TABORA NA MAJINA YA WATOTO.

Na Fredy

Tabora ni mahali ambapo watu wake wanapenda kutunza kumbu kumbu zao kwa namna nyingi sana.

Lakini, ukikaa na ukisikiliza majina waliyokuwa wanapewa watoto, waweza kufahamu watoto hao walizaliwa katika hali gani au walizaliwa wakati gani.

Wanyamwezi wanasifika kuwa ni watu wa safari sana, na safari zao walikuwa hawakosi kubeba mizigo… na ndio mara nyingi utasikia watu wakisema, hata wale ambao si watani wao, "Mzigo mzito mpe Mnyamwezi".

Kwa safari zao nyingi, hawa watu waliweza kujifunza mambo mengi hata mambo ya tiba kwa sababu wanapita katika nyika ambazo zina miti mbalimbali na wanakutana na watu mbalimbali na wanapozungumza, mtu kusema kuwa mti huu unatibu maradhi fulani ni jambo la kawaida.

Sasa hakuna kitu kinacho sumbua katika ndoa kama ndoa hiyo haikujaliwa kupatikana mtoto. Familia nzima huhangaika wakubwa kwa wadogo mpaka na wahusika wenyewe; mume na mke, huenda kutafuta dawa ya kupata mtoto.

Mtoto akipatikana, akiwa wa kiume huitwa Maganga kwa sababu kapatikana kwa misaada ya dawa, ambazo kilugha ni buganga. Na kama ni binti huitwa Nyamizi kwa sababu inaaminika kuwa kapatikana kwa msaada wa mizizi.

Ama mtoto akizaliwa bila matatizo hupewa jina ama la babu zake kwa baba au kwa mama. Na mara nyingi huanza kutolewa jina la kwa upande wa baba na kisha mtoto wa pili hupewa jina la kutoka kwa mama yake.

Kuna hali kadhaa ambazo huweza kutokea, mathalani, mama anapoteza maisha wakati wa kujifungua, na kile kichanga kikawa hai, kitatunzwa kwa namna yo yote ile ili mradi kichanga hicho kipate upevu na kuishi kama vijana wengine.

Lakini jina lake hutokeza kama dole gumba mkononi, kama ni wa kiume ataitwa Mlekwa na kama ni wa kike ataitwa Kalekwa . Hilo ni jambo la kawaida.

Na mapacha walipewa majina kuonesha kuwa wao ni Mapacha, hawa waliweza kupata majina ya aina mbili: wa kwanza ama aliitwa Kulwa au Mtunda na wa pili aliitwa Doto au Mpasa. Kwa wanaume waliweza kutumia majina yote mawili lakini wanawake walipewa majina ya Kulwa na Doto.

Hutokea mtoto akazaliwa kwa kutanguliza miguu badala ya kutanguliza kichwa kama kawaida ya uzazi, basi mtoto huyo huitwa Kashindye.

Na mtoto anayezaliwa baada ya mapacha au kashindye huitwa Muhozya au Sizya maana yake amepoza mambo au ametuliza mambo. Kwa nini anaitwa jina hilo ambalo maana yake ni Salama? Ni wazi kabisa kuwa shughuli za kujifungua ni kazi pevu na hatihati zake huweza kuleta hata mama kupoteza maisha au kupata kifafa cha uzazi.

Sasa je mama anapokuwa na hali ya kujifungua mapacha au Kashindye maisha yake yanakuwa hatarini zaidi ya yule ambaye anajifungua mtoto mmoja.?!

Kuna watu wanaosema kuwa hali kama hizo hazipatikani katika makabila mengine isipokuwa kwa Wasukuma na Wanyamwezi. Wanaendelea kusema kuwa wakunga wa kwao walikuwa wakiona kuna jambo ambalo si la kawaida humo ndani basi waliamua vingine..

TANZANIA NA SIASA ZA KUAZIMA

Tanzania ni nchi ambayo imepata kutembelewa na watu wa aina nyingi kwa karne na karne tangu zama za Yesu na hata kabla yake.

Historia za nchi hii zinaeleza kuwa kulikuja watu kutoka Ugiriki na wakafanya mambo mengi kama vile wanatajwa kina Ptolemy ambaye alipitia Misri kutoka Ugiriki na wengine wengi.

Zinaelezwa habari nyingi za hapa kwetu mpaka zinatajwa habari za Azania au habari za Muuruj, Sofala na Musa bin Beka (Mozambique).

Watu hawa walipokuja huku walileta mambo mengi ama vya kubebeka na kushikika au vitu ambavyo ni vya ki maana tu. Katika vitu vya kushikika walileta vitu vingi ikiwa pamoja na shanga, mvinyo (wine) aina za nguo mbali mbali, bunduki gobole (korofindo) na hadi leo tuna baiskeli, redio, kompyuta na hata magari.

Ama kwa upande wa vitu vilivyoingizwa hapa ambavyo havishikiki mkononi, ni vya kimaana tu ni pamoja na kuathiri utamaduni wa hapa nchi na kuleta mambo mageni ambayo hayakuweko huko nyuma.

Leo hii tunakuta watu wanakuwa na lugha ambayo hapo kale ilikuwa sivyo baali imeazima maneno kutoka nje. Na mambo mengine mengi ya kiutamaduni. Bila shaka watu wakiazima mambo ya kigeni na kuyaingiza katika utamaduni wao basi fikra hiyo hubadilisha mwenendo wa walio uzoweya watu na hubadilisha pengine hata maneno. Na hutokea hata maneno mengine yaliyokuwa yanaendana na uatamaduni mkongwe kuweza kupotea au kubadilika matumizi.

Hapa jambo kubwa tunaloliona na pengine bila hata watu kudhania vingine juu yale na wala hawaliangalii asili yake ni mambo ya kisiasa. Siasa kwetu hivi sasa ambazo tulizo nazo ni siasa ambazo hazikuwepo hapo kale bali ni utamaduni ulio azimwa kutoka nje ya maeneo yetu na kama kuna vitu vilivyo bakia katika asili za siasa za kwetu hapa Tanzania ni kwa uchache sana kama vile mtu akikosea jambo katika jamii basi hutozwa faini. Neno faini ni neon jipya lakini adhabau kama hizo zilikuwepo kwa watu wa maeneo ya magharibi walikuwa wanaita MASUMULE[1].

Siasa zetu zilikuwa chini ya watemi ambao wakoloni wakiwaita kuwa ni machifu. Lakini kidogo kidogo machifu hao waliondolewa na walikuja watu wakawa mahali pao. Nadhani tu kuwa chifu alikuwa chini ya Bwana DC, Mkuu wa Wilaya, lakini DC mara zote katika zama za Mkoloni alikuwa ni mzungu na anakaa Bomani. Na hilo neno BOMA ni jina la ufupisho wa maneno ambayo ni British Overseas Management and Administration. Boma likawa limemeza neno IKULU la watemi.

Neno Ikulu maana yake ni jumba kubwa na kweli majengo ambayo alikuwa anakaa chifu au Mtemi siyo kibanda kidogo dogo.

Ikulu ilipaswa kuwa jumba kubwa kwa sababu hapo kulipatikana mambo mengi ikiwa pamoja na :

1. Hazina ya mali

2. Hazina ya silaha (armory) – licha ya kuwa kila mwananchi alipaswa kuwa na silaha zake mwenye angalau kwa uchache kisu (mikuki na upinde na mishale)

3. Ghala la chakula ikiwa ni mahali pa kimbilio pakitokea majanga ama ya njaa au moto au mafuriko na hata vita.

4. Baraza la wazee

5. Mahakama.

Ilikuwa ni jengo ambalo lilikuwa na mambo mengi ya wazi na mambo mengi ya siri. Zaidi ya hapo nyuma ya jengo hilo kulikuwa na ni NGOME ambayo ilikuwa imejengwa kwa makini na kwa uimara na ikiwa na ulinzi wa usiku na mchana na jina lilikuwa ni hilo hilo NGOME na watu wengine wali iita NGOMWA na maana yake ni mahali palipo hifadhiwa.

[1] Mfano mtu kamvunjia heshima mkwewe, baraza lilikaa na mtuhumiwa akikutwa na hatia basi alipewa adhabu ya kutoa kitu kama vile mbuzi au kuku au pengine hata mtungi wa pombe na watu wote wanajua kuwa kaadhibia, ikiwa ni onyo asirudie tena na watu wengine wasilifanye kosa hilo au la namna hiyo.

FeaturesHuman Rights13 June 2016

Living with albinism in South Africa

People with albinism often face discrimination and ridicule within their own families and communities.

Nombuso Cele, a 24-year-old student from Durban, South Africa, tells how growing up with albinism can be very challenging [Al Jazeera]

Nombuso Cele

Albinism in Malawai

At least 69 people with albinism have been attacked in Malawi since 2014
At least 18 people have been killed, and five others abducted since November 2014
Four were killed in April 2016 alone

Durban, South Africa - Albinism, a congenital disorder in which people lack colour pigmentation in their skin, hair and eyes, affects about one in every 20,000 people worldwide. It is most common in sub-Saharan Africa, where there remains great misunderstanding about people with the condition.

In some parts of southern and eastern Africa, body parts of those living with albinism are believed to hold magic powers, and so they are hunted and killed by "albino hunters".

In 2016, there have been attacks in Tanzania, Burundi and Malawi. But even when they are not hunted, people with albinism often face discrimination and ridicule within their own families and communities.

Here Nombuso Cele, a 24-year-old financial management student from Durban, South Africa, describes the challenges that people with albinism endure in their day-to-day life

'Myths about albinos need to end'

As much as some family members accepted me from birth, it took my parents some time to truly accept me. It affected me because I needed them at that time, and I didn't have their support.

Watch: Spell of the Albino

But I couldn't blame them because they didn't understand what was going on with me. I have experienced a lot of discrimination from our society and people who are uninformed about albinism.

When I was in primary school, other kids stayed away from me because I was different from them and it affected my self-esteem. I was called different names; some would call me "white spooky", and others would always tease me and call me ugly.

I myself didn't understand what and who I was until, one day, a girl from my class reached out to me.

She asked me why I was casting myself aside from other kids, and I had to explain to her that it was because I was different.

She was so young, and I was amazed with her mindset. She told me that people will always talk no matter what, but it's up to me to change their perception of me.

In high school, I started gaining more confidence and claimed my position and my right to be part of the so-called "normal" society.

Since then, I have always had confidence and have not let anyone treat me as though I were different from the rest of the people.

People have a crazy idea that albinos are not human enough to be part of society

People need to accept us for who we are, and if that means I have to associate myself with them and exist in the same space as them, then so be it.

I have had challenges at school with my eyes, but that did not stop me from following my dreams. I have friends who have been helpful throughout the past two years of my studies, and I am very grateful for having such people.

I have had my fair share of challenges and faced a lot of discrimination, but I chose not to let that determine who I am.

It's funny how dark-skinned people think they are better than albinos, but we are all black. I have come across people who would make derogatory remarks when they see me, especially old men who would refer to me as isishawa (cursed).

Sometimes I laugh and brush it off because I understand where they come from: They were born during an era where there was no information about albinism.

But when young people make derogatory remarks, it really frustrates me because it shows how ignorant we as the youth can be.

Within the university - Durban University of Technology - there are people who still look at me with resentment. That alone shows how uninformed and socially illiterate young people can be. I am OK with the fact that our university doesn't have any organization specifically for people with albinism because we are well informed about it.

It is the society that needs to be informed, and the organizations advocating for people living with albinism should take a different approach when raising awareness.

Instead of mobilising each other, they should involve the society and provide necessary information to them.

I am very grateful that my mother did not take me to the special schools that accommodate those living with disabilities. As much as the government declares albinism to be a disability, I don't allow myself to be treated as a disabled person because I am able in every way.

Myths about albinos need to end.

Men need to understand that albinos are human too, and [not believe] the myth that having sex with a person with albinism will cure HIV and Aids.

People need to stop being gullible and ridiculous. We have the same blood; it is just the skin pigmentation that is different.

Many people are brainwashed and believe that those with albinism have a certain magic. Yes, we are special, and there is something special about us. That doesn't make us animals to be preyed upon and brutally killed.

We should not be made to feel self-conscious about who we are because that's how isolation begins. I am impressed by the fact that our government has begun considering us for employment opportunities because we are just as capable as others, regardless of our condition.

As told to Khadija Patel and Lizeka Maduna.

Albinos mutilated in Malawi, activists call for action

WANAFANYA KAMPENI ZA KUREJESHA NGOZI BAADA YA JANDO

.Wanaume waliotahiriwa wanaweza kupata fursa ya kurejesha ngozi zao tena!

Kampuni moja la Kimarekani limesimama kidedea katika kampeni za kuwarejesha watu waliokwenda jando waingie tena katika usungo mara ya pili kama hawaridhiki na hali yao mpya ya tohara baada ya kwenda jando.

Makundi kadhaa ya madaktari wamekuwa wakilalamika dhidi ya oparesheni ya tohara kwa wanaume ambapo ngozi inayo funika kichwa cha dhakari/zunga[1] huondolewa na mtu akawa ametoharika.

Neno tohara ni hali ya mtu kapata usafi. Inaaminika kuwa zunga akiwa nalo mtu huweka uchafu unaotoka ama kwa jasho na ama kwa mambo mengine kama mabaki ya mkojo uchafu huo huitwa utoko. Hali ambayo kwa wafuasi wa dini za Kiislamu na Kiyahudi haikubaliki na suluhisho lake jando.

Kuna tafiti nyingi zinazoonesha kuwa wale walio na tohara si rahisi kwao kupata maradhi kama vile virusi vya papilooma na kansa ya dhakari pamoja na kansa ya kwenye mji wa mimba kwa sababu wanawake wanapata maambukizo hayo kutoka kwa wanaume.

Na kampeni zinaendelea ulimwenguni zikihamasishwa wanaume kufanya tohara ikiaminika kuwa jando humweka mwanaume kuwa salama na maradhi ya ngono hasa zililizo zembe. Utafiti uliochukua muda mrefu umeonesha kuwa wanaume walio tahiriwa si rahisi kwao kupata maradhi ya ngono ikiwa pamoja na Ukimwi nawakati ni jambo rahisi sana kwa wasungo.

Hata hivyo katika miaka ya hivi karibuni madaktari wa huko Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Iceland na Australia wameleta madai kuwa jando linapunguza nyege kwa wanaume lina athari mbaya kisaikolojia kwa watoto wa kiume. Malalamiko hayo, pia yako huko Marekani.

Huko Marekani watu wamepiga hatua kubwa zaidi ya kujipanga katika kikundi kiitwacho Foregen ili kuwasaidia walio na tohara kurejea katika usungo wao wa kale. Foregen ni kikundi ambacho kinasimamia na kusaidia utafiti ili madaktari waweze kuwa wanawerejeshea mazunga wale walio tahiriwa. Habari zao zinaeleza kuwa watafiti wamejaribu kuwarejeshea mazunga wanyama kama vile ng’ombe na punda.

Na hivi sasa kampeni imetandaa huko Marekani kwa jina la Kickstarter kwa ajili ya kurejesha mazunga na kutetea watu wasiende jandoni.Na wanasema kuwa ngozi hizo kwa uangalifu zitaota na zitakuwa na hisia kama ngozi ya mwanadamu ya kawaida. Wataalamu wa fiziologia, kwa kuliona hilo kuwa ni kazi bure wanasema kuwa kichwa cha dhakari kina mrundikano wa neva na hivyo hisia za hisia hizo zinabaki pale pale zunga liwepo au lisiwepo.

Kwa takwimu za Shirika la Afya Duniani (WHO) , asilimia 30 ya wanaume duniani wana tohara. Kwa Tanzania maeneo ambayo watu wanaume hufanya tohara ni mikoa ya kati na mikoa ya Kaskazini na sehemu ndogo ya wakazi wa mkoa wa Mara.

Kampeni ya tohara nchini imepamba moto katika mikoa ya Nyanda za Juu Kusini na Mikoa ya Kanda ya Ziwa Viktoria.

[1] Neno zunga lina maana sawa na govi, lakini zunga angalau linaonekana kuwa ni neno lenye utulivu.

Jando la Marekani lang’oa Nyeti zote za Jamaa

Katika harakati za kutaka kujiweka hajapitwa na wakati mtu mmoja, Johnny Lee Banks Jr, mwenye umri wa miaka 56 ambaye ni mkazi wa Birmingham, Alabama, Marekani amepeleka malalamiko mahakamani kuwa amekatwa uume wake badala ya kutahiriwa.

Madaktari wa Princeton Baptist Medical Center ya Mjini Birmingham wanasema kuwa madai yake hayana mashiko na madai yake si ya sahihi.

Hali za maoni kuhusu mambo ya upasuaji ni kuwa iwe upasuaji mkubwa au ndogo, kuna vitu ambavyo vinaweza kutokea na kuleta madhara kwa mtu anayefanyiwa upasuaji. Hayo pia hutokea hata kwa hali ya kutahiri.

Kwa mujibu wa mtandao wa NHS, matatizo ya kutahiri yapo ingawa ni machache sana ikiwa pamoja na kutokwa damu sana na “kupungua kwa hisia kwenye dhakari hasa wakati wa tendo la ndoa.

Hata hivyo wataalamu wa miili -fiziologia – wanasema kuwa jando halipunguzi ashiki hizo kwa sababu kichwa cha dhakari kina neva nyingi” na siyo kuwa lile gamba la ngozi nalo lina leta ashiki.

Kampeni ya kuhamasisha waanaume kutahiri imepamba moto nchini Tanzania katika maeneo ya Nyanda za Juu Kusini na maeneo ya Ziwa Viktoria.

Gazeti la Birmingham News, wakili anaye wawakilisha madakatari wawili waliomfanyia upasuaji Bwana Blacks anasema kuwa madai yake hayana mashiko. Lakini kama kesi hiyo itafikia kilele cha madaktari kukutwa na hatia haijulikani kutakuwa nini.

Mkoani Tabora, miaka zaidi ya 60 iliyopita, kulitokea kesi kama hiyo wilayani Sikonge, maeneo kati ya Tutuo na Igigwa, ambako bwana mmoja alimwambia ngariba wakiwa katika kilabu cha pombe, kuwa alikuwa anawachezea watoto wadogo siyo watu wazima wenye heshima zao kama yeye. Yule ngariba alichemka na kumpiga mwereka yule mtu mbishi na vijana wa ngariba wakamdhibiti miguu yake na ngariba akafanya kazi yake pale pale.

Kesi hiyo ilipofika kwa bwana shauri mjini Tabora, ngariba alikutwa na hatia ya kupigana hadharani na kumjeruhi mwenziwe kwenye nyeti zake. Ngariba alifungwa miezi mitatu.

Kampeni za kutahiri kwa watu wazima zimepamba moto baada ya kuonekana kuwa wasio tahiriwa wanaishi katikia mazingira hatarishi kwa ukimwi. Kauli hiyo imeenea ulimwenguni kote kuwa nchini Kenya watu walio sehemu ambako wanatabia ya kutahiri wanakumbwa na ukimwi kama sehemu ambako wanajiachia bila tohara.

Kwa mipangilio ya imani za kidini, wafuasi wa dini ya Kiislamu na Mayahudi ndio sehemu ya imani yao kutahiiriwa.

Kwa mujibu wa Shirika la Afya Duniani (WHO) asilimia mia 30 ya wakazi wa duniani wametahiriwa.

Chicago Researchers find why uncircumcised men have more HIV

A new study conducted by Chicago researchers shows that internal mucosal layers of foreskin are more susceptible to HIV infection than cervical tissue or the external layers of foreskin, which explains why uncircumcised men seem to be at much higher risk for HIV acquisition than men who are circumcised.

Previously, numerous studies reported that uncircumcised men have higher rates of HIV infection and are at a twofold to eightfold increased risk of becoming infected with HIV compared to circumcised men. However, why circumcision plays a protective role against acquisition of HIV has been unknown.

A study published in the September issue of the American Journal of Pathology by researchers at Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Medical Center, Children’s Memorial Hospital and the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health points to the biological mechanisms underlying this protective effect.

The researchers examined foreskin tissue obtained from eight children and six adults who were undergoing circumcision for other reasons. Those tissues were compared with cervical tissue, which served as controls. The analysis showed that foreskin mucosa (cells underneath the surface) contain high concentrations of the cells targeted by HIV. The foreskin tissue contained higher densities of CD4+ T cells, macropahges and Langerhans’ Cells (LC) in adults than in children or in cervical tissue. The highest proportion of these HIV target cells were found in men with a history of infection, which is consistent with studies finding that men with sexually transmitted infections are more susceptible to HIV.

According to Alan Landay, PhD, department of Immunology/Microbiology and at Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Medical Center, the higher the concentration of HIV target cells, the more susceptible the tissue is to HIV. This proved to be the case. When the authors introduced HIV to the tissue in culture, the cells in the foreskin tissues were infiltrated with HIV rapidly and at much greater intensity than the cervical tissue.

According to the first author, Bruce Patterson, M.D, viral pathologist in the division of Infectious Diseases at Children’s Memorial Hospital, there are logical, but as yet unproven theories explaining how HIV infection occurs in the circumcised penis. "Infection may occur through the urethral mucosa or through disruptions of the penile shaft epithelia caused by genital ulcer disease or trauma," he said. In uncircumcised men, Patterson said that the thin keratin layer they found on the inner compared to the outer mucosal surface predisposed the foreskin to infection.

The authors mention that a limitation of the study is that they were unable to obtain tissue from circumcised penises for comparison.

However, the study’s senior author, Robert Bailey, PhD, MPH, from the Division of Epidemiology, School of Public Health at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is conducting a study in east Africa that will address this issue. Bailey and his collaborators have begun a randomized controlled trial to compare HIV acquisition in 1,400 African males age 18-24 who will be circumcised with 1,400 in the same city who are not circumcised. Bailey’s team will take two years to recruit all the young men and will follow each group for two years, providing them with HIV prevention counseling and free medical treatment. After four years of study, they will be able to determine if circumcision reduced the men’s chances of becoming HIV infected.

Landay said that the implications of this foreskin tissue evaluation and the positive association between uncircumcisized individuals and HIV acquisition indicate that strong consideration should be given to integrating male circumcision information and services with other HIV preventive methods.

Male circumcision protects against HIV infection

Uncircumcised men are at a much greater risk of becoming infected with HIV than circumcised men, according to new evidence in published in the British Medical Journal in June 2000.

Using information from over 40 previous studies, researchers in Australia suggest that the virus targets specific cells found on the inner surface of the foreskin. These cells possess HIV receptors, making this area particularly susceptible to infection. The researchers propose that male circumcision provides significant protection against HIV infection by removing most of the receptors.

The most dramatic evidence of this protective effect comes from a new study of couples in Uganda, where each woman was HIV positive and her male partner was not. Over a period of 30 months, no new infections occurred among 50 circumcised men, whereas 40 of 137 uncircumcised men became infected - even though all couples were given advice about preventing infection and free condoms were available to them.

Although cultural and religious attitudes towards male circumcision are deeply divided, the authors conclude that, in the light of the evidence, male circumcision should be seriously considered as an additional means of preventing HIV in countries with a high level of infection. Alternatively, say the authors, the development of 'chemical condoms' ' products which can block HIV receptors in the penis and the vagina ' might provide a more acceptable form of HIV prevention in the future.

Other Articles of interest:

Uncircumcised Men Have More HIV
Interview with Alan Landay, PhD, immunologist, 2002

Male Circumcision: Cutting the Risk?
Bob Huff, American Foundation for AIDS Research, August 2000

Medical Articles and Abstracts

Acceptability of male circumcision as a tool for preventing HIV infection in a highly infected community in South Africa.
Lagarde E, Dirk T, Puren A, Reathe RT, Bertran A, AIDS 2003 Jan 3;17(1):89-95
Circumcision and STD in the United States: cross sectional and cohort analyses
Diseker RA, Peterman TA, Kamb ML, Kent C, Zenilman JM, Douglas JM, Rhodes F, Iatesta M, Sex Transm Infect 2000 Dec;76(6):474-9
Male Circumcision and Risk of HIV Infection in Sub-Saharan Africa: a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis"
H.A. Weiss, M.A. Quigley and R.J. Hayes
Dynamics of Male Circumcision Practices in Northwest Tanzania
Soori Nnko, Robert Wahsija, Mark Urassa, J.Ties Boerma, Sex. Trans. Dis. 2001;28:214-218.
Vitamin A and risk of HIV-1 seroconversion among Kenyan men with genital ulcers
MacDonald KS, Malonza I, Chen DK, Nagelkerke NJ, Nasio JM, Ndinya- Achola J, Bwayo JJ, Sitar DS, Aoki FY, Plummer FA, AIDS 2001 Mar 30;15(5):635-63.
How does male circumcision protect against HIV infection?
R. Szabo and R.V. Short, BMJ 2000; 320:1592-4.
Male circumcision and HIV infection: 10 years and counting,
D.T. Halperin and R.C. Bailey, Lancet 1999; 354:1813-5.
Controversy Over Male Circumcision and HIV Transmission in Developing World
Ronald Baker, PhD

Other Excerpts:

Sexual Transmission Of HIV
Royce FA, Sena A, Cates W Jr., Cohen MS New England Journal Of Medicine 1997: 336(15); 1072-1078

"Male circumcision consistently shows a protective effect against HIV infection. This may be due to the abundance of Langerhans' cells in the foreskin or to a receptive environment for HIV in the sulcus between the foreskin and the glans. The prevalence of HIV infection is 1.7 to 8.2 times as high in men with foreskins as in circumcised men, and the incidence of infection is 8 times as high. A greater proportion of sex partners of uncircumcised men than of circumcised men are infected with HIV, which suggests that the presence of the foreskin may also increase infectiousness."

Circumcision Protects Against HIV Infection Westport, Jan 28, 1997 (Reuters): AIDS 1997: 11; 73-80

Male circumcision appears to have protective effect against HIV infection, according to the Tanzania-Netherlands Project to Support AIDS Control in Mwanza region (TANESA).

After controlling for confounding variables," Dr. Marc Urassa found a "...modest but significant reduction of the HIV prevalence among circumcised men."

Evidence That Circumcision Reduces Susceptibility To HIV Infection Called Substantial Westport, Jul 11, 1996 (Reuters)

There is now a "...substantial body of evidence..."that male circumcision lowers susceptibility to HIV infection, Dr.Stephen Moses told conference participants at the XI International Conference on AIDS Wednesday.
Dr.Moses concluded that the fact that male circumcision reduces susceptibility to HIV infection "...may explain part of the wide geographic and population-level variability in observed HIV
transmission."

The African AIDS Epidemic

John C. Caldwell and Pat Caldwell
Scientific American 1996: 273(3); 62-68

Health Transition Center of the National Center for Epidemiology and Population Health at the Australian National University in Canberra.
"Over the past three years, however, we have examined the methodology of the papers as well as the anthropology sources and determined that the findings are sound. Also, in continuing investigation we have found very little support for the charge that circumcision data are no longer relevant. The link between the lack of circumcision and elevated levels of HIV infection appears robust.
In some parts of the AIDS belt, nearly all men are uncircumcised - a situation unlike almost anywhere else in Africa. Thus we conclude that in the AIDS belt, lack of male circumcision in combination with risky sexual behavior, such as having multiple sex partners, engaging in sex with prostitutes and leaving chancroid untreated, has led to rampant HIV transmission".

Circumcision and sexually transmitted diseases

L.S. Cook, L.A. Koutsky, K.K. Holmes
Am J Public Health 1994: 8(2); 197-201

OBJECTIVES. New evidence linking lack of circumcision with sexually transmitted human immunodeficiency virus revives concerns about circumcision and other sexually transmitted diseases. This study was undertaken to assess the relationship between circumcision and syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydial infection, genital herpes, nongonococcal urethritis, and exophytic genital warts. METHODS. A cross-sectional study of 2776 heterosexual men attending a sexually transmitted disease clinic in 1988 was used to investigate the relationship between circumcision and sexually transmitted diseases. Subjects with specific sexually transmitted diseases and those without such diseases were compared after adjustment for age, race, zip code of residence, other sexually transmitted diseases, and number of sexual partners. RESULTS. A positive relationship was observed between uncircumcised status and both syphilis and gonorrhea. A negative relationship was found between warts and lack of circumcision. No apparent relationship was noted between uncircumcised status and genital herpes, chlamydial infection, or nongonococcal urethritis. CONCLUSIONS. Uncircumcised men were more likely than circumcised men to have syphilis and gonorrhea and were less likely to have visible warts.

Genitourinary Manifestation of AIDS

Staiman VR, Delbert JK, Lowe FC Infections Urology 1996: 9(3); 73-78,92

"An uncircumcised male has twice the risk of being infected that a circumcised male has. Because the foreskin is associated with high concentrations of macrophages and lymphocytes, these cells are targets for HIV virus. The foreskin also provides a protected environment and a larger surface area for prolonged exposure between the genital epithelium and infected genital secretions. Also, the uncircumcised penis does not have a thick stratum corneum layer of the glans, which develops after circumcision, this layer protects against abrasions. Finally, the uncircumcised male has an increased risk of acquiring other sexually transmitted diseases that
can increase the likelihood for HIV transmission."

Male Circumcision And Susceptibility To HIV infection Among Men In Tanzania

Urassa M, Todd J, Boerma JT, Hayes R, Isingo R AIDS 1997: 11(3); 73-80

"Male circumcision has a protective effect against HIV infection in this population, which may be stronger in urban areas and roadside settlements than in rural areas. Ethnic group and religious denomination are no longer the sole determinants of male circumcision."

Links to further Medical Research Papers (some off-site)

Kapiga SH, Lyamuya EF, Lwihula GK, Hunter DJ The Incidence Of HIV Infection Among Women Using Family Planning Methods In Dar es Salaam Tanzania AIDS 1998: 12(1); 75-84
Plummer FA Heterosexual Transmission Of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 (HIV): Interactions Of Conventional Sexually Transmitted Diseases, Hormonal Contraception And HIV-1 AIDS Res Hum Retroviruses 1998: 14 Suppl 1; S5-S10
Kelly R, Kiwanuka N et al. Age of Male Circumcision and Risk of Prevalent HIV Infection in Rural Uganda AIDS 1998: 14(3); 399-405.
Seed J, Allen S, Mertens T, Hudes E, Serufilira A, Carael M, Karita E, Van de Perre P, Nsengumuremyi F Male Circumcision, Sexually Transmitted Disease, And Risk Of HIV J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr Hum Retrovirol 1995: 8(1); 83-90
Weiss GN, Sanders M and Westbrook KC The Distribution and Density of Langerhans Cells in the Human Prepuce: Site of a Diminished Immune Response? Israel Journal of Medical Sciences 1993: 29(1); 42-43
Moses S, Plummer FA, Bradely JE, Ndinya-Achola JO, Nagelkerke NJ, Ronald AR The Association Between Lack Of Male Circumcision And Risk For HIV Infection: A Review Of The Epidemiological Data Sex Transm Dis 1994: 21(4); 201-210
Moses S, Bradley JE, Nagelkerke NJ et al. Geographical patterns of male circumcision practices in Africa: association with HIV seroprevalence Int J Epidemiol 1990: 19(3); 693-7
Hunter DJ, Maggwa BN, Mati JK, Tukei PM, Mbugua S Sexual Behavior, Sexual Transmitted Disease, Male Circumcision, And Risk Of Infection Among Women In Nairobi, Kenya AIDS 1994: 8(1): 93-99
Parker SW, Stewart AJ, Wren MN, Gollow MM, Straton JA Circumcision And Sexually Transmissible Disease Med J Aust 1983: 17;2(6); 288-290
Cook LS, Koutsky LA, Holmes KK Circumcision And Sexually Transmitted Diseases Am J Public Health 1994: 84(2); 197-201
Hellmann NS, Grant RM, Nsubuga PS, Walker CK, Kamya M, Tager IB, Jacobs B, Mbidde EK Modifiers Of The Protective Effect Of Circumcision Int Conf AIDS 1992 Jul 19-24 8(2):C294 (abstract no. PoC 4299)
Nasio JM, Nagelkerke NJ, Mwatha A, Moses S, Ndinya-Achola JO, Plummer FA Genital ulcer disease among STD clinic attenders in Nairobi: association wiht HIV-1 and circumcision status Int J STD AIDS 1996: 7(6); 410-414

Politics as a Culture in Tanzania

Cheupe Nyati,

In the 2020 elections, a Protestant to become president of Tanzania!?

Tanzanian after being politically released from colonial powers for more than 50 years has developed what seems to be a trend of “political culture” whereas after a Christian president then comes in a Muslim president.

That is simply seen so after Mwalim Julius Nyerere (a Catholic) who was in power from 1962 to 1985. The pattern was not laid down, only after a little skirmish with a Muslim Seleman Takadiri over the 12 scholarships which Nyerere did not make a 50-50 allocation but allotted two third of them to Christians and one third to Muslims in spite of being together in the fight for Uhuru, Takadiri argued.

Then Ali Hassan Mwinyi ( a Muslim) came in after Nyerere from 1985 to 1995, to be followed by Benjamin William Mkapa (a Catholic) from 1995 to 2005.

In the new century, after Mkapa there came Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete (a Muslim) who was president from 2005 to 2015 to be recently succeeded by John Pombe Mgufuli (a Catholic1?) who is expected to stay through this first term up to 2020 and is hoped to sail through to 2015 depending on the conditions at the time.

The question above comes immediately after the Presidential elections of Tanzania in the year 2015 when the two bulls locked their horns in the fight to enter the Ikulu of Tanzania, namely John Pombe Magufuli and Edward Lowassa (a Lutheran). Lowassa is a Christian from the Protestant group of Churches in Tanzania while Magufuli is apparently a Catholic.

Before the CCM nominations of presidential candidate very few people ever thought of Magufuli, and more than 50 percent from the party members showed their open support to Lowassa. Had Lowassa become candidate of CCM then, then the lock of horns would have been between Lowassa and Dr. Wilbrod Slaa of CHADEMA (a Catholic) and the shift of power would apparently have gone to CHADEMA in support of Slaa who was supposed to run on CHADEMA card.

Entry of Lowassa to CHADEMA which caused the exit of Slaa cut off the Catholic horns of the party which is predominantly Protestant. That is, the Church in Tanzania was split into two sections: Catholic and Protestant, and the two sections became locked into a power race to Ikulu. Unfortunately, the party tooter seemed to be not in need of Muslim votes when it was announced that with Lowassa at Ikulu all the mosques shall be Sunday schools.

The result was as what is, that the Catholic Church, which has predominant support from the South of the country re-entered Ikulu and the Protestants after a hard fight were left at the gates of the Ikulu. They yet have to try again, and now CHADEMA is lining its forces, the 2020 race to Ikulu seems to have already started.

While Dr. Slaa seems to have retired from politics, new comers to CHADEMA seem to have reached home, among them Fredrick Sumaye, who is not retired from politics is a vigorous looming head in this predominantly northern party with its helms in Chagga hands.

How would the scene be had Lowassa from the north, a non Catholic run in the race with a CCM card and Slaa from the North a Catholic in the race with a CHADEMA card in a race to Ikulu? That would have been a good scene. But now let us wait for the next race which seems shall involve the same two northern powers one for Catholic and another for Protestants.

TANZANIA SHALL ALWAYS BE KEPT BEHIND THE CURTAIN

Dar es Salaam

There are reports from Arab world that Sisal that comes from Tanzania is brown and poor quality that from other East African Countries is white and good for gypsum reinforcement and highly marketable.

This was among trade reports in which a trade delegation came to East Africa looking for venture in the purchase and agricultural development of sisal in the zone. The delegation could not turn up in Dar es Salaam after being waited for almost a week.

The delegations report after the visit to East Africa went to say that they were discouraged with the quality of Tanzanian sisal as they were shown in one of the capitals of the East African countries a “poor sample quality sisal which was kinked and dark turning to yellowish” compared to the white glimmering sisal.

The delegation which came down to East Africa looking for tonnes and tonnes of shaar-gipsie (white hair) could only get two containers of sisal, returning home with that little they got from East Africa.

Tanzania has thousands of sisal farms running as estates and not background sisal gardens. The country has a sisal promotion organization Tanzania Sisal Board. Tanzania has always been a leading African sisal producer despite the recent promotions of chemical twines.

In the race to attract world trade, there have been intrigues in the zone each area trying to catch its quota in various areas, including tourism, minerals sales like Tanzanite and Cashew nuts production and sales. The last two items are exclusively produced in Tanzania especially nugget. Tanzanite can never come from anywhere not even in the neighbouring countries.

Recently, two children from the USA were coming to visit their kins in Tanzania and on transit, as they were all American, language and other touches, somebody tried to dissuade them and cut short their safari to Dar es Salaam. “That area has no real tourist attraction Tanzania has no National parks no good hotels and poor transportation facilities. And the top of Africa, Kilimanjaro is not there but in another country.” The children said they were not tourists, they were going to visit grandpa in Shinyanga.

Arab Migrants making entry into Germany, on 22 October 2015

The Failure of Multiculturalism

Community Versus Society in Europe

By Kenan Malik

KENAN MALIK is a monthly columnist fo The International New
York Times and the author, most recently, of

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Thirty years ago, many Europeans saw multiculturalism the embrace of
an inclusive, diverse society as an answer to Europe’s social problems.

Today, a growing number consider it to be a cause of them. That
perception has led some mainstream politicians, including British
Prime Minister David Cameron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel,
to publicly denounce Multiculturalism and speak out against its dangers.
It has fueled the success of far-right parties and populist politicians
across Europe, from the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands to the
National Front in France. And in the most extreme cases, it has inspired
obscene acts of violence, such as Anders Behring Breivik’s homicidal
rampage on the Norwegian island of Utoya in July 2011.

How did this transformation come about? According to
multiculturalism’s critics, Europe has allowed excessive immigration
without demanding enough integration—a mismatch that has eroded
social cohesion, undermined national identities, and degraded public
trust. Multiculturalism’s proponents, on the other hand, counter that the
problem is not too much diversity but too much racism.

But the truth about multiculturalism is far more complex than either side
will allow, and the debate about it has often devolved into sophistry.
Multiculturalism has become a proxy for other social and political
issues: immigration, identity, political disenchantment, working-class
decline. Different countries, moreover, have followed distinct paths.
The United Kingdom has sought to give various ethnic communities
an equal stake in the political system. Germany has encouraged
immigrants to pursue separate lives in lieu of granting them citizenship.
And France has rejected multicultural policies in favor of
assimilationist ones. The specific outcomes have also varied: in the
United Kingdom, there has been communal violence; in Germany,
Turkish communities have drifted further from mainstream society; and
in France, the relationship between the authorities and North African
communities has become highly charged. But everywhere, the
overarching consequences have been the same: fragmented societies,
alienated minorities, and resentful citizenries.

As a political tool, multiculturalism has functioned as not merely a
response to diversity but also a means of constraining it. And that
insight reveals a paradox. Multicultural policies accept as a given that
societies are diverse, yet they implicitly assume that such diversity
ends at the edges of minority communities. They seek to institutionalize
diversity by putting people into ethnic and cultural boxes—into a
singular, homogeneous Muslim community, for example—and defining
their needs and rights accordingly. Such policies, in other words, have
helped create the very divisions they were meant to manage.

THE DIVERSITY MYTH

Untangling the many strands of the multiculturalism debate requires

understanding the concept itself. The term “multicultural” has come to

define both a society that is particularly diverse, usually as a result of

immigration, and the policies necessary to manage such a society. It
thus embodies both a description of society and a prescription for
dealing with it. Conflating the two—perceived problem with supposed
solution—has tightened the knot at the heart of the debate. Unpicking
that knot requires a careful evaluation of each.

Both proponents and critics of multiculturalism broadly accept the
premise that mass immigration has transformed European societies by
making them more diverse. To a certain extent, this seems self-evidently
true. Today, Germany is the world’s second most popular immigrant
destination, after the United States. In 2013, more than ten million
people, or just over 12 percent of the population, were born abroad. In
Austria, that figure was 16 percent; in Sweden, 15 percent; and in
France and the United Kingdom, around 12 percent. From a historical
perspective, however, the claim that these countries are more plural
than ever is not as straightforward as it may seem. Nineteenth-century
European societies may look homogeneous from the vantage point of
today, but that is not how those societies saw themselves then.
Consider France. In the years of the French Revolution, for instance,
only half the population spoke French and only around 12 percent
spoke it correctly.As the historian Eugen Weber showed, modernizing
and unifying France in the revolution’s aftermath required a traumatic
and lengthy process of cultural,educational, political, and economic
self-colonization. That effort created the modern French state and gave
birth to notions of French (and European) superiority over
non-European cultures. But it also reinforced a sense of how socially
and culturally disparate most of the population still was. In an address
to the Medico-Psychological Society of Paris in 1857, the Christian
socialist Philippe Buchez wondered how it could happen that
“within a population such as ours, races may form—not merely one,
but several races—so miserable,inferior and bastardised that they
may be classed as below the most inferior savage races, for their
inferiority is sometimes beyond cure. The “races” that caused Buchez
such anxiety were not immigrants from Africa or Asia but the rural
poor in France.

In the Victorian era, many Britons, too, viewed the urban working class
and the rural poor as the other. A vignette of working-class life in East
London’s Bethnal Green, appearing in an 1864 edition of The Saturday
Review, a well-read liberal magazine of the era, was typical of
Victorian middle-class attitudes. “The Bethnal Green poor,” the story
explained, were “a caste apart,a race of whom we know nothing, whose
lives are of quite different complexion from ours, persons with whom
we have no point of contact.” Much the same was true, the article
suggested, of “the great mass of the agricultural poor.” Although the
distinctions between slaves and masters were considered more
“glaring” than those separating the moneyed and the poor, they offered
“a very fair parallel”; indeed, the differences were so profound that
they prevented “anything like association or companionship.”

Today, Bethnal Green represents the heart of the Bangladeshi
community in East London. Many white Britons see its inhabitants as
the new Bethnal Green poor, culturally and racially distinct from
themselves. Yet only those on the political fringes would compare the
differences between white Britons and their Bangladeshi neighbors
with those of masters and slaves. The social and cultural differences
between a Victorian gentleman or factory owner, on the one hand,and a
farm hand or a machinist, on the other, were in reality much greater than

those between a white resident and a resident of Bangladeshi origin are
today.

However much they may view each other as different, a 16-year-old of

Bangladeshi origin living in Bethnal Green and a white 16-year-old
probably wear the same clothes, listen to the same music, and follow
the same soccer club.The shopping mall, the sports field, and the
Internet bind them together,creating a set of experiences and cultural
practices more common than any others in the past.

A similar historical amnesia plagues discussions surrounding
immigration.Many critics of multiculturalism suggest that immigration
to Europe today is unlike that seen in previous times. In his book
Reflections on the Revolution in Europe, the journalist Christopher
Caldwell suggests that prior to World War II,immigrants to European
countries came almost exclusively from the continent and therefore
assimilated easily. “Using the word immigration to describe
intra-European movements,” Caldwell argues, “makes only slightly
more sense than describing a New Yorker as an ‘immigrant’ to
California.”

According to Caldwell, prewar immigration between European nations

differed from postwar immigration from outside Europe because
“immigration from neighboring countries does not provoke the most
worrisome immigration questions, such as ‘How well will they fit in?’
‘Is assimilation what they want?’ and, most of all, ‘Where are their
true loyalties?’”

Yet these very questions greeted European immigrants in the prewar
years.As the scholar Max Silverman has written, the notion that France
assimilated immigrants from elsewhere in Europe with ease before
World War II is a “retrospective illusion.” And much the same is true
of the United Kingdom.In 1903, witnesses to the Royal Commission on
Alien Immigration expressed fears that newcomers to the United
Kingdom would be inclined to live “according to their traditions,
usages and customs.” There were also concerns,as the newspaper
editor J. L. Silver put it, that “the debilitated sickly and vicious
products of Europe” could be “grafted onto the English stock.” The
country’s first immigration law, the 1905 Aliens Act, was designed
principally to stem the flow of European Jews. Without such a law,
then Prime Minister Arthur Balfour argued at the time, British
“nationality would not be the same and would not be the nationality
we should desire to be our heirs through the ages yet to come.” The
echoes of contemporary anxieties are unmistakable.

RACE TO THE TOP

Whether contemporary Europe really is more plural than it was in the

nineteenth century remains subject to debate, but the fact that Europeans

perceive it to be more diverse is unquestionable. This owes in large
part to changes in how people define social differences. A century and
a half ago,class was a far more important frame for understanding
social interactions. However difficult it is to conceive of now, many at
the time saw racial distinctions in terms of differences not in skin color
but in class or social standing. Most nineteenth-century thinkers were
concerned not with the strangers who crossed their countries’ borders
but with those who inhabited the dark spaces within them.

One of the most prevalent myths in European politics is
that governments adopted multicultural policies because
minorities wanted to assert their differences.

Over the past few decades, however, class has diminished in
importance in Europe, both as a political category and as a marker
of social identity. At the same time, culture has become an
increasingly central medium through which people perceive social
differences. The shift reflects broader trends. The ideological
divides that characterized politics for much of the past 200 years have
receded, and the old distinctions between left and right have become
less meaningful. As the working classes have lost economic and
political power, labor organizations and collectivistic ideologies have
declined. The market,meanwhile, has expanded into almost every nook
and cranny of social life.And institutions that traditionally brought
disparate individuals together, from trade unions to the church, have
faded from public life.

As a result, Europeans have begun to see themselves and their social

affiliations in a different way. Increasingly, they define social solidarity

not in political terms but rather in terms of ethnicity, culture, or faith.
And they are concerned less with determining the kind of society they
want to create than with defining the community to which they belong.

These two matters are, of course, intimately related, and any sense of
social identity must take both into account. But as the ideological
spectrum has narrowed and as the mechanisms for change have eroded,
the politics of ideology have given way to the politics of identity. It is
against this background that Europeans have come to view their
homelands as particularly, even impossibly,diverse—and have
formulated ways of responding.

UNDER MY UMBRELLA

In describing contemporary European societies as exceptionally
diverse,multiculturalism is clearly flawed. What, then, of
multiculturalism’s prescription for managing that supposed
diversity? Over the past three decades, many European nations have
adopted multicultural policies, but they have done so in distinct ways.

Comparing just two of these histories,that of the United Kingdom and
that of Germany, and understanding what they have in common, reveals
much about multiculturalism itself.

One of the most prevalent myths in European politics is that
governments adopted multicultural policies because minorities wanted
to assert their differences. Although questions about cultural
assimilation have certainly engrossed political elites, they have not,
until relatively recently, preoccupied immigrants themselves. When
large numbers of immigrants from the Caribbean,India, and Pakistan
arrived in the United Kingdom during the late 1940s and 1950s to fill
labor shortages, British officials feared that they might undermine the
country’s sense of identity. As a government report warned in 1953,
“A large coloured community as a noticeable feature of our social life
would weaken . . . the concept of England or Britain to which people
of British stock throughout the Commonwealth are attached.”

The immigrants brought with them traditions and mores from their
homelands, of which they were often very proud. But they were rarely
preoccupied with preserving their cultural differences, nor did they
generally consider culture to be a political issue. What troubled them
was not a desire to be treated differently but the fact that they were
treated differently. Racism and inequality, not religion and ethnicity,
constituted their key concerns. In the following decades,a new
generation of black and Asian activists, forming groups such as the
Asian Youth Movements and the Race Today Collective, acted on
those grievances,organizing strikes and protests challenging workplace
discrimination, deportations,and police brutality. These efforts came to
explosive climax in a series of riots that tore through the United
Kingdom’s inner cities in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

At that point, British authorities recognized that unless minority
communities were given a political stake in the system, tensions would
continue to threaten urban stability. It was in this context that
multicultural policies emerged. The state, at both the national and the
local level, pioneered a new strategy of drawing black and Asian
communities into the mainstream political process by designating
specific organizations or community leaders to represent their interests.

At its heart, the approach redefined the concepts of racism and equality.
Racism now meant not simply the denial of equal rights but also the
denial of the right to be different. And equality no longer entailed
possessing rights that transcended race,ethnicity, culture, and faith;
it meant asserting different rights because of them.

Consider the case of Birmingham, the United Kingdom’s second most
populous city. In 1985, the city’s Handsworth area was engulfed by
riots sparked by a simmering resentment of poverty, joblessness, and,
in particular, police harassment. Two people died and dozens were
injured in the violence. In the aftermath of the unrest, the city council
attempted to engage minorities by creating nine so-called umbrella
groups—organizations that were supposed to advocate for their
members on matters of city policy. These committees decided on the
needs of each community, how and to whom resources should be
disbursed, and how political power should be distributed. They
effectively became surrogate voices for ethnically defined fiefdoms.

The city council had hoped to draw minorities into the democratic
process,but the groups struggled to define their individual and
collective mandates.Some of them, such as the African and Caribbean
People’s Movement,represented an ethnic group, whereas others, such
as the Council of Black-Led Churches,were also religious. Diversity
among the groups was matched by diversity within them; not all the
people supposedly represented by the Bangladeshi Islamic Projects
Consultative Committee, for example, were equally devout. Yet the city
council’s plan effectively assigned every member of a minority to a
discrete community, defined each group’s needs as a whole, and set the
various organizations in competition with one another for city
resources. And anyone who fell outside these defined communities
was effectively excluded from the multicultural process altogether.

The problem with Birmingham’s policies, observed Joy Warmington,

director of what was then the Birmingham Race Action Partnership
(now BRAP), a charitable organization working to reduce inequality,
in 2005,is that they “have tended to emphasize ethnicity as a key to
entitlement.It’s become accepted as good practice to allocate
resources on ethnic or faith lines. So rather than thinking of meeting
people’s needs or about distributing resources equitably,
organizations are forced to think about the distribution of ethnicity.”

The consequences were catastrophic. In October 2005, two
decades after the original Handsworth riots, violence broke out in
the neighboring area of Lozells. In 1985, Asian, black, and white

demonstrators had taken to the streets together to protest poverty,
unemployment,and police harassment. In 2005, the fighting was
between blacks and Asians.

The spark had been a rumor, never substantiated, that a group of Asian
men had raped a Jamaican girl. The fighting lasted a full weekend.

Why did two communities that had fought side by side in 1985 fight
against each other in 2005? The answer lies largely in Birmingham’s
multicultural policies. As one academic study of Birmingham’s
policies observed, “The model of engagement through Umbrella
Groups tended to result in competition between BME
[black and minority ethnic] communities for resources. Rather than

prioritizing needs and cross-community working, the different Umbrella

Groups generally attempted to maximize their own interests.”

The council’s policies, in other words, not only bound people more
closely to particular identities but also led them to fear and resent other
groups as competitors for power and influence. An individual’s identity
had to be affirmed as distinctive from the identities of those from other
groups: being Bangladeshi in Birmingham also meant being not Irish,
not Sikh, and not African Caribbean. The consequence was the creation
of what the economist Amartya Sen has termed “plural
monoculturalism”—a policy driven by the myth that society is made up
of distinct, uniform cultures that dance around one another.

The result in Birmingham was to entrench divisions between black and
Asian communities to such an extent that those divisions broke out into
communal violence.

SEPARATE AND UNEQUAL

Instead of welcoming immigrants as equals, German
politicians dealt with the so-called Turkish problem
through a policy of multiculturalism.

Germany’s road to multiculturalism was different from the United
Kingdom’s,although the starting point was the same. Like many
countries in western Europe,Germany faced an immense labor shortage
in the years following World War II and actively recruited foreign
workers. Unlike in the United Kingdom, the new workers came not
from former colonies but from the countries around the Mediterranean:
first from Greece, Italy, and Spain, and then from Turkey.

They also came not as immigrants, still less as potential citizens, but as
so-called Gastarbeiter (guest workers), who were expected to return
to their countries of origin when the German economy no longer
required their services.

Over time, however, these guests, the vast majority of them Turks, went
from being a temporary necessity to a permanent presence. This was
partly because Germany continued to rely on their labor and partly
because the immigrants,and more so their children, came to see
Germany as their home. But the German state continued to treat them
as outsiders and refuse them citizenship.German citizenship was, until
recently, based on the principle of jus sanguinis,by which one can
acquire citizenship only if one’s parents were citizens. The principle
excluded from citizenship not just first-generation immigrants but also
their German-born children. In 1999, a new nationality law made it
easier for immigrants to acquire citizenship. Yet most Turks remain
outsiders.Out of the three million people of Turkish origin in Germany
today, only some 800,000 have managed to acquire citizenship.

Instead of welcoming immigrants as equals, German politicians dealt
with the so-called Turkish problem through a policy of multiculturalism.
Beginning in the 1980s, the government encouraged Turkish immigrants
to preserve their own culture, language, and lifestyle. The policy did
not represent a respect for diversity so much as a convenient means of
avoiding the issue of how to create a common, inclusive culture. And
its main consequence was the emergence of parallel communities.

First-generation immigrants were broadly secular, and those who were
religious were rarely hard-line in their beliefs and practices. Today,
almost one-third of adult Turks in Germany regularly attend mosque,
a higher rate than among other Turkish communities in western Europe
and even in many parts of Turkey.

Similarly, first-generation Turkish women almost never wore
headscarves; now many of their daughters do. Without any incentive to
participate in the national community, many Turks don’t bother learning
German.

At the same time that Germany’s multicultural policies have encouraged
Turks to approach German society with indifference, they have led
Germans to view Turkish culture with increasing antagonism. Popular
notions of what it means to be German have come to be defined partly
in opposition to the perceived values and beliefs of the excluded
immigrant community. A 2011 survey conducted by the French polling
firm Ifop showed that 40 percent of Germans considered the presence
of Islamic communities “a threat” to their national identity. Another poll,
conducted by Germany’s Bielefeld University in 2005, suggested that
three out of four Germans believed that Muslim culture did not fit into
the Western world. Anti-Muslim groups, such as Patriotic Europeans
Against the Islamization of the West, or PEGIDA, are on the rise, and
anti-immigration protests held in cities across the country this past
January were some of the largest in recent memory. Many German
politicians, including Merkel, have taken a strong stance against the
anti-Muslim movement. But the damage has already been done.

SUBCONTRACTING POLICY

In both the United Kingdom and Germany, governments failed to
recognize the complexity, elasticity, and sheer contrariness of identity.
Personal identities emerge out of relationships—not merely personal
ties but social ones, too—and constantly mutate.

Group identities are not natural categories; they arise
out of social interaction.

Take Muslim identity. Today there is much talk in European countries of
a so-called Muslim community—of its views, its needs, its aspirations.

But the concept is entirely new. Until the late 1980s, few Muslim
immigrants to Europe thought of themselves as belonging to any such
thing. That wasn’t because they were few in number. In France,
Germany, and the United Kingdom, for example,there were already
large and well-established South Asian, North African, and Turkish
immigrant communities by the 1980s.

The first generation of North African immigrants to France was broadly
secular,as was the first generation of Turkish immigrants to Germany.
By contrast, the first wave of South Asian immigrants to arrive in the
United Kingdom after World War II was more religious. Yet even they
thought of themselves not as Muslims first but as Punjabis or Bengalis
or Sylhetis. Although pious, they wore their faith lightly. Many men
drank alcohol. Few women wore a hijab, let alone a burqa or a niqab
(a full-faced veil). Most attended mosque only occasionally. Islam
was not, in their eyes, an all-encompassing philosophy. Their faith
defined their relationship with God, not a sacrosanct public identity.

Members of the second generation of Britons with Muslim backgrounds
were even less likely to identify with their religion. The same went for
those whose parents were Hindu or Sikh. Religious organizations were
barely visible within minority communities. The organizations that
bound immigrants together were primarily secular and often political;
in the United Kingdom, for example, such groups included the Asian
Youth Movements, which fought racism, and the Indian Workers’
Association, which focused on labor rights.

Only in the late 1980s did the question of cultural differences become
important. A generation that, ironically, is far more integrated and
westernized than the first turned out to be the more insistent on
maintaining its alleged distinctiveness.

The reasons for this shift are complex. Partly they lie in a tangled web
of larger social, political, and economic changes over the past half
century, such as the collapse of the left and the rise of identity politics.
Partly they lie in international developments, such as the Iranian
Revolution of 1979 and the Bosnian war of the early 1990s, both of
which played an important role in fostering a more heightened sense
of Muslim identity in Europe. And partly they lie in European
multicultural policies.

Group identities are not natural categories; they arise out of social
interaction. But as cultural categories received official sanction, certain
identities came to seem fixed. In channeling financial resources and
political power through ethnically based organizations, governments
provided a form of authenticity to certain ethnic identities and denied
it to others.

Multicultural policies seek to build a bridge between the state and
minority communities by looking to particular community organizations
and leaders to act as intermediaries. Rather than appeal to Muslims
and other minorities as citizens, politicians tend to assume minorities’
true loyalty is to their faith or ethnic community. In effect, governments
subcontract their political responsibilities out to minority leaders.

Such leaders are, however, rarely representative of their communities.
That shouldn’t be a surprise: no single group or set of leaders could
represent a single white community. Some white Europeans are
conservative, many are liberal, and still others are communist or
neofascist. And most whites would not see their interests as specifically
“white.” A white Christian probably has more in common with a black
Christian than with a white atheist; a white socialist would likely think
more like a Bangladeshi socialist than like a white conservative; and
so on. Muslims and Sikhs and African Caribbeans are no different;
herein rests the fundamental flaw of multiculturalism.

ASSIMILATE NOW

France’s policy of assimilationism is generally regarded as the polar
opposite of multiculturalism, which French politicians have proudly
rejected. Unlike the rest of Europe, they insist, France treats every
individual as a citizen rather than as a member of a particular racial,
ethnic, or cultural group. In reality, however, France is as socially
divided as Germany or the United Kingdom, and in a strikingly similar
way.

Questions surrounding French social policy, and the country’s social
divisions, came sharply into focus in Paris this past January, when
Islamist gunmen shot 12 people dead at the offices of the satirical
magazine Charlie Hebdo and four Jews in a kosher supermarket.
French politicians had long held multicultural policies responsible
for nurturing homegrown jihadists in the United Kingdom. Now they
had to answer for why such terrorists had been nurtured in
assimilationist France, too.

It is often claimed that there are some five million Muslims in France—
supposedly the largest Muslim community in western Europe. In fact,
those of North African origin in France, who have been lumped into
this group, have never constituted a single community, still less a
religious one. Immigrants from North Africa have been broadly
secular and indeed often hostile to religion. A 2006 report by the Pew
Research Center showed that 42 percent of Muslims in France
identified themselves as French citizens first—more than in Germany,
Spain, or the United Kingdom. A growing number have, in recent years,
become attracted to Islam. But even today, according to a 2011 study
by Ifop, only 40 percent identify themselves as observant Muslims, and
only 25 percent attend Friday prayers.

Those of North African origin in France are also often described as
immigrants. In fact, the majority are second-generation French citizens,
born in France and as French as any voter for the National Front. The
use of the terms “Muslim” and “immigrant” as labels for French citizens
of North African origin is not, however, accidental. It is part of the
process whereby the state casts such citizens as the other—as not really
part of the French nation.

As in the United Kingdom, in France, the first generation of post–
World War II immigrants faced considerable racism, and the second
generation was far less willing to accept social discrimination,
unemployment, and police brutality. They organized, largely through
secular organizations, and took to the streets, often in violent protest.
The riots that swept through French cities in the fall of 2005 exposed
the fractures in French society as clearly as had those that engulfed
British cities two decades earlier.

During the 1970s and early 1980s, the French authorities took a
relatively laid-back stance on multiculturalism, generally tolerating
cultural and religious differences at a time when few within minority
communities expressed their identities in cultural or religious terms.
French President François Mitterrand even coined the slogan le droit
à la différence (the right to difference). As tensions within North
African communities became more open and as the National Front
emerged as a political force, Paris abandoned that approach for a more
hard-line position. The riots in 2005, and the disaffection they
expressed, were presented less as a response to racism than as an
expression of Islam’s growing threat to France. In principle, the French
authorities rejected the multicultural approach of the United Kingdom.
In practice, however, they treated North African immigrants and their
descendents in a “multicultural” way—as a single community, primarily
a Muslim one. Concerns about Islam came to reflect larger anxieties
about the crisis of values and identity that now beset France.

A much-discussed 2013 poll conducted by the French research group
Ipsos and the Centre de Recherches Politiques, or CEVIPOF, at the
Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris (known as Sciences Po) found that
50 percent of the French population believed that the economic and
cultural “decline” of their country was “inevitable.” Fewer than one-
third thought that French democracy worked well, and 62 percent
considered “most” politicians to be “corrupt.” The pollsters’ report

described a fractured France, divided along tribal lines, alienated
from mainstream politics, distrustful of national leaders, and resentful
of Muslims. The main sentiment driving French society, the report
concluded, was “fear.”In the United Kingdom, multicultural policies
were at once an acknowledgment of a more fractured society and the
source of one. In France, assimilationist policies have, paradoxically,
had the same result. Faced with a distrustful and disengaged public,
politicians have attempted to reassert a common French identity.

But unable to define clearly the ideas and values that characterize the
country, they have done so primarily by sowing hostility toward
symbols of alienness—by banning the burqa, for example, in 2010.

Instead of accepting North Africans as full citizens, French policy has
tended to ignore the racism and discrimination they have faced. Many
in France view its citizens of North African origin not as French but as
Arab or Muslim. But second-generation North Africans are often as
estranged from their parents’ culture and mores—and from mainstream
Islam—as they are from wider French society. They are caught not
between two cultures, as it is often claimed, but without one. As a
consequence, some of them have turned to Islamism, and a few have
expressed their inchoate rage through jihadist violence. At the same
time, French assimilationist policies have exacerbated the sense of
disengagement felt by traditional working-class communities. The
social geographer Christophe Guilluy has coined the phrase “the
peripheral France” to describe those people “pushed out by the
deindustrialization and gentrification of the urban centers,” who “live
away from the economic and decision-making centers, in a state of
social non-integration,” and have thus come to “feel excluded.” The
peripheral France has emerged mainly as a result of economic and
political developments. But like many parts of the country’s North
African communities, it has come to see its marginalization through
the lens of cultural and ethnic identity. According to the 2013
Ipsos-CEVIPOF poll, seven out of ten people thought there were
“too many foreigners in France,” and 74 percent considered Islam to
be incompatible with French society. Presenting Islam as a threat to
French values has not only strengthened culture’s political role but
also sharpened popular disenchantment with mainstream politics.

In the past, disaffection, whether within North African or white working
-class communities, would have led to direct political action. Today,
however, both groups are expressing their grievances through identity
politics. In their own ways, racist populism and radical Islamism are
each expressions of a similar kind of social disengagement in an era of
identity politics.

ANOTHER WAY

Multiculturalism and assimilationism are different policy responses to
the same problem: the fracturing of society. And yet both have had the
effect of making things worse. It’s time, then, to move beyond the
increasingly sterile debate between the two approaches. And that
requires making three kinds  of distinctions.

First, Europe should separate diversity as a lived experience from
multiculturalism as a political process. The experience of living in a
society made diverse by mass immigration should be welcomed.
Attempts to institutionalize such diversity through the formal
recognition of cultural differences should be resisted.

Second, Europe should distinguish colorblindness from blindness to
racism. The assimilationist resolve to treat everyone equally as
citizens,rather than as bearers of specific racial or cultural histories,
is valuable. But that does not mean that the state should ignore
discrimination against particular groups. Citizenship has no meaning
if different classes of citizens are treated differently, whether because
of multicultural policies or because of racism.

Finally, Europe should differentiate between peoples and values.
Multiculturalists argue that societal diversity erodes the possibility of
common values. Similarly, assimilationists suggest that such values are
possible only within a more culturally—and, for some, ethnically—
homogeneous society. Both regard minority communities as
homogeneous wholes, attached to a particular set of cultural traits,
faiths, beliefs, and values, rather than as constituent parts of a modern
democracy.

The Quest for a Moral Compass: A Global History of Ethics. Follow him on Twitter
@kenanmalik.

Pages

CULTURE

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