Episode 21 - Gertrude Mongella: Women, Africa and UN

In Conversation with Gertrude Mongella on Women, Africa and UN.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Okay, uh we're gonna start then. I think I guess we can begin with the international women's dialogue that you were just part of here at uh the Tabumbegi Foundation. Um sitting there listening to what women following the International Women's Day um have been talking about the type of work that they've been doing. What are your reflections?

SPEAKER_02 0:30

Uh first of all, I should say I felt very privileged to attend this meeting. It's not the first meeting with the International Women Dialogue. I've been very close to uh Madame uh Zaneli Mbeki with her activities. She's a very, very active woman in society, ground on the ground, very humble, but very active. And uh so I have worked with her on several occasions, and in this meeting, I was very impressed by how far the organization has gone. I think they've taken a step forward. It's it is not just the trust by itself, it's a I could say a foundation where they are doing more than one thing. And has it this organization has brought together women brains, I could call them brains. Well educated women, well experienced, even those who come from grassroots organizations, they know what they are doing, and they are very committed to the work they are doing. So I was so happy, I was so impressed, and also envious. I was uh in, I should say, I was saintly envious because I wished I could do the same. So this organization, the International Women Dialogue, is great and we should try to work together on the continent with such organizations, but we are not working together, uh linking our activities. In most cases, we invite each other, but really finding a structure where all the African women organizations team together, I think we need to work more on that. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

You, of course, have been one of the important women uh revolutionaries, activists, and leaders in the African continent, and many will say as well as in the world, uh, at the center of convening some of the most important uh sessions for women on the on the global platform. But before we maybe go that wide, as things stand today, what would be your description of the woman condition in Africa? What is the basic set of problems that define the struggle of women in the continent today?

SPEAKER_02 3:35

I would like to start by saying the African woman is great, maybe the greatest of all the women in the world because we have gone through things which maybe other women would not have been able to survive. We first were enslaved with the men, we were enslaved together, marketed as products. We survived that. So the women had the responsibility of being enslaved and sustaining life. Can you imagine if the women, when we were enslaved, stopped producing children? What would have happened? There would be no Africa. So that when I give credit to the African to the African women, to continue producing and reproducing. Then you come to the stage of colonialism that was even worse. Where resources were taken out and and the you cannot imagine when you were just put down to being nobots in our own countries. Women were there. And then we struggled for independence to liberate the continent of Africa. We did a good job. I have had experiences visiting some countries and knowing their histories and what the the women did in the liberation of their countries. You cannot imagine. You have the baby on your back, or you are breastfeeding, you are the one who tears the land, who draw the water, and still you have the appetite to say we have to be independent, and you have to be on the front line. I have met many African women because of Tanzania being one of the countries which participated and also hosted people on the continent who, in the struggle, have met so many women on the front line. So that is great in itself. Then that does not stop. This African woman, the same woman is now struggling to put Africa into a developed continent. Despite all the other things, at the same time, she's discriminated, devalued, and she has she doesn't have the opportunity of as much education as she needs or technical knowledge. She's not yet at the center of the new technologies. She's still using the handhole in most cases. This is the African woman, strong woman. We are going to do it. We are going to liberate you, men, economically. That's my that's what I am thinking of. And that's what Zanerimbeck is doing. We liberate our countries economically and finally politically. We need a peaceful Africa. A continent where there are we are not women don't find them women and men do not find themselves in the situations we see in the Congo, in Sudan, every you can mention so many places are going through so much because of conflict, political misunderstandings, and so many other things. So that African woman I'm talking about is the one who loves men more than they think. That's why we are working for them.

SPEAKER_00 8:08

You decided obviously over the Pan-African Parliament, and just take us through, as a woman, leading particularly in a space that is very, very dominated by men, math politics, and it's masculine. What was the experience like setting up the structures and really leading this house full of all forms of masculinities from across different cultures and walks of life in the continent?

SPEAKER_02 8:50

First of all, maybe I should declare my interest. I'm a teacher trainer by profession. And what I believe as a teacher trainer is that I cannot train my student on things that I cannot do. So even dealing with the women issues, I always feel I should not be a preacher. I should be a doer. So in Beijing, we talked about women participating in decision making, taking up leadership positions. If I don't take up the leadership position, then who is going to do it? I should be the example. And if it's a matter of suffering, I have to suffer in it before I bring in other women. So when the Panatkan Parliament was formed, I was a member of parliament in Tanzania. That is after the Beijing Conference. I had been a member of parliament for many, many years. But this time I came back after I came from Beijing. And when the parliament was formed and I was informed that at least the parliament will have different types of positions where women can, when people will serve, I said, yes, this is where I belong. So because if I took my homework from beijing of leadership, I should now show the leadership in Africa. So uh when we we went to Addis Ababa to be sworn in for the new parliament, I decided I should vow for a position of a president. And my friends laughed at my colleagues. They couldn't believe I was serious. Say, you want to be a president? I say, yes. I've never been one, and this is a chance for me to be a president under manage. So I put in my nomination papers, and fortunately I was elected by 166 votes. Yes, and 20 no's. I always say it because I don't want people to think I just rigged my votes. So those members of parliament from all over Africa voted freely for Get Rod Mongela.

SPEAKER_00 11:46

And now having to then preside over this institution, just take us through what were the major, if you would recollect, challenges, and I'm saying these challenges, specifically if women are listening, one wants to pick up what do I do in a terrain, in an industry, in a room dominated by men.

SPEAKER_02 12:11

My worry was not the men. My word was other things. One. The linguistic divide. To the extent that we applicants believe so much in other people's languages, people can fight over being Anglophone, Francophone, Rosaphone, Swahiliphone. I could see it so clear to the extent that when you are conducting the session and you make a mistake that maybe one group of one group of people of the same language speak continuously, they raise their hands. Madame, because why do you allow only the anglophone or the francophone and all those things? So that linguistic divide has remained to rule and divide us. And there's nothing so important as a language, because that to that's what makes you understand each other. That's where you transmit your cultural values. So I don't see myself transmitting my cultural values effectively by using English. I get limited. But when I switch to Swahili or my mother tongue, I'm happy and comfortable. So that is an inhibition language. The other thing is we thai saw was the the economic strengths of the of the the the Pan African Parliament. We started from zero. I remember after swearing in and meeting the Bureau, we're just taking notebooks from our handbooks. We didn't start from a rich organization. So the headache was to say, how do we mobilize resources to support the parliament? Because the AU also didn't have enough resources. So we started like that, limping. And we managed to do whatever we could do with the limited resources with to get to them, to get from the African Union. But the other thing I found out is I started to work with the other international parliaments, like the European Union, the Latin America Parliament, and so on and so forth, Asia. And that also helped us at least to start standing on our feet. Because we sometimes it's not only financial, you also need experience and other things. And we could get that from the old organizations of our type, like the Parliament of the European Union, Latin America, Asia. So I saw that very clearly. Then came the question of gender. You could at least sometimes smell the gender dividing concept. But fortunately, most of the people who had come to the parliament had known that I had come from Beijing and I wouldn't allow anybody to play with the gender divide in the parliament. So we were treated equally and we worked together. But we knew on the African continent we have a lot of work to do to this to at least to uh eradicate the gender divide. So that's it. But well, I think there are so many other things one could think of, but those are the main ones. The linguistic divider could feel it.

SPEAKER_00 16:50

How do you rate uh the Pan-African Parliament's contribution to the continent? I mean, on the one hand, uh there are ongoing conflicts that have gone for too long. I'm thinking about the Eastern DRC, the Sudan. Maybe for the purposes of our audiences, what becomes the role of the Pan-African Parliament as a body of the continent in situations of conflict resolution, as we would expect, for instance, the principle in the DRC with Rwanda be that Africans must be able to solve and resolve their own problems. But you see big international actors, certainly the United States, becoming not only the country that intervenes, but also as a location becomes the site of signing agreements and uh which must then come back and be implemented, in a way going against this principle of African uh solutions that must be generated from Africa itself. But we have a parliament, a pan-African parliament, seemingly with the representatives from all these countries, some of which have conflict, using the example of peace and stability, conflict resolution. What should be the Pan-African Parliament role? And when we sit here today with a situation like that one in the DRC, how do you rate this role that the Pan African Parliament should be playing?

SPEAKER_02 18:44

I think the history of the Parliament tells a lot because when it was constituted, it was just designated to be a consultative body, not a decision-making body. So that we could debate and recommend to the heads of states. So the process of bureaucracy and letting the heads of states take action on decisions made in parliament have been very slow. At the same time, the capacity of the parliament to do researches independently and even to monitor elections independently has been limited. So you cannot be a parliament if you cannot oversee. It's until the Pan-African Parliament becomes a body which can play a role of overseeing what is going on in the country. Therefore, we leave a vacuum, and some people who are hungry for power, like other nations, they have an opportunity to step in. Then because Africa is still so dependent on some international organizations depending on some nations, if we fail to have that independence to really play the oversight role in Parliament. And even to we don't even have the power of passing laws we recommend. So we cannot pass a law which is biting to at least make each nation behave. I use the last word, make each nation behave. So if it has been slow, it the taking off has been slow. And I think it depends also the commitment. No nation likes a strong parliament because they have a problem. You always play around with parliaments. And if you don't have a strong government, so it's a combination of the judiciary, the government, and the parliament. Now, in the case of the Pan African parliaments, we are not only dealing with one parliament, you are dealing with fifty-four parliaments, other parliaments and governments. So it's a task, a very hard task, but it also needs committed people.

SPEAKER_00 21:56

I suppose that then uh leads us Or leads one to think about the state of democracy in the continent. You are from Tanzania. The democratic elections that we've just come from in Tanzania saw massive demonstrations that have never been seen before. Serious allegations of suppression of dissent, the arrest of members of the opposition political parties that are contesting in this case against CM. But also, it looks like the country sustained a lot of deaths on the ground throughout that period of voting with the demonstrations. I wonder if you are in a position to give us your thoughts about what could have gone wrong. Is the democratic system in Tanzania failing to deal with disagreements, political dissent, political different views to those that are held by the ones in authority? Is the state becoming authoritarian and killing its own citizens who disagree with it? What happened there to the state of Tanzanian democracy?

SPEAKER_02 23:36

In fact, all of us are puzzled. You couldn't imagine Tanzania getting into what happened after the elections. We can't imagine. So in order to find out exactly what happened so that it does not repeat itself, we have a commission in position. And most of us, all of us are waiting for the results of the commission so that we can see what next. So in this position now, I am not I'm not in a position really to say what happened. I got up in the morning surprised. And when you live in a peaceful country, you get surprised stupidly. You don't even know what to do, and that's what happened to all of us. So let's wait when the commission has given us their findings. Because people, guess how many people died? Guess who did what? We want the truth and we'll deal with it. Tanzania is an island of peace. It must remain an island of peace.

SPEAKER_00 25:05

And you are confident this commission will be able to speak bravely and impartially about what happened in its report.

SPEAKER_02 25:18

I think this is where then the Tanzanians we have to judge after we see the results. If you get the report, if it doesn't make sense, then people will speak.

unknown 25:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 25:33

Maybe then let's let me take two other examples in the continent on uh the state of a democracy. Um the Sahel uh and the big revolutions or coups in other people's words, uh Mali, Burkina Faso, um what do you make of the effect of coups? And we've seen the most recent one being Madagascar. Are these also indications, in a way, of the failure uh of the democratic one-man, one woman vote shift in power? Um, I will not ask you about the democratic outcome of Cameroon. Um I think uh the president is possibly even older than you. Yes, but maybe you do want to say something about also this desire for people who are old. Maybe we may not all agree that people must have a limited term of office. Maybe they can have 20 years, but surely we we have to agree that old people who have old problems, the elderly people who have reached a very advanced age, surely we have as a continent can agree, we have to agree minimum that there are things you can no longer be able to do at an advanced age of 85, 90, 91, 92, and so on and so forth. And you see that old people want to hold on and they've been there for 30 years, 40 years. So these are two things I know I'm raising at the same time, but the coups on the one hand, but on the other, this long-standing presidents who want to grow until they're hundred, they can't even walk sometimes, they fall during big events when the whole world is watching. But even what did you infl? But we knew sometimes they don't inflow, they grow, they give. But we know in the case, unless you are saying the the older guys have become children.

SPEAKER_02 28:09

No, let me answer your question this way. One, you have two, one is in democracy. Uh looking at the African culture, that's where I think we've messed up. We imported so much of foreign culture imposed on ourselves as people, as a people, without trying to domesticate whatever we wanted to import on our culture, democracy is not African, and I'm not sure that we have domesticated democracy enough. I don't mean that it's a bad thing, but it's a foreign concept, and even if we are practicing it, we are doing it accord not according to our cultures. You go to vote with almost fifty percent of your people illiterate. Democracy means writing and reading. So already we start from the wrong footing. So if you want proper democracy, heavy universal literacy. That is just the preliminary precondition so that somebody doesn't come and say, Come, come, read for me here, who is this and so on? You don't go into the books and learn to read and write while you are voting. I'm just giving that as a simple example. But what I mean is in my culture, where I grew up on an island in Lake Victoria, we had chiefs, and these chiefs used at least they were elected according. Some were elected, some were born, and even in that clan where the chief is born, there are rules which determine who is going to be the chief. Agreed by that society. And there are rules which govern the behavior of the chief. So the democracy we are not we are talking about today. People think you go and vote, vote, vote, and come out of the box, count, count, count, whether you count by machine, by hand, whatever use. That artificial democracy. And it's going to give us a lot of problems. We have to revisit our understanding and the methodology of carrying out our democracy. Because at times I have so many friends in the opposition. I'm in the ruling party. Because I understand we differ in thinking, but we are still the same Tanzanians. How many people think of that? People think I have to be elected. If I'm not elected, the one elected is not the right one. We must look into them as Africans. And particularly having come from that history, we have so lost so much of our values, and they do affect the democracy we are talking about. So that's what I want to say. The African continent, we have to rethink of what we say when we say democracy. It's not just a matter of ticking the papers, and then you say we've elected a leader, and then that leader does whatever they want, and you don't say no, according to our culture, this is a taboo. The chief does not behave this, the chief does not do this, and there are so many rules, does and don'ts. Are we doing that? This is the democracy I want to say, but I'm getting right. Maybe I'm at the departure round.

SPEAKER_00 33:30

So you are able to say, me, I'm uh advanced. What about you know it's always the main in the continent? But let me finish you with the age. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 33:44

For me, age is not a problem. Okay, because there are things I cannot do. There are things I can do way better than the young ones. Because there are some young people who have the older brain than mind. And I think if you go around, you will find them. And think they they are they they they disabled, mentally disabled. Not because they were born mentally disabled, but because they've never had an exposure of life and so on. So I call them mentally disabled. So you have an elder person with wisdom, commitment, and they serve proper. So I'm not going to debate about age. Age is not a problem. You don't just say when you are 60, you are gone. When you are eighty, I am eighty now. But I still come to network with my friends in South Africa. I still care for my family. So there are certain things we should just give in age. We should look into thinking is this person disabled, mentally deranged? No. But there are younger people who are worse off than me. I think you you should agree with them. 100%. Yes. Yeah. And I was uh studying some life uh psychology of human beings and found out that the brain is how you use it. People some people cannot write now and read because they have not practiced that for years. So the use of the brain, the information you get into your brain, and the emotions you have in yourself are the things which can determine what you are. You can be a young person, very selfish. You can be a young person, a thief. You can be anything, but you can have an elderly person who is behaving properly and the brain is functioning. That person can read, can write. Can you imagine I'm finishing my book? I was at a retreat last week editing my book. And I do it. It's the use of the brain. So the human beings should be judged according to the capacity or the ability to use the brain, the background you came from, the education you've had, the exposure we've had. So I don't want to judge old young, I say, uh-uh. Let's examine the readers according to their capacity and the love people have for them. And there are so many unpopular young people, leaders in institutions, in governments, young but stupid and useless.

SPEAKER_00 37:34

And immature and impulsive, no wisdom. No wisdom. I see. Sell outs. So even when these characteristics attain in an older person, we must say, no, your problem is not. Now that follows the physical ability. Yes. That is maybe what people should be talking about. I see. But aren't they talking about that when they say, for instance, uh President Paul Bia, but you you you can't lift the leg anymore. What is the leg to do with the leadership? Well, you must walk to the office to the next office. And there are wheelchairs. So we must put him in a wheelchair. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 38:25

What about for example? I travel and I travel on plane. I did it many years back. I I was smart to notice that we have wheelchairs on airports. Why should I suffer? And there's a privilege of sitting in a wheelchair at the airport. You sit there, then they take you around until you get to you take him. So why should I suffer when we have technologies and other things? What about sleeping?

SPEAKER_00 38:54

I mean, uh my grandmother who uh died in her 90s, you know, as she grew old, she slept a lot. And you see president, for instance, of the United States before this one, um Biden. Every time. I don't want to talk about. But what I mean doesn't it doesn't it mean as you go older you you sleep more?

SPEAKER_02 39:26

You should not generalize some older people can't sleep. So we should not generalize. I'm saying take your leader according to the physical, mental capabilities. Gotcha. That's it.

SPEAKER_00 39:46

Yeah. I must agree with you, too many stupid young people out there. It's true. Yeah, it's true. Um tell us then about the coups. What do we make of these uh of of the transitions of power that there are still coups in the continent? Your generation had instituted all types of rules to try and have Africa no longer have coups with your peer review mechanisms, Africa peer review mechanism, uh, and many other uh uh uh instruments, but you've you still have Madagascar that has occurred, uh, and I mentioned earlier the Sahel. What do these coups tell us uh about the transfer of power in the continent?

SPEAKER_02 40:43

Oh, I think I should maybe safely say the coups show so many things. One, mismanagement of the government, mismanagement of the resources, people get dissatisfied, uh appetite for power. Some people just make calls because they want to be there, hunger for power, and then sometimes misinformation. You can see other than if you are not strong enough to say you have your own nation, people come and say no, no, no, if you do this, if this one gets out, you are going to be in a better position in the zone. So we need what we need are structures, political structures within our nations, so that even if somebody who is hungry for power wants to take over, the mechanisms will deal with them. Both in political parties and in the government machineries. If you don't have those structures put in place, then the coups will continue. And they will continue because Africa is rich. So many people have the appetite to be in Africa and root. I see that as a problem. And they see, like take the Congo, when people at war, they don't have the capability to protect their nations, to protect their resources from those who come to plunder and those who also plunder to take out their own resources. So we have to be very, very careful. Otherwise, if we don't have the right political system, economic systems, if we don't, our leadership, our governments do not take care of the needs of the people. Even we women will get tired to produce you just then to take you to war. We are going to be tired. How can you produce a child with so much pain and then at the end of it that boy goes to work? We don't have that action. We have to stop it if we want to develop Africa.

SPEAKER_00 43:34

I want to take you to the international situation.

SPEAKER_02 43:37

Um the current, but with age, I want to add. Okay. It's always a respect to go through the age system. And I think it's a good example in Tanzania, they must say. They go according to age groups, you they retire. From childhood to youth to elders. So if you do things of youth, you pretend to be a young person when you are older and you will be disciplined by your tribe. So in Africa, sometimes you find people they don't know which age they belong to. But the master know it very clear that it's time to move on. And it's it's a will of a person. I remember Julius Cambraganier, he got to an age, he just said, I use the word when he had described that I'm now stepping out. And we did allow him to step out very graceful. He said, I also want to be out voting for a president. I want to see the experience of voting for a president. And he did. He voted for two presidents. He participated in the campaigns for the other presidents. So it depends what one wants. That's very will. So with age, don't worry. Those who want to stay in, let them stay in as long as they are safe.

SPEAKER_00 45:30

Many people who this will be my last set of questions around the future of the United Nations. That people are worried about. One, his call that Europe should not look into its colonial and imperialist past and feel guilty and feel the need as a result to be the welfare cheerleader of the world. But secondly, to say they must be proud of having transported Christianity to the rest of the world. Very critical of the United Nations. But we've seen the behavior of the US in Venezuela and now in Iran. It is not an administration that takes international law seriously. Before that, the whole year last year, it was waging tariff wars, disrupting the international trade agreements and processes. Do you think we have arrived at a period of the end of the United Nations and Security Council? If we have, what do you think comes after?

SPEAKER_02 47:14

I'm not very good at seeing the future. But what I can say what is happening is harmful to the United Nations. It destabilizes the United Nations. While preparing the Beijing Conference, I worked with the United Nations. And what I'm seeing today is sort of the United Nations is shaking. It's not stable. And because it's such a huge organization, it needs a lot of stability and peace within itself. So if I cannot predict of the fall of the United Nations, but I am worried about the instability of the United Nations. And when it comes to what is happening in Iran, sin is sin. There is a sin going on in the world. People are sinning. So they have to go and confess. And where do they go to confess? United Nations is supposed to be the body which would have cleansed whatever is going on now in the world. Does it have the capacity? Are the members not part of the problem? But how do you kick out members? So we have to rethink people, maybe get people with bigger brains to sit down seriously and think about the United Nations the way they did after the World War II. The institution was created to solve problems, not to create problems, not to accommodate those who create problems with examples. We have so many other people. I mean, there are several nations which were never admitted straight to the United Nations. Africa was not part of the United Nations. We are not regarded to be a continent. So if those days when the United Nations was formed, we were not there. Why shouldn't we take out those who do not go according to the rules and regulations of the UN? Why are we shy? And particularly when the majority are men. Why are the men shy? I've never seen shy men. But when it comes to committing sins, men are not shy.

SPEAKER_01 50:33

So let's look at it.

SPEAKER_02 50:39

Do we need I think we have to to have a serious meeting or dialogue of nations to revisit the position of the United Nations if we want to save it? It's a useful organization.

SPEAKER_00 51:03

This is important. I mean, I I haven't had anybody taking that approach. I just want to explore it with a concrete example. Everybody says the actions of the United States in Iran are in total violation of the UN Charter, examining resolutions, and human rights. And human rights. And the sovereignty of nations. Am I right that I'm hearing you to be saying the United Nations should be brave enough to expel the United States?

SPEAKER_01 51:47

Yes. Why not? If they've sinned. Or else they confess.

SPEAKER_02 52:00

I'm a Catholic. We normally go to confess when you've committed sins. You sort of admit that it is a sin. It's a sin. Making women suffer, children die, people die, it's a sin. You need to go to confession. And in this case, it's the UN which is the confession box.

SPEAKER_00 52:28

Do you suppose that the might in the end if if this happens, if the United States, say the UN grows the bravery to expel it, do you think it will not disrupt the world further by being outside of the United Nations?

SPEAKER_02 52:56

I think what I meant here is if you have an institution like our cultural tribes, you almost expel yourself if you do the wrong thing. You don't need to be told. That's why I'm looking for the cultural practice. So sir, you will just feel yourself that I'm out of place, I've done the wrong thing. And then you run quickly to correct the mistakes. So if there are nations which have sinned, they should correct themselves quickly in order to come back to the society. Should that apply to the African Union? Yes, if they are sinners, I hope they are not. But if they are sinners, why not? Why shouldn't they feel guilty about sinning?

SPEAKER_00 54:06

Okay. Thank you so much for your time. And uh I hope you enjoy the rest of your stay in Johannesburg. Uh it's been it's been really educational.

SPEAKER_02 54:20

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mike. Thank you.