Homophobia, Africa and the Perils of Not Knowing Accurate History

Perhaps it is the history major in me, but one of the things that drives me to distraction is seeing people who do not know and understand accurate history being played for fools and often duped into acting against their own interest.  The phenomenon ranges from working class American whites who are duped into doing the bidding of the Koch brothers who view such people as little better than useful vermin to black pastors tricked into acting as water carriers by thinly veiled anti-black organizations such as The Family Foundation here in Virginia.  Don't these pastors understand that they are being used as tools by the descendants of the very same people who supported slavery and segregation?  But perhaps nowhere is such ignorance of history more dangerous than in Africa where corrupt politicians and American Christofascists are using ignorance to fan the flames of homophobia.  A piece in Think Africa Press looks at accurate African history and how the populace in many countries in Africa are being played for fools.  Here are excerpts:

At a time when more countries are moving towards inclusive human rights, Africa is taking steps backwards. Backwards, that is, specifically on the issue of gay rights, though sadly not to before colonialism, the era in which anti-gay legislation has its roots.

Most Africans don’t recognise homophobia as a colonial legacy even though before colonialism, many traditional cultures were tolerant of different sexualities and gender relations. For instance, in my tribe, the Ganda or Baganda, (Uganda’s largest ethnic group) women from the royal clan are addressed with male titles and may or may not be required to perform duties expected of women. More broadly, from the Azande of the Congo to the Beti of Cameroon, and from the Pangwe of Gabon to the Nama of Namibia, there is ethnographic evidence of same-sex relationships in pre-colonial Africa.

By preying on African values of inclusive difference, however, Africa’s colonisers rewrote its history, the effects of which haunt Africa to this day. Tribal chiefs and village courts of law which were traditionally the hallmark of conflict resolution were traded for a European Penal Code system which included the criminalisation of homosexuality. It is also important to stress that so-called sodomy laws would not have impacted African sexual politics without the influence of Christianity. Christianity was used to whitewash African culture as primitive and to demonise traditional interpretations of African intimacies. The bible became the credo of African morality, disordering African sexuality to missionary positions of heteronormativity (i.e. the idea that heterosexuality is the only 'natural' sexual orientation).

But sexuality is not all that the colonisers rewrote about Africa. European colonies were established through military conquest, perpetuated through the politics of divide and rule, and religion. The colonisers understood that to conquer Africa they had to turn Africans against Africans such that Africans would blame themselves for their divisions, most of which culminated in ethnic hostility. Amongst other things, colonial policies of divide and rule spurred ethnic tensions.
In today's postcolonial world, the influence of US conservative evangelicals on Africa’s sexual politics cannot be understated. They have picked up where their colonial predecessors left of and are providing the propaganda, by way of religious brainwashing, for Africa’s antigay campaigners to make the case for harsher laws against LGBT communities. This is why holding American missionaries like Scott Lively and Lou Engle to account is crucial to the protection of LGBT people in countries where they evangelise.

What needs to happen in Africa is an honest discussion on human sexuality in the African context before, during and after the colonial period. This is a conversation local activists, civil society, academics, and the media should begin to shape.Africans will have to reclaim their forgotten pasts as peoples who traditionally refused to hate but stood side-by-side and embraced their differences.

If Africans were truly interested in honoring their own history, the first thing that they would do is kick the Scott Lively's and Lou Engle's of the world out on their lying asses.  Sadly, it isn't likely to happen.  To flourish conservative Christianity needs an ignorant and uneducated - something that is all too abundant in most of Africa.