By Kilasa Mtambalike

THE last time the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting came to Africa it left a bad aftertaste in some mouths. There are those who now wish the Commonwealth Summit never came a knocking on their doorsteps. One traded places from a presidential mansion to a prison cell overnight.

The CHOGM experience that was hosted in Uganda is such bad news today that a teary former Vice President Prof Bukenya didn’t know what hit him when he was remanded in prison. He is facing charges in connection with the award of a contract to supply cars for the summit in the capital Kampala in 2007.

Other cabinet ministers have been charged along with Prof Bukenya. One cannot be sure if this is just a display of sorts to please Big Brother because he had threatened to cut aid or if these guys really deserved to bite the dust.

This year’s CHOGM was held in Perth, Australia and we don’t expect to hear any allegations and accusations of fraudulent dealings having taken place just when we are about to forget that the summit even took place. Some things only happen in Africa and the like.

Nothing unexpected came out of the gathering bar for the continuing struggle over reforming anti-gay laws. As a result, Britain has threatened countries that ban homosexuality with losing aid payments unless they reform. Big Brother at it again!

The British Prime Minister said he had raised the issue with leaders of some of the states involved when he attended the Commonwealth Summit in Australia. Britain was putting the pressure on, he said. What the heck is this guy thinking of?

Apparently, Mr Cameron doesn’t understand that some things don’t suit Africans; homosexuality is not African, period. We believe it is unnatural and extremely immoral.

Just like the British have the right to put pressure on poor countries, poor countries also have the right to preserve their values. Homosexuality in our parts of the world is more than just a taboo, forcing its official recognition as a right is rather insulting to our people.

Mr Cameron should also understand that we are still grappling with a myriad of problems that no longer trouble the Global North. As such, our preoccupations are rather different from theirs. At a time when we are facing a famine scare, who really wants to hear about gay rights? That’s would be the last thing on a starving man’s mind.

Perhaps they should send someone down here and ask how many people want anti-gay reforms. This is something that our people have never wanted though there might a few who have been influenced by foreign trends.

Unless the British premier was suggesting that citizens of aid recipient nations must be gay against their will as a condition to receive aid, his threat was derogatory and misplaced.
And if it has to come to that, must we lose our dignity just to receive aid? Do we really need that kind of aid? Mine are just innocent questions, the powers that be have decided. With all due respect, no one is going gay here, the rest can go figure.

Still on innocent questions, are there really seven billion of us? The United Nations estimated that on October 31 the world's population reached seven billion. And you thought the likes of David Cameron would have been preoccupied with the more challenging task ahead of feeding seven billion hungry mouths instead of forcing poor folks to embrace homosexuality.

Speaking of soaring world population, I couldn’t help but wonder how the UN could come up with such estimates. There are so many countries in the world, including Tanzania, that do not know for sure how many people they have.

But given that there is an error margin, I will give the estimates the benefit of doubt and proceed to rejoice in my little discovery. Through the BBC website, I came to realize that when I was born, I was the 4,140,875,813th person alive on earth and I am the 78,545,045,950th person to have lived since history began!

And as I was digesting the fact that so many men and women have walked this earth, a thought struck me. Would we have reached those numbers had our ancestors, for any reason, chosen to be gay? Just another innocent question, Mr Cameron!
kmtambalike@yahoo.com

Of smart gadgets and thick users

YOU all probably know by now that Steve Jobs is no more. The man we credit with helping to transform the way we communicate today made good use of God’s gift; his brains. With his passing, the world has lost a genius. But he has left an indelible mark and we shall live to remember him many years to come.
In hindsight, our dear departed genius had no clue of the ills that his well intentioned inventions would sire, compliments to the debilitated nature of the human species, especially in these dark parts of the woods. While he used his gifted brain to the fullest, it seems like he left no room for a section of young people today to do the same.
With his inventions, he has made life so easy that people no longer need to belabor their minds anymore; he has already done that for us. And so the problem here is not with the inventor but rather the users, or abusers, of his inventions.
Back in the days when there were no gadgets to do things for people, hard, physical labor was the norm. Here is a tale of an ordinary day in the years of yester. After waking up early in the morning and wiping the cold out of the eyes, they would light a fire, prepare some porridge or whatever-have-you and, on a full stomach, they would set off to till the land with a hoe or herd livestock.
At times they would work on the land from sundown till sunset. That alone gave them the much needed physical strength. The proverbial survival of the fittest was very much in practice then. Only the strong excelled.
Tell that tale to the young and free souls of today and they will probably ask you; what’s a hoe? We have come to that. Because of the i-things and other smart gadgets young people today have lost interest in the most ordinary of things that kids ought to enjoy doing.
Sports and outdoor games that demand physical strength have been relegated to activities for poor children. Kids of the affluent stay indoors and play video games or surf the internet or they’ll just be entertained by one of the i-gadgets. Perhaps we ought to be grateful that we still have plenty of poor folks in our corner!
But the most tricky, and troubling, part is the way these smart gadgets are being used. Many youths have failed to make smart use of the smart devices. Worse yet, availability of technology at the tip of the fingers seem to have slowed their thinking processes and intellectual capabilities.
And one can’t help but doubt if this was part of Mr Jobs’ intended outcomes of his inventions. It’s even sad to note that it’s not only young people who do not make the most of today’s technological advances. There some people of advanced age who have utterly failed to benefit intellectually from the smart era.
But people of advanced age are slowly phasing out, not that I am a doomsday advocate, it’s just that that is the natural order of things. The way young people do not see that they can do better with what the world has to offer is cause for concern.
They are slowly losing interest in sports and outdoor games, they have become too attached to their gadgets they no longer visit one another, and the most undemanding domestic chores have become insurmountable tasks at home for them.
You can’t even ask a kid to get you a glass of water these days, lest you get a scorned look! The reason for the bad look would probably be because you might have comprised their chances of winning in some virtual reality game by sending them for a drink.
Instead of sharpening their brains, these gadgets seem to have dulled some young minds. The internet is not used for enhancing knowledge or seeking useful information but trivial things or worse, like accessing pornography. This is sad but true, like the discovery of diamonds and oil, advances in technology may as well be a curse to us than a blessing.
And it’s because we just have a penchant for abusing any well intentioned finding. Whenever some smarter guy than us makes a step forward for the good of the world, we seem to slide backwards into some sort of deep hole.
And here is a worst case scenario. I happened to have told a young lad, who also happened to have been using one of the many varieties of the i-gadgets founded by the genius who is no more, that Steve Jobs is dead. He looked up at me and cheekily asked; who’s Steve Jobs? There you have it!
kmtambalike@yahoo.com
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