Just Africa

"Pornographic" Maternal Mortality in Zambia

The news editor of Zambia’s largest independent newspaper is on trial for distributing obscene images. Pornography is illegal in Zambia, and Chansa Kabwela faces five years in prison if convicted.

The ‘obscene’ images? A mother in labor, the baby in breech, its entire body already outside the mother, but its head trapped. The baby eventually suffocated. Family members took the photographs as the woman lay on the grounds of Lusaka’s main hospital, unaided by any medical personnel as her child died. Outraged, Kabwela sent these photographs to Zambia’s vice-president, health minister and various rights groups to call attention to issues in the healthcare system as well as to call for an end to the nurses’ strike in the country. The Zambian president, Rupiah Banda, immediately labeled the pictures pornographic and the trial began.

Labeling the photographs pornographic is simply ludicrous, worthy of almost no discussion. The images, however, certainly are obscene. It is obscene that a woman should be left on the ground at a hospital without medical help. It is obscene that a child was allowed to die needlessly, when it could have been saved by a simple operation.  But it is a shameful travesty that those in the position to do something about a system that allowed this to happen choose to hide their heads in the sand. As if condemning reality will make it disappear.

These images have generated anger and repulsion; to have it be so misdirected as to prosecute the responsible disseminator of these on porn charges is a massive step backwards in the fight for maternal health and gender equality in Zambia. As New York Times writer Nicholas Kristof wrote in a July 2009 column, maternal mortality does not have to be an unfortunate given, a phenomenon that must be accepted. If men had uteruses and paternal mortality were a risk,“‘paternity wards’ would get resources, ambulances would transport pregnant men to hospitals free of charge, deliveries would be free, and the Group of 8 industrialized nations would make paternal mortality a top priority.”  Women are allowed to die in childbirth all around the world simply because they are women; disposable and voiceless as they are often forced to be, the political will simply does not extend to protecting them when their health is at its most vulnerable and precarious stage.

These Zambian politicians feel very self-righteous about ignoring the tragedy of inadequate maternal healthcare that is staring them in the face in graphic detail. One wonders what the reaction would have been if that woman had been a man instead; would the anger finally become a constructive force for the improvement of healthcare in Zambia?

 

 

“END GLOBAL APARTHEID” – A Symbol and A Message

While interning at Africa Action, I received a black T-shirt with a gray image of the African continent on the front. Over the top of the picture of Africa, the words “END GLOBAL APARTHEID” can be seen in bold, red capital letters. I have long contemplated those powerful words and how it applies to the world these days, particularly when people comment on the shirt with looks or words. Sometimes I wonder whether they understand the reference to “apartheid,” what it means, its history in South Africa, or its implications…or whether they think I’m just a pretentious white guy, walking around in apparent protest to a system that privileges me. Honestly, most of the time, people don’t say anything at all – but the responses I have gotten have been positive. In fact, the most positive comments on my shirt have come from South Africans themselves.

Before I share some of my most memorable experiences wearing the shirt, here’s some quick background if you’re unfamiliar with apartheid in South Africa: The word “apartheid” is Afrikaans for “separateness.” Therefore, separating, or keeping people apart from one another was what apartheid demanded. I find it easier to think of it as meaning “apartness,” hence apartheid.

First: In April 2009, I was traveling with some friends from Pimville, a township in Soweto, to Johannesburg and considered wearing my “END GLOBAL APARTHEID” shirt. I asked a friend whether she thought it would be appropriate to wear it around; in response, she pointed at her own shirt, which read, “100% BLACK,” and said with a smile, “I’m wearing this.” Clearly answering my question! We went into town to pick up some things and, as we were walking back to our car, I suddenly  heard a shout from across the parking lot: “Hey, you should be wearing that shirt in London.” I looked around to see a man dressed business casual with a tie, getting into a nice car. He was Coloured, someone who would have been oppressed during the apartheid era. I was a little surprised at his comment, and then I realized that it was also the same day as the G-20 summit on world economic recovery in London. It occurred to me then that, in South Africa, people know exactly what apartheid means – they all struggled to end it not so long ago. By wearing my t-shirt I was unconsciously showing my involvement in and support of that struggle.

The other story goes like this: I had gone over to the salon of Dr. Dread with my friend Motlalepule. We were in Pimville, walking in Zone 2, the section of the township that had been meant for Basotho people during apartheid.  

[Quick Backgrounder #2: Apartheid was not only the separation of different races, but of different tribes as well – the philosophy being that different tribes would fight each other if not kept apart. Ironically, in Soweto, the many different ethnic groups – Sothos, Zulus, Pedis, Xhosas, and others from all over South Africa – have been living together for sometimes three generations: they adopt aspects of one another’s cultures, and even blend languages, borrowing words in Sesotho, Zhosa, Zulu etc. Even during my trip I could see the ways that people come together and work and live together – highlighting even more clearly how unnecessary the philosophy of separateness is, and how much of an obstacle it was to peaceful interactions between human beings.]

So, I was wearing my “END GLOBAL APARTHEID” t-shirt and walking down the street; we could see people out in their yards, chilling and braaing (barbecuing and drinking) because of the Festive Season. I greeted a group of guys listening to house music in Sesotho: “Dumelang, bontate,” which started up a whole conversation. One of the guys, on hearing that I was from the U.S., commented that a major problem is that the only white people he ever sees walking around the township are from foreign countries, never from South Africa – very few live there. He thought it was nice that I had come and said I was welcome. He also looked and my shirt and said, “END GLOBAL APARTHEID…I like that. I like that very much.”

Finally, Another friend of mine, Thabang, invited me to an African National Congress (ANC) meeting [The ANC has been South Africa's governing party since the end of the apartheid regime in April 1994] He told me that it makes him proud to see me walking around in the township. Coming from a man who has lived in the township all his life, and struggled and fought just so he and I could have the freedom to simply sit and speak to one another, I told him that I was so grateful and humbled.

The philosophy of apartheid claimed that white and black people couldn’t get along and needed to be separate. But my experiences in South Africa, making friends and being accepting into families and into the community, are just further examples that such ideas are untrue. Furthermore, the freedom to speak with another human being is worth achieving, as Damian Marley puts it, “by any plan and any means and strategy.” Wearing my “END GLOBAL APARTHEID” shirt in South Africa, and the responses I received, made me hope even more that one day, here in U.S., we will get to experience such a positive vibration and feel what it means to end separateness. The specifics of the system are different here, but I don’t think it’s any less dangerous.

If we really try to be honest with ourselves about history, and consider the inequalities which have affected the indigenous people on our own continent, as well as Latin America, the Caribbean, and the African continent….if we become aware of these issues we will certainly see more clearly where we are today and what still needs to be done to improve the conditions colored in many ways by colonialism, imperialism, by racism, and unequal power balances between different peoples. Such understandings of how we are part of the making of history and, thus, the making of our future, will help us see that the t-shirt, “END GLOBAL APARTHEID,” is really a prophetic call to action, not only because Global Apartheid will and must end, but also because once our consciousness is awakened by voices and action coming from places like Soweto – as it did in Jamaica, Ethiopia, in the U.S., so many other places – we will naturally find ourselves working to build structures that protect the freedoms that will inevitably be enjoyed by the posterity of this earth.

By Nick Carl, a former Public Education and Mobilization Intern with Africa Action

Spotlight on Disputed Territory: The Ilemi Triangle

It’s time to pull out that map of Africa and get ready for another spotlight in this week’s post to Just Africa! As mentioned in the Spotlight on Swaziland these blogs are meant to highlight different aspects of the continent – countries and regions - whose images and people you may not be familiar with, and that are rarely (if at all) in major newspapers or on television. By providing some brief background and recent developments, I hope to pique your interest to learn more about the great diversity, that can be found in Africa – bringing yourself one country closer to knowing all abut the continent!

This week, the topic is disputed territory in eastern Africa and, depending on the size of your map, you may just need to look very close indeed in order to spot the lines that haven’t been drawn in the sand. Let me make it a bit easier:

The Elemi or Ilemi Triangle is an area of disputed land in eastern Africa, notable because not two but three different countries contest its boundaries: Ethiopia, Kenya, and Sudan. The origin of the dispute goes back to the colonial era and to the unclear wording of treaties between European power seeking to set boundaries that allowed for the movement of nomadic, Turkana herders in the region. These early treaties were often made without the involvement of surrounding African powers and, even later, various colonial territorial commissions disputed the details of the border location while ignoring local people in their demarcations.

Characterized by hilly terrain and good grazing pastures for goats, camels, and cattle, the Ilemi Triangle is an excellent resource for the pastoral people who migrate through the region, though they must compete for the limited browse and scarce water available. Turkana, Didinga, Toposa, Invangatom, and Dassanech communities are common to the region and are members of larger ethno-cultural groups of Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Sudan. At the same time, intermarriage and clan affinities in the area add further complexity to making concrete delineations between peoples.

From a political perspective, the nomadic and pastoral lifestyles makes resolving jurisdiction of the area difficult, as pastoral movement necessarily involves constricting and expanding borders according to need. The modern state, on the other hand is typically all about what is on the actual map i.e. the solid (though invisible) lines between countries. This is an interesting – and important – difference in perspective as far as control of the region is concerned.

The men and women living in Ilemi are not the only ones with a vested interest in the region, however. Natural resources have long been a draw for colonial powers and modern countries, and the Ilemi Triangle has been noted as a potential source of minerals itself, as well as a gateway into the unexplored oil reserves in Southern Sudan. While during the partition of territory in East Africa there was no real need to strictly determine the Kenya-Sudan-Uganda borders, as they were all part of the British Empire, since the early 20th century, borders around the territory have changed numerous times for a diversity of reasons. Here are some of the major changes:

-1902-1903: the Ethiopian emperor Menelik proposes a boundary with the British from Lake Turkana to the Indian Ocean – the British disagree and settle boundaries with other European powers at the “Maud Line” without Ethiopian involvement, placing the triangle in Sudan’s control.
-1907: The Anglo-Ethiopian Agreement treaty between Ethiopia and British East Africa remains vague about the border’s details but maintains the Maud Line
-1938: A Joint Kenya-Sudan survey team establishes the “Wakefield Line” or “Red Line,” temporarily establishing the northern limit to grazing in Turkana after the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1936.
-1956: Sudan wins independence and from then until the present day has not administered Ilemi (or much of southern Sudan) due to civil war
-1972: Sudan-Ethiopia boundary alteration does not resolve the issue because Kenya is not involved.
-1978: The Kenyan government begins arming Turkana in the region.
-1990s: Ethiopia begins arming Dassanech in the area, further increasing tension in the area.

More recently, perceptions of the region as economically marginal, as well as instability of the region’s governments have long delayed the resolution of this disputed territory. Since 1978 Kenyan maps have marked the Wakefield/Red Line as its official border and, while Ethiopia and Sudan continue to stake their claims, and the country has de facto control over the region’s administration.

The Ilemi Triangle is a fascinating region of East Africa where ideas and points of view about ownership and boundaries may challenge our own. The turbulence in the area unfortunately obscures the ongoing dispute over Ilemi – but it’s worth reading more about. For more information on Kenya, Ethiopia, and conflict in Sudan check out our resources on Key Countries in Africa and our Campaign to Stop Genocide in Darfur.