How The City Of Ndola Got Its Name

A view of the Ndola Central Business District

By Paul Shalala in Ndola

Ndola is the second largest city in Zambia.

It is a sprawling metropolis which hosts some of the country’s most important industries.

Indeni, Zambia’s only oil refinery and a number of cement plants are within Ndola.

The city is only second to Lusaka in terms of high-rise buildings.

It is NOT only a major transit hub on the Copperbelt, but also the administrative centre for the province.

Ndola is also a terminus for travelers from the Democratic Republic of Congo and for onward traffic to the southern part of the country.

In Ndola, residents fondly call themselves ba ZimaNdola.

JK, one of Zambia’s most celebrated musicians even sung in one of his songs describing how he grew up in the town and calling its residents ba ZimaNdola.

But what does the name Ndola mean?

“All I know about Ndola is that it’s a name. I came here over 10 years ago but I don’t know what it means,” said Chanda, a cleaner.

Part of Kafubu river in Ndola's Twapia area

Most residents do not know where the name Ndola comes from.

Others even create false stories about it.

“Ndola is a name of a woman who used to live here. I heard this story from a friend,” said John Chileshe, a minibus driver who operates on the Itawa route.

To get to the bottom of the origin of the name Ndola, we need to dig into history.

The Copperbelt Province, where Ndola is located,  was originally inhabited by the Lamba speaking people.

Where Ndola is located, the first inhabitants were the Lambas who were led by Senior Chief Chiwala the first who reigned in the 17^th century.

The traditional leader is believed to have migrated with his people from present day Tanzania and settled in the area where Rekays is.

Senior Chief Chiwala

According to the current Senior Chief Chiwala, who is the eighth person to hold the throne, Ndola was named after a stream called Ka Ndola which originally starts from the Kaloko Hills and flows through present day Mine Masala, Kabushi and drains its water into the Kafubu River.

The traditional leader says when his fore fathers were alive, the stream was a life line for the people and it was a revenue earner.

But a check at the site has reveled that houses have been built across the stream, gardens have been set up and the stream has almost disappeared.

“It is a pity that this stream has dried up due to human habitation. When our ancestors first settled here, the Ka Ndola stream provided them with fish and animals which feed in water,” said Senior Chief Chiwala as he took this blogger on a tour of the former stream.

Only a few portions of the Ka Ndola stream have remained.

Children find pleasure in the little flowing water remaining and they also catch crabs which they take home to eat.

“We usually catch these crabs and take them home for food. They are nutritious,” said Mulenga, an 11 year old boy from Kabushi who was found swinning.

Meanwhile, Senior Chief Chiwala says a number of residential areas such as Itawa, Kansenshi and Minsundu have historical significance to Lamba culture.

A street in Ndola a hundred years ago

“What you call Kanshenshi today comes from a Lamba word called akansenji which means beavers. We used to have beavers along the Ka Ndola stream. The residential area Itawa comes from the word Itabwa, that’s the name for us the Lambas under Senior Chief Chiwala.”

The traditional leader went on to reveal several other unknown stories about other aspects of Ndola city.

But as the Ka Ndola stream keeps disappearing due to increase in population and human habitation, authorities need to quickly protect it and help preserve the city’s history.

The stream (or the few portions remaining) deserves to be declared a national heritage site as it holds the history of Zambia’s second largest city. 

"Not Mozambique, Not Zimbabwe: Female Miners Moan Stateless Babies Born In No-Man's Land"

A young man in Chimanimani, Mozambique

By Ray Mwareya in Maputo, Mozambique

"Dozens of women give birth in this mountain, more get miscarriages, too much dirty soil and messy food. Nearest clinic is 70km away, west in Zimbabwe, over 7 river crossings. In Mozambique, east, they refuse to offer birth certificate to babies born in this gold forest,” says Maud, 39, weighing a metal dish to sift mud for alluvial gold ore.

Why, Mozambique, just 40 km away, east, refuse birth legalization services to the babies? “Musanditeera mountain forest is not their legal territory, they say,” explains Maud.  

“In Zimbabwe, they repeat the same, push us back to Mozambique. Our children, born in this mountain, are grounded, stateless. Not Mozambique, not Zimbabwe.”

Female artisanal gold diggers, who labour in the ore rich but lawless “Musanditeera” Mountain border range that belongs neither to Mozambique nor Zimbabwe – live the indignity of raising stateless forest babies who are shunned in both Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

For a start, “Musanditeera” officially called Chimanimani Mountain Range is a notoriously violent, no man´s land –laced with some of Southern Africa´s most lucrative gold deposits and possibly precious emerald. This 100 km stretch of granite, sitting 1200 meters above sea level, is supposed to be part of the vast land border between Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

In reality, the territory belongs to no one though Mozambique´s paramilitary forces impose order, extort bribes and act as cartels selling mineral pits.

The name “Musanditeera” means “don’t follow” me, a lingo coined to fit the mountain´s chilling deaths, drownings and murders accounts.

Hundreds of entrepreneurial rural women from Zimbabwe, garnished by hunger and a dying economy began to troop to “Musanditeera” bush when rumors of lavish gold deposits surfaced in 2008, and drew dealers from afar as Lebanon.

According to Mr. Wellington Takavarasha, chairperson of Zimbabwe Artisinal and Small Scale Mining, approximately 500 000 artisanal miners are dotted acroass Zimbabwe. Of these, 153 000 are female and children who provide dirty water to those who pound mineral ore.

And stateless babies were born

In this no man´s land gold pits, laws don’t exist. Extortion, forced sex and pneumonia began to savage female artisanal diggers and children who squat and did no mining sometimes up to a year.

“We soon realized, to eat or get a chance to mine we had to become sex concubines of powerful male diggers,” says Maud, who gave birth to a baby boy in Musanditeera Forest in 2013.

The Zimbabwe Centre for Natural Resource Governance confirms, “Women and children cannot own the gold claims. Men own the output because they provide the labour and protection.”

“This strips of dignity, but most women in the mountains have no choice,” Maud adds.

“We exchange sex for access to richer gold pits. If we harvest, say, 20 grams of gold ore a week, the men diggers who sleep with us for protection, snatch 14 grams as ransom fee. Most of us fall pregnant this way.”

Babies horror:

And their babies faces the harshest dilemmas.

First “Musanditeera” mountain range has garnishing temperatures that can plummet to -3 degrees Celsius, water streams poisoned by gold cleaning mercury, no school, nor clinic or road, expect 70km away west in Zimbabwe or 40km east in the republic of Mozambique.

“Horrible place to give birth and bring up a child,” says Maud, wiping a speckle of sweat in a rocky cave where she refines wet gold ore on a heated spoon. Her baby boy scrambles up her back.

She says, from 2012 when she arrived in the gold forest, she has seen eight women diggers give birth in the caves, under the supervision of woefully untrained midwives.

She points to a roll up of small rocks down a stream valley where male diggers crank shovels to corner a gold ore rich soil.

“Graves. She was my friend, pregnant. Both mother and baby didn’t last beyond two weeks.”

The Zimbabwe 2015 Democratic Health Survey says the country still lags far from its aim of least 326 deaths per every 100 000 live birth though 78% of women in the country have their children delivered by trained medics. Maternal deaths mainly occur between birth and 42 days.

“Child births in this forests are scarier,” adds Maud who has Obstetric Fistula, a medical communication problem between vagina and bladder originating from her painful labour. She and her son are outcasts in the gold pits due to her problematic urine smell.

“Sometimes Mozambique wildlife rangers and paramilitary border forces give us dirty sanitary pads to contain post birth bleeding. They extort two grams of gold ore in for the favour.”

“Then they always pitch up drunk at dusk, rifles on back, mocking our stateless babies.”

Some more youths at the border

Legalization nightmare:

“When Tinotenda, my son was born, I walked west for two days down the mountain till I reached a public clinic in Chimanimani town Zimbabwe to obtain a birth certificate for him,” explains Maud.

“We were sent from pillar to post. Registrar told me my son was born in Mozambique territory, and should be registered there.”

Disgruntled, she turned east, walked 40 km and a hitched a truck for a further 50km to Espungabeira town in the republic of Mozambique.

“At Mozambique birth registration offices, I was almost arrested for being an illegal miner, immigrant. Only the sight of my hungry son drew pity. I was flatly told my baby is Zimbabwean and should turn back west.”

Her colleague, Eliza, 38, an artisanal gold digger too in “Musanditeera” Mountain range shares the pain.

“In February 2014, I delivered my first daughter in this forest too. She is stateless, received a birth certificate nowhere too.”

“I am a sex concubine too to a powerful gold digger who “owns” two other women in this mountain range.”

Eliza reveals why: “you see it is difficult for women to work independently.

Men deliberately go into rich gold pits naked, in under-wear. It´s a brutal mental tactic, to block us female diggers form venturing into lucrative gold ore pits.”

Forest babies health fears:

Eliza on her path regrets that because of her regular scrambling to get into gold pits, she had no adequate time to breast feed her daughter.

“No immunization too.  She once caught pneumonia until Mozambique wildlife rangers sold us pills smuggled from clinics for five grams of gold ore. She has stunted growth now.”

Breast feeding in the first 1000 days of a baby is critical. 

The longer mothers exclusively breast-feed their babies, the less likely their children are to develop behavioural problems, known as conduct disorders, at primary school age, according to a study published in the open-access medical journal, PLOS Medicine in June. 

The study noticed: children of mothers who exclusively breast-fed their babies for the first six months of their lives were about half (56%) as likely to experience conduct disorders unlike those not. About 1 500 children were examined at the Africa Centre for Population Health, in South Africa between 2012 and 2014.

Made aware of this, Eliza points to her daughter who scramble with Maud´s son in the dust to pick ore and strain small rock, passing on to their mothers. The two babies show fatigue among the strain of the sun.

Maud sense early emotional scars, “the children are picking the sadness and pain of our voices.”

“No school, no proper home, no birth certificates. Who knows, our babies may adopt crime and behavior anger if they make it to be teenagers. Babies here see men taking alcohol, smoking leaf drug like Mudzepete, bad language and transactional sex.”

This plight is urgent as gender specialist Isabella Matambanadzo notes. She says governments in Southern Africa must recognize children born out of rape, wedlock and sexual violations vulnerable to statelessness and mental difficulties.

Failing children medicines:

Mental problems fears – this is shared by Kerosi, 36, their colleague. She is an alluvial gold digger too, but says she is “lucky.”

“My four year old son born here in the mountain, was issued with a birth certificate in Manica city, Mozambique. I bribed a registrar clerk with fifteen grams of gold ore.”

But living in the gold mountain is a drawback on her and son. “I am diagnosed with HIV, sadly my four year old son was born with it.”

Maidei receives a batch of live saving anti-retroviral medicine free from a public clinic in Manica city, on the Mozambique no man´s land side of no man´s land.

A vexing problem has arose in the forest. Maidei´s son is taking the new three-in-one HIV pill recently introduced by the Mozambique health authorities to replace the previous regime of Tenofovir, Lovovidine and Nevirapine.

“The new pills makes him sick here in the mountains. The boy sometimes develops enlarged breasts and gets prolonged penis erections. When I am out in the pits digging gold, he says he feels dizzy.”

“The clinic says it is side effects, called gynecomastia. “Gwejas” – bands of male gold diggers – mock him calling him Zika (insult reference to the Zika virus)”

Laboratories a far off from the mountain. “My fear is the boy will refuse to drink his pills.”

Stateless babies in Zimbabwe, where Maud, Eliza and Kerosi originate is a perplexing phenomenon, but one that is growing.

UNHCR regional protection officer Matthias Reuss admits, “in our region, causes of statelessness include societal modernization, shortcomings in civil registration and documentation, disintegration of traditional family bonds, discrimination on the basis of gender, and underfunded public administrations.”

But, Zimbabwe’s former representative in the Southern Africa Development Community Parliamentary Forum on statelessness in the region, Mrs. Monica Mutsvangwa, said lawmakers need clarity on numbers.

“We feel there is need for hard data to be made available by the UNHCR on our country’s state of statelessness so that parliamentarians use it for policy formulation.”

However policy-makers waffle, mining babies born in no man´s lands like those of Maud, Eliza and Kerosi are thrown straight away into underage labour.

As Kerose and Maud conclude, “I know he is underage but we force my son to stay behind in the cave guarding gold ore. Male diggers steal.”

Ps: The women cited in the story have requested to have their names changed in order to guard their safety.

(About the writer: Ray Mwareya is Africa Humanitarian Correspondent for the Global South Development Magazine and 2016 Winner of the UN Correspondents Association Media Prize. www.clippings.me/raymwareya83 )

10 Zambian Ministers In China For Developmental Tour

The Zambian ministers upon arrival in China last week

By Paul Shalala

Zambia’s 10 Provincial Minister are on a 10 day visit to China to learn how that country has pulled millions of its citizens out of poverty.

According to Zambia's constitution, Provincial Ministers, who are either elected or nominated Members of Parliament, are at the same level with Deputy Ministers and they do not attend Cabinet meetings.

The Ministers, who left for the Asian country over a week ago, are meeting various delegations of Chinese investors, learning how they are boosting that country’s manufacturing sector.

And China’s Assistant Commerce Minister Bingnan Wang told the ministers on Tuesday that trade volumes increased by 18.4% between January and September 2015 pushing the amount of trade between the two countries to $US 2.1 billion

According to Zambia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesperson Dorcas chileshe who is travelling with the Ministers, Mr Wang said 570 Chinese companies had invested in Zambia in agriculture,  manufacturing,  mining, ICT and other sectors.

And Zambian delegation leader Nathaniel Mubukwanu expressed appreciation to the Chinese government for having extended an invitation to the Zambian delegation to participate in the 2016 Ministerial workshop.

Mr Mubukwanu, who is also Western Province Minister,  informed the Chinese Minister that the increase in trade volumes in 2015 was as a result  of Zambia 's business reform improvements.

He expressed confidence that the workshop would accord his delegation  a deeper appreciation of how China had accelerated her development over the last 30 years.

Part of the ministers in class in Beijing

Last week, Copperbelt Province Minister Bowman Lusambo shared on social media some of the lessons he and his fellow ministers are learning in China.

“I was elated to learn that Agriculture is a vital industry in China, employing well over 300 million farmers. The country is the number one producer of rice, wheat, potatoes, tomato, sorghum, peanuts, tea, millet, barley, cotton and oil seed including soyabeans,” said Mr Lusambo in a posting on Facebook.

During the visit to China, the Zambian delegation will visit various companies in and outside the Chinese capital Beijing.

The ministers have since concluded their tour of Beijing and have moved to Shandong province on their continued tour of the Chinese countryside to meet more potential Chinese investors.

Zambia and China have been long standing partners since the southern African country’s independence in 1964.

China built the TAZARA railway which links Zambia to the Tanzanian port of Dar Es Salaam which handles the country’s oil imports.

The Asian giant has also invested millions of dollars in infrastructure projects in sectors such as agriculture, roads, stadiums, schools, mines and health.

Over the past 10 years, China has become a major player in Zambia with its ruling Communist party forging closer ties with each successive government.

On a tour of Beijing Guchuan Food Company

This has included exchange visits by party functionaries to learn various political theories and policy issues in China.

High level Chinese delegations, including the visit by that country’s Vice President in 2014, have been to Zambia to cement the two countries’ relations.

Zambia has also benefited from several concessional loans and currently, Chinese companies are building two modern international airports in the capital Lusaka and in the second city Ndola.

Within Ndola, the Chinese built the 60,000 capacity Levy Mwanawasa stadium which they gave free of charge to the Zambian government a few years ago.

Meanwhile, the number of Chinese nationals living and working in Zambia has increased over the years.

Last year, the Zambian Ministry of Home Affairs disclosed that there were 19, 845 Chinese citizens in the country.                                                 

MISA Zambia, Airtel Train Copperbelt Journalists In New Media

Some of the journalists who attended the training

By Paul Shalala

The Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Zambia Chapter says the increase in people  accessing the internet has come with new problems.

The regional body says the increase in internet usage in the country has led to some people posting unverified news which has put the journalism fraternity in an awkward position.

MISA Zambia Information and Research Officer Kamufisa Manchishi says there is need for journalists to be professional and objective to help bring sanity to online publications.

Speaking during a recent provincial media workshop on New Media and Information and Communications Technology in Kitwe, Mr Manchishi said there was need for journalists to be on top of the game.

“Journalists must be seen to be more professional than people who just post stuff online without verifying. Our job is to provide credible news and information on the internet, not spreading rumours,” he said.

He said this in the wake of recent cases were unverified news of fake deaths of prominent people were circulating online.

To try and equip Copperbelt-based journalists with latest skills in new media and ICTs, MISA Zambia and Airtel Zambia organized a two day workshop where over 30 practicing journalists and some trainees were trained in new media skills.

Yuyo Nachali-Kambikambi addressing the trainees

Airtel Zambia Manager for Corporate communications Yuyo Nachali-Kambikambi said journalists needed to be up to date with the latest trends in the industry.

“Journalists of nowadays need to be quick in delivering news. They also need to be equipped with the latest skills which the internet has brought. This is why Airtel Zambia has partnered with MISA Zambia to ensure that we give you the latest skills in ICTs,” said Ms Nachali-Kambikambi, herself a former journalist.

And Northern Region Media Club Chairperson Misheck Wangwe said the need for new media skills on the Copperbelt was an urgent matter for journalists.

“We are operating in an era where everyone who has access to the internet is now a journalist. It is a difficult time. But the duty is on us professional journalists to bring sanity to the internet,” said Mr Wangwe.

Journalism lecturers Elastus Mambwe and Youngson Ndawana from the University of Zambia ‘s Mass Communication Department tutored the journalists in various courses over the two day period.

Some of the courses tackled were writing for the internet, media ethics, blogging and how to research on the World Wide Web.

With over six million Zambians having access to mobile phones, pressure is now mounting on journalists and media organisations to satisfy the thirst for news on the internet.

This is due to the fact that the number of citizen journalists is increasing and the spread of fake news on the internet is increasing at an alarming rate.

How Christians, Jews, Muslims Fought Apartheid In Cape Town

Cape Town from a hotel window -Picture by Sixtus Mbom

By Paul Shalala in Cape Town, South Africa

Some have called it the ‘white man’s city’ others call it the ‘Afrikaner’s city’ though it is officially known as Cape Town.

My two hour flight from Johannesburg to Cape Town last week on Sunday was a bit shocking as I found myself among hundreds of white people in a huge Boeing plane operated by South African Airways (SAA).

Less than 15 people in the plane were black, the rest were of course Afrikaans-speaking people who rarely spoke English.

Actually, SAA has more flights between Cape Town and Johannesburg than any other domestic route.

This is the reason why the airline has deployed some of its biggest planes on this route.

Upon landing at Cape Town International Airport, for those of us who are used to Johannesburg which is predominantly black, we got amazed to see how white the city is.

Most of the people alighting from planes, those taking off, waiting and those who work at the airport are white.

When you move to the town center, almost everyone is white except bus drivers, guards and those who sweep the streets.

Indeed this is the ‘white man’s city.’

Even the provincial government in the larger Western Cape is predominantly white, led by the Democratic Alliance, a party which many say is for the whites though it recently elected its first ever black leader Mmusi Maimane.

Cape Town was founded by Dutch settlers in the 1600s and they were later joined by the British and Indians.

The indigenous black tribes like the Xhosa who lived in the area where pushed to the fringes and today, the city is almost white except a few settlements like Langa which are predominantly black but are barricaded by huge fences.

But what role did the people of Cape Town play in fighting apartheid which was practiced by the South African governments from 1948 until the early 1990s?

Once you ask such a question, opinion leaders here tell you that religious leaders were in the forefront of the struggle.

This blogger and a dozen other journalists from across Africa were last week in Cape Town to learn how religion is influencing the news media on the continent.

Lucky enough, the team visited a church, a synagogue and a mosque to speak to religious leaders on every aspect of life in Cape Town.

Their first visit was to Saint George’s Cathedral, the church where the revered Archbishop Desmond Tutu was installed and served the Anglican faithful of Cape Town for 10 years.

St. George's Cathedral - Pictures by Winnie Kamau

The church is located on Wale Street and has a commanding position over the city’s central business district.

The 1,300 capacity structure is what many refer to as Cape Town’s symbol of resistance against the apartheid.

It is this Anglican building where blacks sought refuge every time they were teargassed and beaten by the racist government in the past decades when segregation was legal in Africa’s largest economy.

Due to its historical significance, St. George’s Cathedral attracts thousands of tourists on an annual basis.

The cathedral is named after its first Archbishop.

On this tour, Mary Van Blerk, a volunteer tour guide, took us round all the corners of the building.

For an hour, the old lady explained all the aspects of the building from its construction, to the installation of Archbishop Tutu and the fight against apartheid.

“Construction of this cathedral started in 1901 and it was only completed in 1913. Most of the materials used in this building were from the colonial master Britain. Even the architecture is colonial,” said van Blerk.

Moving around the cathedral, I got a sense of the connection between the British Empire and the Anglican Church.

Flags from previous wars

Most of the corners of the cathedral are decorated with pictures, plaques and flags of fallen British soldiers from the Anglo-Boer wars and other battles fought in South Africa.

These decorations had inscriptions of the actual battles fought, the years and dates.

The British Royal family is also included in the decorations.

Plaques of Queen Elizabeth II’s visit to the cathedral in March 1995 and that of his son Prince Charles in November 2011 are also on display.

Asked about the role played by Archbishop Desmond Tutu in the cathedral and Cape Town as a whole, van Blerk had this to say.

“Archbishop Tutu was installed in this very cathedral in 1986. On that day, we had 1,300 people who filled the cathedral to capacity. He was Archbishop of Cape Town from 1986 until when he retired in 1996. He is very much loved and was a powerful figure during the apartheid era. It’s a pity he is now old and frail.”

Some of Archbishop Tutu’s notable quotes about human rights are printed on windows for visitors to read.

Archbishop Tutu is not the only celebrated church leader at St. George’s Cathedral.

The ashes of Archbishop Geoffrey Clayton, who was in charge of the Cape Town Archdiocese in 1948 when apartheid became law, are buried in the cathedral.

The archbishop’s wish was to have his ashes buried there as a protest to the racist law which barred blacks from being treated as equal citizens with whites.

In the northern side of the cathedral is a human size sculpture of the second Archbishop of Cape Town William Jones.

It is one of the items which attracts thousands of people to the cathedral.

Another crowd puller is the throne for the Archbishop which was donated and shipped from Westminster in London.

This steel structure used to serve as the seat for the Archbishop and it is the one where Archbishop Tutu sat on during his installation 30 years ago.

But today, the throne is a ceremonial item as the Archbishop seat with congregants.

Touring the cathedral is free of charge and taking photos is allowed.

Tourists from within South Africa and abroad visit the cathedral daily.

According to church records, authorities spend R10, 950 in running costs per day.

The church meets these costs through donations from the public and church collections.

Our next stop on the tour was the Great Synagogue of Cape Town which is adjacent to the South African Jewish Museum.

Rabbi Feldman talking to journalists in the synagogue

There, Rabbi Feldman, who is originally from Australia, explained the history behind the Jewish community in the area.

“This synagogue was the first in South Africa. It was built in 1841 and earlier this year we celebrated 175 years,” said Rabbi Feldman.

He explained that among the first Dutch settlers to Cape Town were some Jews who immigrated from The Netherlands.

He says they built this Syanagogue for worship and for generations, they have been making donations to maintain it.

From stained glass windows to chairs and tables, Jews have been donating items to make their place of worship look attractive.

Asked about the Jewish community’s contribution to the fight against apartheid in the country, Rabbi Feldman said Jews were in the forefront of the struggle against racism.

“Helen Sazman was the first South African Member of Parliament to challenge apartheid. She was a Jew. If you remember the Rivonia trials, 16 of the suspects were Jews. Even when Nelson Mandela was released from prison, the first house where he went was owned by a Jew.”

Before wrapping up the tour, the last visit was to the 222 year old Auwal Masjid, the first mosque to have been built in southern Africa.

The mosque has stood the test of time and has been part of the Cape Town community for over two centuries.

Malawian-born Ismail Muhammed is the mosque’s caretaker and explains the history behind the building.

Ismail Muhammed kneeling on the left

“This mosque was originally built by Imam Tuan Guru, a Malaysian muslim cleric who was exiled from Malaysia to Robben Island. He served his jail term on the island for 13 years and upon his release, he was given land by a woman and he decided to build a mosque in 1794,” said Mr Muhammed.

According to Mr Muhammed, Imam Guru gave the authorities in the Dutch East Indies (now Malaysia) a tough time due to his uncompromising stance hence their decision to banish him to Cape Town’s infamous offshore island.

The mosque caretaker adds that Iman Guru also built a madrassa where hundreds of muslim children attended school.

He said since then, muslims have been worshipping there and it has become a symbol of the Islamic community in South African.

On apartheid, Mr Muhammed revealed that a number of muslims from Auwal Masjid paid the ultimate price during the fight for the restoration of democracy in South Africa.

Visitors taking selfies at the mosque

“We have a number of our members who were killed because of being against apartheid. These people were heavily involved in the struggle.”

The Auwal Masjid was one of the first religious sites former South African President Nelson Mandela visited upon his release from prison.

After this four hour two of religious sites in Cape Town, it was clear to me that apartheid did not just affect the blacks and Indians.

It was also an impediment to religious freedoms.

The role that Christians, Muslims and Jews played in fighting this unjust law and system in South Africa showed that race should never ever be used as a basis for judgement as humans are one irrespective of their colour.

This tour revealed to me that Cape Town is not “The white man’s city” but actually it’s a multi-racial and multi-religious city.  

Muhsin Hendricks: The World's First Openly Gay Islamic Cleric

Imam Muhsin Hendricks -Pictures by Robert Wanjala

 By Paul Shalala in Cape Town, South Africa

He is a man who was married to a woman and had three children but divorced her and later married a Hindu man.

Imam Muhsin Hendricks is the world’s first Islamic Cleric to come out in the open that he is gay.

He is a well trained Islamic cleric who studied classical Arabic and Islamic Sciences at Jamia-Dirasat Al-Islamiyyah (University of Islamic Studies) in the Pakistani city of Karachi between 1990 and 1994.

Childhood and first marriage

Iman Hendricks was born 49 years ago born in Landsdown, Cape Town in South Africa.

In a wide ranging interview he recently gave me and some reporters in Cape Town, the cleric says he started noticing traits of homosexuality in his life at the age of five.

“At five, I started playing with toys for girls. And in my teenage years, I found myself loving men. 

My father never spoke about my sexuality and that gave me some peace,” said the Imam.

He claims that when he completed his clerical studies, he was forced to marry a woman.

“They forced me to marry a woman because there is a belief that an Imam cannot be without a woman. The same woman was very much in love with me.”

However, that marriage did not last.

In six years, the couple had three children and they later divorced.

Divorce and Gay Marriage

After the divorce, the cleric says his children suffered as they faced discrimination based on his sexuality.

His two daughters have since been married and he says he has a good relationship with them.

Soon after the divorce, Iman Hendricks says he went into prayer and fasting to find a way of surviving within Islam.

He dated a Hindu man for five years before they got married.

The couple has now been married for five years.

 “My ex-wife and I have since moved on. I have married a Hindu man and I know I again broke the rule. We have since adopted two children. My former wife has married another man and they have two children,” he said while laughing.

Making History as first Gay cleric

Imam Hendricks says after years of reflection and research, in 1998 he decided to come out of the closet and openly declared his sexuality which made it to the front pages of South African tabloids.

He became the world’s first Islamic cleric to openly declare he was gay and since then, a few other Islamic leaders in France, the USA, Canada and Australia have followed suit.

In 2004, the Imam went further to form The Inner Circle, a non-governmental organisation which is championing the rights of homosexuals in the Islamic world.

“The organisation offers a lot of help to homosexuals in Islam. We plan to start training our own Imams who will not be preaching against homosexuality. We currently have 18 trainers in several countries were we support other gay muslims.”

The organisation also creates what they call safe spaces for Islamic homosexuals where they can feel free to live and strengthen the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community.

The All Inclusive mosque

Iman Hendricks with the author during the interview

Within Cape Town, the Imam runs his own mosque where gays worship from and women are allowed to also say their prayers inside the mosque, in contrast with mainstream Islam were women don’t enter the building.

“Women do not cover their face when coming to our mosque. Both queers and straight people come for Friday prayers.”

Since 2011, Iman Hendricks has been conducting same sex marriages for muslims and people of other faiths in his mosque.

Opposition from Muslim leaders

Since becoming openly gay, the Imam’s activism has also taken him to the mainstream media.

In 2007, he released a documentary titled “A Jihad for Love” which was received with huge opposition and the Muslim Judicial Council of South Africa even issued a fatwa against him.

A fatwa is an instruction issued by an Islamic authority on an issue seen to be against Islam.

In some countries, fatwas have led to followers issuing threats, causing violence and even killing people named in the fatwas. 

However, the fatwa against Iman Hendricks was not acted upon and he is still safe, travelling around the country and the world, spreading his version of Islam which embraces homosexuality.

This week he was scheduled to appear on a radio station in Durban to spread his activism.

But local muslim leaders blocked the program on account that he was no longer a muslim.

With 20 years of fighting for homosexuals within Islam, Imam Hendricks says he is not in conflict with his religion.

“Am in conflict with tradition and not Islam. I work with some Imams who are progressive in thinking. Islam does not say homosexuality is wrong, it is silent.”

Homosexuality in Islam

In a 30 minutes powerpoint presentation he made to reporters in Cape Town on Monday, Imam Hendricks quoted various scholarly works showing some poets who he claims were gay.

One of those highlighted was Abu Nawas whom he says praised teenage boys in some of his poetry.

He also showed a photo of gay men holding hands at an Islamic gathering which he says was drawn in 1798.

Asked why there are no known lesbians in Islam, the cleric said Islam is patriarchal and not much is said about women.

“The Quran says women must sit at the back not to distract men as they kneel to worship. Maybe this was done so that men do not look at women’s buts,” he said.

His organisation The Inner Circle is funded by among others, Oxfam South Africa and the Open Society Foundation.

Since he embarked on his crusade for Islam to embrace homosexuality, Imam Hendricks says he has no plans to make the annual pilgrimage to Mecca which he did before he became openly gay.

Zambia To Set Up National Cyber Security Agency

Chewe Mutale making her presentation

By Paul Shalala in Lusaka

Zambia is in the process of setting up the National Cyber Security Agency which would protect the nation from hackers who aim at disabling strategic industries and state institutions.

The agency will also be charged with the responsibility of protecting the nation from cyber espionage which has recently become common in the west.

Zambia Information and Communication Technology Authority (ZICTA) Cyber Security Officer Chewe Mutale says the National Cyber Security Agency is necessary due to the many hacking incidents which have been recorded in the United States recently.

“Hacking is now a national threat. There is also a shift from mere hacking to cyber espionage. This is the reason why the country will soon set up the National Cyber Security Agency,” said Ms Mutale when she made a presentation at the Internet Freedom Stakeholders Seminar in Lusaka on Wednesday.

The MISA Zambia-organised event attracted dozens of journalists, bloggers, civil society and cyber security experts who discussed various issues affecting the internet in Zambia.

In her presentation, Ms Mutale also said there was need for Zambia to formulate new cyber security strategies and policies which will help protect the nation from online threats.

She said Zambia should be ready to protect itself from cyber attacks of a national scale.

Currently, ZICTA is in charge of regulating the ICT sector and when a crime is committed online, the institution collaborates with law enforcement agencies to bring suspects to book.

On its own, ZICTA cannot prosecute people it finds wanting hence the need for the National Cyber Security Agency to do the job.

The last time Zambia was hit by a major hack on state institutions was in the 1990s when a lone hacker replaced then President Frederick Chiluba's image from the State House website with that of a woman.

The hacker was arrested and taken to court but he was released because the country had no law against hacking at the time.

The court verdict then prompted the genactment of a law on hacking which has since been amended a number of times.