Savannah View: Tsvangirai's U-Turn and David Cameron's Gay Cash

A popular Nigerian proverb has it that whatever a man says in the night can be taken for a drunken talk but what he says in the morning cannot be treated as such because no man remains drunk until the following morning.

It is not strange for one to change one's stance on an issue based on new information and knowledge about a situation they previously thought otherwise. But there are times such change of mind becomes suspicious, especially when at the time of upholding one's conviction on a particular issue, the information needed for the change of mind was available and, probably, given much thought.

It is for this reason that I always have my doubts about the Zimbabwean Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai. If there is one reason Robert Mugabe might not want to vacate the presidency, then it is perhaps his fear of giving the nation to someone who is not himself. Tsvangirai has shown enough traits of a traitor, a puppet of the West who will work for the interest of others and not Zimbabwe's suffering masses.

I am not sure the man, whose surname I prefer to cut and paste for the fear of misspelling it, was drunk when he made his pronouncements on homosexuality in 2010. His implacable rival and political spouse, Robert Mugabe, had said that gays were worse than “pigs and dogs”.

"That issue is not debatable, it's not up for discussion," Mugabe had said, according to the state-owned Herald newspaper. "It is just madness, insanity. The ancestors will turn in their graves should we allow this to happen."

As usual, the paragons of virtues and custodians of human rights descended on Old Bob. Think of whatever adjective that is worse than tyranny, and the man was called.

But Morgan Tsvangirai, who would normally not agree with Mugabe on where the sun sets agreed with Old Bob. “I fully support the President…. Women make up 52% of the population... There are more women than men, so why should men be proposing to men?" he asked.

I'm not sure Mr Tsvangirai had wine in his head when he backed his argument with statistics. So why the U-turn? He recently told the BBC that he now supported gay rights and would champion them if elected president of Zimbabwe.

"It's a very controversial subject in my part of the world. My attitude is that I hope the constitution will come out with freedom of sexual orientation, for as long as it does not interfere with anybody. To me, it's a human right," he said.

A human right? Since when? Says who? Why the U-turn, Mr Prime Minister?

In a country where majority of the people are opposed to gays, Mr Tsvangirai's move cannot be said to be a ploy for vote. So what can entice a man so hungry for power to support what can be described as a political suicide? There can be possibly one reason -- the influence of the unseen forces, the financiers of his campaign.

Not long ago, the media in UK reported how the UK government had indicated it would cut aid to Ghana, Malawi and other countries which were not gay-friendly. The Time (UK) reported that:

“Uganda (due to receive $109 million this year) and Ghana (due $56 million) could also face sanctions if they refuse to drop antiquated anti-gay laws. The possibility that these countries will see their aid slashed seems increasingly likely as Uganda has plans to punish same-sex couples with the death penalty, while Ghana's president has promised to 'check the menace of homosexuality.'”

The British High Commission in Accra denied the report but admitted the UK Government was worried about Ghana's criminalisation of homosexuality. So was the report true?

We would not be kept in suspense forever. The British Prime Minister, David Cameron, would later confirm those reports. He told journalists at the Commonwealth Meeting in Perth that the UK government would cut aid to anti-gay nations. And one of these nations happened to be Osagyefo's Ghana.

President John Evans Atta-Mills has called the bluff of David Cameron. He told journalists that no country could force Ghana to accept aid with conditions that contradict the values of the country. Under his presidency Ghana will never legalise homosexuality, he stated. But before that Ghanaians had torn Cameron into shreds. While some saw him as a racist, others saw him as the direct grandson of Satan.

"It becomes worse and Satanic when you get a prime minister like Cameron saying countries that want British aid should accept homosexuality," President Mugabe reacted recently. "To come with that diabolical suggestion to our people is a stupid offer."

Our so-called human rights advocates say Ghana's constitution is not clear about what it refers to “unnatural canal knowledge.” They claim it is the rights of people to marry or make love to whoever they want to. Like, Mr. Tsvangirai, they claim there is nothing wrong with it because it doesn't affect anybody. Are we saying one can have sex with one's son or daughter because it doesn't affect a third party?

When it comes to issues of homosexuality, I believe morality should supersede legality. For those whose consciences are dead, morality is often condemned as being purely subjective. To such people, it has no parameters and the question about who defines morality is not answerable.

But I think otherwise. To me, morality is the basis for all laws. We made all the laws that govern humanity. The laws did not make us. First, the people within the jurisdiction of the law must agree that stealing, for instance, is unacceptable. They must agree that it is bad. This is a purely moral decision backed by reasons. When they agree that any person who steals must be arrested and punished, it becomes law.

Laws differ from nation to nation and some universal laws are even applied differently in different jurisdictions. Some states in the US administer capital punishment. People are executed for committing certain crimes. Though it is in the statutes of many countries, including Ghana, they don't use it just because the US uses it. One can be sure hell will crumble onto Mother Earth when there is an attempt to apply it in this country.

Countries which see nothing wrong with a man marrying a man can decide to legalise it. We hold nothing against them. But for heaven's sake, they should not impose an abomination on us. That's senseless, pure madness.

The government of Ghana has treated David Cameron's threat with the contempt it deserves. The UK cannot and must not be allowed to prescribe a code of ethics for Ghana. In the wake of the London Riots, David Cameron made a profound statement to the effect that all is not well with the moral health of his country.

“There are pockets of our society that are not only broken, but frankly sick,' he said. “For me, it is clear that the root cause of this mindless selfishness is the same thing that I've spoken about for years. It is a complete lack of responsibility in our society. It is as much a moral problem as a political problem.”

Moral problem? Yes, you heard him.
We certainly do not need moral prescription from a morally handicapped society, do we? We already have enough problems without adding homosexuality to our stock of woes. The government of Ghana must not compromise. Powerful organisations and governments will continue to butter the bread of our so-called human rights activists so long as they continue to shout themselves coarse. So long as they continue to spin weird tales and theories of human rights, they will wine and dine with the forces that be.

But we have an image to protect, a heritage to guard. We have a cause to defend and God has told us through the Bible and Quran that homosexuality is an abomination.

Morgan Tsvangirai may compromise in order to get funding for his campaign. It has always been so for those who shamelessly trade their values for financial gains. But let it never be told that Ghana once traded its time-honoured cultural values for David Cameron's gay cash.

But in case… just in case Cameron gives us the cash without the conditions, shall we still accept it? Shall we hate gays and love their cash, for they are part of UK's tax payers?

I don't think we have acted the best way we should have reactd to the threats of David Cameron.

First, we should have admitted our failure as a nation to be self-sufficient when we have all it takes to succeed. The best reaction would have been: how do we move from here so that tomorrow someone does not dictate to us how many times we must mount our wives before we can get aid.

Looking at the balance of trade between Britain and Ghana, it is obvious that David Cameron would be the loser if we “flex our muscles” as President Mills recently stated. Our friends and new suitors from the East are eager ready to trade with us and this is the time, the West should be pampering us.

But the question still remains: Shall we receive the gay cash if it comes?

The Savannah View is a weekly column that appears in The Finder newspaper every Tuesday. Writer's email: [email protected]