Category: Perspective

‘Rescuing’ gay people from Africa is no answer to homophobic laws

The recent passing of the anti-gay law in Uganda and the South African government’s mealy-mouthed reaction to it demand attention.

Internationally, South Africa sponsored and is leading the first ever UN resolution on sexual orientation and gender identity. South Africa also boasts a post-apartheid Constitution that explicitly affirms equality and non-discrimination on the basis of sexuality and gender. Yet our government cannot muster the political stealth to speak against (rather than just about) homophobia when it really counts – as is the case with the recent passing of the homophobic law.

Uganda President Yoweri Museveni signs an anti-homosexual bill into law on February 24 2014. (Pic: Reuters)

In a statement shortly following the law was passed, the government said that “South Africa takes note of the recent developments regarding the situation of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexual, Transsexual and Intersex persons (LGBTI) worldwide….[and] will, through existing diplomatic channels, be seeking clarification on these developments from many capitals around the world.”

But what’s to clarify? This indicates a deep reluctance to name recent events in Uganda and to take a position on them. It also implies, through the seeking of clarification, that there might be some legitimate rationale for criminalising your own citizens because of their sexual or gender identity.

The South African Human Rights Commission took a bolder position and “strongly reject[s] the notion that the freedom to live and love without fear of violence and regardless of one’s sexual orientation is part of a rights framework from western countries. The struggle for these and other freedoms has been at the heart of liberation struggles throughout the African continent.”

The ANC blocked a motion in Parliament against the law, reflecting its ambivalence to speak out. On the contrary, the former president of Mozambique Joaquim Chissano’s open letter to African leaders is an example of the kind of leadership present persecutions demand.

The anti-gay law and other legislation of its kind give state legitimacy to violence against people on the basis of their real or perceived sexual orientation and/and gender identity. It will also, as is already the case, prompt the forced migration of some LGBTI people.

The law feeds a narrative that positions citizens with non-conforming sexualities and genders as outsiders to the dominant culture of the nation. This is linked to the false notion that homosexuality is unAfricanand, therefore that homophobia isn’t.

In its self-appointed leadership role on LGBTI equality internationally, the South African government should readily offer a counter-narrative to those that peddle prejudice in the name of “Africanness”.

Homophobia in Africa represents a set of complex and intersecting issues – deeply routed in the continent’s colonial past. Violent inscriptions of race, sexuality, ethnicity and gender took place under colonialism and are linked to present-day norms around sexuality. These historical continuities, and how sexuality is racialised, are mostly entirely absent in discussions on homophobia.

Drawing on the ‘savages-victims-saviours’ construct of law professor Makau Mutua (pdf), the west has a keen interest in homophobia that is often framed within these sets of relations. Lurking within much of the public discourse on homophobia in Africa is the notion of the civilising mission of Eurocentric culture (and its human rights frameworks) that will save African culture, and the victims thereof, from its barbarism and its savagery.

One example of this is a recently launched online fundraising effort initiated in the US.

It is a “Rescue fund to help LGBT people escape Africa” and is aimed at “Gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgender people persecuted and trapped in African countries that criminalise their sexuality”. The campaign states that “by contributing to this Rescue Fund you will help me [the initiator of the fund] to save more gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex people from Africa escape terrifying persecution.” An online counter shows the money is flowing in. If one donates to “save” an LGBTI person in Africa one is granted a status recognition originally titled as “ultimate saviour”. There are also prizes for donors such as “Nelson Mandela coins” for “passport providers”.

People stand on a float holding signs in reaction to Uganda’s law banning homosexuality. Hundreds of people gathered on the streets of Green Point in Cape Town, South Africa, on March 1 2014 to take part in the Gay Pride Parade. (Pic: AFP)

The forced flight of LGBTI from persecutory regimes will require interventions to provide places of refuge and safety. However, promoting an “escape” from Africa to “greener” US pastures, without simultaneously addressing the underlying conditions that force this migration, is dangerous and opportunistic. Dislocated from Africa-based struggles for social justice these feel-good interventions offer no long-term solution to the systemic issues that drive homophobia. At best they are palliative and patronising, at worst they reinforce the victimhood of Africans and the saviour status of westerners.

This is part of the logic that keeps the “homosexuality is un-African” discourse in play.

Other more pernicious saviours are those US religious conservatives who have actively promoted homophobic ideologies across the world and are now pushing such legislation in the US. There is much to be done to challenge these religious groupings and leaders on their home soils to expose their active undermining of sexual and gender rights both domestically and transnationally.

State-sponsored homophobia serves to keep certain power relations intact. Battles over power and identity are increasingly being played out on the bodies of LGBTI people. These battles relate to, among others: contestations around what it means to be “authentically” African; citizens’ pressuring for democracy, inclusion and leadership accountability; basic needs being met in a context of global inequality wherein rich elites govern over the poor; and women increasingly asserting their sexual rights. The scapegoating of LGBTI people and other “deviants” deflects from this inter-connected matrix of issues in which all Africans have a stake.

In this context, South Africa’s tiptoe diplomacy on homophobia in Africa exposes the troubling underbelly of current leadership on democracy and human rights. Whilst Jon Qwelane remains Ambassador to Uganda, in the face of his imminent court appearance for homophobic hate speech, perhaps government’s tread is more firm-footed than might appear.

Melanie Judge is an activist and social commentator. Follow her on Twitter: @melaniejudge.

11 years ago

Concrete jungle: Kampala is obsessed with malls

Month by month, Kampala is becoming more and more characterised by shopping malls than its hilly, green and scenic landscape. Malls unpacked with containers from China and India, small malls, large malls, finished malls, unfinished malls, malls next to malls, and somehow when you step into one you will notice that we can’t quite fill them up or keep product moving off the shelves. Why the need for all this shelter in a tropical climate? What are we running away from?

(Pic: Melinda Ozongwu)

In the past, visitors to Uganda used to be charmed by street-side shopping, bargaining for inexpensive arts and crafts, while residents would prefer to seek foreign goods at extortionate prices. It made sense then, we weren’t spoilt for choice as we are now. Going to a shop that would sell pulverised Walkers crisps from England at four times the price was something I was guilty of. The increase of local manufacturing doesn’t seem to compete with products from South Africa and Kenya and lately even they are losing out to the competition of Chinese products. Mall after mall is stocked with anything and everything that they think might sell. It may read ‘electrical goods’ on the signage but stay in the store long enough and the sales assistant just might show you a suitcase filled with edible panties, I kid you not. Then she will tell you they are from America – to which you will jump in delight and fork over your money, to the business, or her pocket, it’s hard to tell.

The recent launch of the first KFC, in Village Mall in Bugolobi, probably attracted more attention than the government announcing its HIV/Aids control programme through distribution of free anti-retroviral drugs. It adds value to a mall like no local business could ever draw in. I’ve never seen KFC as any sort of luxury brand, but the novelty and foreignness of it in Uganda makes it date-worthy, special and even fancy.

When I think of mall culture, America comes to mind, where there are more shopping malls than schools. My first teenage US mall crawl left me completely dwarfed in the magnitude of the experience. Stopping to gasp at every single in-store demonstration, I was perfect bait for promotions, sample testing and ‘free promotions’ that only cost me surrendering all my personal data of course. The ‘mall rats’ that hung around after school looking for dates, the compulsive shoppers, the power walkers and the food court buzz – every time I want to feel frustrated rushing through a mall in Kampala because I can’t get past the family taking pictures in front of a shop or blocking my way as they walk at snail’s pace to take it all in, I am reminded of my awe.

Acacia Mall in Kampala. (Pic: Kampala Night Life / Facebook)

Ugandan mall politics are a bit different from your typical American mall. The customer is always right only if they are white, or black and rich. Everyone else will most likely be followed around in suspicion or flat out ignored. Shopping arcades were conceived as a solution to shelter the wealthier from the rain. We have no rain but like the olden days, the malls are still for the wealthy. I’ve always loved cities like London that have maintained high-street shopping versus malls, utilising the strengths of the city and making solutions for the weaknesses, while still allowing for aesthetically pleasing commercialism. Creating an illusion that we are all the same, as we brush shoulders in the sale, regardless of how far it may be from the truth, is an art yet to be mastered here. Walk into a mall in Uganda and the illusion is placed in exclusion. Poorer people dress up in their Sunday best to experience a supermarket, even if just to buy a bottle of water, yet foreigners think everything is so cheap. Working-class Ugandans know better than to pay four times the cost so they only buy the essentials and shops end up with a lot of dusty and unbought stuff.

As I write this, I can hear yet another construction site, another mall being born. No surprise there.

Melinda Ozongwu is a writer based in Kampala, Uganda. She writes television scripts and regular opinion pieces on the subtext of urban culture in African countries. Her blog SmartGirl Living is a cocktail of thoughts, recipes and advice for the modern African woman. Connect with her on Twitter.

11 years ago

Hunted in Uganda: Save us from this ‘sexuality genocide’

This is an SOS to the whole world: Help the LGBTI community survive this “sexuality genocide” in Uganda, writes a transgender woman from Kampala.

The situation in Uganda is horrible, with people getting harassed, detained and forcefully evicted.

The morning after President Yoweri Museveni signed the anti-gay Bill, we woke to the news of a gay friend of ours that had been lynched by a mob. His partner was badly beaten up and is now in hospital in critical condition.

Watch: Transgender in Africa

I am not surprised by this. Signing the Bill at a fully televised function and the comments he made during the event, Museveni made it clear that LGBTI people are considered an anomaly, suggesting that violence against them would not be frowned upon. More than ever, LGBTIs are a target. Over the past two days, the Red Pepper, a popular local tabloid, has taken to publishing the names and photos of LGBTI people, including their places of work and residence.

The tabloid ‘Red Pepper’ plays a lead role in the witch hunt for LGBTI Ugandans. (Pic: AFP)

Two hundred people have been forcefully outed so far, making us easy targets for blood hungry homophobes. We have heard cases of people fleeing to Kenya. Some in a refugee camp at Kakuma in Kenya have suffered even more, since all refugees fleeing Uganda are apparently considered to be LGBTI. We have heard a case of a trans man’s travel documents being taken away at an airport.

The situation is dire. The cutting of aid from overseas has only served to exacerbate issues as now every ordinary Ugandan will blame LGBTI for their economic plight, further validating their prejudices of western imperialistic imposition on African states.

The whole debate has been misconstrued and our health and identities moralised and politicised. With emotions running high, it is hard to even hold any conversation around LGBTI issues in Uganda right now.

Constitutional challenge
All that remains is the constitutional challenge to the Act in Parliament but it will take ages for a positive ruling to materialise – if ever.

In the meantime, the safety and security of LGBTI people is of the utmost importance and we need countries to loosen their asylum regulations and grant the exposed LGBTI people an emergency exit as the fight continues.

That is the message we need to get out there as no foreign mission has come out clearly on this. They fought alongside us against the legislation and it would be unfortunate for them to abandon our members now.

There are several warning signs of a sexuality genocide brewing, incited by the government, including the president, the media and religious leaders.

This is an SOS to the whole world. My boyfriend and I have been under self-imposed house arrest since the passing of the Bill. My mum comes over at night to bring food.

We need to get out to safety, but not just me. It needs to be a collective mass action. If there is any help you can offer – the need is so urgent! Everyone, please get the word out there.

11 years ago

Ethiopian seed bank’s novel approach to preserving diversity under threat

(Pic: Flickr / IITA)

There is concern that the work of small farmers as custodians of diversity will be undone by the G8 New Alliance, writes Claire Provost

Inside the Ethiopian Institute of Biodiversity’s unassuming office complex in Addis Ababa, a series of vaults houses tens of thousands of seed samples tightly sealed into small envelopes and neatly catalogued in cold storage – a treasure trove of genetic diversity painstakingly assembled and set aside for future generations.

Founded in 1976, Ethiopia’s national seed bank is the oldest and largest of its kind in sub-Saharan Africa. It is also part of a pioneering experiment to link scientists with small-scale farmers to collectively revive and conserve traditional, indigenous seeds in the face of drought and other threats.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates that 75% of the genetic diversity of agricultural crops worldwide was lost over the course of the 20th century.

Melaku Worede, the former head of the seed bank, says recurrent droughts have put the country’s agricultural diversity at risk, a problem compounded by farmers in some areas abandoning their local varieties for new, high-yield, commercial seeds.

Hundreds of other respositories, including the famed Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway and the UK’s Millennium Seed Bank, have cropped up around the world to store and save samples of major crops and their wild relatives. But funding shortages and political upheaval have threatened collections in some countries. Other samples have been in storage for decades, and may be dead, prompting fears that seed banks are turning into seed museums or morgues.

In Ethiopia, scientists have taken a different approach, opening their doors and collections to farmers and spearheading new partnerships with rural communities.

Farmers’ knowledge has been discounted by too many for too long, says Melaku. “They are underestimated out of prejudice … but we have to give due credit, and farmers also have to be rewarded for being custodians of our natural wealth.”

Melaku was head of the seed bank in the 1980s, when drought and acute food crises threatened the lives of hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians. “I thought, what are we doing? We have one of the best facilities and yet cannot help. I thought then of doing more than just storing seeds.”

Melaku and his colleagues left the capital for rural areas where they found farmers eating the seeds they would have normally planted or saved. Alarmed, they gave out raw grain in exchange for the farmers’ seeds, to be returned after the drought.

Soon the scientists were launching rescue missions and expeditions to collect and conserve seeds. They also experimented with community banks that could house bigger volumes of seeds and keep them in farmers’ hands.

Just south of Addis Ababa, hundreds of dark, tightly sealed jars are filled with legume, pulse and cereal seeds and stored on tall wooden bookshelves at the Ejere community seed bank. After each harvest, local farmers deposit samples, and in exchange get access to the bank’s stores.

Regassa Feyissa, who worked with Melaku for several years, says community seed banks offer the chance to conserve genetic diversity at the level of local farmers, where seeds are dynamically and frequently exposed to changing environmental conditions rather than held in suspension at sub-zero temperatures, while serving as a grain reserve in times of crisis.

Outside the Ejere bank, Tadesse Reta is planting wooden stakes in the ground, labeling sections of tilled land with the names of crops planted. Tadesse, 47, a local farmer, says he is looking forward to the bank’s forthcoming “field day”, where up to 400 farmers are expected to inspect crops, and debate the merits of the various seed varieties.

This is how participatory plant breeding works, Regassa says. “There is no recipe for developing varieties. It depends on who wants what.”

It is also an interesting approach for scientists, he adds. Unlike formal research, which looks for seed varieties that can work across different climates and soil types, farmers are constantly selecting for diversity, conserving a range of varieties and choosing them not just for their yields but also for their taste or because they are particularly resistant to disease or drought.

A new push to commercialise agriculture in Africa could, however, put the future of the continent’s diverse, indigenous seeds at risk.

New regulations
Regassa says the “indiscriminate push of technology and inputs” by industrial farming schemes and their supporters has proved costly for farmers and needs to be challenged. “Seed security is more important than anything at this point, especially when the government is under all of these external pressures.”

In September 2013, the Common Market for East and Southern Africa (Comesa) ministers approved regulations that would require all seeds to be registered and deemed “uniform, stable and genetically distinct” before being traded and sold. Critics say this could, in effect, criminalise farmers’ traditional practices of saving and exchanging their seeds, while allowing corporations and those who can afford the registration process to capture the market.

Private investment in seeds is one of the stated indicators of success for the G8’s landmark agriculture and poverty plan in Ethiopia. Under the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, Ethiopia is to change its seed law and policies to increase and incentivise private investment in the development, multiplication and distribution of seeds.

This could spell disaster for small farmers, says Million Belay, co-ordinator of the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa. “It clearly puts seed production and distribution in the hands of companies … Yes, agriculture needs investment, but that shouldn’t be used as an excuse to bring greater control over farmers’ lives.”

11 years ago

‘The right to choose your own sexuality is a human right’

(Pic: Reuters)

In the wake of the recently passed “anti-gay” law by the Nigerian government and President Goodluck Jonathan, there has been much speculation online as to how Fela Kuti, my father, would react. So let us get this clear, and I will also express my own views on the matter.

My father would not support this law. He would know why the law was passed: as a way of distracting the population from the main problems we face today – poverty, lack of electricity and services, corruption, mismanagement, and so on and so forth.

Read: Nigeria signs Bill to outlaw same-sex marriages

That being said, Fela may have had some reservations about homosexuality itself. Who is to say? No one can speak for him. But Fela would not have had any reservations about upholding and protecting basic human rights. The right to choose your own sexuality and sexual behavior – as long as it is between consenting adults – is one such human right.

It’s a difficult topic for a lot of people in Nigeria to understand as it’s a very new issue that has never been quite public. Our culture and traditions and certain religious values make it more difficult for many to accept or understand, and it will take some time for those people to learn to respect the fundamental human rights of others to express themselves freely. People have said that being gay is “un-African” – I’m not an expert on our history, but I don’t know of any [instance] where the topic is mentioned in our history (I am not referring to Christian orthodoxy that was brought by non-African missionaries).

The gay community in Nigeria will have to be patient and realise acceptance of homosexuality is a gradual process which will take a very long time – especially in the north of Nigeria. But they must slowly put their case forward. They will need a lot of diplomatic support, and they will have to fight the law. They might definitely lose, but they will just have to keep on fighting for their fundamental right to live. There is no other choice.

We have to keep talking about the issue of gay rights, but it’s the government’s responsibility to take the lead to defend people’s fundamental rights. Citizens must have the right to be who they want to be.

Femi Kuti for okayafrica, a blog dedicated to bringing you the latest from Africa‘s New Wave.