Deviant Thoughts and Defiant Lifestyles in the land of the Unfree
I am currently challenging my own position or thoughts regarding the place of homosexuals in Afrika. I am searching my own soul even before I even delve into any research or analysis of homosexuality and what is called LGBT/Queer issues.
"Without our past the future cannot be reflected; the past is our mirror." So wrote Derek Jarman in 1997.
This is not an intellectual exercise, but it is just a self-introspective act between me, myself and I and I. This introspection is partly inspired by the current buzz within Black Radical formations in Azania/RSA as the we engage with emerging discourses surrounding the visiting Dr Umar Johnson during his Azania Speaking Tour. The Afrikan American educator/psychologist and proclaimed 'Prince of pan-Africanism' has been accused of being defiantly homophobic. Known for not mincing his words in his talks and declaring without equivocation that homosexuality is a disease.
An infuriated member of the Black House Kollective,one of the many activist based Black Consciousness/Pan-Afrikanist think-tanks wrote this morning:
"This has been my question all along. If I am queer and I have queer friends and we go to a Black House Kollective event where Umar says we are sick which BHK in words of Rithuli (a member of BHK) does not see this as violence.Are we safe in BHK events? Can we argue as the mentally ill ones? I've been asking; I am getting answers that say its complicated. I don't see what the complication is. I just want to know if BHK is for heterosexuals only? Furthermore what does it mean to be queer in BHK spaces when it seems like hate speech directed at queers cannot be questioned or contested because we will be attacking Umar?
That's what Zandi said. I just need clarification so that i can make up my mind about BHK and its events."
I contributed some of my thoughts to this topic but realised quickly that I need to take a principled stand and basically choose which side I am on. Am i a progressive Black Consciousness activist who is pro-All-Black peoples right to life or am I a nationalist or pan-Afrikanist who has narrower views regarding the rights of others?
I subsequently shared the BHK members post from my whatsapp to my KwaZulu based group at the Institute for Afrikology, as we will be hosting the controversial Dr Umar Johnson very soon in Durban, in partnership with EThekwini Municipality.
There was not much response from the members of the Institute of Afrikology, but the Director with whom we have had robust discussions on the subject of sexual freedoms/rights and responsibilities answered by writing:
"Afrikology Lectures are open to All." and then she added our motto,"Liberate the Mind and Affirm Afrikan Genius and Greatness"
And significantly, she also added "We have not had any anti-Dr Umar persons at our events..." stating that this was the message from the organizers from other parts of the country where the Dr has done his presentations.
Perhaps all this is just a distraction from the other really important issues that Dr Umar deals with, and we should perhaps just focus on the regenerative work he offers to the global Afrikan/Black family. Perhaps we have to deal with all this in a manner of priorities. Should we as Black Consciousness activists support someone who is partial regarding sexual rights or should we ignore that and reduce it to a matter of personal prejudices?
Let us take a wider view, South Afrika is regarded as the only Afrikan country that has adopted a progressive legal position towards LGBT people. In many Afrikan countries from Zimbabwe to Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Uganda and Tanzania, homosexuality is still considered illegal.
What really then informs the South Afrikan constitutional position, and have South Afrikans been thoroughly consulted in its promulgation?
Dspite the pervasiveness of homophobic discourse, ethnographic accounts suggest that in Afrika generally, and in South Afrika specifically, traditional forms of same sex-sexual expression occur alongside the fulfillment of the social imperative to marry and procreate.
These bisexual behaviors can be analysed with respect for their cultural specificity, but also as they are illuminated by global theorizing about LGBT issues and queer theory.
In South Afrika, no established notion of a bisexual identity exists, and bisexual behavior falls outside of the familiar heterosexual/homosexual binarist divide. For this reason it represents mutability and the unknown, particularly associated with the current time; however, it also represents for some an area of scandal and disgust, which is linked with deep-seated social anxieties about borders, excesses and the regulation of appetites. ( Eadie 1997).
Even as I write this, I feel as if I am somehow eluding the point, I am not stating where I stand. My poetic/philosopher/Black Conscious radical friend Mphutlane Wa Bofelo wrote an email to me today, still dealing with the subject of whether it is right to stand on the fence regarding this subject. He did not beat around the bush in stating that there is no space for neutrality in Black consciousness, you either reject something or you allow it to take its natural course,in other words, he said that one cannot be a true Black Consciousness advocate and still deprive other people of their sexual freedoms.
This is when I found myself re-thinking my position as a Rastafarian person, whose lifestyle is based on the celebration of what we call "Balance of Creation" which signifies the sacred and even divine union of Man and Woman (Hueman and Wombman). In this conceptual scheme of references there seems to be no place for same sex intimacy or eroticism. While I may denounce any acts of violence against any person due to his or her personal sexual preference/tendency or apparently natural disposition, I still find it difficult to accept all homosexual behavior as natural.
But then again, who can tame the impulses of love?
Who am I to say to another person, your choice of partnership is un-Godly when I also believe that God is in everything. That God is the All.
I must also add that being raised in a Pentecostal christian household and growing up in a patriarchal society has also contributed to my disposition. Although I have deviated a lot from the Christian worldview when I became a Rasta and subsequently a pro-Bantu/Kemetic naturalist, the hetero-narrative remains ingrained.
However, I have tended to reject all the attempts by Rasta's and pro-Afrikanists who use the Bible or religion as their basis for discriminating gay people. I have not done enough research into the histories of Afrikan sexuality to fully confirm that alternative sexual practices existed or flourished unchallenged and thus constituted an legitimate social norm.
We are now living in a somewhat democratic society, one which sociologist/philosopher Homi Bhabha termed a 'hybrid moment of political change.' With all the changes that are occurring in our environment and society, shouldn't we also follow-suit by changing our biased views of others?
We should be freer by now to accept each others differences and free to'negotiate and translate their cultural identities in a discontinuous intertextual temporality of cultural difference.'
In simpler terms, I am learning to accept others differences, but do I have the right or the audacity to also dictate to others whether they should accept what I accept or to reject what I reject? This to me seems quite reactionary and anti-progressive, even regressive.
I can just recall how I reacted when I found out that one of my favorite writers, James Baldwin was Gay. Of course I had not yet read Giovanni's Room, but when I read his biography i had to sympathize with this very Black Conscious and queer brother who opened my mind to so many progressive thoughts.How then could I judge him for his sexuality?
There are many examples. I am learning ...
Let us close with a poem by Durbanite poet and lover of the arts Jillian Hamilton:
Its called Coming Out
with time
has come a deviation
from the straight
and the narrow
that which was once
black or white
is now richly rainbowed
almost magical
in its diversity
and limitlessness
as the rainbow
curves
i swerve to round
upon myself
some might say err
and find my need is other
inclined now toward the distaff
the more unusual case
of like attracting like. ( 2001: 188 -9, English Academy Review)
Poetry somehow just manages to say it all.
Yet I still find myself asking, how liberal should I allow myself to become just so I can be a true and unbiased lover of all humanity without prejudice?
Is it even liberalism to accept that which one cannot and should not even attempt to change?
Even His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I said "Every one has a right to decide his own destiny." He also wrote that "We must become larger than our baser selves and overcome petty prejudices."
Perhaps all this so called homophobia is just one of those petty prejudices, albeit with dire consequences for all involved. Yes indeed, the Eternal Reflection rappers were right when they offered that "Even our condition has been conditioned."
So if you live in a glass house, don't throw rocks.
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