Homosexuality: Native Species or Foreign Invader?
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- Published on Tuesday, 14 February 2012 13:59
- Written by Michelle October
It seems the ideological tug-of-war between the West and Africa has reached its peak, following the UN Secretary General’s warning that African leaders should respect gay rights.
Shortly before this statement, Ghanaian President Atta Mills declared that Ghana would not bow to British pressure and legalise homosexuality. This came after British Prime Minister David Cameron threatened last year to cut off aid to African countries that refuse to recognise gay rights.
At present, 38 out of 53 African countries criminalise homosexuality, and many more are in the process of drawing up such legislation.
African leaders have come up with a wealth of reasons for introducing such legislation, citing that it is a threat to the traditional heterosexual family. Many have latched on to a misguided view that homosexuality is a decadent foreign practice, brought onto African soil by its former colonisers.
That this stance is wrong and easily discredited by a wealth of literature and educated opinion has been widely overlooked by both the media and the African leaders involved.
What is also interesting to note is the lack of African public opinion on the matter. The view from the West, which no doubt plays a significant role in bolstering Western support on the matter, must be that the African people either have no say in the matter, or have chosen to silence their views. The only activist groups showing signs of retaliation to the bills are gay and lesbian rights activists, who are in the minority.
Historically alone, the claims made by African leaders about the origins of homosexuality should be enough to discredit any legalisation on the matter. History tells us that Rome was the first civilisation to engage in homosexual acts. History fails to tell us what the natural sexual landscape was in precolonial Africa, given that civil and governmental documentation was only introduced when the British and French touched down on African soil.
What history does tell us, however, is that the British saw what they called “unnatural sex” among Ugandan locals and introduced legalisation against it. This legislation still exists in Ugandan law today.
Additionally, pioneers for anti-gay laws, especially in the much-publicised Ugandan case, are American evangelical anti-gay activists.
Thus, in the knowledge that Christianity is in its essence a religion not indigenous to Africa, it is logical to conclude that the biggest proponent of homophobic laws is historically not even African. African leaders, of course, genuinely believe that homosexuality is a foreign concept exclusively Western, and should be kept that way.
This stance also bolsters African leaders’ dominant anti-West ideological standpoint that garners so much support, while at the same time enjoying the lavish lifestyles afforded them by squandering generous Western aid.
The question here is not whether or not the African law-makers are right, or whether they should listen to the West. The question is a lot simpler, and a lot harder to answer: when will the people of Africa start thinking for themselves?
In the pursuit of ultimate, pure Africanism, we have gone too far and have lost ourselves in Western values entrenched so deeply in our psyche, we can no longer independently determine what is right and what is wrong.