The Page Won’t Turn Itself

Magic Bus – India, Savita Badelal Chouhan, 15: “One of the biggest challenges we face in our community is shortage of water. People go to the shore to take or even steal water from the pipelines that lay by the shore."

One of my favorite Washington DC spots is the Newseum, a museum that focuses on how the freedoms of the first amendment to the US Constitution — particularly freedom of the press — are crucial to a well-functioning democracy. Every American should know the freedoms by heart: freedom of religion, freedom from the establishment of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly and petition, and freedom of association.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the first amendment quite a bit recently, in light of the freedom of the media turmoil happening in South Africa. The Protection of Information Bill is currently being discussed and the usual arguments have surfaced – the right to know vs the protection of the country and its people. And, of course, that juxtaposition alone begs the question of a false dichotomy. From what I’ve read, the government says this bill is meant to protect certain information from destruction, loss, or unlawful disclosure and to regulate how information may be protected. And, it’s only the beginning. There are also many proposals within the ANC to create media tribunals to regulate the conduct of the media.

As a former journalist, I’m worried about these developments. The people have a right to know if their elected cabinet members are living lavishly while millions go without the new homes they were promised, for example. Democracy can’t live without a free press — as Nelson Mandela said in 1994 to the International Press Institute Congress: “A critical, independent and investigative press is the lifeblood of any democracy. The press must be free from state interference.”

As an MBA and a general believer in free market economics, I’m worried about these developments. At the moment, rumors about the mining industry aren’t worrying sovereign rating agencies about South Africa. But the Protection of Information Bill is raising concerns. Why? Because it allows the government to be less transparent, according to Moody’s in this BusinessDay article, and less transparency means a riskier business environment.

Yes, every government has its secrets. And sometimes, it needs to protect those secrets (although I also might argue that you’re generally only hiding something when you’ve done something bad). But, anyway, the fewer secrets you have, the easier it is to protect them well. This is a dangerous slope upon which the ANC is teetering,  a slope that, by the way, worked quite in its favor internationally during apartheid and the fight to free Mandela. You can’t have it both ways.

A friend of mine has been working on a project through Football For Hope, the FIFA campaign from the 2010 World Cup. It’s called the Siyakhona Project, which means “we can” in Zulu and Xhosa. The idea is to train teenagers around the world to use digital cameras and video cameras to tell their story, to show them what it means to be a journalist. If a free press is the lifeblood to a democracy, then raising up a generation of critically thinking journalists is a pretty good use of time and money. Check out the videos and photos on the Siyakhona site and some below (yes, they were really taken by teenagers). And remember that the freedom to produce and share these works is something that needs to be protected and not taken for granted.

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Now playing: Deas Vail – Tell Me
via FoxyTunes

 

Helpless Hopeless? Nah.

Not sure where she borrowed this from, but a wise friend of mine posted this on Facebook today:

Are you angry? You have a thirst for justice. Are you lonely? You have a thirst for companionship, love. Are you anxious? You have a thirst for peace. Are you fearful? You have a thirst for security. Are you wracked with guilt? You have a thirst for forgiveness, for mercy.

What I love about these couplets is that they remedy the destructive with the constructive — even though society so often grooms us to match the destructive with further destruction. Are you angry? Get your revenge. Are you lonely? Get loaded and sleep with a  stranger. Are you fearful? Get a gun.

Society (our friends, our family, our colleagues, the authors we read, the TV shows we watch) often goes even further — and tells us that the constructive behaviors are actually signs of weakness. And it’s almost like we’ve lost our way and don’t even know where to find such things as real justice and real mercy. I wonder what the world would look like if more people practiced justice, compassion, love, peace, security and forgiveness … Dare we even imagine it?

Hat tip to T for the FB status. Thanks lady!

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Now playing: The Swell Season – In These Arms – Strict Joy

 

Women, War & Peace

A database run by Afghanistan’s Ministry of Women’s Affairs has tracked more than 1,900 reports of abuse in the last two years. But even this statistic fails to reflect more widespread violence that is rarely reported by women who risk further violence in the course of seeking justice.

And, thanks, President Hamid Karzai, for approving a bill that allows police to “enforce a wife’s sexual duties and restrict a woman’s ability to leave her home.”

Sexual duties?! She’s a WIFE, not a prostitute. Can we really consider a country peaceful and secure when women are threatened and killed for speaking out on women and children’s issues, when their punishment includes being confined in a sack with a cat, and are beaten for refusing to have sex with their husbands?

via Women, War & Peace ~ Women in Afghanistan Struggle for Security Amid Peace Talks | Wide Angle.

 

The Dog Days Are Over

When I’m upset or angry about something, I generally do two things — 1) I talk it out with good friends and/or 2) I write about it. Having already talked some of this through with friends, I’m proceeding to write …

The issues of gender and the treatment of women and girls in Lesotho are two of the biggest beefs I have with this country. Let me explain by way of example. Yesterday, I received an email about a Peace Corps volunteer who was sexually assaulted on Saturday, around 5:45pm. Two guys jumped her, dragged her into a wooded area, seized her money and cell phone, and then assaulted her. Awful awful awful.

The ensuing email chain included the following response from an American:

The volunteer appears to be doing as well as one could hope considering the circumstances.  Last I heard, she was sexually assaulted but not raped. That is hearsay though, so I can’t be sure what’s actually fact.  The Peace Corps community is a little shook up right now, particularly the girls.  It’s scary because we travel that route SO FREQUENTLY.  In any case, spread the word to be extra careful!

And this one from a Masotho:

This is terrible, this is sad, very sad but thanx God if she was not raped. I wish here a quick recovery and my prayers are with her. A Mosotho man will always be a Mosotho man regardless of any help they get from the volunteers. Lets all be safe and God bless.

There are two things that really bothered me about these responses, which I proceeded to write about and send to everyone who was on distribution. (And by bothered, I mean royally pissed off). Why is it that people feel there’s a line to be drawn between sexual assault and rape? Both are equally terrible and evil. It does not matter if the men didn’t force intercourse on her; she was still attacked and violated and there should be no relief felt by the rest of us. To say “at least she wasn’t raped” provides no comfort or solace to the victim; it only diminishes what happened to her. And why, why, why do so many people here think it’s okay to say “Basotho men will be men” to explain away such despicable things?!

Let’s be clear — to hide behind the excuse “it’s our culture” or “men can’t be changed” is a cheap cop-out. And women are just as at fault. There’s a saying here in Lesotho: “Men are like pumpkins — they spread.” I’ve heard it said by women and men alike, as a way to dismiss men’s philandering ways. And a few months ago, a friend retold a conversation she had with an educated, intelligent, and financially independent Swazi woman, who said “All men cheat; it’s a fact of life. A good man is one who cheats on you discreetly and doesn’t do it in front of you.”

Oh. My. God.

I’m fully aware that it wasn’t too long ago that the Western world held similar attitudes towards men and women (and perhaps some parts still do!); it doesn’t make it any less shocking or wrong. But women in Lesotho are more educated and more often gainfully employed than the men. I find it fascinating (in a sick sort of way) that these ideas are still so deeply ingrained, that women expect so little from their men, and that it’s always explained as “our culture.” I kinda have to agree with one friend who said “It’s not anybody’s culture to sexually assault and if it is, that culture deserves to go the fuck away.”

Oh, there was one more thing that irked me about the email responses — God was invoked. UGH. God did not create man to behave this way. The words of that email implied not only that Basotho men are no better than dogs in controlling their sexual urges, but also that God is not great enough to change these despicable actions by some Basotho men. I do not believe either statement is true. We should expect and demand that all men — regardless of ethnicity or nationality — conduct themselves like human beings.

The more excuses we all make for men to behave this way, the more complicit we are in their crimes, and the longer they will commit them.

 

There Are Ways To Get There If You Care Enough For The Living

Environmentalists vs Anti-hunger activists — who wins?

The British charity warns that biofuels have in fact become a major cause of the food shortage and hunger crisis is likely to get worse. Industrial biofuels are currently made from maize, wheat, sugar cane and oil seeds such as palm oil, soy and rapeseed.

“The rapidly rising demand for crops for fuel has put them into competition with those grown for food, driving food prices higher and affecting what and how much people eat in developing countries,” ActionAid noted.

This is a significant issue in a world where a billion people are already going hungry. But despite such threats, in 2008 European Union member states committed themselves to obtaining 10 per cent of transport fuels from renewable sources by 2020.

Member states will fill almost all of this commitment through industrial biofuels, meaning the 10 per cent target is, in effect, a biofuels target. Consumption of industrial biofuels in the EU will jump four-fold, ActionAid forecasts. As much as two-thirds are likely to be imported, the majority from developing countries.

Seems a shame that two good and worthy causes have to be at loggerheads … surely there’s a way to keep people from starving and also take care of the planet. In fact, many anti-poverty and anti-hunger folks argue that global warming disproportionately affects the poor because they depend more heavily on the land and now once prime agricultural land is becoming useless as the climate changes. But this solution from the EU to slow down global warming maybe perhaps have some unforeseen consequences — and it seems more than a bit contradictory that the demand for biofuels (which is supposed to counteract climate change) allows for the re-appropriation of  grasslands, forests, etc for cultivation, a process which in itself is a driver of global warming.

Feel free to send your suggestions, ideas, comments to the EU. Or write them here.

Full story at: ActionAid Accuses EU of Fuelling Hunger With Biofuels.

Read the ActionAid Report

 

Hit Me Baby, One More Time?

“That’s how you grow up in Africa,” explains Mr Mwape. “To be a man, you need to discipline a woman, give her a slap or two. You know, in our culture, it’s OK because that’s how we feel we love our women.”

Yes, that’s a real quote from a real Zambian man – a popular actor, as a matter of fact. And it breaks my heart. Not just for the women who suffer at the hands of these men, but for the young men whose perceptions of women and love and violence are perverted and twisted together into such a grotesque shape by the men they admire and emulate. Now, let’s be clear — it’s not true that every African man believes that a “slap or two” is how you demonstrate love to a woman. But a good many do. In Lesotho, a woman can be beaten for cooking a bad meal or for telling her husband that she is HIV-positive. Civil and political rights were granted to women here in 1993 but those constitutional amendments still recognize some traditional/customary laws that are discriminatory.

Here’s the real kicker when it comes to the confounding nature of gender relations in places like Lesotho. Many of the older men work in South Africa, in the mines or wherever they can find work. Many of the young men don’t finish secondary school because they are needed as herd boys or workers in the the family fields. So when I work with various officials in the government of Lesotho, I almost always work with women. And these are not low-level positions — these are women who write  national policy and influence how such policies will be implemented. It just boggles my mind that many of these women – strong and intelligent women – are quite likely to be victims of domestic violence, as well. But there are strong, wealthy and intelligent women in America who are victims too. I guess violence against women knows no ethnicity, education level, or economic status …

Read the rest of the story at BBC News – Zambia’s celebrity couple reveal wife-beating past.

 

It’s been a hard day’s night

It’s been a tough week for me, as I’ve come face to face with the harsh realities of life in resource-limited settings. It started last week when I learned a whole lot about how governments figure out what quantities of HIV/AIDS drugs to procure for their children. So many of the tools that developed country government use — things like patient data, consumption data, health information management systems, national ID numbers — don’t exist in many African countries. And while this doesn’t sound like such a big deal, look at it this way: if an HIV-positive baby isn’t able to access the medicines she needs because her government couldn’t forecast its national medicine requirements properly, then that baby is probably going to die.

Now, part of my job is to help increase the number of local health clinics that offer pediatric HIV/AIDS services to its clients. At the moment, many people here need to walk for hours to get to a hospital that can care for their HIV positive children because the much closer health clinic isn’t equipped to do so. But, lemme ask you this — how can I in good conscience do my job, if there’s a pretty darn good chance that these clinics will run out of children’s HIV/AIDS drugs? How can my work be ethical? You cannot start a child on a cocktail of anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs), only to switch them to another cocktail because the original regimen stocked out. That child also cannot just stop taking her drugs and start up again when the drugs are back in stock. There are so many consequences to these actions, including the risk that the child develops a resistance to the drugs and has to start on her “last resort” drugs, which means she probably doesn’t have much longer to live. And the more individuals who develop drug resistance, the more society as a whole becomes resistant. In America, you have a bajillion different drug cocktails to choose from, so building up resistance just means you can switch to another then another then another drug regimen.  In Lesotho, you essentially have a “first line” and a “second line” regimen. That’s it. So if your nation’s population of 1.8 million is developing resistance to your first line regimen, you’re screwed. Lesotho has to take it so seriously that if any doctor wants to move a patient to the second line regimen, the request needs the approval of a national committee.

It could very well be argued that it is unethical to begin a child on AIDS treatment if you know that child won’t be able to access her drugs on a regular basis. So, if I’m supposed to be increasing the number of clinics that can initiate a child on treatment, and I know that most existing clinics are running out of children’s drugs, what do I do?

 

Aude Sapere: Get It Together, Washington DC

Facts about my beloved pre-Lesotho city:

• 3% of DC residents have HIV/AIDS. That’s higher than prevalence rates in West Africa and is three times the level considered a “generalized and severe” epidemic.
• Almost 1 in 10 residents between ages 40-49 have the virus.
• The number of HIV/AIDS cases rose 22% from 2006 to 2008.
• The African American community has been disproportionately infected: 4% of the black population have HIV/AIDS. Black teens represent only 16% of the teenage population but make up 69% of new AIDS cases. Teenagers!!!

Open your eyes, DC. Get on the phone, call Adrian Fenty and DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS. And wear a freakin’ condom.

Read more about the city’s latest HIV report here.

Find the actual report here.

Get 10 free condoms right here, courtesy of the DC government.

 

South Africa Is Seen to Lag in H.I.V. Fight – NYTimes.com

Came across this article in today’s NYT – it’s ostensibly about how the WHO recommends male circumcision because it reduces a man’s risk of contracting HIV by half and how South Africa is silent on the issue, despite many other African countries actively promoting circumcision. But, the part that stuck out for me was this little section:

Even without government involvement, demand for the surgery, performed free under local anesthetic, has surged over the last year here at the Orange Farm clinic [in South Africa]. The men are counseled to continue using condoms since circumcision provides partial, though substantial protection.

Men waited nervously one recent chilly morning for their turn. Most were hoping the procedure would help them stay healthy here in the nation with more H.I.V.-positive people than any other.

But some said they were also drawn by a surprising, if powerful, motivation: They had heard from recently circumcised friends that it makes for better sex. You last longer, they said. Your lovers think you’re cleaner and more exciting in bed.

“My girlfriend was nagging me about this,” said Shane Koapeng, 24. “So I was like, ‘O.K., let me do it.’ ”

Sweet gravy Moses. Really? I mean, really?! The appeal of better sex is greater than the appeal of not contracting a lifelong and ultimately deadly disease?

That got me and my co-worker thinking. What’s being done to make safe sex sexy? If that’s really all it takes to get men to behave right, who’s doing it? A quick Google search didn’t really yield anything useful but I did find very clever safe sex ads. Check ‘em out.

I hope someone out there starts a big, splashy “Safe Sex is Sexy” campaign. Soon.

 

Aude Sapere: 25% of Men in South Africa Admit Rape

Yes, the results of this study are horrifying to many of us Westerners — and even the most adamant culturally relativist would probably raise her eyebrows at the fact that 25% of men in South Africa admit to raping a woman, that nearly half of those men have raped repeatedly, and that three-quarters of the men first attacked while in their teenage years.

But, my question is, how do you change this behavior? If, as one of the researchers suggests, that violence culturally defines what it is to be a man or to be masculine, then is this situation fixable? How do you instill a different value set for what demonstrates masculinity and, if you can accomplish that, whose value set do you use?

Read more at The Guardian: Quarter of men in South Africa admit rape, survey finds