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INSIDE AFRICA
Egyptian Government Teams up With Leading Clerics to Stop Female Genital Mutilation; Exhibition of Apartheid-Era Posters From South Africa
Aired October 13, 2007 - 12:30:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FEMI OKE, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Femi Oke. This is INSIDE AFRICA, your weekly look at life and issues on the continent. In today's show...
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We will continue to circumcise our girls. These are our habits and traditions.
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OKE: Efforts by the Egyptian government and leading clerics to stamp out the widespread practice of female circumcision meet strong resistance. Can this combined approach succeed in changing the culture? Plus ...
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was perfectly legal to actually make public statements of this kind.
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OKE: When history becomes art. We visit an exhibition of Apartheid- era posters in South Africa.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These photographs and negatives, this is not mine, this is the Ethiopian history.
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OKE: And who knows what you'll find in the garden shed. We have the amazing story of one man's determination to preserve a photographic record for posterity.
We begin in Kenya. Hard time in a high-security prison is not easy, but many find they face the toughest test after their release. Christian Purefoy profiles one former female prisoner determined to stay straight despite the difficulties she faces.
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CHRISTIAN PUREFOY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Anne Ochola has laid down her guns and taken up pottery. She's serving seven years in Kenya's maximum security prison for possession of firearms, and she's hoping to take advantage of opportunities offered by Kenya's prison service to reshape her life.
When she leaves prison, Anne explains, she will use the clay found around her home to make pots and sell them in the local market to earn money. Kenya has introduced a range of reforms in its Langata (ph) female maximum security prison. Not just better health facilities, but simple things, such as beds and better uniforms. There are also rehabilitation programs, such as basket weaving, or learning to read and write, all aimed at giving inmates a better chance of staying on the straight and narrow on the outside.
GRACE ODHIAMBO, SR. SUPERINTENDANT, LANGATA PRISON: And when you're talking of people coming back to prison, you know, there is that element of what is the cause of people coming back. So, really our reforms are addressed to some of the issues, things that are making prisoners come back to prison.
PUREFOY: However, Langata is in many ways an exception among Kenyan prisons, where chronic problems of overcrowding and poor facilities are rife, and prison reforms do not prepare inmates for all the challenges they will face when their sentence ends.
When women pass through these gates, they've been convicted of the most serious crimes, sentenced to pay their debt to society. But when they leave, despite the rehabilitation programs, many of them find society has not forgiven the debt.
After serving five years for armed robbery, Lilian Njoki was forced to leave her family and home behind.
"It is so difficult," she explains. Everyone she had known before prison rejected her when she came out. The only job she can now find to support her three children is selling charcoal. She worries if her neighbors find out about her past, their suspicion will force her to move again.
Christian Purefoy, CNN, Kenya.
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OKE: Coming up, the latest attempts by the Egyptian government to outlaw a dangerous cultural practice. Female circumcision affects millions of women throughout Africa. Stay with us.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Making business news in Africa this week: There are signs that Africa is beginning to attract more investment opportunities. A financial index was launched in sub-Saharan Africa, giving investors the ability to track some of the continent's top companies. The index, started by Renaissance Capital, an investment bank, will track the growth of the top 50 companies in 21 African countries. It will not include South Africa, because that country already has its own index. Concerns about corruption and poor infrastructure have often deterred investors, but analysts say sub-Saharan Africa is showing high growth rates.
And flower exporters in Kenya are facing increased pressure from the European Union to lower carbon emissions during flower production. Many have changed their process to meet the new regulations, but exporters say the high cost could force them to make mass layoffs. Kenya accounts for 33 percent of the world's flower exports, making it the largest in the world.
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OKE: Hello again. To some, it's called female genital mutilation. To others, it's known simply as the purification. The often brutal procedure can lead to hemorrhaging and death. FGM is outlawed by most African governments, but it's still practiced in at least 28 of the 53 countries on the continent. So, if you take a look at this map just by the side of me, all the areas highlighted practice some form of female circumcision.
Now, according to the World Health Organization, between 100 and 140 million women have undergone some form of the procedure. Parents worry that not doing so will damage their daughters' marriage prospects.
In Egypt, the practice is common, and the government, in cooperation with leading clerics, are now working to stamp out the practice. But as Shahira Amin reports, they face a difficult task:
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SHAHIRA AMIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's called "Think Twice," and this taboo-breaking play, sponsored by the Egyptian government, contains plenty of food for thought.
In this scene, lead character Nagiba (ph) pleads with her husband not to have his youngest sister circumcised. Circumcision isn't necessary to preserve a girl's chastity and family honor. But he fears his sister may never be married. "Her in-laws are threatening to call off the wedding," he cries, "for what man would agree to marry a girl who hasn't been circumcised?"
Those who practice the ritual believe it tames a girl's sexual desires, and increases her chances of marriage. Altering such beliefs remains a huge challenge.
Nagiba's description of FGM, or female genital mutilation, as a barbaric practice that strips women of their dignity sends shockwaves through this audience in Kana (ph), a conservative community in the heart of Egypt's largely underdeveloped south. Tonight, the play has apparently failed to recruit converts to the cause.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): We believe circumcision protects girls, and it's called for by Islam.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): A girl must be circumcised so that she won't do anything wrong.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): We will continue to circumcise our girls. These are our habits and traditions.
ERMAN MANENCOURT, UNICEF REPRESENTATIVE TO EGYPT: The biggest challenge, I think, right now is really trying to bring this issue to men. Because their decisions, their requests, their demands influence the women.
AMIN: The views expressed by the Kana audience are not surprising. A government's survey released in 2005 showed that FGM is practically universal in Egypt. About 96 percent of women aged 15 to 49 were found to have suffered the brutal procedure, usually carried out without the girl's consent. Many of the young women who have experienced the harsh ordeal firsthand are becoming vocal advocates for the campaign to end FGM.
Hadi (ph), a secondary school student at this government school in Luksor, says the traumatic experience will haunt her for the rest of her life. She and her fellow students vow they will never circumcise their own daughters.
Contrary to popular belief, the tradition, predating Islam, is largely socio-cultural and is practiced by Egypt's Muslims and Christians alike. Now, religious leaders are beginning to speak out against FGM.
SHEIKH MOHAMED SAYED TANTAWI, GRAND SHEIKH OF AL-AZHAR: It's a harmful practice that we must abandon.
AMIN: Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa has gone a step further. He recently issued a fatwa, or religious edict, declaring FGM haram, or prohibited by Islam. And a public outcry following the FGM death of two young Egyptian girls this summer has added momentum to the campaign. The Health Ministry has replaced an earlier decree allowing FGM in exceptional cases with another, banning the practice altogether.
MOUSHIRA KHATTAB, EGYPTIAN NATL. COUNCIL FOR CHILDREN: I think this is the major breakthrough, that we can stop the medicalization of FGM. Now, the efforts that we have started four years ago, to raise awareness and to create public opinion against FGM, has to continue.
AMIN: Khattab and other activists hoped that when parliament convenes in November, the government decree will be replaced with a law banning female circumcision and strengthening penalties for those who perform the procedure.
Meanwhile, TV spots like this one now air regularly on state television, advising against the practice. And billboards and posters urging women to raise their voices against FGM have sprang up across the country. The government says the campaign is beginning to work:
NASR EL-SAYED, ASSISTANT TO EGYPTIAN HEALTH MINISTER: Circumcision started to drop everywhere. Our target is to decrease the percentage of circumcision by 20 percent in the next two years.
AMIN: The play's underlining message to Egyptians is: Some traditions are harmful and should be abandoned. Although there are a few converts from among the theater-goers in Kana, at least this crowd has come to realize that now there is an alternative to circumcising girls.
For INSIDE AFRICA, Shahira Amin, CNN, Cairo.
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OKE: The subject of female circumcision is very close to my heart, very close to my family, in fact. And I really do feel it's the women in Africa that will probably change things for the better.
Now, coming up on INSIDE AFRICA, posters paint the picture of South Africa's apartheid past. And one man's determination to preserve a national archive against all the odds.
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OKE: Hello again. Here's a look at some of the news making headlines on the continent this week.
Sudan's People's Liberation Movement says it suspended its participation from the national unity government. The SPLM says it's recalling its ministers from Khartoum, because its northern partners have failed to follow through on some parts of the 2005 peace agreement. The peace deal ended a 21-year conflict between the mainly Muslim north and the predominantly Christian south.
Kenya's "Daily Nation" reports an alleged government plot to postpone the country's upcoming general election. Presidential candidate Raila Odinga is quoted as saying, "elements of Kenya's security forces will be used to incite violence." Kenya's government called the claim a wild allegation.
And finally, to the "Sunday Times of Johannesburg." South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki faces mounting criticism from opposition parties over his decision to suspend the country's top prosecutor. Mr. Mbeki said the suspension of Vusi Pikoli wasn't related to the prosecutor's refusal to withdraw a search warrant against South Africa's police commissioner.
And we stay in South Africa for our next story. For those seeking justice and freedom, they were the medium that kept the message alive. For the government and its supporters in apartheid South Africa, their purpose was to reinforce the status quo. More than 13 years after the advent of democracy, a recent exhibition profiles the posters from the era. Robyn Curnow reports.
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ROBYN CURNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Gallery owner Warren Siebrits says it's taken him 10 years to collect 66 posters from the apartheid era.
WARREN SIEBRITS, GALLERY OWNER: I've started with these two posters, because without apartheid, you wouldn't have been able to create this whole culture of resistance, language of resistance posters, which this exhibition is focused on.
CURNOW: One of his early finds -- this commemorative newspaper poster issued after the funeral of murdered apartheid Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd.
SIEBRITS: Just by luck, I looked for another couple of years, and then I found this at an auction in Pretoria, and it was just amazing that obviously, I would imagine, the national party were in quite a state of disarray, maybe even in panic, because they hadn't just lost their prime minister, they lost the architect of apartheid, H. F. Verwoerd. And yet the way they pushed forward with this poster, they immediately replaced -- well, not replaced, but they added B.J. Vorster, who's the next prime minister to take over from him. But look at they byline, (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE), means "steadfast on the same path."
CURNOW: It's posters like that and a system that is represented that gave birth to these quite amazing resistance posters that you see as you move along the exhibition.
SIEBRITS: When I thought is great, you see, about this particular poster, they're looking for united people, they're looking for one country, and most importantly, they're looking for one person and one vote, which has always denied the majority of South Africans up until the 1994, first democratic election.
And it was perfectly legal to actually make public statements of this kind. I mean, if you had to put this up in white residential areas, they'd be torn down within half an hour to an hour, guaranteed.
So, that's in another sense a reason why I've done this exhibition, because I grew up as a product of apartheid South Africa, and I never saw these posters. I didn't see evidence of them once, until I was about 26 years of age, which is in about 1995 or so.
All of this kind of material was seen as subversive, and you could be jailed for very -- for very serious periods of time, just for even being in possession of a poster, never mind being caught actually making -- making a poster or disseminating it.
CURNOW: But of all the posters, these are Siebrits' favorites.
SIEBRITS: As you can see, this series of posters here commemorating May Day in South Africa, although only made -- these were only made in 1989. this was the very first time, believe it or not, that May Day was legally celebrated in South Africa.
CURNOW: The exhibition ends with famous international anti-apartheid posters like this one, from U.S. pop artist Keith Haring and others.
SIEBRITS: The two at the top were produced in London by the anti- apartheid movement. This is the earlier of the two, and that's why I put it on the left. It was produced in 1977. And what makes it significant is that, as you remember, Nelson Mandela's image was banned from the time that he was jailed in 1964. And there were only two or three well-known photographs that basically survived from that time, that would get used over and over again.
So, those posters -- he'd really be in jail for more than 10 years. They were using an image when he was -- before he'd actually gone into jail. And then I thought it was quite interesting to be able to juxtapose the person who was incarcerated against the person -- one of the people who was responsible for that. This is P.W. Botha. As you can see quite literally, it is a very fierce poster. I really admire this poster.
CURNOW: Siebrits says he admires all the posters as works of art and as historical documents, which prove just how far South Africa has come.
Robyn Curnow, CNN, Johannesburg, South Africa.
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OKE: Just ahead on INSIDE AFRICA: Stranger than fiction. A tale of (inaudible), a loyal servant and international smuggling. You can't miss it. I'll be right back.
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OKE: And finally this week, we have the story of a man and his memories, but Shimelis Desta's recollections of the past are also the archive of a nation. Nicholas Glass explains.
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NICHOLAS GLASS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: In the back garden of a modest bungalow in Harbinger (ph), an Ethiopian political refugee has built himself a shed to remind himself of home. He calls it "Little Ethiopia," and it's both a den and a storehouse for a unique photographic archive.
Like most garden sheds, it's full to overflowing with stuff, and with memories. For a decade or so in the 1960s and '70s, Shimelis Desta was court photographer of Emperor Haile Selassie.
SHIMELIS DESTA, FORMER ROYAL PHOTOGRAPHER: Well, his majesty -- he's a big leader. Not only Ethiopian, African leader he is. And, you know, I admired him. He's a great man, really.
GLASS: As court photographer, Shimelis Desta was a civil servant making a record of state events. The emperor with President Nasser of Egypt. Taking a salute with King Hussein of Jordan. Dressed for dinner with the Titos, the president of Yugoslavia and his wife.
These photographs have rarely been seen since Shimelis Desta fled the military regime in Ethiopia 25 years ago. After the emperor was deposed in a military coup in 1974, the new rulers set about destroying all images of him. With some personal risk, Shimelis Desta hid his archive, some 7,000 negatives.
DESTA: I put my old negatives, remaining photographs, everything, with a big plastic bag. I hide it in the barrel, big barrel, where put water on the roof, you know? We put it on the roof, and put water on the top of it. And under it, I put these negatives. I hide it eight years.
GLASS: Shimelis Desta sold his car, bribed someone in an unnamed foreign embassy in Addis Ababa to smuggle his photographs out in a diplomatic bag.
DESTA: I paid by foreign currency. And after I come to England, they send me in two weeks time here.
GLASS (on camera): The negatives?
DESTA: The negatives. That day is my really -- I'm very, very, very happy, because these photographs and negatives -- this is not mine. This is the Ethiopian history, the Ethiopian people.
GLASS (voice over): Shot on the long length, this was the last photograph he took of his revered emperor, led away by young soldiers. Within a year, he would be dead in suspicious circumstances.
To Desta, almost the most shocking thing about it was the car. The emperor had a fleet of 27 limousines.
DESTA: That king, the king of kings, the great man. They took him with a Volkswagen car, in front of me. I'm very sad, you know. I'm very, very sorry at that time.
GLASS: This is an altogether happier photograph. The emperor and his beloved dog Lulu with the American Vice President Hubert Humphrey. The same dog features in Ryszard Kapuscinski's classic book "The Emperor." A flunky had the specific job of cleaning dignitaries' shoes, after Lulu had lightly sprinkled all over them.
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OKE: I want that job! I want to be Lulu's lackey! Not. That was Nicholas Glass reporting. What an amazing story! The official court photographer of Emperor Selassie is in Harbinger, England. Only on INSIDE AFRICA.
That's your lot (ph) for this week. Thank you so much for watching. We hope that you will let our program be your window to the continent.
I'm Femi Oke. Take care.
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