Africa: " I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. "

Health Poverty Action blogs


The true story of Africa’s billion dollar losses

Today Health Poverty Action, alongside a number of UK and African NGOs, has released research revealing that Africa is losing $192 billion every year to the rest of the world – almost six and a half times the amount of aid given to the continent.

Or in other words the date has changed but that is about all. Lord Ashcroft a finer example of greed and mans casual inhumanity to man I have yet to discover sees it like this.

" A billionaire lord has urged the British government to "turn off the golden taps" of foreign aid and stop pandering to "St Bob and Bono".

Lord Michael Ashcroft, who made his debut on the Forbes billionaire list this year with an estimated worth of $US1 billion, has written an open letter to newly-appointed International Development Secretary Justine Greening, cheekily signing off "Michael xx".

"At a time when libraries are being closed and people with disabilities face benefit cuts, there is growing fury over giving away ever-increasing sums to foreigners," Lord Ashcroft wrote in the letter, published on a conservative blog. "

It would seem that if the " Golden Taps " were turned off it wouldn't be us in the west doing the turning. 

This research is the first attempt to calculate Africa’s losses across a wide range of areas. These include: illicit financial flows; profits taken out of the continent by multinational companies; debt repayments; brain drain of skilled workers; illegal logging and fishing and the costs incurred as a result of climate change.

All fair enough but most are quite difficult to quantify, how do you calculate " brain drain " ? I suspect the figures are far higher than the estimates above. Think about it. Then think about how much of the money flowing in to Africa actually stays in Africa and how much simply clears Africa and moves on to western bank accounts. 

These figures highlight the huge disparity between aid and the resources leaving Africa. Health Poverty Action, along with our partner organisations, are calling on the UK government to reassess its focus on ‘aid’ which paints a misleading picture of the UK’s ‘generosity’ towards Africa, and take urgent action to address Britain’s contribution to Africa’s poverty.

Remember the United Kingdom is the inheritor of an empire, the greatest empire the world has ever known. Historically the wealth of a third of the world was at the disposal of that empire. So just how generous are the Brits. 

" The government ring fenced and raised DFID's budget by 34.2 per cent, to £11.5bn over the next four years. That outruns Britain's current record spend of 0.56 per cent GDP on overseas aid and will see it rise to 0.7 per cent of GDP in 2013."

0.7 per cent and the rest of the wealthy west are running on similar numbers. In other words we stole everything we could steal and our aid commitments wouldn't even begin to pay the interest had we borrowed what we stole let alone repaying some of the capital. But here is the rub... Lord Ashcroft and his ilk 

" In the letter published yesterday, Lord Ashcroft wrote he had spent much of his life travelling in Africa, Asia and South America and saw the "grinding" poverty.

Did he really see it ? I suggest not. Does he care well Wikipedia gives us some insight

"On 1 March 2010, after 10 years of holding his tax status as private, he revealed that he did not pay tax on his overseas earnings in the UK."

So we have a man who avoids paying tax and now wants to dictate where the people who actually do pay tax are able to spend it. He may sit in the House of Lords but he has never faced an election, he represents greed. "

Martin Drewry, Director of Health Poverty Action said:

“These figures expose the gross misconceptions about aid and ‘charity.’ The common understanding is the UK ‘helps’ Africa through aid, but in reality this serves as a smokescreen for the billions taken out. Let’s use more accurate language. It’s sustained looting – the opposite of generous giving – and we should recognise that the City of London is at the heart of the global financial system that facilitates this. As the general election approaches all party leaders must step up, and outline how they intend to take real responsibility and stop this plundering of Africa. And NGOs need to change too. We need to move beyond our focus on aid levels and communicate the bigger truth – exposing the real relationship between rich and poor and holding leaders to account.” 

" It’s sustained looting "  or in the words of Midnight Oil..

" The time has come, to say fair's fair, to pay the rent, to pay our share. "

Hat Tip Rosebell Kagumire

South Africa: Madiba, Pienaar and that Rugby World Cup.

Voice of America reports

South African Rugby Hero Reflects on Unlikely Friendship with Nelson Mandela

Darren Taylor

Last updated on: February 28, 2011 7:00 PM

On spotting this article hidden away amongst all the tributes to Madiba I must say I was some what astonished that I was reading an American and not a New Zealand news story. That might be an indication of just how much we expected to win the 1995 Rugby World Cup, that said New Zealand expects to win every RWC. Fortunately the dateline sort of explains it.

                                                  Francois Pienaar Nelson Mandela RWC 1995

Former Springbok captain Francois Pienaar credits ‘Madiba’ with historic World Cup win and racial reconciliation in South Africa.

There would be absolutely no argument from any New Zealander about the about the latter, call it poor sportsmanship if you like but we Kiwi's tend to credit Suzie with the former achievement.   

Subsequently, various allegations were made surrounding the lead up to the final. Many of the New Zealand players were suffering from food poisoning 48 hours prior to the game, which affected their performance in the final. New Zealand coach Laurie Mains alleged a mysterious waitress known as "Suzie" had deliberately poisoned the All Blacks' water in the week before the final. During the match New Zealand players could be seen throwing up on the sidelines.

It is also worth noting just how utterly revolting the attitude and sportsmanship of the South African Rugby Union was at that time. Mandela arrived not a moment too late for both South Africa and quite probably for the sport of Rugby Union.

However, the after match mood soured considerably during the end of tournament banquet when South Africa's rugby president, Louis Luyt said in his speech that "There were no true world champions in the 1987 and 1991 World Cups because South Africa were not there." This claim that South Africa were the first "true world champions" led the New Zealand team to walk out of the dinner.

The reason South Africa wasn't at those tournaments was quite simply apartheid. The 1981 Springbok tour of New Zealand is perhaps a better starting point if one wants to understand the influence of rugby with regard to changing South Africa. You could also argue it was a long overdue starting point for change in New Zealand.

"The anti-apartheid movement in South Africa was buoyed by events in New Zealand. Nelson Mandela recalled that when he was in his prison cell on Robben Island and heard that the game in Hamilton had been cancelled, it was as ‘if the sun had come out’."

JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA —

In 1995, South Africa hosted the Rugby World Cup tournament.  It was just a year after the country’s first democratic elections, the first time black people had been allowed to vote after decades of white minority rule.

 But South Africa then was even more deeply divided along racial lines than it is now.  It was also split along sporting lines, with the white minority being passionate followers of rugby, and the black majority worshipping football, otherwise known as soccer. 

The hard truth is that is still a problem today. Incidently Peter De Villiers was the first Black African to coach the springboks.

" In many ways post-apartheid South African rugby views itself as upholding an Afrikaner ethos and values. Any efforts to change South African rugby have to contend with this history.

The former Springbok coach Peter de Villiers knows this very well. Commenting on the SARU plans to introduce a quota system, de Villiers is quoted in the media as saying that the quota system will never work.

As far as de Villiers is concerned, transformation in South African rugby will come about when "there is a transformation period in people's hearts."

Exactly. For that populational transformation in peoples hearts to happen there needs to be real investment in black players and indeed black rugby. It needs to happen in the townships.  

In most parts of black South Africa, the country’s rugby team, the Springboks, was reviled as a symbol of racial oppression.  The Springboks had been funded and adored by successive administrations of the National Party (NP) - the largely Afrikaner political organization that established apartheid in 1948.  

It was a bit surreal having the All Blacks as favourites of the black community in South Africa when they played the Springboks. That thanks to Mandela ( or should that be "thanks Mandela " ) is now to a large degree something of the past.  

But the Springbok captain in 1995, Francois Pienaar, was convinced that winning the Cup could help reconcile black and white South Africans.

The burly blonde Afrikaner wasn’t alone. He found a powerful ally in then-President Nelson Mandela – the revolutionary leader of the African National Congress (ANC) who had been jailed for 27 years by the NP government for fighting against the white supremacist regime.  

Pienaar and Mandela formed an unlikely and dramatic partnership that sustained a nation at a particularly fragile time in South Africa’s often tragic history.

One has to suspect that with Mandela gone the immediate future might well be fragile.

‘Madiba’ embraces the Springboks 

The former Springbok captain recalls Mandela phoning him constantly during the 1995 World Cup, asking after the team’s well-being.  During the competition, the president also appeared on national TV to assure the Springboks of his support.  

Pienaar says Mandela’s backing “meant the world” to him and his team of underdogs.  Rugby pundits had written off their chances of winning the trophy, but the Springboks eventually battled through to the final.  Their opponents were the New Zealand All Blacks, who at the time were the mightiest force in international rugby.  Again, the experts maintained South Africa had no chance of victory. 

New Zealand is always the mightiest force in world rugby. The problem is that no team can win every time it goes onto the field and the All Blacks are no exception to that rule ( 2013 results aside ). The All Blacks just happen to be really bad at world cups, currently us the Aussies and South Africa have two apiece and inexplicably somehow England have one.  I mostly blame the French for New Zealand's failure to dominate this fixture. 

But Mandela disagreed with them, and in the dressing room of the Ellis Park Stadium in Johannesburg, a few hours before kickoff, he told Pienaar so.

“Madiba stood there, wearing a Springbok jersey; he had a Springbok badge over his heart.  It was very emotional for me, seeing this man, who had gone through so much, being willing to do this for us,” he recalls.

To this day, Pienaar refers to Mandela affectionately by the liberation hero’s Xhosa clan name, “Madiba.”  Yet the rugby player, like most white South African children of his generation and before, had grown up fearing Mandela as a “terrorist.”  But, in the space of a few weeks, Pienaar and his team containing just a single black player had come to know Mandela as a “symbol of everything that is good in humanity,” and a man willing to wear the green and gold Springbok regalia that had been created by his former oppressors.

I doubt that Mandela would have seen it as being " willing to wear the green and gold Springbok regalia ", in fact I very much doubt he would have seen it as symbol of apartheid. Mandela I am sure would have viewed it as part of the sporting and cultural inheritance of South Africa and as such, something belonging to all South Africans.   

Triumph for the Rainbow Nation

The ex-captain remembers walking out of the changing room and onto the field, “with the sounds of ‘Madiba!  Nelson, Nelson, Nelson!’” reverberating around the stadium.     

The cheers for Mandela, from a crowd of 65,000 that was almost exclusively white – many who had previously supported his imprisonment – made international headline news.  This moment, when South African whites cheered for the ANC leader as much as they did for their beloved rugby team, would come to be a powerful symbol of a changing South Africa.

That match was about far more than rugby. It was a realisation that a new nation had been born and from a white perspective it was probably relief that they were a part of it. I wonder how white South Africans feel today, particularly when they look north to Zimbabwe ?  

" .....Mr Malema is similar to politicians in Zimbabwe's Zanu-PF party, led by President Robert Mugabe.

"They express conservative views on social issues [for instance, gay rights]. When it comes to economics they use socialist rhetoric but they are, in fact, capitalists who use the state to advance their own political and business interests."

One of his first run-ins with the ANC leadership came in 2010, when he praised Robert Mugabe's seizures of white-owned land."

And when they finally took the field, fired up by Mandela, the Springboks continued this transformation.  In a marathon game often described as one of the greatest ever sporting contests, South Africa narrowly beat New Zealand by 15 points to 12, with virtually the last kick of the game. 

The stereotypical New Zealand response to a defeat is a cliche along the lines of " rugby was the winner on the day " . That day rugby was arguably a spectator, it was South Africa that was the winner.

Critics had called the Springboks “no-hopers,” dismissing any chance the team would do well.  But the no-hopers from the multiracial nation that Archbishop Desmond Tutu had described as “God’s rainbow people” had triumphed.  A proud and smiling Mandela, still clad in his Springbok rugby jersey, strode onto the field to shake Pienaar’s hand and to present the golden World Cup to him.

“When Madiba handed the trophy to me, I shook his hand, and he said to me, ‘Thank you for what you’ve done for South Africa….’”  Pienaar says he was “dumbstruck” when Mandela, who had almost sacrificed his life so that South Africans could be free of racist domination, thanked him – a “mere white rugby player” – for his contribution to the country.

A bit of false modesty on Pienaar's part I suspect.

‘Leader’ and ‘Brave One’ 

Following the historic victory, Mandela maintained contact with Pienaar – even phoning him to congratulate him on the birth of his first son, Jean.  “Madiba gave him the Xhosa nickname, Nkokele, which means ‘leader.’  He also told me that Jean would be his godchild,” he says.  

A few years later, Mandela invited Pienaar and his family to tea at the former president’s Johannesburg home.  The rugby player’s second son, Stefan, was five years old at the time.  After the boy begged Mandela to also be his godfather, the Nobel Peace Prize winner hugged him, laughed and declared, “I will call you ‘brave one.’”

Pienaar says, “That just goes to show what kind of a person Madiba is, that he always finds time for all people in life, no matter how small they are.  I think absolute humility is his greatest virtue.”

The world is a far poorer place today than it was yesterday.  

In 2007, in France, the Springboks – this time with new captain John Smit at the helm – again reached the World Cup final. In a videotaped message to the team before the game, Mandela urged them to “play the game hard and honestly, and whatever the outcome – hold your heads high. We are convinced that you will triumph and bring the trophy home."

The Springboks indeed emerged victorious, beating England to once again win rugby’s most coveted prize.

Bloody French, took us out in the quarter final.

Pienaar will always be grateful to Mandela for supporting what was then the “white sport” of rugby. But he emphasizes that the freedom fighter should ultimately be remembered more for saving South Africa from what would have been a disastrous civil war.

He says, “Things didn’t go totally wrong in South Africa because we had the most amazing leader, at the right time.”

Sometimes, not often but sometimes everything just falls into place.   
By supporting rugby, Mandela had suddenly and boldly gained the affection of millions of white South Africans. Analysts agree the strategy probably avoided further tragedy in South Africa. They continue to use it as proof of Mandela’s genius.

Genius....maybe but more likely his humanity. The world lost a little bit of its magic yesterday 

RIP Madiba. 

Madiba

One man come in the name of love 

Nelson Mandela 18 July 1918 - 5 December 2013

“I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”

Nigeria: Chinua Achebe dies

The Independent reports

'Father of modern African literature' Achebe, 82, dies after short illness

                                      Stolen from  Nnenna Amushan at WomenStyles 

Chinua Achebe, described as the “father of modern African literature” who inspired generations of writers across the continent, has died at the age of 82. 

I embarrassed to say I have never read any of his work. That will change soon.

The Nigerian author of Things Fall Apart, considered the essential novel on African identity and nationalism, passed away at a hospital in the US city of Boston after a brief illness.

From Wikipedia  

" Returning from exile, Okonkwo finds his village a changed place because of the presence of the white man. He and other tribal leaders try to reclaim their hold on their native land by destroying a local Christian church. In return, the leader of the white government takes them prisoner and holds them for ransom for a short while, further humiliating and insulting the native leaders. 

As a result, the people of Umuofia finally gather for what could be a great uprising. Okonkwo, a warrior by nature and adamant about following Umuofian custom and tradition, despises any form of cowardice and advocates for war against the white men. When messengers of the white government try to stop the meeting, Okonkwo kills one of them. He realizes with despair that the people of Umuofia are not going to fight to protect themselves—his society's response to such a conflict, so long predictable and dictated by tradition, is changing.

When the local leader of the white government comes to Okonkwo's house to take him to court, he finds that Okonkwo has hanged himself. He ultimately commits suicide rather than being tried in a colonial court for killing a white man. Among his own people, Okonkwo's action has ruined his reputation and status, as it is strictly against the teachings of the Igbo to commit suicide."

Colonialism can never be justified and that is something that the players in the Eastern DR Congo might want to consider.

In a statement, his family said: “One of the great literary voices of his time, he was also a beloved husband, father, uncle and grandfather, whose wisdom and courage are an inspiration to all who knew him.”

Achebe moved to the US for treatment after a car accident left him paralysed in 1990 and since 2009 had been a professor of Africana Studies at Brown University. In 2007, he won the Man Booker International Prize, where judge Nadine Gordimer dubbed him the “father of modern African literature”.

He received a string of literary honours and prizes throughout his career including the Commonwealth Poetry Prize, honorary fellowship of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Unesco fellowship for creative artists. He became the first living author to be represented in the Everyman’s Library collection.

Achebe was born in 1930, in Igboland, a region in south east Nigeria. He discovered the power of fiction at University College, Ibadan, where he read the novel Mister Johnson by Joyce Cary, which depicted Africans as “jealous savages”. He set about challenging the literary trope that painted the Africans as “unhuman”.

Things Fall Apart, published in 1958, has sold more than 12 million copies worldwide and was one of the first novels to chronicle Africa from an African viewpoint. The novel, set in the 1890s, follows Okonkwo, a yam farmer in a fictional Nigerian village and tracks the effects of British colonialism and Christian missionaries.

Fans ranged from novelist Margaret Atwood and poet Maya Angelou, to Nelson Mandela, who called Achebe a writer “in whose company the prison walls fell down”.

When Nelson Mandela describes a novel in such a way I know I have got to read it and his other works. They will be reviewed here in due coarse.

Hat Tip: Nnenna Amushan  WomenStyles.

South Africa: Slip sliding away.

Andrew Harding at the BBC opines

Why South Africa is like a Mexican soap opera

With the African National Congress party's figurehead Nelson Mandela in fragile health and the country facing a series of difficult problems, this is a critical period for South Africa.

It was late afternoon, and they were still cheering. Every few seconds another name was read out, and the families - some overflowing into the lobby outside the hall - jumped up from their chairs with delight.

It was graduation day at Johannesburg's grand, elegant Wits University this week.

I sat on the steps outside the hall, soaking up the noisy waves of optimism that kept rushing past.

Inside, Ahmed Kathrada seemed to be doing much the same. He is 83 years old now, and a little frail but still very much the same rigorous intellectual heavyweight who spent quarter of a century in prison with Nelson Mandela.

Mr Kathrada was at Wits to receive his own honorary doctorate. Afterwards, away from the well-dressed crowds streaming out of the hall, he sat down carefully, smiled, and said: "A day like this makes you feel good about this country."

This will be a very rough week in South African politics.

Of course, we then started talking about everything that was going wrong - about the prevailing sense of gloom, even crisis, that has settled on South Africa.

"I just wish we could unite," he said solemnly, "as we used to in prison, to fight a common enemy".

It has been a rough few months here: The killing of 34 workers at the Marikana mine; the corruption and chaos exposed almost daily within the ruling ANC; the downgrading of South Africa's economic prospects by ratings agencies.

Grim stuff. But it is worth remembering that crisis is something of a speciality here.

One gets the feeling that the clock is starting to tick for South Africa and that the time to get it right is just about up. The ANC has failed its supporters badly. The Democratic Alliance is the true successor to the the Mandela legacy. 

Nonsense

If South Africa were a television show, it would probably be a Mexican soap opera - raucous, full of absurd, repetitive plots, with the promise of imminent disaster and salvation around every corner.

It is as if the nation cannot quite let go of its genuinely miraculous, dramatic past and accept the fact that it has become just another messy, complicated country.

Of course, this week we have all been reminded of that past with the news that Nelson Mandela, now 94 years old, is back in hospital.

Over time most South Africans have quietly come to accept the fact that he will not be here forever.

But it is striking how many people seem genuinely worried about what will happen when he is gone.

There is an excellent book on this called When Mandela Goes. 

It used to be a few shrill, nervous white people who talked about how it was only Mr Mandela - with his moral authority - who was preventing the black majority from throwing them out of the country or worse. But now you hear black people worrying about what will happen too.

I spent an hour recently, arguing with a bright student who was convinced that civil war was inevitable.

Such fears are, I am sure, nonsense. In political terms South Africa has already been living in a post-Mandela era for longer than it would like to admit.

But the ruling party - the ANC - still leans heavily on its liberation history, and on Mr Mandela in particular, and it does have a lot to lose.

I agree civil war is not going to happen, but Mandela is hand break while he lives and at the moment with fools like Zuma South Africa needs that restraint. 

Fractious nation

This weekend the ANC is gathering, as it does every five years, to decide who should lead the party and which policies it should champion.

The run-up has been quite a spectacle. You could argue that the furious power battles are a sign of healthy internal democracy, or you could look at the political murders, and the greedy factionalism as proof that yet another African liberation movement has pressed the self-destruct button.

It is worth mentioning that the ANC, for all its flaws, has plenty of good people - and achievements - under its belt.

Really ? It's luminaries look more like Mugabe than Mandela.

And it can adapt. After the disastrous HIV/Aids denial of the past, President Jacob Zuma's government has rolled out the right drugs, and life expectancy for South Africans has jumped from 54 to 60 in five years. A spectacular leap.

Over the course of the ANC's weeklong conference there will be plenty of talk about President Zuma's alleged corruption, and attempts to unseat him.

There will be angry calls to nationalise South Africa's mines, and seize all white-owned farms. And there will be more sober, sensible debates about how to make this a less unequal society.

Yes well you don't have to look to far to the north to see how policies such as seizing white farms and nationalising mines has worked out. Famine and poverty.

It will all matter hugely - and at the same time - make little practical difference.

The ANC has been noisily pondering these questions for years but its leadership is now safely ensconced within South Africa's growing, aspirational middle class, and it seems to have little appetite for revolution.

And so a fractious nation will rumble on.

The key is to expand the middle class if China can do it so can Africa. 

For me, the most troubling thing today is not the messy politics, or the inequality, or the unemployment - which, when you include the informal sector, is not as high as often claimed.

The really shocking thing is this:

When it comes to primary school education - this country ranks among the very worst in the world. Below Bangladesh. Below Nigeria.

A generation is being forsaken, which makes the smiles of those graduating university students and their cheering families this week, all the more moving - and bitter-sweet.

Education is the key to expanding the middle class. It is South Africa's road to salvation.

Ubuntu: A true man of God

The Daily Monitor ( Uganda ) reports

To Ugandan MPs: God does not discriminate among our family

By Desmond Tutu

Uganda’s Parliament is – unbelievably – on the verge of considering a new piece of legislation that would have the effect of legalising persecution, discrimination, hatred and prejudice in that country.

A voice of sanity. I was amazed until I spotted the byline.

Should the Anti-Homosexuality Bill be voted into law, it will criminalise acts of love between certain categories of people, just as the apartheid government made intimate relations between black and white South Africans a punishable offense.

Freedom and equality must be universal if they are to have meaning.

Members of the apartheid police force charged with the upkeep of “morality” would rush into the bedrooms of suspected offenders to gather evidence, such as warm bed sheets. Those found guilty were arrested, put on trial and punished. What awaits the people of Uganda?

One thing that Ugandan legislators should know is that God does not discriminate among members of our family. God does not say black is better than white, or tall is better than short, or football players are better than basketball players, or Christians are better than Muslims… or gay is better than straight. No. God says love one another; love your neighbour. God is for freedom, equality and love.

People have over many centuries devised all kinds of terrible instruments to oppress other people. Usually, they have rationalised their awful actions on the basis of their belief in their own superiority, in their culture, in their spiritual beliefs, in their skin-colour. Thus, they argue, they are justified to hate and bomb and maim the “other”.

The Anti-Homosexuality legislation now under consideration in Uganda is just such an instrument.
Nelson Mandela said, “No one is born hating another person”. If people are taught and can learn to hate, they can learn to love.

Two of the greatest ever Africans  men of this era have spoken. A man of God and the man of the people. 

Many times in my life, I have been blessed to witness the innate capacity of our human family to reconcile differences. The common denominator in all these transactions is recognition that the notion of equal rights in any family, in any society, is non-negotiable. No sane person or group of people can sustainably argue that their rights should be more equal than others.

Exactly.

If what I am told is true, that the Anti-Homosexuality legislation in Uganda has widespread popular support, it should surely be the moral duty of the custodians of that country to educate its citizens about discrimination and equal rights. Surely, it should be their duty to clarify the fundamental misunderstandings in communities about what it means to be lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or intersex (LGBTI).

It is called leadership. It requires courage.

The depiction of members of the LGBTI community as crazed and depraved monsters threatening the welfare of children and families is simply untrue, and is reminiscent of what we experienced under apartheid and what the Jews experienced at the hands of the Nazis.

To those who claim that homosexuality is not part of our African culture, you are conveniently ignoring the fact that LGBTI Africans have lived peacefully and productively beside us throughout history.

That sort of kills the idea that the world will end if this legislation isn't passed.

I am proud that in South Africa, when we succeeded in overthrowing apartheid, we put in place a Constitution that prohibited all forms of discrimination, including discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

We did this because we understood that the freedom of one depends upon the freedom of all. We call it the spirit of ubuntu: the idea that I cannot be free if you are not also free.

A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, and does not feel threatened by others’ differences, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.

Ubuntu is a great concept.

The ideology of racial superiority that was once used to justify the colonisation of our lands is part of our recent history. Today, we face a new challenge. We must overcome the notion that sexual orientation defines one’s identity or determines one’s station in life – or unjustly elevates one class of people over another.

It is with supreme sorrow that I witness, to this day, the subjugation and repression of African brothers and sisters whose only crime is the practice of love. Hate, in any form or shape, has no place in the house of God.

I urge the people of Uganda to reject hatred and prejudice.
Love comes more naturally to the human heart than hate.

Desmond Tutu is the Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, South Africa and a reknown anti-apartheid leader.

Thank you Desmond.