Homosexuality in Africa

This summer, the United Nations will convene an historic World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa. Perhaps it makes sense to hold a conference on racism in a place that has experienced so much of it for hundreds of years. But ironically, it's black homophobia, not white racism, that has become the newest form of intolerance to sweep across the African continent.

In the past few months, gays and lesbians in Somalia, Egypt, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Namibia and elsewhere in Africa have come under attack because of their homosexuality.

Last month, the International Lesbian and Gay Human Rights Commission (ILGHRC) reported that two women in Somalia were sentenced to death for "unnatural behavior."

In Egypt, three men accused of setting up a gay Web site were charged with violating the Egyptian legal code, which penalizes homosexual sex. And in February, the government began closing down bathhouses frequented by gays.

In Zimbabwe, where President Robert Mugabe has compared homosexuality to bestiality, police last month raided the offices of Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ). The police allegedly recovered two pornographic magazines and arrested a suspect for violating the Censorship and Entertainment Act.

In Uganda, church leaders of the Uganda House of Bishops called on the government not to register a gay and lesbian group called Integrity Uganda. The church group reportedly described the gay organization as unbiblical and inhuman, and a church statement accused the gay organization of serving as a front for U.S. gays and lesbians to set up a base in Uganda.

Nowhere has the homophobia been more blatant recently than in Namibia. President Sam Nujoma announced in March and again on April 1, that "the Republic of Namibia does not allow homosexuality or lesbianism here. Police are ordered to arrest you, deport you and imprison you." Nujoma described homosexuality as "against God's will" and called it "the devil at work." His statements follow those of Jerry Ekandjo, Namibia's home affairs minister, who last year urged newly graduated police officers to "eliminate gays and lesbians from the face of Namibia."

In contrast to its continental neighbors, South Africa has actually been a world leader in civil rights for gays and lesbians. After all, it was the first country to adopt a constitution that outlaws sexual orientation discrimination. But even in South Africa, the seams are coming undone. For example, a recent marketing campaign to lure GLBT tourists sparked an outcry from religious groups, who reportedly held an assembly in Cape Town last month "to pray for a sin-free city." And on April 11, Durban Mayor Obed Mlaba reportedly told a group of business leaders that Durban should stop comparing itself to the more cosmopolitan Cape Town--a city that "can stay with its moffies and its gays."

To be honest, these recent examples of African homophobia are not much different from the homophobia in the United States, but what makes them noticeable is the assertion that homosexuality belongs solely to other cultures. The leaders of these anti-gay campaigns seem to share a common belief that homosexuality is somehow un-African, a vestige of European colonialism. But "culture and values are changing things," says Cary Alan Johnson, a representative for an American relief and development agency, who has been working in Central Africa since 1993.

"Some would argue that multi-party democracy, gender equality and restrictions on child labor are also un-African," says Johnson. "That doesn't mean that they haven't been embraced and integrated into by African jurisprudence."

Johnson has written several published essays about homosexuality in pre-colonial Africa and points to "the growing academic research" on the subject as evidence that gays and lesbians existed in Africa long before the Europeans. Much of the modern anti-gay rhetoric, however, is based on Christianity, which white Europeans introduced to Africa. If African homosexuality existed freely before the Europeans, then it seems that homophobia, not homosexuality, is what the Europeans actually brought to the continent. Thus, anti-gay rhetoric makes the African leaders less revolutionary, and more evolutionary, as they evolve into the same prejudiced culture of their oppressors.

What's really going on here provides another reminder that Tip O'Neill was right when he said that "all politics is local." As Cary Alan Johnson explains, "Mugabe and Nujoma are politically bankrupt leaders whose countries are in deep economic and social trouble." In fact, several of the African leaders who led the fight against colonialism in the 1960s and 70s are now aging dictators clutching onto power decades after the revolution.

It's not hard to understand how gays and lesbians became convenient scapegoats for the problems in these countries when you remember the old adage that "patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." So long as the GLBT community puts forward a white European image, gay rights causes in Africa will be portrayed as another extension of European colonialism. For example, I was surprised to learn on a 1997 visit to Zimbabwe that the leadership of GALZ was then largely white. That's why President Mugabe was able to characterize homosexuality as a white creation. The millions of black GLBT Africans are mostly invisible.

The truth is, after hundreds of years of racist colonial exploitation, white people have no credibility to challenge homophobia in black Africa. That's why black leaders in Africa and America must stand up on these issues. The Black Radical Congress is already in the process of developing a response to the Namibian incidents. Hopefully, black American organizations such as the National Black Lesbian and Gay Leadership Forum, the NAACP and TransAfrica will also become more involved.

Of course, you don't have to be black to be concerned or involved. All people of conscience can support international organizations like Amnesty International, the International Lesbian and Gay Association and IGLHRC, all of which are on the Web.

It's time for a change. After fighting off white colonialism in the last century, Africa need not embrace black homophobia in the new one.

© 2001 by Keith Boykin. All Rights Reserved.