A great fire of controversy recently stormed the African continent since when Museveni, the Ugandan President, signed into a law a controversial bill strongly restricting homosexuality in the country/
The major western countries, including major donors like USA and UK have threatened a severe review of their diplomatic relationships with Uganda, including the suspension of their bilateral aid programs.
Despite the potential consequences, (Uganda is heavily reliant on donors’ money) and after months of hesitations, Museveni decided to move ahead with the controversial legislation.
Ugandan media explained how Museveni was forced to react on a special request of President Obama that if accepted, would have weakened his image in front of his own population and therefore he had to sign the bill in order to maintain his own standing against America and others western countries.
At the end of the day it became an issue about the prestige of a strong charismatic leader versus the imposition of western values over the African continent.
Indeed it is seems that we are here witnessing a clash of values and principles: modernity, at least according to westerns norms, versus old, narrow patterns of behaviors that still are predominant in the African continent.
It is true that culture has an important role but it is also inadmissible to justify legislations or cultural norms simply because they are well rooted in local contexts. Relativism as a blind and naive acceptance of what differs from us without any critical thinking and assessment should not have a place in this century.
Despite a history of forced colonization in Africa and despite imposition of westernized norms and behaviors, locally grounded paradigms and patterns are simply and plainly different from those that have slowly and painfully emerged in Europe or in North America.
What I guess it is happening in Africa is not a sudden explosion of racial discrimination against homosexuality but a power cocktail of factors coming together.
On one hand no doubt that understanding of the way of living and experiencing sexuality in Africa is very different from any other places. Sexuality has a very important role, it is something “live”, not at all hidden. It is something, generally speaking, celebrated as a manifestation of the power of nature. I admit that this interpretation is based on certain stereotypes but in every stereotype there is always a bit of true.
The same patterns are also very well alive in other cultures with strong African influence, in places like Brazil and the Caribbean and certainly, at least to some extents, among African American or black communities in Canada.
Reggae, jazz and blues are all musical genres so deeply entrenched with sexuality and are all powerful celebrations of love and physicality. To some extents also Latin culture in south of Europe and Latin America has a similar perspective about sex. Italians, for example, always jokes about sex and Silvio Berlusconi(the former prime minister of Italy) well represented the extreme stereotypes of Italian Latin lover in a country where flirting is often considered a respectful art.
On other hand, the powerful influence of some Christian evangelical churches in Africa ensured the radicalization of the morality discourse across the continent.
The same churches have been proselytizing with such vigor that they remind me the massive forced conversion drive of the Catholic Church in the past centuries.
These churches still are rejecting many aspects of the modernization and while the behaviors of Catholics around the world changed drastically thanks to a secularization of their private lives, these so called Christians are falsely claiming to have an exclusive monopoly on the truth in subject related to morality.
How to counter react? I do not believe that the imposition of sanctions, including the withdrawal of aid for development is the smartest of any possible strategy. These kinds of reactions will be exploited by radical fanatics that are pushing for antigay legislation.
I am more of the opinion that the battle for the rights of the gays in Africa can be won only through more in depth dialogue with those pushing for retrograde and uncivilized bias against gay citizens.
Ultimately modernization also in terms of sexual patterns, cannot be imposed from outside. It will emerge, slowly and steadily. Even catholic countries are not any more conservative in matter of sexuality. Families still play an important role there but many youth live with them but have total freedom of their sexual lives.
Religion as culture had a huge influence on peoples’ behavior but things do change and evolve.
Machismo, the power of manhood is a key contributor to gender discrimination and an enabler for gender abuses. No doubts.
But at the same time, sexual patterns are results of deeper cultural values, often shared and agreed by women too. This means women can also be part of the solution when we deal with homosexuality in Africa.
Despite the urgency to steer a clear and unambiguous opposition against any kind of discriminations, including the ones pertaining sexual orientation of people, there is no a quick solution to enhance a tailored made gay’s rights framework for gays in Africa.
Maybe western countries could have advised African leaders like Museveni to start national policies with some sort of localized version of ‘No ask, No tell” rule that was initially introduced by the Clinton Administration in an attempt to start dealing with homosexuality in the American military. Only after almost two decades, homosexuality is fully legal and admissible in the American army.
A pledge to restrain from public display of love among gays communities could be another center piece of a national compromise between the legislators and gays activists.
Bashing the majority of Africans simply out of their strong beliefs, even if wrongly conceived at least for some of us, will not bring an end to discrimination against gays Africa. Dialogue and a pragmatic approach can help instead.
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