The world’s Biggest Family

The Man with 39 wives, 94 children and 33 grandchildren

“Today I feel like God’s special child. He’s given me so many people to look after”

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My note: Two similarly extraordinary stories from two different countries; India and Ethiopia. India has 1.2 billion people, Ethiopia 91 million. In the Indian case we see writers promoting polygamy through love, harmony and romantic dreams. But, in the Ethiopian case, we see them highlighting the frustration, desperation and a bit of pessimistic inclination of Ato Ayattu – to promote family planning and contraception.

By the way, the record number of offspring for any man throughout history holds Moroccan emperor, Moulay Ismail “The Bloodthirsty” who lived during 1672 – 1727. He had a total of 867 children including 525 sons and 342 daughters. Here are the 10 biggest Families of the World

Getting back to the man with 39 wives…

• Ziona Chana lives with all of them in a 100-room mansion

• His wives take it in turns to share his bed

• It takes 30 whole chickens just to make dinner

He is head of the world’s biggest family – and says he is ‘blessed’ to have his 39 wives. Ziona Chana of India also has 94 children, 14-daughters-in-law and 33 grandchildren.

They live in a 100-room, four storey house set amidst the hills of Baktwang village in the Indian state of Mizoram, where the wives sleep in giant communal dormitories.

‘I consider myself a lucky man to be the husband of 39 women and head of the world’s largest family.’

The family is organized with almost military discipline, with the oldest wife Zathiangi organizing her fellow partners to perform household chores such as cleaning, washing and preparing meals.

One evening meal can see them pluck 30 chickens, peel 132lb of potatoes and boil up to 220lb of rice. Coincidentally, Mr Chana is also head of a sect that allows members to take as many wives as he wants.

Another of his wives, Huntharnghanki, said the entire family gets along well. The family system is reportedly based on ‘mutual love and respect’

And Mr Chana, whose religious sect has 4,00 members, says he has not stopped looking for new wives.

‘To expand my sect, I am willing to go even to the U.S. to marry,’ he said.

He even married ten women in one year, when he was at his most prolific, and enjoys his own double bed while his wives have to make do with communal dormitories.

He keeps the youngest women near to his bedroom with the older members of the family sleeping further away – and there is a rotation system for who visits Mr Chana’s bedroom.

Rinkmini, one of Mr Chana’s wives who is 35 years old, said: ‘We stay around him as he is the most important person in the house. He is the most handsome person in the village.

One of his sons insisted that Mr Chana, whose grandfather also had many wives, marries the poor women from the village so he can look after them

Source

Polygamy no fun, admits Ethiopian

An Ethiopian man, Ayattu Nure, with 11 wives and 77 children is urging people not to follow his example and is giving advice on family planning and contraception.

He says he cannot remember all his children’s names but tries to work out who they are from their mothers and which huts they live in.

“People see me as a funny man, but there is no fun in my condition”

Source

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The Tyranny of Human Rights Organizations

My Note: The following article reflects a very objective observation of the so-called, Human-rights groups. I remember hearing Amnesty International calling for African countries to arrest and detain ex-President G.W. Bush during his 2011 Africa visit. The curiousest thing is that these organizations are operating from the West, yet, they never dare to make the same sort of request when Mr. Bush is in the West

How the West is seeking to usurp Africa’s struggle for freedom and democracy using a humanitarian language

Since the end of the Cold War, a movement to save Africa from Africans has grown and gained momentum across the Western world. This movement is reflected in campaigns to end poverty by giving aid and canceling debt, to try African leaders at the International Criminal Court and to promote human rights. On the face of it, this movement seems humane and well intentioned.

But on close examination, this movement is an attempt to usurp the sovereignty and therefore democratic content of our continent’s struggle for independence. My interest in this article is the growth of a human rights police wielding a stick on the heads of elected African leaders.

Two governments in contemporary Africa have been very successful at an autonomous state building and economic reconstruction project – Rwanda under Paul Kagame and Ethiopia and the late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. They have equally been victims of a near-jihad by the human rights police claiming to represent the real interests of their citizens. Two other countries have been unable to engineer an autonomous project of state and economic reconstruction. They have instead remained under management by the United Nations – Liberia and Sierra Leone. These are the darlings of the human rights community.

Why are Africa’s most successful governments at state and economic reconstruction vilified while those managed by donors are praised and presented as model examples? The answer is that their leaders take orders from London Paris and Washington DC. Perhaps I am overstating the case. However, there is reason to believe that some elements in Western society would like to create an Africa that in their own image. Anything that is not a reproduction of Western society is not only seen as abnormal but also a danger to be fought and annihilated.

For example, beginning mid last year, the international press (largely western based or managed) has launched a jihad against the government of Kagame in Rwanda. The ammunition for the this jihad is a shoddy and doggy report by a UN “panel of experts” that alleges Rwanda to be training and arming M23 rebels fighting the government of President Joseph Kabila of DR Congo.

The third party and cheer leader of this triumvirate is the international human rights community which has been leading the campaign against Kigali for nearly two decades. Given that the post genocide government in Kigali represents the most successful state attempt in post independence Africa to serve ordinary citizens, this should surprise us. Actually it should not and this is why.

International human rights groups largely founded and financed by the West have increasingly become powerful voices shaping politics in Africa. Their voice is respected by governments and mass media in the West. Given Africa’s dependence on Western aid, our leaders shape our politics around what these groups are saying. But this tends to undermine our sovereignty and nascent democratic institutions.

It also reflects growing success by Western countries to shape post colonial Africa in their own image. Kagame’s crime has been to place the interests of Rwanda and his people above the demands of these organizations. The price of this insistence on independence may be catastrophic for him and Rwanda. Indeed, it has been the experience of other African leaders who tried this before him – Patrice Lumumba, Kwame Nkrumah, Milton Obote and Thomas Sankara.

Human rights groups are often single-issue organizations and seek to make their single issue the only issue on which to judge a country. Thus, they may pick one variable e.g. the arrest of one opposition politician and without reference to facts or context use their influence in western capitals to cause economic sanctions, cancelation of aid, diplomatic pressure and blackmail to bully a poor country to acquiesce to their demands. It does not matter whether the government has respected the rights of 10m of its citizens and done its best to serve them. This single issue would be enough straw to break the nation’s will.

This shows that these international human rights groups are opposed to sovereignty which African countries achieved through hard-won battles of national independence. They claim to represent universal human values that know no boundaries. Yet most of their campaign is actually based on Western values born of a specific historical experience. Meanwhile, these organizations are not answerable to anyone. Their leaders and executives are not elected. There is no democratic way to hold them accountable for their actions.

Thus, the beneficiaries of the activism by human rights groups have no recourse to elections to remove their leaders from office if they did not meet specific expectations. For example, Human Rights Watch’s campaign against the government of Rwanda has powerful implications on that country’s tourism, trade, investment and aid – all of which impact significantly on the livelihoods of the people of Rwanda. How can Rwanda’s citizens harmed by the negative campaign by HRW hold this organization and its leaders to account? In fact the hubris with which HRW leader Kenneth Roth speaks as the legitimate voice of Rwandans against its elected leaders can only be explained as racism.

The only accountability these groups have is financial – and to their funders in the West. These funders – the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations and the Open Society Institute are far removed – both physically and ideologically from the needs of the ordinary African who is most affected by the campaign of their client NGOs. There is no political accountability to the beneficiaries of the advocacy by human rights groups. The only accountability they do is by showing their work i.e. exposing human rights abuses. The structure of incentives here encourages these groups to name and shame human rights violators, a factor that leads them to vilify or even distort and blinds them from appreciating context.

Thus, when you visit Africa today, our public policies are designed by the IMF and World Bank, the hungry are fed by World Food Program, the ill are treated by Red Cross and Doctors without Borders, refugees are cared for by UNHCR, those in conflict are “protected” by UN peacekeepers, our Malaria is fought by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, our story is told by The New York Times, our poverty is fought by Jeffrey Sachs and Bono, our crimes are tried by the ICC, our public serves are financed by a generous international aid community, our debts are cancelled, our press freedom is defended by Reporters without Borders and CPJ, our human rights are promoted by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Our heroes are Angelina Jolly and George Clooney, David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy.

The tragic thing is that we African elites have been complicity in these processes to usurp our sovereignty and democratic rights. Whether this has been due to opportunism or ignorance, naivety or ideological bankruptcy or the sheer weight of our accumulated failures, we have actively aided and abated these developments. The challenge of our generation is to resist this neocolonial project dressed in the old language of human rights that seeks to demote us from citizens actively fighting for their rights to mere recipients of international charity and hence relegated to playing the role of spectator in the struggles shaping our destiny.

 

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