We say ‘No’ to such aid

For a long time now, food aid has been appearing in bold print on the Westerners’ strategic plan to make Africa pay tribute to the Western rites. As such, food aid is largely considered a blunt instrument of combating poverty and a “failed tool of human development”.

As a means to eradicating poverty, it has proven to be palliative – treating the symptoms and not the cause thereby perpetuating servitude and a dependence syndrome.
The celebrations have offered the opportunity to take a closer look at this contentious issue and evaluates to what extent it has been used as a strategic and not humanitarian tool to adulterate African culture, and dragoon developing countries into political subjugation.

A gift horse should not be looked in the mouth but some African countries have had to bite the bullet and resist Western attempts to hold them at ransom by threatening to cut foreign aid if they refuse to embrace Western demands, among them homosexuality.

During the Zimbabwean constitution- making period, issues of human rights have taken centre stage and homosexuality, a hot potato in this sphere, has occupied public discourses for a long time coming.

Cultural conservationists and social analysts in Africa see this development as a concealed tool of subverting and profaning African culture at the same time propagating and engendering Western cultural products and ideals. Why?

Homosexuality is largely viewed as alien although some anthropologists and historians have argued that the practice had long existed in Africa but changed its social meaning with the coming of colonialists. It does sound like a tale of a mission the West is not willing to relinquish and would want to promote at all costs. But how is this being accomplished?

Foreign aid has both promoted and retarded development in Africa. Social analysts have mixed feelings on the relevance of aid to development in Africa.
“Foreign aid has both positive and negative impacts on the development of Africa. On a positive note aid improves people’s lives. On the other hand, it destroys Africans creativity,” says Dr Watch Ruparanganda, the chairperson of the Sociology Department at the University of Zimbabwe.

Dr Tapiwa Kamuruko, a social scientist with the United Nations and an expert in development and good governance, also added that foreign aid has had a negative impact on sub-Saharan African countries as most donors have used it to create employment for their own people at the expense of the indigenous people.

“Britain’s foreign aid mounts to US$12 billion annually and most of the beneficiaries are developing countries in particular Africa. However, despite their ‘philanthropic’ gestures, events on the ground show that they are masquerading since the aid has strings attached. For aid to be considered helpful and life changing it has to be physical,” said Dr Kamuruko.

Britain, European Union and the United States of America are among the many countries spreading the gospel of homosexuality globally. The rant about human rights has been given a new interpretation – the peddlers of homosexuality sing democracy as the tune to justify their actions which in some instances have disregarded the cultural values of developing countries while portraying their efforts as saintly.

“In the USA, not all states have accepted homosexuality while in Rome and Paris some people demonstrated against homosexuality. It is more of a political issue than humanitarian,” says Dr Ruparanganda.

US President Barrack Obama, just like his predecessor George W. Bush, has vowed that his administration will use its diplomatic machinery, including aid, to promote equal rights for lesbians, gays, bisexual and trans-gender globally.

Because of his stance, groups associated with homosexuality allegedly and no wonder in the recent re-election, this group of people voted him into power again.
The US pledges at least US$3 million to civil society organisations working on gay rights.

In October 2011, British Prime Minister David Cameron threatened to cut foreign aid to Malawi by US$30,6 million after the then president Bingu wa Mutharika’s government sentenced a gay couple to 14 years of hard labour in prison. Prior to that, the former Nyasaland had received a total of 200 million over a period of three years.

The British prime minister, who was once described by British writer Will Hutton as a “decent man but saturated with prejudices” has extended his threat to Uganda, where gays and lesbians have suffered stigmatisation and have been killed because of their sexuality.

Can homosexuality be embraced by Africans when Britons find it distasteful and loathe it? Is Cameroon a hypocrite or a political gambler?
Ironically, Kenya’s Daily Nation of February 4, 2013 reported that Cameron’s obsession over same-sex marriage is now the subject of division in his Conservative Party following the adoption of 400 votes to 175 with overwhelming support from Labour and the Liberals. A total of 136 Conservatives voted against the controversial move, with just 127 backing it.

The newspaper alleged that members of the Conservative Party wrote to Cameron warning him of his move to endorse same sex marriages.
“ . . . more than 20 current and former constituency chairmen delivered a letter to Cameron’s Downing Street office urging him to delay any parliamentary decision on gay marriage until after the next election. The letter warned there would be ‘significant damage to the Conservative Party in the run-up to the 2015 election’ if the plans went ahead . . .”

“A ComRes poll of just over 2 000 people who voted Conservative at the last general election found that 20 percent agreed that they “would have considered voting Conservative at the next election but will definitely not if the coalition government legalises same-sex marriage, the Daily Mail reported.

The survey published in the Daily Telegraph during the same period also found that 62 percent of voters overall thought Cameron’s chief motivation was trying to make the Conservatives seem “trendy and modern”.

In 2009, Uganda lawmaker David Bahati introduced a Bill which carried a death penalty for “offence of homosexuality”, which is currently being debated in Parliament.
But this Bill failed and its failure was seen as a clear indication of power relations where poor nations due to fear of losing millions of donor funds, tend to dance according to the wishes of those who pay piper.

“Americans are strong and seek to promote their ideology and that’s why they come with a package of human rights to perpetuate their interests,” said Dr Ruparanganda.
The effects of refusing to tow the line are clearly reflected in Uganda’s model of aid rationing. According to a BBC report on January 9, the University of Buckingham suspended accreditation for courses from Victoria University in Uganda as a way of retaliating to Uganda’s legislation which is against homosexuality, arguing that it constraints freedom of speech.

Out of 54 countries in Africa, homosexuality is outlawed in 38 countries and considered legal in 13 nations including Madagascar, Congo, South Africa, Central Africa Republic, Cape Verde, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Mali, Burundi, Cote d’ivoire and Rwanda.

However, Zimbabweans are celebrating the new constitution that is meant to consolidate the gains of the liberation struggle. The constitution not influenced by external forces, the supreme law that outlawed homosexuality at the expense of the much despised Western aid.