BC.
It was Europeans who introduced the homophobia we see today in Uganda. The Protestant and Catholic missionaries arrived in the 1870s. It is more than probable that gay, lesbian and bisexual people lived in the area that is now Uganda, with their heterosexual counterparts prior to Christian contact.
The belief that homosexuality is an issue of choice is without foundation. There is absolutely no scientific basis for the view that sexual orientation can be changed. Heterosexuals, ask yourselves: ‘Did I choose to be heterosexual?” Sexual orientation is innate. One is homosexual, heterosexual or bisexual.
The idea that homosexuality is a foreign sin and the Bill will protect Ugandans from this ‘promiscuity” is false. Promiscuity has nothing to do with sexual orientation. One does not have to hold a graduate degree in gender studies to note that many heterosexuals cheat on their spouses. Some homosexual and bisexual people have multiple partners, but so do some heterosexuals.
I agree with the Bill’s proponents and even some Bill opponents that it is unethical for Western donors to attempt to bully a highly indebted poor country with financial threats. But it is hypocritical for Bahati to state that Ugandans must be protected from foreign cultural influences when the homophobia behind the Bill was heavily influenced by foreign interests. Three Americans, Scott Lively of Abiding Truth Ministries, and Caleb Lee Brundidge and Don Schmierer of International Healing Ministries came to Kampala to export their homophobic ideology in talks about the ‘gay agenda”.
The Anti-Homosexuality Bill is riddled with flaws. It calls for the death penalty for individuals who are HIV-infected and engage in homosexual sex or who have homosexual sex with someone under 18. But if the same crimes are committed heterosexually, the punishment is jail time. Moreover, if an individual is 30 years old and has sex with a 12-year-old, does it matter what sexual orientation is involved? It is still paedophilia.
The Bill also mandates extradition if a Ugandan citizen is caught having homosexual sex in another country. Not even Ugandan murderers and rapists are met with such a punitive measure.
The Bill prescribes heavy fines or jail time for individuals or institutions who do not report homosexual behaviour within 24 hours. This is a witch-hunt. Should a doctor face up to three years in prison for not reporting that an HIV-positive patient is homosexual? Should a father endure jail time for not turning his gay son in? How to prove that a landlord knew his or her tenant engaged in homosexuality? How will the police enforce this law?
The Bill is rooted in a general homophobia, a result of ignorance regarding gay, lesbian and bisexual people. Bahati and other proponents of the Bill are taking advantage of this ignorance, forsaking the religious teachings of acceptance, love and understanding. If the Bill becomes law, discrimination will increase, mistrust will dominate, media freedoms will be undermined, American cultural conflict will infect Uganda, courtrooms and prisons will be further overloaded and financial woes worsened by added enforcement and prosecution expenses and a substantial drop in donor aid. — Stephen Weedon, Fort Portal, Uganda
Nationalisation call a diversion
Since the discovery of gold in South Africa in 1867, the commodity has played a major role in the development of the country’s economy, and continues to do so despite declining production and revenues. Mining, through gold, has remained the hub of the South African economy despite a movement towards tertiary sectors, such as finance and services, and plays a central role in socioeconomic development.
The movement to restructure the mining industry remains obscure. Recently the country has heard conflicting statements as to whether the mines should be nationalised or not. According to the ANC Youth League and its president, Julius Malema, this is envisaged by the Freedom Charter, because this will lead to an egalitarian society resulting from shared revenues. They assert that profits from mines do not profit the nation because the mines are privately owned and there are flights of revenue to foreign countries.
But the Freedom Charter, a borrowed document from Soviet states, was drafted in the 1950s, and since then the economic and social landscapes have changed considerably. Some of its objectives might not be suitable in the current conditions. Mining is now facing many challenges such as poor wages, poor working conditions, low productivity and lack of skills training, decreasing demand for gold, lack of beneficiation within the country and lack of incentives for investments in new mines.
Given the deployment track record of comrades with a shortage of leadership and technical skills, nationalisation could result in total collapse of the system and a huge debt for the country. Service delivery protests, tender irregularities where under-qualified comrades get preferential treatment to perform shoddy workmanship and the under-performance of our state-owned enterprises are red flags here.
The call for nationalisation is based on shallow and myopic understanding of the business world and it is at best based on greed and the desire to accumulate individual wealth.
The nationalisation debate seems like a diversion from real socioeconomic challenges such as unemployment, lack of service delivery, poverty, corruption, unaccountability of leaders, crime. Malema should rather focus his energy on party members, himself included, who became overnight millionaires through tendering processes that failed to serve communities, and try to learn about the real objectives of the liberation struggle. — Phillimon Mnisi, Johannesburg
Nersa concocts an explosive mix
I was wrapping some spoiled fish when I saw Lynley Donnelly’s ‘Nersa tackles tariff gap” (Business, March 5).
Startled to see something implausible in a newspaper, I set down my copy of The Anarchist’s Cookbook and took a look.
According to Donnelly, Nersa is protecting us from high electricity prices by soaking the rich. Only those fat-cats who use 600kWh a month will suffer. Meanwhile, the average South African household uses only 1572kWh a month, so we’re all right …
Wait a minute. Yes, electricity users are divided into four bands, of which the top group, to be punished harshly for profligate electricity usage, consumes under 40% of the average. Obviously, this means that the really high users are lumped in with the rest of us.
What does this mean? 600kWh a month is 20kWh a day. A 100W bulb burning 10 hours a day means one of your kilowatt-hours gone.
If your geyser has a kilowatt element and runs five hours a day, that’s five more. If you cook for an hour, that’s another couple of kilowatts gone.
Your fridge eats up another couple. This computer I’m using eats up another if I run it for a few hours. Your electric space heater for a couple of hours? Ditto.
With a fridge and a geyser and two computers and a space heater and an electric stove and a kettle (woe are we, my wife drinks tea) and five lights burning 10 hours of the day, that’s 1 + 5 + 2 +3 + 2 + 1 + 5, adding up to 19kWh a day. In summer. Sharing baths. For a one-bedroom, two-person household. And for this we are running up gigantic debts to the World Bank.
I resumed my former reading. You should be very careful in mixing the aluminium powder with the ammonium nitrate fertiliser, but otherwise you won’t get an even detonation —
Contrary to what you may hear, this mixture isn’t advised for use against blue-light convoys. Instead, use RDX moulded into a cone then carved into a parabola, which directs the blast, so as not to endanger passing joggers. — Mathew Blatchford, University of Fort Hare
The working class must rise up
There is no political clarity. The country is directionless. If there was a decisive law in this country, things would be better. Julius Malema does his own thing, those who have access to state resources are massively looting and Jacob Zuma cannot be decisive because he has been weakened by his moral conduct.
I thought we had learned from other African countries. But now we are no different from the other corrupt African states. The political elite have no heart for the poor. Their objective is to get rich and then get richer.
The hearts of the poor are broken, but they still hope that their leaders will change some day. This country has become a bling democracy for a few. The gap between the poor and the rich widens every day.
Cosatu has been hijacked by a political elite. There is no vanguard political party for the working class. The SACP has thrown away its principles and policy direction. The working class must rise up. Power lies with them, not with political leaders, which have misled the working class before and after Polokwane.
The National Democratic Revolution has been hijacked by the political elite and has been replaced by IPT (Influence Politico-Tenderpreneurship). — Lindikhaya Bravis Maqhasha, Cape Town
The social sciences factor
The article by Peter Vale, ‘The human factor” (February 19), raised critical issues facing social sciences and humanities. We recognise the shortage of critical skills in the sciences, but elevating the sciences at the expense of the social sciences could have adverse effects on social science scholarships.
Master’s degree and PhD students in some institutions are struggling to get adequate funding for their studies. It simply means such departments cannot woo students. Unfortunately, black students, in particular those from poor families, are the most affected.
In this way government and funding organisations have inevitably created the impression that there is no future for students enrolled in the social sciences and the humanities. — Mpumezo Ralo, Port Elizabeth
In brief
I read that a certain African leader has been received in London with much pomp and circumstance. He is reported to be enjoying this immensely, as he is very partial to pomp, whatever the circumstance. — Ron McGregor, Mowbray
A friend points out that the Order of the Bath was awarded to President Jacob Zuma on his UK trip — it should have been the Order of the Shower.
In defending his lifestyle, Zuma said the British considered Zulu culture inferior — another reference to the colonialist past of the British. Ironic, from a Zulu: no one was more colonial than the Zulus. They conquered everyone around them. Also, a large contingent of Zulus left the country and took over Zimbab-we, leaving a swathe of destruction. — Donovan Gericke, Stilfontein
So the British saw fit to label our president a ‘sex-obsessed bigot”. This is rude and downright racist. More than 11-million citizens voted JZ into power! Our compatriots (including foul-mouthed parliamentariams) are now displaying similar despicable behaviour.
We need to stop it now, lest we create a foul-mouthed nation with inability to engage one another in a civilized way. — Patrick Rampai, Klerksdorp