Monday 30 September 2013

AFRICA: A CONTINENT OF LOVE FOR LIFE AND CHILDREN

Prayer Intention:  We pray that international bodies and foreign donors may respect African traditional family values.

Scriptural Reflection

Gen. 1:28:   God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
Psalms 127:3-5: Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.
Proverbs 31:28-29: Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: “Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.”
 African peoples have a very rich cultural heritage with regards to sexuality, marriage, and procreation.  Consequently, there are customs and institutions that safeguard these values.   A closer study of these customs and institutions makes it possible to see whether “sexual and reproductive health and rights” advocacy by the United Nations, feminist groups, and foreign donors, promote or undermine the proper sexual and reproductive healthiness of the peoples, especially of women.   It is imperative to emphasise that despite the western disregard and disrespect of many African traditions, marriage and family life still remain sine qua non for most of the African peoples.
         Marriage has as many faces as there are various cultures and beliefs.  Celestine Ofoegbu in his book, Human Development, paints the picture vividly. He writes:

While the economist sees marriage in terms of contract, the biologist views it in terms of reproduction, the sociologist views it from the perspective of a social structure, the theologian believes it to be a divine injunction for procreation, and the psychologist may view it in terms of fulfillment of psychological needs…, one thing is clear: it involves an interpersonal relationship of a sort between man and woman.  It involves most of the time, procreation. There are norms: legal, religious or customary, attached to marriage.1 
While individuals or groups of people view marriage fragmentally, African peoples’ notion of it is total in its implications as is evident in the following expositions.   
The Meaning and Purpose of Marriage in Africa

         Generally, marriage in most African cultures is both an institution and an event.  As an institution, marriage is the union of a man and a woman as husband and wife, who to all intents and purposes are joined principally for procreation.2   In other words, whereas in some cultures, especially in some western cultures, marriage is primarily for companionship, in Africa, marriage is principally for procreation.  This difference must be pointed out since in African societies, the primary intention of every married couple is to have a representative born within marriage that will sustain and perpetuate the family name and lineage.  Without marriage and the consequent bearing of children, the African man and woman feel incomplete.

         As an event, boys and girls are made to understand as early as possible that marriage is an important event in their lives that must be accomplished.  Series of preparations are, therefore, put in place collectively and individually, for entry into this institution which include among other things the initiation rites.  Unfortunately, in many African nations, some of these rites have been corroded by western attack of these traditions as ‘primitive’.  We see again, the word game – branding people’s values as ‘primitive’ automatically changes the people’s behaviour against their own once adored cultural heritage.
         Marriage involves not only husband and wife, but also the two families, and in the final analysis the community as a whole which share their very existence as they now become one people.3  Apart from uniting families and communities, many African people’s myths of creation of man agree that human life started with husband and wife.  Thus, John Mbiti rightly points out that marriage is the meeting point for the three layers of human life, namely, the departed, the living and those to be born.  While the departed are the roots on whom the living stand, the living are the link between death and life, and those to be born are the buds in the loins of the living. It is marriage that makes it possible for them to germinate and sprout.4
                Since it is believed among many Africans that God commanded people to get married, marriage therefore becomes a sacred duty which every normal person must perform.  Anything that deliberately goes towards the destruction or obstruction of human life is regarded as wicked and evil.  Hence, in African societies, everything possible is done to make them think in terms of marriage.  Therefore, deliberate failure to get married is an abomination, since “he who does not participate in it is a curse to the community; he is a rebel and a law breaker; failure to get married under normal circumstances means that the person concerned has rejected society and society rejects him in return”.5  As A.K. Weinrich explains,

“every person had a moral obligation to marry and to contribute to the social reproduction of his kinship group.  This most basic value, to beget or bear children, was instilled in all members of the society from early childhood onwards.  Nobody was allowed to shirk this duty.”6

To die without getting married and without children is to be completely cut off from the human society, to become disconnected, to become an outcast and to lose all links with mankind.  
         Since marriage is at the centre of human life, it also serves many purposes in addition to procreation.  The summary provided by John Mbiti captures the situation.7   First and foremost, marriage fulfills the obligation, the duty, and the custom that every normal person should get married and bear children.  Failure to do so is considered a crime; it is a uniting link in the rhythm of life: the past generation, the present generation, and the future generations; it enhances the building of a family so dear to the people in order to extend life.  For the peoples, through marriage and child-bearing, the parents are remembered by their children, and thus life continues after death.  Through marriage, the departed are “reborn”, in other words, a belief in reincarnation.  Marriage brings people together, increases them, multiplies them, and keeps them alive.  It is also a status symbol, everyone recognises that the individual is a full person when he or she is married and has children.  The more children a person has, the higher is his status in society.  Marriage also makes a person “somebody”, “complete”, and “perfect” – the person is considered truly a man or a woman; it is the peoples’ belief that “without marriage, a person is only a human being minus”.8 Africans also believe that marriage brings about qualities or values such as love, good character, hard work, beauty, companionship, care for one another, parental responsibility towards children and vice versa, especially when it is happy and successful.  Marriage is considered successful, especially when it is fruitful; that is, when it culminates in bringing about offspring.
         Since marriage is so important, various arrangements are made to ensure that everybody is married and has children. These include: marrying several wives (polygamy), inheriting the wife of a deceased brother (or husband of a deceased sister), arranging for an unmarried dead son to be married in absence, arranging for the wives of impotent or long-absent husband to have children by close relatives or friends, and so on.  These various types of marriage fulfill the meaning and purposes of marriage for the people. 
The Procreative Emphasis in Traditional African Marriages
As already mentioned, the main purpose of marriage among Africans is to raise children.  Life and transmission of life are cherished values in the peoples’ culture, and to live means to be able to transmit life. Marriage and procreation are therefore inseparable.  At the centre of this emphasis on procreation is perhaps the issue of immortalising an individual.  In many African cultures, unfortunate is the man or woman who sees nobody to remember or immortalise his or her name after physical death.  For them, “to lack someone who keeps the departed in their personal immortality is the worst misfortune and punishment that any person could suffer.”9   Bohannan agrees,
Only on the birth of a child does a woman become truly a kinsman in her husband’s group.  Only on the birth of a child is a man assured of the “immortality” of a position in the genealogy of his lineage, or even his security or esteem among the important people of his community.  Only on the birth of a grand-child is a man in a position to be truly sure that his name and spirit will live in the history and genealogy of his people.10
Similarly, E. Obuna points out that “to die without a child is to descend into oblivion - forgotten by both the living and the dead.”11   Likewise, N. Ndiokwere says, “a childless marriage as far as Africans are concerned, is indisputably a disaster.”12 It is also pertinent to add that in most African cultures, to die without having a male child is as good as dying without a child.  Africans believe they can “immortalise” themselves in this world by leaving behind children, especially males.  This desire, among others, obviously makes them have as many children as possible to immortalise their lineages and communities.  For instance, among the Igbo of Nigeria, names such as “Afamefuna” (may my name never be lost), “Amaechi” (may my lineage never close down), “Obiefuna” (may my big household never extinguish), testify to this desire.   Fertility thus, is the central requirement in marriage.  A marriage proposal would be even less likely if there were cases of barrenness among the female members of a girl’s family.  This might cast doubt on the ability of the whole family to transmit life.        Male sterility and impotence were regarded and are still regarded as the most shameful condition possible for married couples. This informs all the traditional remedies and medicines for sexual potency that are seen advertised in African societies today.  Female barrenness, which in many cases was more obvious, though not more frequent than male sterility, was an even greater reproach in African traditional society.  Unfortunately, in the majority of cases, women were blamed when marriages were childless, although in almost half the cases of childlessness is due in fact to male sterility.13    
Traditionally therefore, African marriage is more or less fertility-oriented. This fertility-oriented approach to marriage is very far from the person-oriented approach, that is, the concept of marriage as companionship which the “sexual and reproductive rights” advocacy expounds, and on which western societies in general base its understanding of marriage – with or without children.14
The Procreative Emphasis in Traditional African Social Structures

         As already seen, African societies are traditionally structured in such a way as to promote the procreation of children.  This was the aim of the social institution of marriage and family.  As noted by Alyward Shorter, the family was the central institution of African society. It was even the central institution of African religions since religious worship was expressed at the family level.  Family was seen as a corporate community extended in space and time, reaching back to the ancestors and forward to the unborn.15   For Africans, marriage is thus, the device through which the procreative power of the sexes could be unleashed for the continuation of the family.  It could be argued that in traditional Africa, marriage did not create families; it was incidental to the on-going corporate life of families already in existence.  This is because the traditional family was not thought of as a “cell” or “nucleus”, subject to fission or division, but rather as a corporate community. 
         In view of the fertility-oriented African marriage, polygamy had its procreative end.  It was esteemed because it ensured a large progeny and the extension of the family to an eminent degree, through more children and more alliances.  There was a pervasive sentiment that it was good to have a numerous progeny, and “the general and diffuse motives accompanying this sentiment were that children meant wealth, prestige and the blessings of God and ancestors”.16   There were also various legal arrangements in traditional African society, to ensure that the procreative powers of family members were used to the full and that the family was not left without heirs.  For instance, there is the “levirate” union, whereby a man catered for the procreative needs of his brother’s widow, or the widows of other close kinsmen.  In other words, the “levirate” catered for dead husbands – to give them a progeny and to ensure that the widow’s procreative powers was fully available to the family into which she had married. “Ghost-marriage” ensures that men, who died unmarried and without legitimate heirs, could, still acquire wives and heirs. “Woman marriage” ensures the continuance of the line, where no children were born or when only female children survived. In some cultures, a daughter could be left at the father’s house without being married to procreate children for the family, especially where there are no male children. The motive was to bear sons that will inherit the father’s property and other customary rights.   However, such arrangements were inevitably a second best.  In fact, the African in general was not satisfied with someone else’s children. For him or her, life should normally be reproductive, and being alive meant transmitting life.  For this reason, many families are yet to accept adoption of another’s child today as an alternative to childlessness or absence of a male child.
         Among African peoples and cultures, therefore, there was procreative emphasis on marriage and this emphasis pervaded the whole of society till date.  Virginity at marriage was highly esteemed, but not ultimately as highly as the capacity of having children.  It is, therefore clear, that even the concept of celibacy opposes a number of central values in traditional Africa, such as the concept of “the complete person”, the notion of life and personhood, the prospect of immortality, the relationship with God and the ancestors, the social ideals of the total community of the living and the dead, and the socio-economic adequacy considered necessary for life in the world.17 An individual was simply not alive, if he/she was not engaged in transmitting life to another human being.  Procreation was an essential aspect of being alive, and personhood was the attribute of living, reproductive people. To be alive, to be a person, therefore, one had to generate children biologically. To opt for celibacy (priesthood and religious life) appears to be the most heroic sacrifice an African man or woman makes.
The Destructive Nature of “sexual and reproductive health and rights” Advocacy in Africa
Of course, some of the practices above are less practiced today such as polygamy, ghost marriage, or levirate marriage on account of our Christian values and beliefs of which we very much appreciate. Also contact with western culture has its negative impacts on the cultures. But it is important to stress where Africans are coming from, what marriage and family mean to the people, and to make the point that every group of people has its past on which they build the present and ensure their future.  Any nation that neglects their past can never have a future.
I have attempted to highlight the above facts about African worldview, marriage and family particularly, to show that Africans are procreation-oriented and that family life - (not just between a man a woman), but in its extension to include all the relatives of the married couples - are ingrained in African peoples and cultures.  Any programmes coming from anywhere that do not respect this procreative value are at worst insensitive and destructive to the psyche of the Africans.  This is exactly what the “sexual and reproductive rights” advocacy does today to unsuspecting Africans.    Again, this exposition explains quite vividly the reason behind African’s procreative emphasis, dissipating the false argument that poverty pushes Africans to have more children: remove poverty, it claims, and Africans will bear fewer children.  But as can be seen, poverty is not the reason for her procreative mentality.  To ask Africans, therefore, to kill their children – their future – amounts to sterility and infertility which are highly dreaded among the peoples of Africa till date.
The preceding insights on the deadly effects of “sexual and reproductive health and rights” advocacy on Africa’s familial, procreative, and moral values reveal the unhealthy imitation of other cultures, notably, of the west.  Pope John Paul II has since observed this trend among Africans.  While addressing the present-day problems of the Church in Africa, he identified among other things, this unhealthy imitation of other cultures and accordingly exhorted Africans:
I put before you today a challenge – a challenge to reject a way of living which does not correspond to the best of your traditions, and your Christian faith.  Many people in Africa look beyond Africa for the so-called ‘freedom of the modern life’.  Today, I urge you to look inside yourselves.  Look to the riches of your own traditions, look to the faith which we are celebrating in this assembly.  Here you will find genuine freedom – here you will find who will lead you to the truth18)
John Paul II is unquestionably correct.  To look inside ourselves and to look to the riches of our own traditions are what this research advocates.  Therefore, Africans need an indigenous Procreative Health Policy that incorporates our traditional values about human sexuality and human life in all their ramifications. To abandon our “culture of life” to embrace the “culture of death” which is inherent in the “sexual and reproductive health and rights” programmes is catastrophic.  It can never augur well with posterity.  In fact, posterity may never forgive this generation of Africa for killing millions of its future citizens today!
 Above all, it is imperative to stress people’s right to have their culture and religious convictions respected, as well as their right to disagree with the principles of “sexual and reproductive health and rights” promoted by these feminist groups, the USA, international bodies, and various arms of the United Nations.
LIFE QUOTE
    In African culture and tradition the role of the family is everywhere held to be fundamental. Open to this sense of the family, of love and respect for life, the African loves children, who are joyfully welcomed as gifts of God. "The sons and daughters of Africa love life. It is precisely this love for life that leads them to give such great importance to the veneration of their ancestors. They believe intuitively that the dead continue to live and remain in communion with them. Is this not in some way a preparation for belief in the Communion of the Saints? The peoples of Africa respect the life which is conceived and born. They rejoice in this life. They reject the idea that it can be destroyed, even when the so-called 'progressive civilizations' would like to lead them in this direction. And practices hostile to life are imposed on them by means of economic systems which serve the selfishness of the rich".(50) Africans show their respect for human life until its natural end, and keep elderly parents and relatives within the family. (Ecclesia in Africa, no. 43)
 
 
References


1Celestine Ofoegbu, Human Development: Family Behaviour, Parenting, Marriage & Counselling Skills (Enugu: Snaap, 2002) 85.
2Chukwuemeka Nze, Aspects of Igbo Communalism (Onitsha: Veritas, 1989) 26.
3Laurenti Magesa, African Religion: The Moral Traditions of Abundant Life (Nairobi: Paulines, 1998) 110-111.
4John S. Mbiti, Introduction to African Religion (Nairobi: East African, 1991) 104.
5John Mbiti, African  Religions and Philosophy (New York: Anchor, 1970) 174.
6A.K.H. Weinrich, African Marriage in Zimbabwe and the Impact of Christianity (1982), cited in Magesa, 115.
7Mbiti 110-112.
8Mbiti 112.
9Mbiti 175.
10P. Bohannan, African Outline.  Cited in Marius Chukwuemeka Obiagwu, Healthcare of the Sick among the Igbos of Nigeria vis-à-vis the Healing Ministry of the Church and the Pastoral Challenges Today (Rome: Camillianum, 2000) 43.
11E. Obuna, African Priests and Celibacy (1986), cited in Obiagwu, 43.
12N. Ndiokwere, The African Church Today and Tomorrow 1 (1994), cited in Obiagwu, 43.
13Alyward Shorter, Celibacy and African Culture (Nairobi: Paulines, 2002) 18.
14Cf Austin Flannery, ed. Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post-Conciliar Documents 1, Gandium et Spes, 835-836; The Code of Canon Law, (1983), Can 1055; The Catechism of the Catholic Church (1994), 1603.
15Shorter 19.
16Angela Molnos’ “East African Survey on Marriage”, cited in Benezeri Kisembo, Laurenti Magesa, Alyward Shorter, African Christian Marriage (Nairobi: Paulines, 1998) 95.
17Shorter 17.
18John Paul II, “Ecclesia in Africa” 1995, no. 43.

 

 

Sunday 8 September 2013

SEMANTIC DECEPTION INSIDE THE MOST DANGEROUS HONEY-COATED 'gift' EVER TO AFRICA


 
Prayer Intention for the Month:
We pray that international bodies and foreign donors may respect African traditional family values.

“Speak Lord, your servant is listening
Getting treasures by a lying tongue  is the fleeting fantasy of those who seek death. (Prov 21:6)
The hypocrite with his mouth destroys his neighbor….. (Prov 11:9)
Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who deal truthfully are His delight (Prov. 12:22)
Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers. (Eph 4:29)


SEMANTIC DECEPTION INSIDE THE MOST DANGEROUS HONEY-COATED ‘gift’ EVER TO AFRICA

Today, many of us are familiar with the phrase “sexual and reproductive health and rights” propagated by women’s liberation movements (variously called “the women’s movements”, “women’s rights movements”, or the feminist movements).  The movements have gained international recognition with their agitation or struggle for women’s emancipation.   However, some of the women’s demands through “sexual and reproductive health and rights” advocacy are laudable, while a number of them are quite controversial and morally questionable. For instance, their versions of “right to family planning services”, “right to sexual health”, “right to reproductive health”, “right to sex education”, and their advocacy for the “right to consensual sexual relations”, “right to sexual pleasure”, “right to free and responsible reproductive choices”, and the like have deeper connotations that have serious moral implications.  Thus, the phrase “sexual and reproductive health and rights” coined by these feminists and endorsed by international bodies is apparently positive at face value, but is largely negative in its interpretation or description of women’s reproductive health services.  Through this advocacy too, these feminist groups defend the “reproductive rights” of those outside normal heterosexual relationships: the lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transsexuals or intersex people (LGBT) since women are also found among this group of people.  The advocacy targets adolescents as well thereby defending their so-called “sexual and reproductive health and rights.”    There is urgent need, therefore, to dig into these ambiguities, to decode these euphemisms, and to present to Africans the real issues involved in this propaganda and their moral implications for their traditional and Christian life. This is very important as the claim to these “rights” negate the proper understanding of human sexuality, the dignity and sanctity of human life, especially life at its beginning.  They also touch on marriage and human procreation, the family, and other Christian values.  The investigation is necessary since the use of the sugar-coated phrase, “sexual and reproductive health and rights”, amounts to a deliberate attempt to hide their real hidden agenda. 

 Semantic Corruption of Reality
The advocates of “sexual and reproductive health rights” are very proficient and efficient in distorting reality so as to make their advocacy palatable and acceptable.   They employ semantic corruption.  Experts such as William Brennan, the author of Dehumanizing the Vulnerable: When Word Games Take Lives   and George Orwell, an English essayist and novelist,  in his work, 1984    detailed the effects of word manipulation to achieve the manipulator’s aim.  I will dwell largely on their insights in this subsection. William Brennan emphasizes that behind some linguistic derision is a kind of ideology; that is, a philosophy, a social theory, a set of interrelated ideas, concepts, beliefs, and values that generate and sustain the dissemination of such a terminology.  Accordingly, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s keener insight into the significance of ideology is highly revelatory.  He writes:

Ideology – that is what gives evil-doing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination.  That is the social theory which helps to make his acts seem good instead of bad in his own and others’ eyes, so that he won’t hear reproaches and curses but will receive praise and honour. Thanks to ideology; the twentieth century was fated to experience evil-doing on a scale calculated in the millions.

Contemporary ideology remains largely characterised by the manipulative use of language as a resource. It uses words to indicate things that are foreign to their natural meaning.  This is what is commonly referred to as “verbal engineering” or “manipulation of language”.   Verbal engineering is the “the conscious effort to change the way in which reality is perceived through the way in which reality is depicted and as a consequence introduces changes in the ways persons behave.” In other words, the object of verbal engineering is to carefully manipulate public opinion to produce behavioural changes.  The place of authentic reality is taken over by a fictitious reality; the perception is indeed still directed toward an object, but now it is a pseudo-reality, deceptively real, so that it becomes almost impossible to discern the truth.  Verbal engineering normally is achieved through a subtle manipulation of words – words that traditionally had a positive meaning are given other meanings or shades of meanings.  To change social attitudes, therefore, frequently euphemistic language is used that tries to obscure reality. The power of language, therefore, to colour one’s view of reality is profound.
  In many instances, the most significant factor in determining how an object will be perceived is not the nature of the object itself, but the words employed to characterize it.  William Brennan gives examples that show how Native Americans, African Americans, Soviet enemies, European Jews, women, unwanted children, and physically challenged persons have been labeled as “deficient humans”, “nonhumans”, “animals”, parasites/diseases”, “inanimate objects”, “waste products”, and “non-persons”. Verbal engineering and manipulation evidently clear in these cases, can be said to be the violation of the most basic human dignity, because the members of society against whom this procedure of dehumanization is used are no longer treated as human beings, but as objects to be manipulated, to be dominated afterwards, to be “handled” and controlled, and even killed.  This semantics of oppression led to the death of millions of Jews, and the massacre of millions and millions of unborn babies to date.  Those who control language control thought, and eventually semantic corruption leads to the adulteration of thought itself.   It is also profoundly immoral because it is planned deception of those made to accept the labels as true.

Semantic Distortion in “Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights” Advocacy
Linguistic gymnastics, as underlined above, have slipped into international gatherings and influence decision makers and those who propose programmes of action. The implication of this is that to understand or decode the full imports of words employed by these feminist movements in their indoctrination of peoples, or the full imports of documents emanating from United Nations Conferences and Assemblies as well as national policies written with “external assistance”, it requires some knowledge of “UN Speak” and “feminist Speak”. The knowledge is particularly necessary for understanding such terms as “sexual and reproductive rights” “freedom of sexual expression”, “reproductive rights”, “sexual rights”, “reproductive healthcare and services”, “reproductive health services”, “family planning services”, “family life education”, “adolescent sexual and reproductive rights”, “gender equality or equity”, “safe or safer sex”, “safe abortion”, “enforced pregnancy”, “consensual sexual relations”, “sexual identity”, and so on.  What really do the proponents of these terms mean by them?
 Verbal engineering is also blatant in other terms related to “sexual and reproductive health and rights” advocacy. For example, “abortion” is called by different names mainly out of a desire to hide the truth about the nature of abortion itself - killing.  In various international documents, it is defined as a ‘right’ and/or a “choice”: “right to the freedom of choice”, “right to the free choice of pregnancy”, “right to interruption of pregnancy”, “right to the free choice of the interruption of pregnancy”, “right to choose to terminate pregnancy”. Other terminologies include:  “right to make personal decisions”, “ right to integrity of the person”, by including the period of pregnancy in it; “right to freedom from motherhood”, right to “control one’s own body”, “right to choose”, “pro-choice”, “reproductive choice”.  These are euphemistically employed to mean abortion.  An abortion clinic is frequently described as “reproductive health center”.   These terms are freely scattered in various UN documents and feminist literature.
The foregoing is just an attempt to uncover the real issues in the “sexual and reproductive health and rights” advocacy prevalent in the world today.  It is a euphemistic way of propagating abortion, contraception and sterilization. In order words, sexual and reproductive health and rights means abortion, contraception and sterilization.  It is a means employed to depopulate mainly the developing nations of Africa, Asia, and Latin America by the rich western nations of North America and western Europe.  This advocacy is the greatest lie told these poor nations in centuries.  The “big brother” lures these poor countries into killing their own children in millions while pretending to improve their health.

The Maputo Protocol and the Word Games
In Africa, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) spearheads “sexual and reproductive health and rights” advocacy.  UNFPA is heavily influenced by feminists groups, World Bank, multi-national corporations, foreign donor organisations, and anti-life groups such as Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) and Marie Stopes International (MSI).  There is hardly any African country without the presence of IPPF or MSI or both. These groups, (as we shall see) saw to the emergence of a very dangerous “gift” to Africa – The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (The Maputo Protocol).
Human Life International, a renowned pro-life organisation, provides an insightful summary of this document.  It says that the Maputo Protocol was drafted by an expert group of members of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, African NGOs (of course, influenced and funded by foreign donors who promote abortion), and international observers including the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), and the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ).  The values of these groups are not African in any way, shape or form. So, how could they have the good of Africa at heart?  For instance, IPPF, the largest abortion-promoting organisation in the world,   has no regard for national or local traditions and customs in its efforts to legalise abortion worldwide.  It has stated in its VISION 2000 Strategic Plans that the objective of its affiliated organisations is to campaign for policy and legislative change to remove restrictions against safe abortions. Its Vision 2020 reiterates the same objective, making sexual and reproductive health advocacy central to that vision (http://ippf.org/vision2020). Since the people never want abortion, IPPF and other pro-abortion     groups must resort to deception. The Maputo Protocol is the ideal instrument to legalise abortion all over Africa. The Protocol allegedly is an instrument to fight female genital mutilation (FGM), but in all of its 23 pages, it mentions FGM (female genital mutilation) in only one sentence.  Thus, it appears to be a gift to the African people — but is actually another thing which is far deadlier (http://www.hli.org/files/maputo_protocol_english.pdf).
Those behind this dangerous treaty cajoled African Union into adopting the killing of their unborn children and many African nations have either signed or/and ratified it.  Following this deceptive document, South Africa and Cape Verde have already legalised abortion in their countries.  Maputo Protocol practically promotes abortion on demand and presents contraception as sine qua non for African women’s health and survival.  Article 14 of the Protocol practically endorses abortion, authorising “medicalised abortion” for women who have been raped or where pregnancy endangers the woman's health. The Protocol was praised as being the first international document that provides a legal framework for issues ranging from marriage and property rights to domestic violence to female genital mutilation. 
                  As usual, the treaty mixes up values and disvalues.  The disvalues are craftily drafted to make them readily acceptable as values. To stop domestic violence, female mutilation, (if it is really a mutilation), or to let women have political or property rights are laudable, but what about “reproductive rights”?  What is entailed in this phrase, (as we have already emphasised) is more than meets the eye. It is a coded language that needs to be decoded. Why should Africa be the first to provide such a law that allows the killing of its babies, while western nations with their long history of human laws are yet so sign such a law? Yet, Africans are made to be that the ‘big brother’s interest is the health of their women and girls. How many of those who signed the Maputo Protocol really understood the semantic distortion in it?  Were they even allowed to make contributions or to study the Protocol before appending their signatures?  It was drafted in far away west and presented to African leaders as a Trojan gift.  This year, 2013, marks the tenth anniversary of the initiation of deliberate killing of African unborn children through the murderous programmes of IPPF and MSI in various parts of Africa.   Of course, the number of African children killed within this period undoubtedly runs into millions.  The Protocol is an assault on African family and values – a continent generally known as “a continent of families”.

Education is Necessary to Understand the Language of “Externally Assisted” Policies and Bills
It is high time African leaders learnt the language of policies and bills they adopt or sign into law in their various countries, especially, in “sexual and reproductive health” propaganda.  Before signing any policy or bills drafted with “external assistance” coming from these world bodies, these leaders should seek to thoroughly study the documents by inviting relevant stakeholders in the government, experts, and the private sector.  Private sectors here include faith-based organisations that could be described as the watchdogs of the society.  Those African countries that are yet to ratify the Protocol have the opportunity to look closely into the real issues in this deceptive document.  Particularly, if Rochas Okorocha, the Imo State governor (Nigeria) had studied the bill presented to him as stated above, he would not have signed into law a Bill that authorizes the killing of the unborn citizen's of his State. Fortunately, he has learnt his lessons and has recently retraced his steps, directing the relevant Office to abrogate the dangerous sections of the Bill. (http://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/09/abortion-saga-rochas-okorocha-bows/).

         The word games are central to the “sexual and reproductive health” advocacy and its power in changing patterns of thought and behaviour is enormous.  Awareness of the semantic abuse and this form of thought control should allow us, the Africans, to resist the advocacy through constant process of presenting the eternal truth in a clear and organic fashion. The truth shall set us free, indeed. Africa loves life. Africa is a continent of families.  Anybody or group that destroys the African family is her greatest enemy and can NEVER be allowed to triumph.

For Personal Reflection:
Do African women really need the so-called “reproductive health” programmes?
Who actually benefit from these “programmes”?
·         Pharmaceutical companies?
·         Pro-abortion Organisations?
·         Manufacturers of medical equipment?
·         Medical doctors, nurses, biologists, and other related scientists?
Foreign donors are more interested in contraception and abortion in Africa than in the deadly diseases of malaria, HIV/AIDS, or malnutrition. True?

Many industries and peoples must push their deadly products/programmes to Africa, otherwise they risk staying out of business.  True?

LIFE QUOTE
“We would like to draw the attention of the political leaders of Africa to our strong reservations concerning some aspects of Article 14 of the Maputo Protocol.…We observe that the rights of women to protect and promote their sexual and reproductive health in this article exclude the rights of the couple, the family and the larger society (civil, traditional, cultural and religious) from playing a part in promoting precisely the women’s rights to their health care. For instance, the authorization to have recourse to abortion and the choice of any method of contraception by the women (cf. Article 14, # 1, c and # 2, c) are particularly incompatible with our Catholic Church teaching, tradition and practice…. Additionally, the Church has continually affirmed since the first century that it is a moral evil for any person or agent to procure an abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable…. In the light of this, we observe that abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes to almost all of our African cultures, traditional societies and religions.”
                                                  (Joint Statement by African Bishops)