Speaker 1: Pushkin, Lets Talk Easy. I'm Sanfracoso. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Hello everyone, thank you for being here today. I'm joined
Speaker 1: by Winnie b an Eva. She's the executive director of UNAIDS,
Speaker 1: where she spearheads the ongoing battle with HIV. Her plan,
Speaker 1: working with the United Nations, is to end this forty
Speaker 1: years long epidemic by twenty thirty. But Winnie's work has
Speaker 1: always extended beyond the AIDS epidemic. For four decades, she's
Speaker 1: been a global leader on issues around social justice and
Speaker 1: gender inequality. She served eleven years in the Parliament of Uganda,
Speaker 1: where she created her country's first women's caucus. From politics,
Speaker 1: she turned to activism as part of the World Bank's
Speaker 1: Advisory Consul on Gender and Development. She spends six years
Speaker 1: as the executive director at Oxfam International, where she focused
Speaker 1: on poverty and injustice through advocacy programs, developmental programs, an
Speaker 1: emergency response. In truth, she's done so much more than
Speaker 1: what I've just described. But as you'll hear, Winnie has
Speaker 1: devoted herself to public service in ways I had not
Speaker 1: exactly heard on this show before. There's a lot in
Speaker 1: this episode that I had not heard before. Born in
Speaker 1: the throes of the brutal idi Amine dictatorship in Uganda.
Speaker 1: Her life is one of great tragedy and triumph. As
Speaker 1: a result, what she shares in this talk is at
Speaker 1: times very painful, graphic imagery that tells the complicated story
Speaker 1: of her life, a story of survival, a story of
Speaker 1: unimaginable warfare, and a story I think of improbable but
Speaker 1: very real. Hope, you may not have been familiar with
Speaker 1: Winnie prior to this conversation, but I have a feeling
Speaker 1: you won't be able to forget her after it. I
Speaker 1: know I won't. Thanks for listening, Winnie be Anema, thank
Speaker 1: you for being here. How are you doing. I'm very well.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Sam, thank you for having me on your show.
Speaker 1: It is an honor to have you and I have
Speaker 1: to say, there are so many places to begin, but
Speaker 1: why don't we start in Ruti, Uganda, which is where
Speaker 1: you grew up in the late sixties early seventies. In
Speaker 1: that period, your country was under the brutal Aman dictatorship.
Speaker 1: Your father was part of the resistance in an out
Speaker 1: of jail for refusing to cross over to the ruling party.
Speaker 1: At home, you had five siblings living in a house
Speaker 1: without power or running water. And yet of this time
Speaker 1: you said we were victims in a way, but we
Speaker 1: didn't see ourselves like that. It was a joyous time.
Speaker 1: It shaped me. What did that joy look like as
Speaker 1: a child in that period, Well, I was growing up
Speaker 1: in a time of dictatorship, but brutal dictatorship. But at
Speaker 1: the same time I was living in a home of activity, square,
Speaker 1: standing up and resisting. So on the other hand, it
Speaker 1: was a humble home. Like you said, I had no
Speaker 1: power and no water in a house. I first saw
Speaker 1: a television when I was fifteen years old. I'd never
Speaker 1: seen a box. But I was not poor compared to
Speaker 1: everybody else in our village. We were the better rough ones.
Speaker 1: Right from childhood, I could see that I was more
Speaker 1: privileged than the other kids I went to school with.
Speaker 1: They had no shoes. I walked with shoes. I started
Speaker 1: hiding them in my bag because I didn't want to
Speaker 1: be different. I had teachers who were Christian missionaries. They
Speaker 1: made me feel like I was so so privileged. I
Speaker 1: wasn't going to go to heaven until I abandoned my privilege.
Speaker 1: And to this day, I always questioned why I am privileged,
Speaker 1: Why others have less, why aren't we all equal? So
Speaker 1: my childhood I learned that I was luckier than most,
Speaker 1: that there was no reason whatsoever for me to have
Speaker 1: more than others was just accident, and that I needed
Speaker 1: to be equal and I needed to share my privilege.
Speaker 1: How did you know that that you needed to be equal?
Speaker 1: Because one, it is natural, it is actually common sense.
Speaker 1: When you are a child and you are with other children,
Speaker 1: you definitely see the difference between yourself with others. So
Speaker 1: that's one that when we are young we actually revolt
Speaker 1: against inequality. We learned to accept it, to justify it,
Speaker 1: to live with it as we get older. That's one. Secondly,
Speaker 1: I was also the child of activist social justice activists.
Speaker 1: My parents were questioning all the time in our home,
Speaker 1: were questioning an increasingly civilian dictatorship. They were questioning the violence.
Speaker 1: My mother was a women's rights activist. She was resisting
Speaker 1: putting girl children out of school to marry them off
Speaker 1: and get bride wealth out of them. They were pausing
Speaker 1: early marriage she and her women friends, so social injustices
Speaker 1: were very much something that was being resisted in my home.
Speaker 1: That's how I grew up. So do you feel in
Speaker 1: our nature, that from childhood we have a sense of
Speaker 1: right and wrong and equality, and that as we get older,
Speaker 1: society sort of injects these ideas of inequality in us. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: You know, one day I was talking with the President
Speaker 1: of Finland, Tajahlenen. She had been the leader of that
Speaker 1: country for six seven years. Her prime minister was a woman,
Speaker 1: the speaker of their parliament was a woman. And she
Speaker 1: said to me that a little boy came up to
Speaker 1: her and asked Harn said, Madam President, do you think
Speaker 1: I could also grow up to become a president like you?
Speaker 1: That was a little boy growing up in Finland seeing
Speaker 1: women leader us, and was now beginning to ask questions
Speaker 1: can men lead to see what I mean that it's
Speaker 1: not natural. Inequalities are not natural to us when we
Speaker 1: find them when we are young, we questioned them. But
Speaker 1: as we get older, the social norms, the society starts
Speaker 1: helping us to accept them. We don't have to accept inequalities.
Speaker 1: But you also had two parents that didn't accept inequalities, right,
Speaker 1: That's true. My parents were resisting, and as part of
Speaker 1: that resistance, your home often served as refuge for fellow insurgeons,
Speaker 1: away station for those fleeing this dangerous dictatorship. Our home
Speaker 1: was full of women, especially who had issues. They would
Speaker 1: either have lost their land because some family members on
Speaker 1: the husband's side had grabbed the land from a widow.
Speaker 1: Or they would have daughters whom they want to keep
Speaker 1: in school and the father wants to marry off and
Speaker 1: get bride or wealth. Or it would be someone who
Speaker 1: has been mistreated by a government official and stolen their property.
Speaker 1: They were always coming to him to help them get justice.
Speaker 1: And my question to my dad was I wanted to
Speaker 1: know did he have a job, And he said to
Speaker 1: me that was his job because he was a political leader.
Speaker 1: And he told me that the most important job in
Speaker 1: the world is to serve others. That there's no reason
Speaker 1: for being alive except serve other people. So when my
Speaker 1: mother started a business later on, she opened a hardware store,
Speaker 1: I felt a little embarrassed. I felt as if who
Speaker 1: Mommy's working for a profit, because I thought the most
Speaker 1: honorable job was that of serving poor people, women who
Speaker 1: were victims of oppression. That for it was the first
Speaker 1: job I knew us a real job and a good job.
Speaker 1: Because my dad said, yeah, that's my job. I get
Speaker 1: up in the morning to help people. That's how I
Speaker 1: grew up. He would say, this is not about you,
Speaker 1: this is about other people. We are here to serve
Speaker 1: this community. Absolutely, And as I grew up, I can't
Speaker 1: realize that even in a business, if you're doing your
Speaker 1: business well, you're actually serving the community, because I soon
Speaker 1: realized that my mother was serving a whole region around
Speaker 1: my hometown by selling hardware goods to help to construct schools,
Speaker 1: to construct clinics, to do roads, to do people's houses.
Speaker 1: She'd give them a little credit when they could just
Speaker 1: pay and get their money later. She'd take their orders
Speaker 1: and bring them what they need. And I just soon
Speaker 1: realized that whether you are in the private sector or
Speaker 1: in the public execta, whatever you do, you should have
Speaker 1: a purpose and it should serve humanity. I wonder if
Speaker 1: you started to find that purpose in nineteen seventy six,
Speaker 1: because at that time you're seventeen and beginning to exercise
Speaker 1: your political voice at university, so much so that you're
Speaker 1: forced to flee your own country, which brings me to
Speaker 1: this one evening where your mother helps you across the
Speaker 1: Kenyan border. I know we are forty years removed now,
Speaker 1: but can you walk me through that night. I can
Speaker 1: never forget because it changed my life. When I was
Speaker 1: complete in high school, I was feeling very angry. It
Speaker 1: was a hungry girl because the dictatorship was very brutal
Speaker 1: and particularly attacked women and girls. For example, the dictator
Speaker 1: dam who was an army man with almost no education.
Speaker 1: He had been trained in the colonial army to kill
Speaker 1: those who were fighting against colonialism. He was a brutal man.
Speaker 1: He would wake up one morning and announce on the
Speaker 1: radio that today I have burned many skirts. And then
Speaker 1: he had come back after a month and say today
Speaker 1: I have burned lipstick, and now I have burned trousers
Speaker 1: for women. His orders were not even precise. You wouldn't
Speaker 1: know whether your skirt, which is three inches above the
Speaker 1: knee or four inches above the knee, is too short,
Speaker 1: and you will be grabbed and found in violation of
Speaker 1: his law. The soldiers had become completely above the law.
Speaker 1: They would grab little girls on the street and take
Speaker 1: them and make them their wives, and you wouldn't say
Speaker 1: a word. You are a parent, you see your child
Speaker 1: being taken away. You dare not say a word because
Speaker 1: you'll get killed. So we were all living in terror,
Speaker 1: and if you are a girl, you had to be
Speaker 1: even more careful than a boy. So I was angry.
Speaker 1: I was angry about not being free. I was angry
Speaker 1: at seeing so many fathers of my classmates being killed.
Speaker 1: In the middle of the term. You would see family
Speaker 1: members coming to take a classmate away to go to
Speaker 1: mourn her father, whose body was found in a bush somewhere,
Speaker 1: killed or sometimes vanished, never to be seen again. So
Speaker 1: these things had made me an angry girl. When I fled,
Speaker 1: it was because I was not willing to take any
Speaker 1: more of that repression. And when my mother took me
Speaker 1: a cross the border in the night, it was scary
Speaker 1: if we had been caught. The soldiers had instructions and
Speaker 1: license to shoot anybody crossing the border illegally, and I
Speaker 1: couldn't cross legally because I didn't have proper documents. I
Speaker 1: was fleeing, So I was crossing in the night, trusting
Speaker 1: someone to carry my suitcase in the night, across the
Speaker 1: border no man's land, and hoping that nobody in the
Speaker 1: system of idi Amin would catch us in the night.
Speaker 1: So it was scary. But I knew that I'm leaving
Speaker 1: because I'm going to go I'm going to get skills,
Speaker 1: I'm going to learn something, and I'm going to come
Speaker 1: and make a difference in the world in my country.
Speaker 1: So I had this determination to go to acquire knowledge,
Speaker 1: to become someone useful, to comment make a difference. Were
Speaker 1: you afraid growing up? There were times when I was
Speaker 1: a teenager would be so frightened at home. There was
Speaker 1: a time when the dictator was purging his army of
Speaker 1: all the soldiers from one part of the country. He
Speaker 1: had overthrown a civilian leader, so he wanted that the
Speaker 1: army doesn't have anybody from the ethnicity of the leader
Speaker 1: he had overthrown. So he was killing them, and he
Speaker 1: would kill them in the barracks, in the army barracks,
Speaker 1: and he would throw the bodies on farms. My father's
Speaker 1: farm was one of the places where it was twenty
Speaker 1: miles from the town where the bodies were being thrown
Speaker 1: of these young men. One day, the farmers on my
Speaker 1: father's farm, the workers found there one person who hadn't
Speaker 1: quite died, and they took him away, but he had
Speaker 1: been shot in the stomach. They nurked him, they hid
Speaker 1: him in the farmhouse. They fed him, and they informed
Speaker 1: my dad in the town that we've got someone who
Speaker 1: didn't die, but who was thrown here and we're taking
Speaker 1: care of him. What should we do. My dad went
Speaker 1: to the farm and said, okay, we're going to keep
Speaker 1: him here. We're going to nurse him. It's dangerous. I
Speaker 1: don't want anyone on my farm to step out of
Speaker 1: the farm because you might leak the story and we
Speaker 1: might get killed. But he must be taken care of
Speaker 1: and I will see how to find him a safe
Speaker 1: path out of the country. So he lived with on
Speaker 1: the farm for two weeks. He started getting better. Then
Speaker 1: one day an army truck came to the farm, drove
Speaker 1: right up to the farmhouse, kicked the door in, and
Speaker 1: shot this poor man dead and took away the body.
Speaker 1: The report was made and my dad was informed, and
Speaker 1: we were now waiting for the army to come to
Speaker 1: pick my dad and kill him. Because they never wanted
Speaker 1: anyone to know the atrocities they were committing, and because
Speaker 1: my father had hidden a soldier they had tried to
Speaker 1: kill who had survived, they were going to look for him.
Speaker 1: So we sat there and my dad said, well, whatever happens,
Speaker 1: there's no regret here. They never came. But imagine the
Speaker 1: terror went through one day, one week, one month, waiting
Speaker 1: that they might come to silence my father for having
Speaker 1: tried to save a life. It left so many of
Speaker 1: us my generation, and we all know that we have
Speaker 1: some trauma from that period. But positive things happened when
Speaker 1: I fled and went to England and found a peaceful country,
Speaker 1: opportunity to study, libraries, a union, to join our societies
Speaker 1: and express my voice. I was able to channel my
Speaker 1: anger into real good struggles. So I think I became
Speaker 1: a real activist when I fled. As you're a young
Speaker 1: person at the University of Manchester studying aeronautical engineering. You
Speaker 1: are the first female Ugandan to do so. And you
Speaker 1: talked in the beginning about finding joy in your childhood.
Speaker 1: How does someone in their early twenties find joy when
Speaker 1: coming from those conditions. Honestly, when I arrived in England,
Speaker 1: I never thought I'd be happy again. I thought, I'm
Speaker 1: going to go to the university, I'm going to study,
Speaker 1: I'm going to get skills. I will join others to
Speaker 1: fight the regime of idea, mean to oppose it. From exile.
Speaker 1: On one day, I'll come back to my country and
Speaker 1: be happy. I never thought I could ever be happy
Speaker 1: in England, but I was a believer. My parents were
Speaker 1: a Christian, so I sort of took consolation from going
Speaker 1: to church and praying. But my biggest consolation came from
Speaker 1: the students' union. There I discovered some joy in organizing.
Speaker 1: And I have to tell you that university time, things changed.
Speaker 1: Within one year, I realized that I was enjoying my
Speaker 1: life at university. I was enjoying reading. I was being
Speaker 1: empowered by learning about feminism, reading Simond de Beauvoir, The
Speaker 1: Second Sex, reading the existentialist Jampos, sat reading about revolutions
Speaker 1: around the world. I discovered liberation theology in Latin America,
Speaker 1: the Jesuit priests who were supporting liberation struggles there. I
Speaker 1: read about the Chinese Revolution and then I joined the
Speaker 1: anti apartheid movement at the university. And we were pushing
Speaker 1: our university, challenging our university to divest from Berkeley's Bank,
Speaker 1: which was invested in South Africa. We were doing sittings,
Speaker 1: we were supporting the liberation of what was then called
Speaker 1: Rhodesia that then became Zimbabwe. In the Pan African movement.
Speaker 1: I found causes but all the time my heart was
Speaker 1: fighting to go back to Uganda. You're smiling talking about this, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was good. So many times, when people who look
Speaker 1: like me think of the stories of people outside of
Speaker 1: America that are born out of struggle and strife and
Speaker 1: political unrest, there is this idea that there is no joy,
Speaker 1: that there is no happiness. And what I think you're
Speaker 1: sharing is important because you're saying no, no, no, look,
Speaker 1: there is more. You are not defined only by what
Speaker 1: went wrong. Absolutely, by the time I got to Manchester,
Speaker 1: I was feeling one might parents had taught me a
Speaker 1: money equal to boys. I knew that. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: I was feeling a victim of idi amine as a girl.
Speaker 1: When I got there in Manchester, my heart just drew
Speaker 1: me to see how women were organizing. So I went
Speaker 1: to the first group of women I saw, and they
Speaker 1: were very attractive because they were peace activists. Remember this
Speaker 1: was during the Cold War. The East and the West
Speaker 1: were building up in nuclear arms and threatening each other.
Speaker 1: And now at my university a group of women, they
Speaker 1: were feminists, had organized as part of what was a
Speaker 1: big European peace movement, and they were going every weekend
Speaker 1: to a place called green up Common. They were protesting.
Speaker 1: They were saying, we don't want nuclear weapons in our country.
Speaker 1: We want a peaceful world, we want the Cold War
Speaker 1: to end, and we want disummer made. I felt so
Speaker 1: connected to them, coming from a country where we didn't
Speaker 1: have nuclear weapons, but Idi Amine was using small weapons
Speaker 1: to kill us. So I went with them to green
Speaker 1: um Common. They will talk about the threat of a
Speaker 1: nuclear war. They were scared of the nuclear war destroying
Speaker 1: the whole planet. I was more threatened by small arms
Speaker 1: that were killing us now. So I'll try to tell
Speaker 1: them that while you are thinking about the possibility of
Speaker 1: a nuclear war, there's real war, civil war in my country.
Speaker 1: We are being killed by a brutal dictator. They couldn't engage.
Speaker 1: They would listen politely and then continue talking about nuclear weapons.
Speaker 1: I felt so disappointed, so alienated. I left that group
Speaker 1: of movement women. So I then joined another group. This
Speaker 1: second group, the women were very angry, and I thought
Speaker 1: I connected with them because they were as angry as
Speaker 1: I was. They said they were radical women, so I
Speaker 1: thought I'm radical too. I'm angry, But they were only
Speaker 1: talking about bodies, and they kept talking about controlling their
Speaker 1: own bodies, and then I would start saying that, but
Speaker 1: you know what, women in Uganda are poor. African women
Speaker 1: are so poor. They would keep quiet, and they were
Speaker 1: not open to talking about issues of poverty of women,
Speaker 1: biting poverty, of the social norms that discriminate women in
Speaker 1: other ways. They only wanted to talk about bodily autonomy,
Speaker 1: and I just couldn't connect with it. Again, I left.
Speaker 1: I ended up working with socialist feminists. These I found
Speaker 1: closer to me because they were connecting issues of class poverty.
Speaker 1: Although they were talking about industrial class of workers and capitalists,
Speaker 1: and I was talking more about peasants, people who live
Speaker 1: off the land and who are in biting poverty and
Speaker 1: oppressed because of patriarchy and captured state. But they were
Speaker 1: closer to me because you were talking both economic issues
Speaker 1: and patriarchy, the domination of men over women, and the
Speaker 1: militarism of the state. So all these things, as you
Speaker 1: can see, some I grew university really opened my eyes
Speaker 1: and released my anger into good, good activism. You went
Speaker 1: to these groups and they regarded some of the issues
Speaker 1: you were talking about as sort of theoretical quandaries and
Speaker 1: whether it is the pandemic, the racial reckoning that has
Speaker 1: happened in America. It's that many people regard very serious
Speaker 1: problems as intellectual problems. But I wonder, in your years
Speaker 1: of activism, how have you found a way to make
Speaker 1: these theoretical quandaries real human problems. Some I never start
Speaker 1: with theory. I start with a real experience, and then
Speaker 1: I can't theorize about it. I feel a bit sad,
Speaker 1: but it's not unusual that there are some people who
Speaker 1: begin by theorizing reading and then they go to experience.
Speaker 1: But my life has been one of experiencing and then
Speaker 1: connecting my experience with those of others through theory. So
Speaker 1: being at university was exactly that for me. That I
Speaker 1: came with a real experience. That one was first a
Speaker 1: nice childhood early years of my parents and my school
Speaker 1: and being encouraged to be a little girl equal to boys,
Speaker 1: and then a brutal regime that disrupted all that and
Speaker 1: I fled. But coming to our university, I was lucky
Speaker 1: because that was the age when I was turning nineteen
Speaker 1: and I could now connect what happened to me in
Speaker 1: Uganda as a girl as a woman with the experience
Speaker 1: of women from other parts of the world and I
Speaker 1: could read theory. I could go in the library and
Speaker 1: be helped by thinkers like I mentioned Simonda Bova to
Speaker 1: understand what patriarchy is, why men have for centuries oppressed women,
Speaker 1: and how that transmits and translates into other systems, economic systems,
Speaker 1: security systems. I could learn that. I could see that
Speaker 1: as a colonial subject. I was born in colonial times
Speaker 1: in Uganda, but by the time I got to understand
Speaker 1: when an independent country, but I could connect with my
Speaker 1: colleagues from Zimbabwe, they were still under colonialism. So I
Speaker 1: could understand and read and know the impact of colonialism
Speaker 1: on our countries, even though I didn't quite see it.
Speaker 1: But I could learn from the experience of my zimbabwe
Speaker 1: and friends who are telling me what was happening to them,
Speaker 1: and then understand why my country was going through what
Speaker 1: it was going through as a post colonial state. So
Speaker 1: my experience always leads me to connect with others and
Speaker 1: then to see the common thread and to learn from
Speaker 1: the thinkers on how to work with others for change.
Speaker 1: I think many young people today don't connect with what's
Speaker 1: happening around them because there is no organizing. They are
Speaker 1: sitting behind a screen. Maybe and following on social media
Speaker 1: and what have you. But that kind of organizing can
Speaker 1: be limited. You can become actually just a spectator, but
Speaker 1: not an activist. Is not making real change. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying it's a general case, but I think one needs
Speaker 1: to have other people with whom you connect and you
Speaker 1: decide to do something together. Alone, you cannot change the world.
Speaker 1: But I think part of the reason some young people
Speaker 1: are disillusioned or maybe becoming spectators instead of active participants
Speaker 1: is because they are dissatisfied with the politicians and the
Speaker 1: system of politics. And I want to go to something
Speaker 1: in your life that is real, which is that after
Speaker 1: university you join the armed rebellion. From ninety nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: five you do, I believe, two other jobs in between
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety four, when you become a member of Parliament.
Speaker 1: Now I bring this up because there is a moment
Speaker 1: in your ten years in parliament that I think speaks
Speaker 1: to some of the problems that we're having right now
Speaker 1: today where a colleague of yours came to the floor
Speaker 1: of Parliament and she was supposed to be talking about
Speaker 1: the budget for Rhodes, but the way she spoke of
Speaker 1: these issues were untraditional. You see, out of the revolution
Speaker 1: which I was a part of, which was a persant
Speaker 1: revolution of a throwing an elite but earned civilian dictatorship,
Speaker 1: we started to grow a local democracy that empowered real
Speaker 1: people to make decisions for themselves. From the local level
Speaker 1: to the national We said women would have half the
Speaker 1: seats in all the councils, the legislatures, and at the
Speaker 1: national level we had about twenty five percent in the
Speaker 1: national legislature what you call the congress in your country. Now,
Speaker 1: these seats that were reserved for women, women competed against
Speaker 1: women to fill them. So we had new women who
Speaker 1: had never been in parliaments, who had not taken the
Speaker 1: traditional route to parliament of say being a lawyer or
Speaker 1: I don't know what, and then getting elected. They came
Speaker 1: straight from their kitchen, sometimes from being a nurse or
Speaker 1: a teacher, the traditional jobs that women did in my
Speaker 1: country somewhere just housewives, like I said, stright from their
Speaker 1: kitchen and looking after their children. So the way they
Speaker 1: debated issues was different from how say, a man who's
Speaker 1: gone to law school debates the issues. So this woman,
Speaker 1: either like so many others, would watch they wouldn't say
Speaker 1: much in the parliament because they didn't have the language
Speaker 1: and the culture of the legislature. But when it would
Speaker 1: be time to debate something so important, they would come
Speaker 1: out and say what they want for their people. This
Speaker 1: woman came from a mountainless area on the border with Congo.
Speaker 1: It was so mountainous it lacked roads infrastructure. She was
Speaker 1: contributing to the need for roads in her area. And
Speaker 1: this is how she put it. She cried on the floor.
Speaker 1: She said, Look, women are dying in the mountains giving
Speaker 1: birth because there are no there's no public transportation to
Speaker 1: bring them from the mountains down to the hospital because
Speaker 1: the roads are just not there. We need roads because
Speaker 1: women are dying. The men burst out laughing at her
Speaker 1: that what kind of contribution is this to a budget debate.
Speaker 1: We are not talking about pregnant women. We are talking
Speaker 1: about money for roads. But to me, it really hits
Speaker 1: me that, no, this can't be right. What she's saying
Speaker 1: is relevant for roads. A woman needs a road to
Speaker 1: get hospital. You don't have to make an argument about
Speaker 1: roads only when you're talking about transporting goods and shipping exports.
Speaker 1: Roads are not just for that. Therefore, women to go
Speaker 1: to have their babies. There was a light bulb for me.
Speaker 1: We've got to find a way to make women's concerns
Speaker 1: respected and counted and budgeted for. We can't just come
Speaker 1: to the parliament and cry. We must come with evidence,
Speaker 1: with economic arguments and human rights arguments, but that are
Speaker 1: coherent and that will be respected by these men in
Speaker 1: their suits. So we started a whole project of economic
Speaker 1: literacy for the women's Caucus. I was there. I was
Speaker 1: elected leader of the Women's Caucus. We did a project
Speaker 1: for two years giving it economic literacy to all the women.
Speaker 1: Then we did something we called gender budgeting, which was
Speaker 1: about how to analyze the budget from the perspectives of
Speaker 1: men and women and making a good argument for why
Speaker 1: women's needs should also be allocated resources. It all started
Speaker 1: with us being laughed at for expressing women's needs in
Speaker 1: the budget in untraditional ways. Public institutions as well as
Speaker 1: private sector institutions were designed by men and tend to
Speaker 1: reflect the needs of men and the culture of men.
Speaker 1: And women have to literally force themselves in and change
Speaker 1: the language and change the priorities. Do you see the
Speaker 1: language changing in twenty twenty one, Yes, a lot. I mean, look,
Speaker 1: this week was it or last week, a few days ago.
Speaker 1: All the days are blurred to other. At this point absolutely,
Speaker 1: I was on my Twitter and what do I see
Speaker 1: your vice President come Naharris swearing in Lenda Grainfield Thomas
Speaker 1: as the next United Nations Ambassador Permanent Representative of the
Speaker 1: United States to the United Nations. So seeing two women
Speaker 1: of African descent, one as a vice president swearing in
Speaker 1: another one, that means that language has to change, culture
Speaker 1: has to change, everything changes because they come with their
Speaker 1: lived experience, They come with the concerns of people like themselves.
Speaker 1: So that's what happens when you introduce diversity in any institution.
Speaker 1: People come as they are, with their language, their culture,
Speaker 1: their way of seeing the world, the issues they have
Speaker 1: lived with. These become part of the mainstream. So that's
Speaker 1: a greatness of your country that, even when you have
Speaker 1: your challenges, that diversity keeps growing and diversity strength. We'll
Speaker 1: right back. You have brought yourself to each of these
Speaker 1: issues that you have been fighting for for many years,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to make sure we talk about them
Speaker 1: before we leave, one of which is the general equality
Speaker 1: that you're talking about. The second, and I think it
Speaker 1: is important, especially now in the pandemic, the sort of
Speaker 1: widening income inequality. How are you thinking about this pervasive
Speaker 1: issue in twenty twenty one and the years ahead. It
Speaker 1: is widening. It is one of the biggest challenges of
Speaker 1: our time that the way economies are planned and the
Speaker 1: way businesses are run just maximize for a few people
Speaker 1: at the top and cheat everybody else. And the more
Speaker 1: this happens, the why that these inequalities in income grow,
Speaker 1: the more that the processes of shaping economies are captured.
Speaker 1: Politics is captured because if you're a wealthy man and
Speaker 1: you have a house and a car and you can
Speaker 1: take holidays, that's okay. But when you have so much
Speaker 1: money and you buy a yacht and you buy three
Speaker 1: planes and you still have a balance, what you do
Speaker 1: with it? You then use it to capture power. You
Speaker 1: channel it into the political process and you buy up
Speaker 1: the laws, you buy the judiciary, you buy the media,
Speaker 1: you buy the voice of people. So that's what's happened
Speaker 1: in many countries now that the widening inequalities resulting political culture.
Speaker 1: Ordinary people to have no voice, interest groups have voice.
Speaker 1: This is what has been happening. Now. I am in
Speaker 1: health now and I see that so directly too, that
Speaker 1: there are huge inequalities in health and they get wider
Speaker 1: and wider because the same economic interests, the same huge
Speaker 1: interests in the pharmaceutical industries, in the health care industries,
Speaker 1: they buy politics, so politics delivers for them. So now
Speaker 1: you have health systems that are profit led in poor
Speaker 1: countries like ours. Imagine my country is one of the
Speaker 1: worst countries in the world, but you see in Africa
Speaker 1: an attempt to sell health. How do you sell health
Speaker 1: to somebody who hasn't got food if you're struggling to
Speaker 1: put food on the table, if you're a jobless young man,
Speaker 1: how can you fall sick and war and by health
Speaker 1: and have a health insurance? So you see that the
Speaker 1: solutions being proposed in health are based on models that
Speaker 1: are being pushed by the same interests that have taken
Speaker 1: political power. We have in some countries, and have seen
Speaker 1: it in my own where a poor woman goes to
Speaker 1: hospital to deliver a baby and she's in the hospital
Speaker 1: for a month or two with her baby captive until
Speaker 1: she pays her bill. Can you imagine that you have
Speaker 1: women whose babies die in their arms because they don't
Speaker 1: have half a donor to pay at the hospital in
Speaker 1: order to open a file for them to get treatment.
Speaker 1: That kind of exclusion. And it's because a model of
Speaker 1: where you know, you need to have people contributing to
Speaker 1: the health system. It can't be free. The government can't afford.
Speaker 1: The truth is that the governments can't afford. If they
Speaker 1: tax progressively, those with the biggest profits where to pay
Speaker 1: their fair share, we would have enough for the health system.
Speaker 1: But they have already paid money to get the taxes
Speaker 1: as low as possible to exclude themselves from paying their
Speaker 1: fair share. So these are the issues why ordinary people
Speaker 1: don't have the services they need. They don't have the
Speaker 1: healthcare they need, they don't have the indication of their children,
Speaker 1: they don't have the roads they need because those who
Speaker 1: are rich have taken the power and have excluded themselves
Speaker 1: out of the tax bracket, and then the tax burden
Speaker 1: is on the poor. You find that in countries. In
Speaker 1: many countries, we have this indirect system of tax where
Speaker 1: you are taxed for everything you consume. So even if
Speaker 1: you buy a bottle of water, you pay at tax.
Speaker 1: But if I am so rich and I can take
Speaker 1: my money and put it in at taxaven I don't
Speaker 1: pay tax. You see the reach of pay tax. The
Speaker 1: poorker not escape the tax bracket. These are the issues.
Speaker 1: You know. The best healthcare systems that reach everybody came
Speaker 1: out of crisis in the Second World War, when everything
Speaker 1: was destroyed in Europe, they built their welfare state and
Speaker 1: provided health for free. Recently in the financial crisis or
Speaker 1: with HIV. The HIV crisis as crisis led to this
Speaker 1: whole movement and a lot of money brought by the
Speaker 1: whole world in our joint program to fight AIDS. So
Speaker 1: you find that crisis create solution, but as soon as
Speaker 1: we come out of the crisis, sometimes the private interests
Speaker 1: take over. So some I am still challenging inequalities, and
Speaker 1: now I'm in the health area. I'm finding that the
Speaker 1: way health is financed is inequitable. I'm finding that the
Speaker 1: lack of rights for certain groups of people deny them
Speaker 1: their health. If you take gay men, gay men are
Speaker 1: more vulnerable to HIV. But in my country, even if
Speaker 1: we have the prevention, the condoms, the pre exposure prophylaxis,
Speaker 1: all the things that can help them prevent themselves protect
Speaker 1: their health, they can't get them because they are called criminals.
Speaker 1: There's a law that criminalizes them. There's a society that's
Speaker 1: homophobic that drives them underground. So human rights. Inequal reality
Speaker 1: of rights results in equalities in health, So we have
Speaker 1: to fight for human rights. Girls, girls and young women
Speaker 1: are four or five times more at risk of catching
Speaker 1: HIV because of the way the law value of women
Speaker 1: are girls in our societies because sex is forced onto them,
Speaker 1: because it's sexual violence, because they are discriminated and don't
Speaker 1: go to school, so they don't have a safe space
Speaker 1: to grow up in. So ending discrimination, ending criminalization of gay,
Speaker 1: people of transgender people of sex workers, achieving equality of
Speaker 1: people in human rights can lead to them having healthy lives.
Speaker 1: So I continue to fight inequality. It is my trademark.
Speaker 1: Part of equality is finding agency in oneself. And some
Speaker 1: of these issues that you're talking about in the healthcare
Speaker 1: system or the sort of winding gap of income inequality
Speaker 1: reminds me of this quote from Tanahasi Coats. He said
Speaker 1: back in twenty seventeen. In general, people with power don't
Speaker 1: just hand over the power out of a moral conviction.
Speaker 1: It is not moral conviction that moves. Do you think
Speaker 1: that's true. No, power is never given, power is taken
Speaker 1: you have to build your agency to claim your rights.
Speaker 1: I believe that people aware meaning, but people don't give
Speaker 1: up their privilege. Just like that, you build the pressure
Speaker 1: and then well meaning people see the light and come
Speaker 1: on the right side, But others have to be literally defeated,
Speaker 1: whether in argument or by a law. South Africa had apartheid,
Speaker 1: a horrible system of racial discrimination where the majority had
Speaker 1: no rights and no equality. Even the church, the main
Speaker 1: church in their country, was preaching that God wanted people
Speaker 1: to live separately. But when the whole world came to
Speaker 1: support them and the apartheid was ended. I visited South
Speaker 1: Africa immediately after that change, and I met so many people,
Speaker 1: and I kept asking my friends and said, but why
Speaker 1: are the racists? How come I don't see anybody just
Speaker 1: flying apartheid. Everybody had changed. Everybody was saying that apartheid
Speaker 1: was evil. Why because it was now illegal. The law
Speaker 1: had changed, or at least nominally changed people. So you
Speaker 1: have to organize. To organize, you have to have agency.
Speaker 1: You have to claim your rights. And when you have
Speaker 1: the tools of power like lawmaking, it forces everybody to
Speaker 1: do the right thing. Some are persuaded because it is right,
Speaker 1: and you can argue your case. Those who are not
Speaker 1: the law compels them. So it's about agency or right.
Speaker 1: It's about collective action. It's about persuading as many people
Speaker 1: as possible to be on the side of justice, and
Speaker 1: those who refuse are overwhelmed by the numbers game and
Speaker 1: the law. We started this conversation talking about you as
Speaker 1: a child, where even then you felt it wasn't fair
Speaker 1: for you to walk to school it choose on while
Speaker 1: your classmates walked barefoot. But then as we grow older,
Speaker 1: you say that this subconscious tolerance of extreme inequality is
Speaker 1: like a seed planted deep in us. We start believing
Speaker 1: that any of these crises we've been talking about, a
Speaker 1: broken healthcare system, income inequality, We start to believe these
Speaker 1: problems are, as you say, the inevitable consequences of a
Speaker 1: prosperous world. You've spent a lifetime working to dismantle that thinking.
Speaker 1: But how should we try to cope with these conditions
Speaker 1: of inequality that have been exacerbated by the pandemic. Inequality
Speaker 1: is wrong and we should never accept it, and it's
Speaker 1: not inevitable. It's choices that we make. It's the society
Speaker 1: which used to live in this crisis has shown it.
Speaker 1: This crisis of COVID has hit the whole world. Where
Speaker 1: a country is more equal, where you have a health
Speaker 1: system that is accessible to everybody, No, you don't have
Speaker 1: to have a job to access health like you have
Speaker 1: in some countries, where your health is linked to your job,
Speaker 1: Where you have social protection for the elderly, where they
Speaker 1: are taken care of, the disabled are taken care of,
Speaker 1: Where you have public services that everybody benefits from. These
Speaker 1: countries have been able to mobilize and protect themselves from COVID.
Speaker 1: Where they have cuge inequalities, where a few people are
Speaker 1: living in luxury and others struggle, they've struggled to yet
Speaker 1: a public safety net for everybody. So inequality is a choice.
Speaker 1: I often point to some data here in your country,
Speaker 1: the life expectancy of a child in a poor African
Speaker 1: American family is the same as that of a child
Speaker 1: in Libia. What on Libia? Can you imagine that life expectancy?
Speaker 1: This is in the richest country in the world. You
Speaker 1: have a country like Nigeria, and you have a country
Speaker 1: like Bangladesh and Nigeria have about the same income level
Speaker 1: on average GDP, but Nigeria has the highest number of
Speaker 1: children out of school who are unable to go to
Speaker 1: school because the Carter afford is charged for more than
Speaker 1: ten million Bangladesh, Almost all their children, more than ninety percent,
Speaker 1: are in school. So it's a choice. They decide that
Speaker 1: they want to give all their kids education so that
Speaker 1: they can grow up into adults who can earn a living.
Speaker 1: So inequality is a result of choices that our governments make.
Speaker 1: It's the societies who want to live in some people
Speaker 1: in wealth that they can never spend and others in poverty.
Speaker 1: So that's my answer to your question that inequality, first
Speaker 1: of all, is not natural. Even as a child, your
Speaker 1: eyes tell you that why is this? One? God this
Speaker 1: and I don't have it. We should be equal. As
Speaker 1: you grow older, you realize that the world is fairer
Speaker 1: if the government makes the choices your country gives you opportunity,
Speaker 1: because opportunities have been created, they don't just fall from
Speaker 1: heaven like rain. So we must choose and we must
Speaker 1: organize to challenge inequality. I am a fighter against inequality.
Speaker 1: I'm always mobilizing, and some your questions have made me
Speaker 1: see that you too are a social justice warrior. As
Speaker 1: we leave and as a fighter in their sixties. I
Speaker 1: wanted to present this photo to you. It is, I believe,
Speaker 1: from your childhood and I'm curious. Oh my god, where
Speaker 1: did you get that from? Oh my god, Oh my god. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's oh my god. Yes, that's me in front of
Speaker 1: the missionary English woman is a nun, a sister who
Speaker 1: was my class teacher. And I was a brownie. I
Speaker 1: think in America you say girls, girls, But can you
Speaker 1: see the girls around me with no shoes. Yes, these
Speaker 1: were my classmates. I remember their names very well. Must
Speaker 1: have died. But the one with a girl guide's hat
Speaker 1: went on to become a peace activist and she works
Speaker 1: with grassroots movements building peace and communities. She works for
Speaker 1: the African Union. The other one with a also girl guide,
Speaker 1: big girl, she died. She tried to migrate to Norway,
Speaker 1: she never made it. And all these girls you see,
Speaker 1: many of them died sadly. They get ill, they have
Speaker 1: many children, and they die young. They didn't live long
Speaker 1: because where poor country, opportunities are not there. This was
Speaker 1: like the best school in the whole region. You've said that.
Speaker 1: When you see that photo, what you see are girls
Speaker 1: that had a drop out of school girls that were
Speaker 1: much smarter than you. Yes, you said before that millions
Speaker 1: of girls are like this. They come from poor families,
Speaker 1: and still now you are haunted by them. In part,
Speaker 1: I am that's the sad part of my life, that
Speaker 1: being in my sixties in a global role and I
Speaker 1: see that most of the people that I grew up
Speaker 1: with die or still living in poverty. It's heartbreaking, it seems.
Speaker 1: What's so painful is that it's a lot of people
Speaker 1: who were not afforded the opportunity to reach their full potential.
Speaker 1: And I'm wondering, as a woman who has had every
Speaker 1: job seemingly imaginable, how do you feel about emerging from
Speaker 1: the situation as you have, being a survivor as you are. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I don't see myself as particularly gifted, even but I
Speaker 1: see myself as lucky as a survivor. In my community,
Speaker 1: I was ahead of the other kids. My parents were teachers,
Speaker 1: my parents were activists. They wouldn't let the dictatorship define us.
Speaker 1: My mother helped me across a boarder, I got a scholarship.
Speaker 1: All these things are partly having had a bit more
Speaker 1: luck than others, being ahead. It's also working hard I
Speaker 1: don't take for granted. I know that I must work
Speaker 1: very hard and prove myself and deliver something. On the
Speaker 1: one hand, A happy survivor on the other hand, sad
Speaker 1: at how many people miss, so many people I know
Speaker 1: who didn't get their opportunity. What are you thinking about.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of my friend, my Muna. We grew up
Speaker 1: together in the same village and she's still there. She's
Speaker 1: my best friend on our village for children, some grandchildren.
Speaker 1: She's still a peasant. She still grows her food. I've
Speaker 1: helped her to put her kids through school, but they
Speaker 1: haven't escaped poverty because they don't have hopes. She's a
Speaker 1: women's rights leader in my village. She's respected, She's buried
Speaker 1: everyone in my village because she's always there. When her
Speaker 1: house burnt down, the whole village came together and we
Speaker 1: built another one for her. She's a pilla in our community.
Speaker 1: She's not a sad woman, but she didn't escape poverty.
Speaker 1: So what's on my mind is that this challenge of
Speaker 1: making the world a good place for everyone, it's a
Speaker 1: hard one, but you be your best to do what
Speaker 1: you can do. You feel in your heart after all
Speaker 1: the work you have done, the more people in future
Speaker 1: generations who reach their potential. I think so. I think
Speaker 1: I'm seeing our countries slowly overcoming poverty. But I also
Speaker 1: have learned through being part of these social justice struggles
Speaker 1: to find my place to know that I'm just one
Speaker 1: person with a lifespan that's so many years, not so long,
Speaker 1: but that these struggles continue for generations. You do your
Speaker 1: bit and your pass on the baton to others, You're
Speaker 1: contributing to a historic struggle. And I think young people
Speaker 1: are going to challenge inequality, are going to demand, and
Speaker 1: we're going to see some revolutions that equalize. Just like
Speaker 1: how out of crisis people rebuild. I think this huge
Speaker 1: inequality is going to cause a reset and we're going
Speaker 1: to see young people lead that. I'm optimistic. Well, Winnie,
Speaker 1: I thank you for your optimism. I thank you for
Speaker 1: surviving as you have, and I thank you for sitting
Speaker 1: with me. Thank you for the opportunity. It was such
Speaker 1: a deep thinker, and I've enjoyed this conversation. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Will it be an ema, Please stay safe, and that's
Speaker 1: our show. Special thanks this week to Charlotte sector, Olinka
Speaker 1: Brush and the good people at UNAIDS. I'd be remissed
Speaker 1: to not mention that twenty twenty one marks the forty
Speaker 1: years since the first report of AIDS and the twenty
Speaker 1: five years of the Joint United Nations Program on HIV AIDS,
Speaker 1: and although HIV is preventable and treatable, there were still
Speaker 1: one point seven million new HIV infections in twenty nineteen
Speaker 1: and six hundred and ninety thousand people who passed away
Speaker 1: from AIDS related causes. So to learn more about how
Speaker 1: we can beat this epidemic, please visit www dot UNAIDS
Speaker 1: dot org. I'd also like to thank Miss Winnie be
Speaker 1: Anema for sharing her story and her time with us
Speaker 1: on this show. To learn more about her and her work,
Speaker 1: visit our show notes at www dot talk easypod dot com.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to hear more conversations in this spirit,
Speaker 1: I'd recommend our talks with doctor Cornell West, Representative il
Speaker 1: han Omar Genea, Future KHN, Brittany Packnick Cunningham, do Lauras Wertha,
Speaker 1: Gloria Steinem and Gnom Chomsky. You can listen and subscribe
Speaker 1: to our show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google podcast, Stitcher,
Speaker 1: wherever you do your listening. If you do happen to
Speaker 1: use Apple or iTunes or whatever they're calling it, leaving
Speaker 1: us a review on there is still a great way
Speaker 1: for new listeners to find our program. If you'd like
Speaker 1: to join our mailing list, drop us a line at
Speaker 1: talk easypod at gmail dot com. You can follow us
Speaker 1: on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at talk easyd and as always,
Speaker 1: our show is made possible each week by our incredible team.
Speaker 1: Our executive producer is Jannick Sobravo. Illustrations by Chrisia Schanoy.
Speaker 1: Our associate producer is Nicky Spina. Our lead editor is
Speaker 1: Andre Lynn. Our editors for today's episode is Kevin Core
Speaker 1: and Joshua Siegel. Our assistant editor is Clarice Givara. Music
Speaker 1: by Dylan Peck. Our interns are Caitlin Dryden, Claire Hardwick,
Speaker 1: Jilly Harold, Patrice Lee, and Grace Perkins. Video and graphics
Speaker 1: by Ian Chang, Derek Gamberzach O'Ryan Hong, Ian Jones, and
Speaker 1: Ethan Seneca. And The show is produced by Caroline Reebok,
Speaker 1: who happens to be celebrating a birthday this Sunday. Without her,
Speaker 1: I don't know where this show would be so thank you, Caroline,
Speaker 1: thank you to our entire team. It takes a village
Speaker 1: every week to make this podcast. So I'm San Frago,
Speaker 1: so thank you for listening to Talk Easy. I'll see
Speaker 1: you back here next Sunday with Amanda Safe Read until then,
Speaker 1: stay safe, and so long.