As I’ve mentioned before here on the blog, it’s tough to know exactly how to reach out and assist my gay/same-gender-loving family on the continent of Africa withouts connecting with individuals closely related to the varying situations on the ground there. So many stories this week about wrongs against gay people in South Africa, Kenya, Malawi, and Uganda, yet I want to assist their efforts in fighting these irrational fears about gays and not take them over with the best of intentions. That was my concern with Boycott Jamaica: American activists not being in step with the organization in Jamaica (J-FLAG) to assist their efforts and take their lead when it comes to their home country.
Radio Netherlands Worldwide aired a program special a couple weeks back called, “Being Gay In Africa”, that is troubling to hear, and at the same time, also hopeful about the real progress happening by LGBT groups in these different African countries, many times by individuals risking their livelihood and lives to have real conversations and teaching opportunities.
I think the biggest issue with certain African leaders is the same with friends and family of mine. It’s the word, “gay”, that holds the deepest weight. The adjective “gay”, for many of my hetero friends, automatically moves the conversation to “gay marriage” in their minds. The term can also mean “privileged”, “detached from family”, “detached from heritage”, or even “white”. Its problematic translation in indigenous cultures is clear as I recall a conversation that Bert H. Hoff of M.E.N. Magazine had with initiated Elder of the Dagara tribe of Burkina Faso and author, Malidoma Some, Ph.D, in 1993.
Bert: At [our recent conference] you told us that your culture honors gays as having a higher vibrational level that enabled them to be guardians of the gateways to the spirit world. You suggested that our Western view limits itself by focusing only on their sexual role. Can you elaborate for our readers?
Malidoma: I don’t know how to put it in terms that are clear enough for an audience that, I think needs as much understanding of this gender issue as people in this country do. But at least among the Dagara people, gender has very little to do with anatomy. It is purely energetic. In that context, a male who is physically male can vibrate female energy, and vice versa. That is where the real gender is. Anatomic differences are simply there to determine who contributes what for the continuity of the tribe. It does not mean, necessarily, that there is a kind of line that divides people on that basis. And this is something that also touches on what has become known here as the “gay” or “homosexual” issue. Again, in the culture that I come from, this is not the issue. These people are looked on, essentially, as people. The whole notion of “gay” does not exist in the indigenous world. That does not mean that there are not people there who feel the way that certain people feel in this culture, that has led to them being referred to as “gay.”
Also, many of the African leaders I hear speaking out against homosexuality rarely reference the English and France colonial origins of these laws. India finally corrected its laws against homosexuality in 2009. So, I ask again, how can I in America assist individuals on the group in different parts of the African continent in ending the projection of their society’s/country’s ills on homosexual people?
Via Human Rights Watch : This Alien Legacy-The Origins of “Sodomy” Laws in British Colonialism
Radio Netherlands Worldwide : Being gay in Africa
