"Freedom without my lover is useless and meaningless"

Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza are taken into custody after celebrating their engagement, The Guardian

Renowned rights campaigner Peter Tatchell has told the Guardian newspaper that he has received a message of defiance from Tiwonge Chimbalanga, one half of the Malawian same-sex couple who are currently facing criminal charges of 'unnatural practices between males' and 'gross indecency'. In the message, Chimbalanga stated "I love Steven too much. If people of the world cannot give me the chance and freedom to continue living with him as my lover, then I am better off to die here in prison. Freedom without him is useless and meaningless."

Tatchell who has maintained contact with the couple since they have been in prison also quoted Steven Monjeza (the other half of the couple) as saying, "We have come a long way and even if our family relatives are not happy, I will never stop loving Tiwonge." The couple who have been refused bail, have been remanded in prison custody since last December. The verdict of the court in the trial of this heroic couple is due next week. It has been said that currently Steven looks "thin and weak", with "jaundiced eyes".

Residents of the Machinjiri township on the outskirts of Blantyre where the couple have their home have responded angrily, saying that they will not allow the couple to return home if they are set free.

"They have given this township a bad name", said Maikolo Phiri, a local vendor.

Zione Monjeza, an aunt of Steven said, "We as a family have been terribly embarrassed to be associated with this gay thing. It's a curse and a big shame. We will chase them away if they are freed."

Nchiteni Monjeza, Steven's uncle, said: "I won't drop a tear if they are jailed. They deserve it."

For me the couple are social revolutionaries who deserve the support of all right-thinking people. Malawi is one of the poorest countries in Africa where more than half of the population live below the poverty line. Tobacco is the country's main export and the use of child labour is rampant. This worrying BBC World Service report elaborates on the problem of families who due to poverty are forced to send their children to work in the tobacco fields, thereby denying the children their childhood, and their right to education. There is much talk about unscrupulous and uncaring large international tobacco companies, but my mind tells me that the government of Malawi are more directly responsible for the welfare of the child-citizens of the country than any international company is. The Malawian government, as with many other governments in Africa, continues to fail their people. Employers of child labour are not pursued and prosecuted, even though under Malawian law the employment of children is illegal.

While child labour can be defined as any work, which by its nature or employment conditions is detrimental to a child's physical, mental, moral, social or emotional development, the "Worst Forms of Child Labour" refers to the types of work for children described in Article 3 of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention 182. Article 3 of the Convention, among other things, emphasises any work, which is "likely" to harm a child's health, safety or morals, such as, in this case the work carried out in the tobacco and tea estates of Malawi.

For statistics on child labour in Malawi you may take a look at [download] this very detailed ILO report. For the year 2000 the ILO projected 445,000 economically active children between the ages of 10 and 14 working as child labourers, representing 31.5% of this age group, 216,000 girls and 229,000 boys. The report also observed that being tender physically, children are susceptible to various work-related injuries and illnesses to a greater degree than adults doing the same kind of work, and that a high percentage of the children were physically injured or fell ill while working.

Interestingly just last evening I saw a report on this same subject on Channel 4's Unreported World. (Please click on the link and see the Unreported World report. It will be available online only for about one month from the date of this blog post). Unlike the reporter however, who apparently sought to blame the big tobacco companies, I put the blame squarely on the shoulders of the Malawian government for failing to protect the children of the country. 

And yet it is this same government that will enthusiastically pursue and persecute harmless homosexual men. I eagerly await the verdict next Tuesday and the fallout thereafter if the couple are jailed.

The Malawi Law Society (MLS), the professional body of the country's 200 lawyers, has spoken out in favour of the couple, saying that they are "not a threat to the society" and should be freed. This is an about-turn from a few months ago when Malawian lawyers proclaimed that the couple broke the law and deserve to face justice. It is a clear example of the effectiveness of the efforts of rights campaigners worldwide, who since this saga began in December 2009, have ceaselessly stressed the injustice that is inherent in the continued detention of the couple and how unlikely it is that they will get a fair trial in the face of such massively hostile public opinion.

The demons inside my head

I woke up one cold winter's morning years ago. I was in love, and I felt wonderful. My love and I had been on the phone the night before and everything seemed fine. It was only weeks previously that we had slept together in this very same bed in which I was now waking up to behold the whiteness and the magnificence of the snowy vista that was the view from my bedroom window. There was not the slightest indication that there might be a problem. I was in love and as I re-entered the bed and curled myself up under the duvet, warm thoughts of this love in my mind, I assumed that this must be what happiness feels like.

This love and I had met nine months before. During that time we had developed the kind of relationship that I had always dreamt of, both of us at par intellectually. The relationship was stimulating and exciting, and the feeling of knowing that this person felt the same as I did was heart-warming. I thought it was a secure place, a place that I hoped would be intact forever. But how wrong I was proved to be, because on this very same day, by sunset, I had received word from this love by email and by phone that unfortunately we would not be continuing with our relationship. In short, I was being told the words "It's over!" An attempt was made at providing an explanation, and the reason given made sense too. We were separated by distance.

But this was a factor we knew about from the onset and one that we had both agreed we would work around, with a view at some point to removing this barrier completely. Somehow, I seemed to have been the bolder more optimistic one, because although I could see no immediate prospect of removing the distance barrier in the foreseeable future, I held on to the hope that our love would see us through. Haven't we all heard that love conquers all? Anyhow, this 'news' hit me like a freight train. I was disbelieving at first and thought it might be just a bad dream. Then I speculated, "No, they couldn't have meant that", trying to make sense of what I'd just been told, you know, trying to rationalise. "They'll soon come to their senses", I would say to myself. But as the hours went by and turned into days, the reality became stronger.

Since I was so mentally and psychologically unprepared for this calamity, the full impact of it was lost on me for a few days yet. But when the pain and the rejection eventually crashed upon me, I was a complete wreck. Its impact on me was that it is likely that I didn't eat a proper meal for weeks, and I have a vague recollection of wandering the streets aimlessly, sometimes not even remembering to wear a coat to keep out the cold. I failed to turn up for work for about a month, and remember once being brought home to my front door in a police patrol car in the middle of the night. I think I must have been found walking alone, dazed, on the deserted street. The fact is that I basically lost my mind.

It took a gargantuan effort on my part to get through this period and to pull myself together. But the pain, always, the pain. It caused me to dig deep into my emotional and mental reserves and forced me to button up, sit down and study for my qualifying exams, which I had been putting off for years. But the emotional wound was deep and it healed very slowly indeed. 

I was never going to let this happen to me ever again, I promised myself. So going forward I seem to have carried with me to any new relationship the baggage from this episode in my life. I am constantly haunted by the fear that this will happen again, and this fear has influenced my conduct within subsequent relationships that I've been in. And I'm not sure if it's a good thing, since I'm constantly treading carefully (perhaps overly) being too fearful to commit and to give my all as I know I'm capable of doing.

I have written this post in the hope that talking about it will purge my mind of this fear. My self-confidence and self-esteem have taken a severe bashing. Its impact upon my life is profound and I have considered seeking some kind of professional help. Sometime this week I'm booked to see a psychiatrist. I guess this sounds like I'm a bit wonky in the head, but really I think it's for the best.