Jus’ like a waving flag: (of) Ghana!

Dis’ werd on the ground: [is] doing the best we can to provide (revolutionary) pan-afrikan media coverage of the world cup.

So we celebrate Ghana’s Black stars victory not jus’ over Serbia, but in the struggle for afrikan liberation, manifest/ing in the past moons en years (en long ago), symbolised [most significantly for dis’ series on the q/t werd] in other historic events

[such as:- A.L (Afrikan Liberation) D-ay]

http://www.voiceofafricaradio.com/news/351-the-history-of-african-liberation-day.html

So, it’s only fitting that, in honour and memory of our great ancestors, we commemorate this post to the anniversary of the death of Walter Rodney,  a(nother Pan-Afrikan) King.

http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/65084

I give thanks for yesterday, today, and tomorrow, for bredrin and dadas in solidarity, for all the love and resources shared amongst ourselves, and all people liberating not only themselves, but others.

I pray for my families, friends and their families…….Bless our brothas and dadas, cooks, healers, mamas, peacemakers, our children, the future generations and (gran) mama earth. Ase. Ase…….

The q[/t] werd on the ground is doing it true true world cup style….working for unity everywhere from from Ayiti to Zimbabwe,[like in this hadithi] where we give thanks for the fiya, earth, air en wota this time! Mo’ blessings to people (practising and) speaking truth to power!

Hinche, Haiti-

An estimated 10,000 peasants gathered for a massive march in Central Haiti on June 4, 2010, to protest what has been described as “the next earthquake for Haiti” – a donation of 475 tons of hybrid corn seeds and vegetable seeds by the US-based agribusiness giant Monsanto, in partnership with USAID. While this move comes at a time of dire need in Haiti, many feel it will undermine rather than bolster the country’s food security.

According to Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, leader of the Peasant Movement of Papaye (MPP) and spokesperson for the National Peasant Movement of the Congress of Papaye (MPNKP), the entry of Monsanto seeds into Haiti is “a very strong attack on small agriculture, on farmers, on biodiversity, on Creole seeds… and on what is left our environment in Haiti.”

While Monsanto is known for being among the world’s largest purveyors of genetically modified seeds, the corporation’s spokespeople have emphasized that this particular donation is of conventional hybrid seeds as opposed to GMO seeds. Yet for many of Haiti’s peasants, this distinction is of little comfort.

“The foundation for Haiti’s food sovereignty is the ability of peasants to save seeds from one growing season to the next. The hybrid crops that Monsanto is introducing do not produce seeds that can be saved for the next season, therefore peasants who use them would be forced to somehow buy more seeds each season,” explains Bazelais Jean-Baptiste, an agronomist from the MPP who is currently directing the “Seeds for Haiti” project in New York City.

“Furthermore, these seeds require expensive inputs of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides that Haiti’s farmers simply cannot afford. This creates a devastating level of dependency and is a complete departure from the reality of Haiti’s peasants. Haitian peasants already have locally adapted seeds that have been developed over generations. What we need is support for peasants to access the traditional seeds that are already available.”

Who is La Via Campesina?

We are the international movement of peasants, small- and medium-sized producers, landless, rural women, indigenous people, rural youth and agricultural workers.

We defend the values and the basic interests of our members. We are an autonomous, pluralist and multicultural movement, independent of any political, economic, or other type of affiliation. Our 148 members are from 69 countries from Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas.

 

on repatriation: Senegal offers land to Haitians

Senegal’s president says he will offer free land and “repatriation” to people affected by the earthquake in Haiti.

President Abdoulaye Wade said Haitians were sons and daughters of Africa since Haiti was founded by slaves, including some thought to be from Senegal.

“The president is offering voluntary repatriation to any Haitian that wants to return to their origin,” said Mr Wade’s spokesman, Mamadou Bemba Ndiaye.

Tuesday’s earthquake killed tens of thousands and left many more homeless.

AFRICA HAVE YOUR SAY Africa should contribute to our Haitian brothers and sisters. In our sometime dire situation, a significant number of Africans find some money to have a drink or buy credit for our mobile phones Lawrence Barchue, London

Buildings have been reduced to rubble, the distribution of aid is slow, and people have been flooding out of the devastated capital, Port-au-Prince.

“Senegal is ready to offer them parcels of land – even an entire region. It all depends on how many Haitians come,” Mr Bemba Ndiaye said.

“If it’s just a few individuals, then we will likely offer them housing or small pieces of land. If they come en masse we are ready to give them a region.”

The spokesman emphasised that if a region was given, it would be in a fertile part of the country rather than in its parched deserts, the Associated Press news agency reported.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/8463921.stm

 

After over 2 months, the NY times finally reports…..big tings a gwaan!

KAMPALA, Uganda — Last March, three American evangelical Christians, whose teachings about “curing” homosexuals have been widely discredited in the United States, arrived here in Uganda’s capital to give a series of talks.

Marc Hofer for The New York Times

Nikki Mawanda, 27, who was born female but lives as a “trans-man” in Uganda, described abuse by the police and others

Daniel, Washington

The theme of the event, according to Stephen Langa, its Ugandan organizer, was “the gay agenda — that whole hidden and dark agenda” — and the threat homosexuals posed to Bible-based values and the traditional African family.

For three days, according to participants and audio recordings, thousands of Ugandans, including police officers, teachers and national politicians, listened raptly to the Americans, who were presented as experts on homosexuality. The visitors discussed how to make gay people straight, how gay men often sodomized teenage boys and how “the gay movement is an evil institution” whose goal is “to defeat the marriage-based society and replace it with a culture of sexual promiscuity.”

Now the three Americans are finding themselves on the defensive, saying they had no intention of helping stoke the kind of anger that could lead to what came next: a bill to impose a death sentence for homosexual behavior.

One month after the conference, a previously unknown Ugandan politician, who boasts of having evangelical friends in the American government, introduced the Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009, which threatens to hang homosexuals, and, as a result, has put Uganda on a collision course with Western nations.

Donor countries, including the United States, are demanding that Uganda’s government drop the proposed law, saying it violates human rights, though Uganda’s minister of ethics and integrity (who previously tried to ban miniskirts) recently said, “Homosexuals can forget about human rights.”

The Ugandan government, facing the prospect of losing millions in foreign aid, is now indicating that it will back down, slightly, and change the death penalty provision to life in prison for some homosexuals. But the battle is far from over.

Instead, Uganda seems to have become a far-flung front line in the American culture wars, with American groups on both sides, the Christian right and gay activists, pouring in support and money as they get involved in the broader debate over homosexuality in Africa.

“It’s a fight for their lives,” said Mai Kiang, a director at the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, a New York-based group that has channeled nearly $75,000 to Ugandan gay rights activists and expects that amount to grow.

The three Americans who spoke at the conference — Scott Lively, a missionary who has written several books against homosexuality, including “7 Steps to Recruit-Proof Your Child”; Caleb Lee Brundidge, a self-described former gay man who leads “healing seminars”; and Don Schmierer, a board member of Exodus International, whose mission is “mobilizing the body of Christ to minister grace and truth to a world impacted by homosexuality” — are now trying to distance themselves from the bill.

“I feel duped,” Mr. Schmierer said, arguing that he had been invited to speak on “parenting skills” for families with gay children. He acknowledged telling audiences how homosexuals could be converted into heterosexuals, but he said he had no idea some Ugandans were contemplating the death penalty for homosexuality.

“That’s horrible, absolutely horrible,” he said. “Some of the nicest people I have ever met are gay people.”

Mr. Lively and Mr. Brundidge have made similar remarks in interviews or statements issued by their organizations. But the Ugandan organizers of the conference admit helping draft the bill, and Mr. Lively has acknowledged meeting with Ugandan lawmakers to discuss it. He even wrote on his blog in March that someone had likened their campaign to “a nuclear bomb against the gay agenda in Uganda.” Later, when confronted with criticism, Mr. Lively said he was very disappointed that the legislation was so harsh.

Human rights advocates in Uganda say the visit by the three Americans helped set in motion what could be a very dangerous cycle. Gay Ugandans already describe a world of beatings, blackmail, death threats like “Die Sodomite!” scrawled on their homes, constant harassment and even so-called correctional rape.

“Now we really have to go undercover,” said Stosh Mugisha, a gay rights activist who said she was pinned down in a guava orchard and raped by a farmhand who wanted to cure her of her attraction to girls. She said that she was impregnated and infected with H.I.V., but that her grandmother’s reaction was simply, “ ‘You are too stubborn.’ ”

Despite such attacks, many gay men and lesbians here said things had been getting better for them before the bill, at least enough to hold news conferences and publicly advocate for their rights. Now they worry that the bill could encourage lynchings. Already, mobs beat people to death for infractions as minor as stealing shoes.

“What these people have done is set the fire they can’t quench,” said the Rev. Kapya Kaoma, a Zambian who went undercover for six months to chronicle the relationship between the African anti-homosexual movement and American evangelicals.

Mr. Kaoma was at the conference and said that the three Americans “underestimated the homophobia in Uganda” and “what it means to Africans when you speak about a certain group trying to destroy their children and their families.”

“When you speak like that,” he said, “Africans will fight to the death.”

Uganda is an exceptionally lush, mostly rural country where conservative Christian groups wield enormous influence. This is, after all, the land of proposed virginity scholarships, songs about Jesus playing in the airport, “Uganda is Blessed” bumper stickers on Parliament office doors and a suggestion by the president’s wife that a virginity census could be a way to fight AIDS.

During the Bush administration, American officials praised Uganda’s family-values policies and steered millions of dollars into abstinence programs.

Uganda has also become a magnet for American evangelical groups. Some of the best known Christian personalities have recently passed through here, often bringing with them anti-homosexuality messages, including the Rev. Rick Warren, who visited in 2008 and has compared homosexuality to pedophilia. (Mr. Warren recently condemned the anti-homosexuality bill, seeking to correct what he called “lies and errors and false reports” that he played a role in it.)

Many Africans view homosexuality as an immoral Western import, and the continent is full of harsh homophobic laws. In northern Nigeria, gay men can face death by stoning. Beyond Africa, a handful of Muslim countries, like Iran and Yemen, also have the death penalty for homosexuals. But many Ugandans said they thought that was going too far. A few even spoke out in support of gay people.

“I can defend them,” said Haj Medih, a Muslim taxi driver with many homosexual customers. “But I fear the what? The police, the government. They can arrest you and put you in the safe house, and for me, I don’t have any lawyer who can help me.”

 

Demonstrators carried banners denouncing homosexuality in December in Kampala, Uganda.

Marc Hofer for The New York Times

Marc Hofer for The New York Times

Stosh Mugisha is going through a transition to become a man.

Readers’ Comments

“I don’t think any of them were duped by those in Uganda. When you preach a gospel of hatred do you expect love to blossom?”

 

(it’s NOT a) SECRET! party

mark  Nov 21.

en come to (our PROTEST/BAHATI) party,

deep in downtown tdot.

 

 EN join us on DEC 18

( when the GALCK  resource centre officially celebrates it’s 2nd birthday). 

in our  BIG LOVE  party,

 in solidarity with queer/trans activists & communities in East Afrika.

 

watch the streets, FACEBOOK,  en this blog, for more details.

 

S.i.S(tas) are organising a series of revolushunary fundraisers,

we warn you, we have (not) only jus begun……

 

 we’re  mobilising the resources necessary to serve the needs of queer & trans communities in Kenya & Uganda.

  

this revolushun will not be televised, en we will document it!

we’ll be shooting the party scenes for 2 upcoming documentaries.

R.A.H.P &

THE Q WERD (season 2)

 

 we need your bodies, minds en spirited selves. 

we need extras en artists,

we want poets, storytellers &  freedom singers.

we hope for at least a couple of comedians.

and we want to share OUR  stories,

en work on our unity!

 

we want U people.

 

we’ll have a silent auction.  on NOV 21

(photocopied) photographs & art work.

 

 consider this (not-so) UNDERGROUND  party,

                                                                                                         a gift exchange network!

                                                                                                       tis’ the season to be giving

                                                                                                                                    🙂

 why?     because….

the most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love

and to let it come in……

 

dis revolushun is (a)LIVE!

here’s a(nother) juicy preview of the shows…..

matador!

will all real drag kings (en queens) please stand up?!!!

UNDER GROUND: Coupe Decale – Gwada

 

we want U people!

 

Dear (parliament of) Uganda

I’LL STOP FUCKING SISTAS WHEN YOU STOP SLEEPING WITH RIGHT WING “CHRISTIAN” FUNDAMENTALISTS!

 

to the rest of the world.

did you hear the latest?

the bomb that went off at that mosque, in Pakistan earlier this morning?

 

en a couple of days ago… that anti homosexuality bill, the one that was coming for many moons now,

 that got tabled in the parliament of Uganda, on Wednesday October 14^th.  Have you heard about Bill 18?

 

we’d like to get your feedback.

I uploaded the bill onto the a is for pages….read it (again)

 

and no! spammers, or anyone confused by the brashness and vulgarity….this post does not depict (live) sex acts or images.

 

(although I wish it did, I would really rather be watching good porn than writing about how my sistren and bredrin have had a witch hunt called on them, this persecution is not new. but it’s enough of it already. time’s up! as another warrior sista said)

 

Wathint abafazi!
Wathint` imbokodo uzo kufa!

 

read the lines of the bill, and, then read between the lines. Who wrote those words? What is the context? what are the real issues at play?

Feefifofum, wethinks we smell a U.S fundamentalist Christian. They are after all one of the most likely suspects.

We propose that Family Life Network issues an official retraction to Obama en the people of Uganda, because they are the ones that have paid for this bill. these are their ideologies. take your “foreign”-ness, en we don’t want your money.

it is  YOU PEOPLE,  who are the PROBLEM.

Do you remember that anti-gay conference from March 5-8 that they organised? do you remember all that backlash, en the subsequent arrests and death(s)? Do you remember George/ina? and do you remember when Burundi introduced similar laws? It was jus’ a few moons ago……..google it…we propose a class action suit by all queers & trannies in the States against the Family Life Network. they are the ones that masterminded this bill. that is their brand of christianity.

George/ina was not just a harbinger of the heightened backlash to queer/trans organising, but a symptom en consequence of the unsupportive climate for queer/trans rights. Google the stories. There are many more incidents we can share with you…..

 about the assaults en murders of queer & trans people in East Afrika. unfortunately, many of those very people who’ve been abused are also, often, too scared of the backlash, to advocate for our full human rights. it’s a vicious cycle.

This time it’d be much worse, in my view this is the “white” ages, the Victorian & McCarthy era all rolled into one dali-esque nightmare of extreme wight wing ideologies. the logical extension of imperialist ideology.

 because, this time,  even activists will lose the precious few rights we have to advocate en organise for queer/trans rights.  This shit is for real……..

There will be more imposed silence. And the people who can, will run away.

En there’ll be many more who’ll stay…..en then what?

At some point we have to question how long we can sanction state sponsored homophobia. en we have to address the big elephant in the room. neo-colonialism…….

we propose that this is one of those times when the (divided) LEFT in Ifrica, and throughout the diaspora, should have a massive orgy. seriously! and we’ll refute the bill based on just one argument. that these laws are not our own. and those identities they explicate are not indigenous. we have the evidence. we have U people. and, most importantly, we have the TRUTH.

OUR bias should be made clear. i’m writing with the assumption that we’re organising in solidarity with the queer/trans activists and communities of Uganda. I would like to pretend that this is all a hoax. a really bad joke. but that’s the shit folks.

we ain’t gonna agonise too much though, been getting organised for a long time now…..soobax

en there’s many of us people…

and we’re not going to tolerate complacency en wilful ignorance, anymore…..

 

This post is in protest of Bill 18.

These views are (not)  my own.

these words are not supposed to be taken as endorsed by wordpress or any organisation in particular.

that should be a given.

 

but I warn you, there are many people behind these words.

(there are many sistas en brothas working on solidarity.

why jus’ yesterday a group of (mostly) sistas,  talked and organised in response to this very bill.

This post is jus’ a prelude to a sustained campaign….a check in, a call to arms)

 

Wathint abafazi!
Wathint` imbokodo uzo kufa!

that is what we have to say in response to your dividing and oppressive tactics

 we will not stand for this blatant violation of all our rights.

the bill has WESTERN. CONSTRUCTION. Emblazoned.

 

The arguments are imported.

paid for en sealed with the blood of our people.

 

the origins of those (very/specific)  laws you’re upholding are imperialist.

 

Infact the mama of these sodomy laws,

first tried out, (as a colonial/imperialist project) by the British in India,

jus got repealed a few days after it was official that Uganda was working on tabling this very bill.

Thursday July 2nd.

 

that’s a fact.

 

dear bahati,

your weak arguments wouldn’t hold up in any (true) court of law.

your claims are bogus.

your intentions are dubious.

and that private members bill is

again, in full violation of  (global) human rights,

en, of our rights as Afrikan ctizens.

 

it’s simple as that.

 

we’re just ordinary people, and you’re using all a dis “foreign” terms to describe us.

 

homosexual? yes, i know many. but i’m not one. i still want the right to promote OUR rights.

lesbian? not for me anymore. but I don’t want you to tell people to (curative) rape en murder my sistas.

bisexual?  that’s SOOO GAY!

 

get over the binaries already. I am (much more than) a  wo/m/yn.

i prefer two spirited. or try mukhanatun, khanith or sangoma.

to each one their own, and we’re  adamant about all our rights in this “rainbow soup” of identities.

 

and bahati, while you’re on that pot of poison you’re cooking for  LGB,  let us also introduce you to T & I…

I know you don’t much like their transgressions either, let’s burn en kill us all

because..tell us bahati, who told you all these facts about US? who told you so?

 

we don’t need another stonewall. leave that to “a people’s hirstory of the U.S”

what we need is to stop being exploited in this fight for power.

 

we need to reclaim our (indigenous) afrikan identities. need to know our true cultures.

because we are INDIGENus. and this ‘ting we do’ is not new.

 

it is also true that we need allies.

we need you (en I).

we’re recruiting…(sistas in solidarity, en, brothas in solidarity, protesting this anti-homosexuality bill on the grounds of afrikan liberation.)

 

big brother.

Obama..

you jus’  waxed poetically political about LGBT  rights at the fundraiser gala dinner hosted by the Human Rights Campaign.

Saturday October 11.

that’s a fact. 

 

dear obama, i throw you the challenge. pay attention.

we are U people.

 

you know…..Kogello is historically connected with Uganda. all us Afrikans are.

you should do something more about your apparent support for queer/trans rights.

 

here’s something else to add on to your list……publicly denounce Bill 18! and demand an apology from Family Life Network.

we’re taking them to task in their meddling and corruption of our affairs.

we want them banned from Uganda.

 

here, some thing else for you add to that list, another chance

to actually do something (more) to deserve that prize.

 

this one won’t even take that much.

en it’s your country’s mess too. it is  OUR  problem.

 as it’s American citizens who were involved in organising that anti-gay conference in March, actually they were instrumental in it’s convening. It’s public knowledge.

you need to speak truth to power. and actually do something about some of your promises. but we ain’t gonna hold our breath.

 

En  we’re not going to wait for our sistren en bredrin to die in response.

And  we really don’t want to be fighting you. 

our fight is not (just) with our people, it is with all oppressors.

 

In our opinion, in this, as with many other, matter/s, QPOC must unite.

 

Afrika must unite!

 

For you see we got our enemies confused, en we’re distracted en scattered.

that’s all we’re saying.

 

But wait, there’s the hope to express (still)

we wish parliament instead would table a bill on criminalising capitalism and neo colonialism with such conviction and ease.

know thy self. en know thine enemy.

WE are (not) the problem.

 

This post is in solidarity with the peoples of Uganda, in solidarity with queer/trans Afrikans everywhere.

 

This post is the logical response to a neo-colonial regime that takes on western constructions of homophobia in the persecution of it’s own people.

 

IT’S BEEN SAID BEFORE,

en it’s worth repeating….

(it’s important to speak truth. to power)

 

we  will be the one of the first to agree that…. 

these identities, homosexual, lesbian, bisexual, sodomite, transsexual, transgender….those are all just (considered) english words, birthed in particular contexts.

lesbian is just another word for  that island of lesbos. the poet sappho.

en, queer, is just reclaimed language. transformed through time with imperialism, globalisation en resistance.

 those are terms we’ve used to describe ourselves, and that have been thrust upon us

 

All identities carry political meaning. They are provisional.

And they’re being used in deadly ways in this bill.

 

Read through all the words, and you got (say it with us now),

 the western construction of homophobia.

that’s the (bigger) point and we’re sticking with it.

 

It’s illogical, to use the (very) western constructs that shape your understanding  of the abominations and perversions inherent in “homosexuality”,  to uphold the official insistence that WE are alien to our lands.

which is it? the foreign presumption of our need to be wiped out from existence, or our (apparent) non-existence in continental afrikan discourse? (en the intense modern need to therefore safeguard the peace of “straight” people. your position, dear bahati, is ultimately contradictory. and that is also a fact.

we know this.  I/we exist. en therefore….

I/we know many others who do too….

 

and we know that, to put it concisely, this  bill is  nothing more than bull shit.

We are working on zero tolerance for such corruption, lies, en blatant exploitation of our precious resources.

 

I/we can say that, because I/we are not in Uganda.

And I/we are  saying it, as queer/trans Afrikan activists, and  QPOC IN SOLIDARITY.

because I/WE are worried about the consequences for comrades en family of ours.

those in kampala and throughout Uganda.

 

because that is ME, that you are targeting.

 but it’s not, because I was one of those who ran away.

I had to….for my own safety, survival and wellbeing.

 

This protest is personal as our lives and work. 

we’re worried about the ripple effect for queer/trans Afrikans on the continent.

in the diaspora(s)…

 

 we are organising ourselves,

in the spirit of working on our own unity first.

 

 because if we don’t take up this fight,

who will?

 

so I’ll  pass some ideas that sistas gave me yesterday..there are many things we can do…

learn more about the situation. Talk about it with others. Talk to your mp. Write to Harper. Jack Layton. Michael Ignatieff. Get on radio. Write those op-eds on your blog, to theToronto Star, to Now…..do something more…

Roll those boycotts. Ban all Ugandan officials from travelling to Canada. And expedite the process for Ugandan refuges, if the worst happens. Get Egale to officially pay for all a dis, and have queer/trans afrikans in Canda lead the campaign. Work in solidarity with groups in Uganda.

(The official contacts in Uganda are SMUG &  Freedom & Roam Uganda. The numbers are in the previous post)

Start where you are.

en for our comrades en allies…stay tuned for the launch of the pan-afrikan (queer/trans) activist listserv.

 

We’ll continue building solidarity in more focused spaces. And we’ll work on sharing resources.

 Because it’s not just about this bill.

the bigger point is to re/build healthy, loving, sustaining and sustainable communities.

Afrika Huru!

 

It’s not a secret. Spread the word. We’re recruiting.

We’re working on our own petitions, and we’re planning ahead…

 

We’re  

SISTAS.in.SOLIDARITY.

(another name for the working group) 

with Uganda. and all (u) afrikan people