UK won't cut aid over human rights abuses

UK won't cut aid over human rights abuses
International Development Minister says policy has been misrepresented
Aid will not be cut, but switched to ngos and civil society organisations
African social justice activists statement presented to UK government

London - 22 November 2011
A statement signed by over 100 African social justice activists, criticising the UK's reported new aid policy, has been presented to Britain's Secretary of State for International Development, Andrew Mitchell MP.
Scroll down this previous news release to read the statement by African activists and the list of signatories: http://petertatchellfoundation.org/general/uk-don-t-cut-aid-over-human-rights-abuses-switch-it
The presentation of the African statement to the International Development Minister was made by Peter Tatchell, Director of the human rights lobby, the Peter Tatchell Foundation, at a meeting at the headquarters of the UK Department for International Development in London on Monday 21 November 2011.
Mr Tatchell urged the International Development Minister to "heed the concerns of grassroots LGBTI and human rights advocates in developing countries" and to work to "empower them." Mr Mitchell promised to give the African activists statement careful consideration.
It has been widely reported in the media that the UK government was planning to cut aid to regimes that abuse LGBTI rights.
The Peter Tatchell Foundation has previously called on the UK government to "switch aid, don't cut it."
"Instead of cutting aid, Britain and other donor countries should divert aid money from human rights abusing governments and redirect it to grassroots, community-based humanitarian projects that respect human rights and do not discriminate in their service provision," urged Mr Tatchell.
"By redirecting aid in this way, abusive governments are punished but poor people are not penalised. They continue to receive the aid they need," he said.
At the meeting, Mr Mitchell said that his government's aid policy had been "misrepresented by some media".
He added that the UK government has not threatened to cut aid but has said it would "channel it in new directions" if recipient governments failed to meet four requirements: reduce poverty, adhere to human rights, demonstrate good financial management and show accountability to their citizens.
In the case of countries that violate human rights, Britain is, he said, committed to maintain aid but divert it from abusive central governments to good practice ngos, civil society organisations and local government bodies, as it has done in Malawi. There would be no net reduction in aid, he pledged.
Contrary to media reports, Mr Mitchell confirmed that this aid conditionality was never primarily based on a recipient government's respect for LGBTI rights. Human rights adherence is one of the four pillars of UK aid conditionality and LGBTI rights is just one dimension of respect for human rights, he said.
Commenting on the International Development Minister's clarifications, Peter Tatchell said:
"The commitment of the UK government to global human rights, including LGBTI rights, is welcome and commendable. I am pleased to hear that no cuts in aid are planned.
"Although human rights abuses are unacceptable and violate international humanitarian law, any reduction in aid would penalise the poorest, most vulnerable people in developing countries. Many are dependent on aid for basic needs like food, clean water, health care and education. They should not be made to suffer because of human rights abuses by their governments.
"I look forward to Andrew Mitchell and David Cameron making high profile public statements in the coming weeks to refute the misreporting of government aid policy and to counteract the negative anti-LGBTI backlash that this misreporting has generated in some African countries.
"Perceptions are important. It is very damaging to LGBTI communities in developing countries if cuts in vital aid are associated with LGBTI people and western demands for LGBTI equality. This inflames homophobia," noted Mr Tatchell.

Who Am I?

Getting back into life
Getting back into me
Getting lost into me

Its been a while since I posted something here
Question? Have I lost my ounce of creativity? Have I lost myself?

I guess in a nutshell I need to find me
I need to find that thing that drives me
Need to get back to my creative source
My source
My heart

Is my heart so frozen with fear
Fear that paralyses my thoughts
Fear that paralyses my hands
Fear that paralyses my soul

Where am I?
Who am I?
What am I?

Sweden

I am lying down in a hotel room and missing home like crazy... home... that word makes me want to cry. Today, has been difficult for me, the realisation that I cannot pick up the phone and call the people who are closest to me almost renders me powerless.

As I allow myself to wallow in self pity, I think of all the millions of people who would do anything to trade places with me. To be in such a fantastic place and to learn as much as I have over the past few weeks and to meet all the fabulous people that I have met. But today, I am not those people, I dont want to be those people, today, I am just me... tired, grouchy and ungrateful. Sick and homesick.

I keep going through my head trying to retrace the steps that I have taken that have led me to here, to now... What is my purpose? My calling? Am I living that life? Am I your definition of a true activist? I am I willing to give it all up for the cause? What is that cause? Do I even fully understand what it is?

Earlier, over lunch a friend of mine pointed out just how judgemental we can all be at times and I found myself in the box that I try so hard not be in... I strive everyday to judge less and love more but the path to ones own enlightenment is so hard... I am tired of trying to be me, I just wanna be me, Independent of others perceptions and the worst part is that the world is a very hard place to live.

I like Sweden but I love home and I guess after all is said and done, I am a child of the earth and to my Africa I must return. I have made mistakes and judged others harshly, I have been self critical and have known the sin of self righteousness. My conclusion remains, I am not right, you are not wrong, its all about perception.

I have made a decision to enjoy the rest of my days in this cold beautiful place where I have met people with some of the most biggest hearts, hearts that can warm up a house on the coldest of days... I guess its no wonder am home sick.

I promise to enjoy every moment here and whenever I feel down, I only have to bask in the awesome hearts of every person that surrounded me here, appreciating them for their unique differences and loving them nontheless... the obvious mistakes I have made, I leave in the past.

I have had the privilidge to meet the wonderful staff at RFSL, the amazing activists from all around the African continent, incredible Zama from South Africa, Jay whose bright smile lights up my mornings... the open hearted Christians from Diakonia Zambia and Uganda... Thomas... from Amnesty, Audrey from Kenya who has challenged my concept of love...

My hosts in their myriad of personalities, incredible Maria, Steady Jonas, happy Karin and the ever organised and wonderful Anna... I will carry you with me.

And then theres my friend Shanshi the transblack... the Zambian crew in the form of one Eddie, Dorcas and Hope and my friend and travel companion Longa. I am grateful.

I have had the privilege to meet with giants in the movement, the celebrated Victor Mukasa who defied all odds, who stood up against the tides and gave hope to so many... and I question my place here, I doubt myself and my voice...

To all my friends on this journey, synchronicity allowed us all to meet in this place at this time, let us all rise with one voice and be the love and change that we want to see.

Theres power in unity and we are all united against different injustices that occur in our lives, let our voices be heard, let us not be silenced, we may falter and stumble but our goal and hearts should be fixeted on the prize... freedom and rights for all.

I read something somewhere that said, lets separate the church from hate because they are not the same thing. People want to put us in boxes and also want to retain the right to label them, well, theres nothing we can do about those boxes but theres a lot that we can do in our hearts. We can be the bigger people and love them. Theres no them and us here, theres just us, humanity complete in our collective consciousness.

I am still homesick but this here, this minute, feels like home. Indeed I can safely say, I have walked with giants

Happy Birthday to Me

I wake up to the same wind that blows every other day and it caresses my face this morning. I wake up to the same sounds of the universe celebrating her aliveness, the birds still chirp at the same pitch and the same intensity, the trees still in their knowing and understanding of nature as the leaves twitch with the wind feeling alone, separate and able to make it on their own. Nothing has changed this morning but it’s my ear that has changed.

I guess there’s so much more that I can learn from trees, a tree, it is so patient, so still… No matter what you do or say or try, the tree remains firmly rooted to the ground, to the earth that continues to nourish it and it nourishes back.

Its branches, taking life from it and imagining themselves independent of the trunk and then you have the twigs and the leaves that swing with the wind, the leaves that bend with each little flutter.

How significant to humanity the tree is, to me, the tree trunk in this regard symbolises my soul (my somatic self), firm steadfast, tuned into the creator, the branches symbolise my body that imagines its self separate from my soul and the leaves are my emotions, the leaves that flutter with the tiniest change.

The leaves that fall off at season’s end and can be as fleeting as they come, the all self important leaves that die just as quickly as they sprouted and before season end die and allow the branches to give birth to new ones.

How many times have I felt like the new born leaf that my emotions or idea will last forever, how many time have I hurt like a drying leaf as the life is slowly sapped out of me by whatever emotional undertaking I have taken? A million times and yet my soul looks on, my body holds on and the leaves go and come with the seasons.

Sometimes, I have had my branches pruned or bruised, I have had my branches cut off and the hurt has gone beyond the falling of the leaves and I have felt my soul scar! I have had to sometimes cut off or shed my own branches so other types of leaves can begin to grow with the seasons.

My scars from the branch cutting go beyond what the next season can fix, sometimes it takes a lifetime in the tree’s life but I carry those scars with a failing faith and hope.
I have come a long way over the past couple of months, undergone many phoenix processes and still going through some and this morning dawns bright and clear, my birthday, a special day for me albeit an ordinary day for many.

So much has happened, much has changed, I have been loved, I have been put down, I have been betrayed, I have been exalted but I guess all these and more are what life is about whets important is am still here, a bit faithless but here nonetheless.
Sat up yesterday to imagine the day I will leave this world and I realised that its going to be an ordinary day, just like this one, the birds will sing, seeds will germinate and life as we all know it will go on and I question the fate of my existence.
Its been months of my going through so many mini deaths and as I die and live a little, the world goes on, it does not grind to a halt for me, sit by my bedside and say, ‘we shall wait’ and my usefulness or lack of seems insignificant.

High lights of my past year, I have loved, and been loved back, I have felt pain and caused others pain too, I have laughed and cried and made others laugh and cry, all in all an ordinary existence. Have I touched someone’s life? Have I made a difference in someone’s life? I clearly don’t have the answers for that, all I know is that I am still here and the universe rotates as if none of it matters.

I had so many milestones that I set out to achieve at the beginning of the year and am thinking now, they were just that; words that never really materialised into anything more.
I am still flawed, still hurting, still growing but I guess my gratitude is that am still here? Is this it? Must I be grateful that am still here?? What does my being here have to do with anything?
Seeing as the world doesn’t need or require my help. Guess if this day were my last, my gratitude would be for those people who have touched and shared my life, those who at one point genuinely cared for me and learned something from me.

Today, am stepping into faith and learning the hard and easy lessons that are life, I am not significant. I am not special. I am here; to live breathe and laugh until the time comes for Mother Nature to say, step off. It’s time…
Today I choose these lessons from the tree:-
1. That the tree trunk my soul is steadfast and is infinitely connected to the creator
2. That like the branches my body is infinitely connected to the soul
3. That like the leaves my feelings and emotions are as fleeting as the seasons

On Africa

I have always taken great pride in my heritage, taken delight in the coarseness of my hair, the shape of my body, the colour of my eyes and what I have always imagined to be my rich African tradition summarised as, remarkably African.

I am classified by the world as a Zambian national but I am a child of the spirit and my soul identifies and is uniquely tied to this awesome continent that has been, and remains my home. Africa.

A continent blessed with riches untold… the universe has been kind. Take Zambia for example, a country endowed with riches untold, waterfalls! Fresh Water Rivers and masses of mineral deposits! Was the lord not kind? We are blessed with such excesses but greed and selfishness continue to get the better of us that we don’t know when to say no!

I am a part of the African spirit, at our core, we are a people so generous that we give everyone a chance, foreigners, aliens, those different from us in appearance and those that have different religious creeds – we give, all of them, a chance this, because of our inherent humanness. We welcome them all, we feed them, we clothe them, and we give them a voice, a home and yet…

I can not even begin to imagine how bewildered my great grand mother had been when she first saw the white man in her back yard; she must have been frightened out of her wits! But of course, because we are a continent that expects miracles, we looked to anything that we don’t understand and termed it a gift from the gods. I imagine this white man would have asked for water and she, obligingly would have rushed into the house to fetch her husband who too would have been helpless before this pale creature with opaque eyes. An alien, they would have assumed, a god – maybe?

They would have taken in this stranger, my grandparents and their people – fed him, clothed him and given him a place to lie down. And as per African tradition, this stranger would have been given a place of honour at the fireside and he with his interpreter would have told a fine story about that place yonder where he came from, where queens and kings dined on crystal and fine China, where men and women danced to the waltz, that unimaginable place that they too could live and reach.

I imagine, how there eyes would have widened in awe as this stranger spoke of things beyond their imagination… Little would have been said about the poverty and squalor. The rats. The disease, the Black Death.

I imagine my grandmother’s eyes popping out as he told his exaggerated tale of a life beyond the mountains, a life that no African could fathom. He would have showed her a mirror, this fascinating device that spoke right back to her and she, enthralled would have dedicated her life to this god creature, which could show her the future. His compass would have been another tool that he could have used to tell north from south but to my grandmother, it was this god that could do all this and more…

Slowly, he would have started to take centre stage as the entire village begun to gravitate towards him, his advice to the court – the chief and his indunas indispensible. He showed them how to hunt Impala quicker with this arm that spat fire, fire from the gods they mused. He promised that they too could have that skill if only his friends came.

The majority of the villagers marvelled at that ever so wonderful possibility but alas! Some sceptics, the villager seer, the rainmakers – the warned of a terrible time, fury from the gods if these strangers were allowed to live among them, they foretold a terrible period of anguish and blood shed but they were pushed aside, scathed, scorned and imprisoned. The will of the people prevailed. Allow the white gods into our territory. They were excited at the future
I can imagine the shock on the villagers’ faces more so my grandmother when they were awakened by strange noises, whinnying from these creatures that the go heads rode. These creatures were like nothing they had ever seen before. They had long legs and teeth the size of a crocodiles… They kicked at the wind and they seemed angry. They appeared as angry and stern as the creatures that rode them.

She searched for the face of her benevolent Muzungu for reassurance but he had changed. His once smiling opaque eyes now had a far fetched look; they scanned past her and showed neither emotion nor recognition.

In panic, she searched the crowd for her stout husband and was disturbed when she caught his eye, to find that he had tears in his eyes. She quickly stumbled to where he stood and asked him what had happened, with a wan smile he told her that they had been ordered to leave their fertile lands by the pale strangers and that the chief had been taken captive.

Leave their lands and go where? She asked in shock. Yes, he said, leave everything they owned and move to the valley. What about our temple? Our Mulungu? On that, he said dejectedly, that has been burned….

No! She wailed. No…

Fifty years later, my great grand mother, old and frail with a faded look in her eye tells this story to my mother, the story from the time before the white man, the story from when they used to worship seasonal gods, the story of how it used to be, the story before the famines, the story before the back breaking taxation, the story from when the gods walked Africa and her children ran wild and free. My story.

Today, Africa stands on record as the continent with the world’s least developed nations, a continent known for its violence as much as disease and poverty. A continent known for its current nauseating levels of corruption and greed, a continent that Marcus Garvey, Kwame Nkrumah; Julius Nyerere would be ashamed of.

An unfortunate time in history that Nelson Mandela and Kenneth Kaunda have had the misfortune to witness, a continent that Nobel Laureate Desmond Tutu still refers to, as my Africa. A continent with some of the world’s largest mineral deposits that hardly benefit its masses, a continent portrayed as hell on earth. But there’s still that other side of Africa that the media and the west have failed to portray, a place where kindness, love and purity still abide.
My grand mother, like her mother before her refused to convert to Christianity, for a long time! And when she finally did, she chose CMML, a more ethnic wing of Christianity and refused to adopt the catholic doctrine that was predominant in her time. She refused to worship with the White Fathers who had built a church h a few metres from her home but would trek for hours on end to get to the CMML congregation.

My mother on the other hand, a much more modern version and a product of the catholic education system, chose to worship with them instead and my grandmother respected her choices. I have a vivid memory going back to as far as three when we went to my grand mother’s church, they was singing and dancing and for a three year old, I think I had a great time there than at my usual church were they (respectfully) asked me to kneel a 100 times! Power and control issues I imagine.

This experience made such a great impression on me and to date I still carry in my heart the one Swahili song that my siblings and I kept singing over and over afterwards. Little did I know then, how this incident would affect my faith decisions in future…

On Feeling Stuck...

I just had a conversation with a friend, every time I say goodbye my heart aches. Each time I say hello my eyes sting. What is it about life that makes you want to laugh and cry at the same time? What is it about time that makes you feel so small? So insignificant?

I look up and all I see is a void, a deep dark void that my eyes or my mind's eye can not escape?

If I was feeling rather morbid last week, today I am suicidal, only I do not have the courage to push all my karmic debts to the next life... so I will sit it out and wait, wait on life to bring me the lessons, wait for my soul to teach me how to handle my lessons, forgiveness, expectations, letting go and sorrow.

I feel stuck, I am weepy, I feel useless and hopeless... I don't know where to begin to fix my life. Although I had hoped to change things by now, I have failed dismally. Each time I rest my head on my pillow to sleep, the tears from my dreams awaken me and I get up with the haunted feeling of darkness, what am I to do?

The feelings that haunt me include the question of existence, questions of love, mistakes, choices, joy and sorrow... What is my life worth? What accomplishments have I made? I have a blind spot so huge that it blocks any light that is headed my way.

I am stuck in this moment, stuck on nothingness, stuck on goodbye, stuck on hello. I am immobilised by that surreal and nonexistent emotion - fear.

Today, my day sucks, nothing is able to cheer me up and it seems like I am slowly fading into a deep dark depression that threatens my entire existence. What is life worth? How do I get unstuck?

I am tormented by dreams, by angels who laugh in my face. I have idolised humanity and it feels like I am now learning a lesson on just how human I am. Mortality, how awesome your face.

If I were to live again, my choices would be no different, I guess I'd walk the same path albeit more carefully...

On Goodbye...

I am saying goodbye to life as I knew it, goodbye to a memory. Its been a long and winding road and finally, I branch off onto a side road.

A road without a named destination, a road with infinite possibilities... a couple of days ago, I would have termed my transition as a leap of faith but alas! Faith, your face has blurred in my confusion and I ask, what is the meaning of faithfulness? I now wrestle with the question of faith.

Just what does it mean to be content with what we have? To finally say, I have arrived. Is this state ever possible, can a human being ever attain that state? Well, that state seems to have eluded me to this point.I have been looking for love and fulfilment in the right and wrong places and I guess, its time to move on...

I am not alright, I'd lie if I said so, my heart weeps for me and my tears cleanse my soul, life as I knew it fades like ice cream on a hot pan taking on a different form, liquid that could fit into any container. I wish, I wish, I wish... I wish I could mould this nothingness into something...

Someone once said to me that the world is constantly changing and life is dynamic, people in your life should be split into two portions, those who care about you and those who just don't give a fuck. We spend our lives chasing the people who don't really care about us and in the evenings of our lives, we realise that they really weren't worth it... why do we spend major time on minor people? I guess sometimes you can not help but hope.

I am done wrestling the past and the possibility of what if?

What if I am wrong? What if this person changes? What if they really love me, really care?
Well, this time I have decided not to stick around long enough to prove otherwise. I guess if you give something your best shot, its alright to let go, its OK to hang up your gloves, you tried.

Indeed, its goodbye to an impossible dream.

I guess I don't need someone to come knocking on my door and tell me what I already know, that only you can love you. Only you can take care of you. And its about time I did that, I am flailing but am getting there, step by step...

I have said goodbye with tears in my soul and unlike Brandy, I am not stepping out into a finally or a wow, like Juliet, I will just stick it out and wait. Wait and see how this scene plays out, wait and see how my heart heals. Wait on my soul. After all, how little we humans know... how futile our plans... how small our dreams...

I feel dark and morbid, and right now there's not much love in my being, there's not much hope in my heart and the faith in my step fails me... But if tomorrow comes, I have a chance at this. A chance at hope, a chance at faith, a chance at love, a chance at life.

Goodbye yesterday, goodbye fear, goodbye memories...