RSS 2.0 FeedOctober 2011 Vol 37, Featured Articles, Guest Writer
Is Britain's gay condition too intrusive for Africans?
With Britain threatening to withhold aid to the Commonwealth members who enforced laws criminalising homosexuality, Africa could see street protests hitherto not witnessed by gay, lesbian, transgender and homosexuals, to demand recognition writes JANET OTIENO.
British Prime Minister David Cameron’s remarks at the recent Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Perth, Australia received round of condemnation from Uganda, Zambia and Ghana, among others, saying they would only enact laws supported by the citizens and in line with their rich culture. (Read: Zambia tells UK off over gays)
Inasmuch as many countries were finding Britain culpable for the use of aid to influence the policies of receiving countries, they were forgetting that homosexuality question would not go away any time soon.
And with Cameron’s support, the gays were going to crawl out of the closets to fearlessly demand their place in the homophobic continent.
A colleague of mine likened Britain’s conditions to the analogy of a wealthy man in the city sending his struggling brother in the village some money to spend on groceries and follows up on how it used, then goes an extra mile to find out how the poor fellow related with his wife in the bedroom. Perhaps, this could be why most African leaders found Cameron’s remarks a bit intrusive.
Unnatural acts
Those who abhor homosexuality argue that their countries would rather miss Cameron’s general budget support, but preserve their strong moral fabric.
Most African countries, save for South Africa, criminalise homosexuality and if found guilty in Malawi, for instance, one was liable to a 14-year jail with hard labour.
But in a dramatic twist, barely 10 days after receiving a presidential pardon, one of the gay couples, Mojenza, renounced his love for Chimbalanga and opted to marry a woman, Dorothy Gulo. Monjeza said he was no longer interested in being associated with what he called 'gay trash', accusing 'hidden hands' of engineering their marriage.
This gave those who detest homosexuality a stronger case as their point of reference. Thus, anyone trying to use aid to root for its legalisation in African statutes books was likely to be resisted for interfering with the ordained order.
But what is so new about homosexuality that was making some African governments feel like they were being arm-twisted by some bully wealthy brother?
Traditional healers
In Zimbabwe, Prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai was currently trying to root for gay rights, but his coalition partner Robert Mugabe insists that they were worse than dogs and pigs. Uganda nearly passed a legislation mandating death sentence for sodomists, not surprisingly attracting round of condemnation from the international community.
Records, however, show that homosexuality was not so ‘foreign’ as it had been painted since it existed in northern Africa during the reign of the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten and his lover Smenkhkare.
From Central region of the continent, boy marriages among Azande warriors of Central Africa, did take place, not to mention other communities in Cameroon and Gabon who believed homosexuality had some therapeutic effect. (Read: Homosexuality not African, give me another line!)
So, with Cameron’s new conditions, Africa should either stop being intolerant to homosexuality that has been in existence since pre-colonial times, or put their house in order to ensure that they were not at the financial mercy of a ‘culturally insensitive’ donors, as they put it.
This should not downplay the argument from religious quarters that richer nations should not use dollar or sterling pounds to force down the throats of Africans what they did not deem fit.
Whether Africa would embrace homosexuals or force them to go straight, remains to be seen.
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