Rant about Human Zoos and Yoga Enthusiasts

I am currently reading an excellent, yet profoundly depressing, history book called The Kaiser's Holocaust.* I was reading with wonder the description of the European justifications for colonialism from divine superiority of the white people over other races to social Darwinism whereby the very ability of the Europeans to savagely annihilate peoples with their superior fire-power was seen as evidence of the unfitness of such peoples to survive and the justification of their destruction by stronger people, more fit to rule and populate the earth.

Then I came across a description of a phenomenon that startled me. It was not that “freak shows” and “human zoos” were in themselves new to me. We've all heard of the history of shows in European and American cities in the 19^th century where captured people were paraded, sometimes even in a fake setting of their “natural habitat”, for white city-dwellers to ogle at and wonder about their “exoticism”. But this time it created an association that pierced the moral superiority that I'd been feeling while reading.

I had recently watched a documentary called “Milking the Rhino”**, which “examines the relationship between the indigenous African wildlife, the villagers who live amongst this wildlife and conservationists who look to keep tourism dollars coming in.”*** Part of the movie is filmed at a Himba conservancy in the Marienfluss valley in Namibia. There is no denying the fact that the traditional Himba lifestyle will seem exotic to a Westener, even the modern, world-travelled generations.

One particular scene in this fascinating film had totally irked me. It was a discussion between a local conservationist and the owner (or manager) of an eco-tourism lodge that had been set up in the conservancy. The owner (a white woman, of course) was telling the conservationist that he should tell the locals not to whip out their merchandise as soon as they see the jeeps carrying the tourists arriving, but to act more normal, going about their daily business, and interact with the tourists first on a non-commercial basis. She was basically telling him (and the camera) that the white wealthy tourists were coming to ogle at the exotic Himba in their natural habitat, and they should behave like good zoo creatures and succumb to the gaze, rather than try to benefit from these strangers that invaded their village by offering souvenirs to sell to them.

The era of white people wanting to look not just at a lion but also a “Hottentot”**** in their zoos is not over. Now we are just illuminated enough to think that zoos are cruel and wealthy enough to be able to travel to see the lions as well as the Hottentots in Africa for ourselves.

I thought I recognised (and resisted) this tendency in the past. I have always condemned misery tourism to places like North Korea and I was disdainful of the tours that were organised in Windhoek to Katutura, the biggest township, considering them poverty porn. I knew this was not the way to do things, but was I so innocent myself? Are my own interactions with or attitudes towards different cultures any less racist?

It is hard to know what is acceptable these days. On the one hand misery tourism or treating tribespeople as zoo animals is obviously wrong. But on the other hand, we can't be too eagerly embracing other people's cultures either, or we get accused of cultural appropriation. I recently heard that accusation levelled at Western yoga enthusiasts.

I don't think just sticking to our own culture and shutting the doors can be the answer either – and I'm not just saying this as someone who loves her nachos, curry, pad thai, falafels and pizzas and shudders at the thought of a life without the offerings of world cuisine. Understanding others helps us get along, respect others and critically evaluate and sometimes improve our own way of doing things.

So my tentative conclusion is that the key has to be engagement, respect and understanding. I'm not sure I need to know the historical and culinary roots of my nachos in order to enjoy them (hell, I don't know the historical or culinary roots of most of Finnish food), but if I don't love the food for the taste of it or the music for the sound of it or the painting for the look of it – if it rather tastes or sounds or looks exotic to me – then I should investigate further, but in a careful way. I am reminded of the time we visited the hurly-burly of the massive meat market in Katutura in Windhoek and I was watching with a mixture of fascination and horror the way the butchers just hacked up entire animals there, in the open air market, cutting up pieces that were then tossed on the braai and sold to hungry people waiting. I may even have snapped a photo of the forlorn cow head dumped in the corner of the market for flies to feast upon. But I made zero effort to engage or understand why this was the way it was done and what the local people thought of it. I was just another tourists ogling at the exotic customs of the Namibians. Maybe I'll be a bit more aware next time.

*David Olusoga and Casper W. Erichsen, Faber & Faber, 2010.

**David E. Simpson, Kartemquin Films, 2009.

***https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milking_the_Rhino

****A very derogatory term that actually originally referred to the Nama people of Central/Southern Namibia, I have also just learnt.

The One You've Been Waiting for: Rant against Marriage (aka "How to Piss Off Most of Your Friends")

Many of you, my dear friends, are married. 

I am not. 

People in Namibia were hardly subtle about their view on this state of affairs.  A common comment from colleagues at the LAC, for example: “You’re not married”, looking at my hand and the glaring absence of the tell-tale ring.  “You must get married.  Soon.”

Now you’re thinking “sure, but Namibia is a banana republic, this is not how we civilized people think”. WRONG.  Here is, just as a taster,* the Supreme Court of Canada:

 

“[The] ultimate raison d’être [of marriage] is firmly anchored in the biological and social realities that heterosexual couples have the unique ability to procreate, that most children are the product of these relationships, and that they are generally cared for and nurtured by those who live in that relationship.  In this sense, marriage is by nature heterosexual.  It would be possible to legally define marriage to include homosexual couples, but this would not change the biological and social realities that underlie the traditional marriage.”**

Ah, the good old “traditional marriage”.  What the HELL is that?  The “traditional marriage” is about ownership of land and movable property, such as women.  Marriage was the social construct that permitted men to police the sexual conduct of women and in this way try to ensure that the son who would inherit the land was in fact the product of their loins.  

And WHEN did this lovely “traditional marriage” exist? Well, it was prescribed in the Marriage Act of Switzerland UNTIL 1988 that wives had a legal obligation to obey their husbands.***  Nice. 

 

So the marriage that most of you have entered into, and which is based legally nowadays on the equality of spouses but apparently still tied to popping babies (or at least the theoretical possibility of doing so), and therefore not available to homosexuals, is a fleeting concoction of a few decades.  Before then marriage was something quite different.  Some of this “traditional” stuff still remains.  How many of you ladies were “given away” by your fathers as part of the ceremony?  The symbolism of THAT particular gesture is hardly subtle.

 

When I make these points in discussion, everyone (married) gets defensive and tells me that all this is nonsense and meaningless to THEIR very special relationship, which they are entitled to define for themselves.  Sure, everyone is indeed entitled to define their relationship as they wish.  But they are not entitled to define their “marriage” as they wish.  You see, the society has made a huge deal of ensuring that homosexuals CANNOT define their very special relationship as a marriage.  So once a (hetero) couple has decided that “marriage” is the relationship they wish to have, they are plunging into a structure that is predefined by law and society.  “[T]he words ‘I do’ bring the most intense private and voluntary commitment into the most public, law-governed and state-regulated domain.”****

 

Until the institution of marriage changes, becomes truly equal and keeps its nose out of my procreative designs, the society can keep its stinking marriage.  I indeed define my own relationship (well, F has a bit of a say as well…), and “marriage” is a definition I want to steer well clear of.*****

 

Now PLEASE tell me you were provoked enough to leave some comments.  Rebel! Protest! Tell me that my views suck and you never want to hear them again!

 

 

*You REALLY don’t want to get me started on the comments that were made during the debates in the Finnish Parliament when the Marriage Equality Bill was being debated.  It is remarkable how unashamedly regressive supposedly modern people can get when they oppose the human rights of others, but just don’t want to say that this is what they are doing.

**Egan v. Canada, [1995] 2 S.C.R. 513, p. 536 (La Forest, J.).

***A good short introduction to the development of the law on marriage in Switzerland is provided in Baddeley “Le droit de la famille, un droit en constante evolution”, in Chappuis,Foëx and Thévenoz, Le législateur et le droit privé : Colloque en l'honneur du professeur Gilles Petitpierre. (Genève, Schulthess, 2006) pp. 39-56.  Amusing in a painful way.

****Minister of Home Affairs and Another v Fourie and Another (CCT 60/04) [2005] ZACC 19; 2006 (3) BCLR 355 (CC); 2006 (1) SA 524 (CC) (1 December 2005) (Sachs J).

 

*****Cue in smugness from friends from countries such as Canada (which changed its mind quite quickly after the Egan decision quoted above), France and the UK, where an equal marriage is of course already the reality.  I hereby raise an imaginary toast to C in Canada and T in England on their recent engagements to enter into an equal marriage!

Rant about the Pot of Gold at the End of the Rainbow

I keep coming back to this topic of LGBT* rights.  Maybe somebody will think “move on already”, but I am not apologising, since I think it is THE human rights question of our time.  There are other live issues in Europe, such as the rights of the Roma and immigrants, but that is more a question of recognising and giving effect to rights that exist on the legal level.  The rights of LGBT persons do not even yet exist in law in many countries.

There really seems to be a clear split in where the world is going, as I witnessed in Namibia.  Western countries (including much of South America) are slowly but surely moving towards recognition of equal rights.  Some need a bit of nudging, like Russia, which is trying to jump off the human rights bandwagon and climb aboard the homophobia train, but it will struggle.  There is very little doubt that the European Court of Human Rights will give them the slap they amply deserve for their “homosexual propaganda” law.  That is the price to pay for wanting to be part of European society, Mr Putin.

Some other countries, mostly those in Africa (South Africa excluded), or where the majority religion is Islam, are racing in the opposite direction.  They are tightening laws and, arguably more importantly law enforcement, against sexual minorities.  The discrimination is very real.  It is absolutely PC to spout homophobic crap in Namibia, usually coupled with thundering religious judgment.  The part about Jesus being on the side of the outcast and persecuted appears to be forgotten in the righteousness of the family being about multiplying and filling the earth.  We even had a few colleagues, working for a HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANISATION, who did not support equal rights for gays.  I mean, where do you begin in such circumstances?

I kept asking myself why this is.  There appear to be a few reasons.  The publisher of the Namibian, the country’s main newspaper, thought it was diversion.  Politicians always thought it was a good time to make homophobic statements whenever the heat was on the government for some alleged misdeed or other: “Look over there, a moffie, let’s all go and beat him up!”  You can also see why this would apply in places like Zimbabwe.  Very practical example of the technique satirized in the movie Wag the Dog.

The second reason appears to be relentless, and successful, hate campaigning by a few nutjob American preachers.  There is currently a case ongoing in Massachusetts against a certain Scott Lively brought by Sexual Minorities Uganda, and the facts in the Court’s Order permitting the claim to proceed make for pretty chilling reading.  Scott Lively is very proud of how he has managed to convince prominent Ugandans, including Parliamentarians, that homosexuals are behind just about all evil in the world and it is important that they be contained, if not exterminated.  He is the author of a historical book on the subject called Pink Swastika.  Go on, google it (I refuse to provide a direct link) and you will be amused and horrified in equal measures.  You will also see why Mr Lively well deserves the title of a “nutjob”.

This is perhaps the saddest part of the story.  Homosexuality is not the western import that evil tyrants like Robert Mugabe claim it to be, homophobia is.  It is not that countries like Namibia were previously totally accepting of homosexuality.  They just didn’t really care.  There was a lack of information on the part of both, the LGBT persons themselves, as well as the general public, about what it means to be “homosexual”, “bisexual” or “transgender”.  Nowadays LGBT persons are more self-aware, and consequently clamour for recognition of their right to be who they are more openly.  This in part, and the Scott Livelys of this world in part, lead to homosexuality being more understood, but not well enough understood to be accepted.  It is the classic case of the fear of the unknown, but peppered with a heavy dose of malicious misinformation.

So the fight is very important.  I must admit that F and I were quite disheartened at times in Namibia; we even ended up writing a newspaper op-ed to correct a blatant untruth stated publicly by a high-ranking public official in terms of what the law said about the rights of a certain group of sexual minorities (asylum seekers). 

Then we went to a sexual minorities party and it came at just the right time.  The atmosphere was fabulous, the music was great and the crowd was a true rainbow.  There was everyone from a glamorous drag queen via a butch lesbian to a couple of boring white heterosexuals whose movements you could barely call “dancing”.**  Everyone was accepted for who they were, nobody was aggressive or judgmental and the point was just to have a good time.  We had some drinks, we boogied and we met a few nice people.  What more could you ask from a party?  It was so amazing to see how these people, who face intolerance every day of their lives, were themselves so accepting and tolerant.  F said afterwards that it made him believe in our LGBT project again, as these were people whose rights were worth fighting for.  I think human rights belong to everyone, not just nice people, so I can’t subscribe to that statement, but I couldn’t help being uplifted by the very inspirational bunch of people.  There was definitely a pot of gold for me at the end of that rainbow party.

So I will keep ranting until the human rights of sexual and gender minorities are given full recognition, in Finland, Namibia and elsewhere.

You have been warned.

*I have recently discovered that LGBT is not quite the widely known acronym, like the UN, HIV or CIA, I assumed it to be.  Thus for the sake of clarity: LGBT stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (or Transsexual).  Sometimes you will see it also as LGBTI (“I” for Intersex) or LGBTIQ (“Q” for Queer).

**Us.

Rant about African Women Part 1 – Mama Africa

 

I ranted earlier about the western “exoticiation” of everything “black” and the consequent blindness (including my own) to differences within Africa.

 

One area where this has manifested itself very clearly is the creation of the stereotype of the “African woman”.  In the western collective imagination a woman from any part of Sub-Saharan Africa is one of two types.  She is either a physically and mentally imposing matriarch, the “Mama Africa”,* or an oversexualised semi-wild creature, who I will call the “Josephine Baker” for short. 

 

I will rant on this occasion about Mama Africa, and return later to Josephine Baker.

 

Based on my limited experience of spending in total just over half a year in two Sub-Saharan African countries, I would tentatively suggest that there is some truth to the Mama Africa stereotype.

 

Taking as a starting point the undeniable fact that due to structural sexism there are not many women who have managed to make their mark on the world stage to begin with, the European ones are likely to be somehow still soft and “feminine”, no matter how “tough” the job, situation or decision.  This is for example how Angela Merkel or Christine Lagarde come across.  Even Margaret Thatcher would fall into this category, as would Finland’s own Tarja Halonen.

 

This is not the image the impressive African women have.  They are more like Wangari Maathai, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Fatou Bensouda or Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.  It is hard to pinpoint the difference, but these women appear to have an aura that their northern counterparts lack.  It is not just because they are physically more imposing (partially undoubtedly due to their wardrobes – it takes bucketloads of charisma to pull those outfits off, and they always do), but you will have no trouble imagining them taking charge.  Of a situation, of a family, of a country.  European women have to battle much harder to achieve that appearance that instinctively invites confidence.

 

The other thing is that, on a continent many parts of which suffer from more sexism than most of Europe, it was easy to come up with several examples of such impressive women who have put their stamp on the world.  So with the same or lesser opportunities, African women seem to be better at achieving positions of power.

 

There has been no shortage of examples of Mama Africas here in Namibia.  I do not want to belittle the problems arising from sexism that this country is still facing (such as high levels of gender-based violence, traditional roles, lack of educational opportunities etc.), but you see powerful women everywhere.  They are on boards of companies and they run government ministries.  Admittedly I have also met women, like a young university student who told us that she hated studying and really just wanted to marry and become a housewife,** who do not fit the stereotype of Mama Africa, but there are enough Mama Africas (to varying degrees of course) for me to notice it.  The first among equals is Libertina Amathila, whose memoir I am currently reading.  She is an inspirational figure for Namibian as well as other ladies.

 

I have been racking my brain over the past few months to try to understand why this is.  I’d love to be able to export some of that back to Europe, as the sisterhood could and should learn from best practice everywhere.  I don’t want to make any facile and racist assumptions that these women have been molded by their difficult childhoods, since in most cases I know nothing of their childhoods, which may have been overwhelmed by privilege and love.  Probably they have been on very different journeys and would have different stories to tell.  But something about the way capable, bright African women are brought up, or educated, appears to create confident, all-imposing Mama Africas that rock the world.

 

 

*I hope nobody takes this as an offensive term, it is certainly intended with the utmost respect.  I got the idea for it recently when reading a book called Mama Namibia by Mari Serebrov.

**In a weird way this young lady exemplified a positive development from a feminist viewpoint.  It really should be for everyone to decide on their own dreams, and (a) this means that wanting to be a housewife is a permissible future plan, and (b) it is a plan that should be available to women in Windhoek just like it is in Geneva.

Rant about Spanking with Dignity

One of the most challenging aspects of NGO work is to learn to pick your battles: to know when to insist on a point and when to drop it; when to challenge the government and when to work with them.  We are witnessing these decisions being taken every day, and it is fascinating to see how and where the strategic priorities and battle lines are drawn. 

 

The Legal Assistance Centre (LAC) has been very involved in drafting Namibia’s comprehensive Child Care and Protection Bill, which is about to go to the Parliament.  It has been twenty years in the making, so the patience and perseverance of the people pushing for it is admirable. 

 

LAC is also involved (by way of providing research help and materials to the prosecutor*) in a case against teachers from a private school who, against the express prohibition of the parents, physically chastised a student.

 

Namibia has an unfortunate culture of violence, and it is hard to see whether the prevalence of corporal punishment of children is the cause or the consequence of it.  A colleague told me that he was speaking to a young teacher, who seemed to care for the children and her job, but who didn’t think twice about hitting the students.  According to her, it was the only way to maintain discipline. 

 

Namibian courts have recently decided that public officials, such as teachers in state schools, police and social workers are not permitted to use violence against children.  This prohibition against corporal punishment is now being written also into the law by the Child Care and Protection Bill.  But I was very surprised, when I first read the Bill, to find out that the Bill is NOT outlawing corporal punishment altogether.  Parents are still allowed to use violence against their children.

 

I raised this with our boss Dianne, who is not only the person most involved with the drafting of the Bill, but also extremely skilled at the very kind of strategic thinking I mentioned at the beginning of the rant. 

 

Dianne explained that it would have been futile, in the current political climate, to push for an outright ban on corporal punishment.  It would not have been accepted.  So instead the Bill does something quite clever. 

 

First, it specifies that corporal punishment of children must always respect the “dignity” of the child, as guaranteed by the Constitution.  It is hoped that not only will this significantly limit the type and severity of chastisement that can be meted out by parents, but with time the constitutional notion of “dignity” will evolve and at some point a court will find that ANY violence against a child infringes the child’s dignity. 

 

Secondly, the Bill obligates the Ministry of Gender Equality and Child Welfare to develop programs to teach parents about non-violent forms of discipline.  This is something LAC is already involved in: practical workshops to teach Namibians (teachers, social workers, police, nurses, nannies …) about alternatives to hitting children.  Namibians are not mean or evil people.  They spank their kids because that is the only thing they know how to do when kids misbehave.

 

So the Child Care and Protection Bill appears to provide (hopefully) an effective compromise between a progressive legal framework and practical effort to effect change on the ground.  If only I could also learn to find this kind of balance between idealism and realism …  Watching what the people at LAC do is, I find, a good start.

 

 

 

* Amici curiae (“friends of the court” – third party interveners in litigation) are not permitted in Namibia, something LAC is thinking of challenging before the courts in its own right.

Rant about Mud Huts and Witch Doctors

 

I have found myself surprised by Namibia on several fronts.  I have been surprised by how good the roads are.  I have been surprised by how barren the land is, and how there is little local fresh produce, most of it coming from South Africa in exactly the kind of excessive plastic wrapping we buy our fruit and veg in Europe.  I have been surprised by how forward-looking the people are, not holding grudges against their former colonial masters but excited about the prospects for their young country and confident that they will not repeat the mistakes of some of their neighbours.

 

 Why have I been surprised by these and many other things?

 

 Because they are different in Kenya.  Kenyan roads are on the whole dreadful.  Kenya is a lush and fertile country that grows amazing fruit and veg.  Kenyans are, I feel, held back by their bitterness towards the injustice they were subjected to during colonisation.

 

 Kenya is my only other experience of Sub-Saharan Africa.  So I had subconsciously assumed that Namibia would be like Kenya.  This is about as smart as assuming that one knows what Lithuania is like on the basis of having visited Spain.  In other words: pretty stupid.

 

 It made me wonder, though.  Is this a particular, slightly racist, problem we have with Africa, or is it a more general, human reaction?  Or is it just me?

 

 I am beginning to suspect that it is the first of these options.  “Black” (ie Sub-Saharan) Africa has held this special place in the imagination of westeners since the times of Dr Livingstone.  It is exotic and it is mysterious.  But it is all one.  We cannot tell one country from another, let alone one tribe from the hundreds of others that exist.  We assume that all Africans are Masai,* wear loin cloths, live in mud huts and consult their local witch doctor for their medical needs.  They can all run a marathon in two hours flat, in bare feet.  Development since the times of Dr Livingstone has been minimal – not in Africa, but in the mindsets of us westerners.

 

 I would have thought that I was a bit better than the average westener in this regard, but, alas, I was not.  Time for some self-reflection, I fear …

 

 

*Case on point: the tribe that Corinne Hofmann joined, and discussed in her Memoir The White Masai (Die weisse Massaï), was actually not the Masai at all, but the Samburu.  I suppose The White Samburu just wouldn’t have had the same ring to it.

Rant about Racist Christmas

It would be mildly put to say that we have “moved on” since my childhood on some of the most overt issues regarding racism.  I don’t know if you have similar examples from your countries, but at least in Finland we kids happily played a card game in which the loser was the one with “Black Pete” (Musta Pekka) in his hand when all the other (white) characters had been united in their families.  Black Pete had no family.  While we played this game we may have been munching on a weird sticky biscuit/candy concoction called “nigger kiss” (neekerinsuukko).  My favourite was the strawberry nigger kiss.

While I cringe writing down these examples, the crowning moment is thinking about the little snot-nosed me standing in the middle of the school yard and shouting “WHO’S AFRAID OF THE BLACK MAN?” while all the other kids run away from me (the black man) screaming.  Because that is of course what kids should do when they see a black man.

Honestly.  This all happened.  Not that long ago.

But at least kids in Finland no longer play “Black Pete” or “who’s afraid of the black man” or eat nigger kisses.

Which is why I was so unprepared to find to my embarrassment and horror that a Finnish Christmas tradition that in my mind clearly belongs in the same camp as the examples above was still going strong last year at least.  It is a little play and it is called “Tiernapojat” (a version of Star boys’ singing procession).  It features four boys (it is played by children of course) who act out the scene in which King Herod is told about the birth of Jesus.  One of the characters is called “Murjaanien Kuningas” (King of the Moors).  Not only does this character not do much else except kneel before King Herod (don’t ask me what this has to do with the birth of Baby Jesus, I have no idea), but he is played by a white kid with his face painted black.  Yeah, that’s right.  A white kid in blackface kneeling before another white kid.  This is how we celebrate Christmas in Finland.

Last year I saw on TV this play being put on at a school somewhere in Finland and I hit the roof.  I hit the roof so hard I immediately started ranting at my mum and dad who were in the room.  In addition, I was so agitated, and so unprepared for my parents’ reaction (=they thought this was a totally innocent Finnish Christmas tradition) that I can’t pretend to having made a particularly coherent argument.  I mostly just screamed at my parents, although they obviously had done nothing wrong.  After a while they got annoyed and started screaming back at me.  So it was all very merry at our little Christmas party!

I still can’t get over it, though.  Earlier this month I was obsessively scanning the Finnish media for signs of awakening to how racist this whole thing is.  Nothing.  Not a peep.  Instead, the main newspaper Helsingin Sanomat reported recently on the Dutch beginning to consider the racist implications of their Zwarte Piet tradition – and at no point did it cotton on to the reporter that maybe there were some parallels to be drawn with our own blackface tradition.  Oh, the irony.  At least the Dutch version brings presents as opposed to KNEELING before a little white dude!

Please somebody tell me that we’re not alone in this, that other countries have similarly embarrassing remnants of some racist crap from decades ago to which everyone continues to be blind...?!?

On a more positive note, I thankfully heard nothing about Tiernapojat around this Christmas, so ours was a lot more peaceful than last year.  I hope yours was too!