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Kalamu ya Salaam's information blog

 

africa is a country

July 30, 2015

 

 

 

Image via "Where Love is Illegal"

Image via “Where Love is Illegal”

 

It Is Time:

The need to rethink

homosexuality

in Kenya and Africa

 

By Kari Mugo

 

“This is personal for me.”
~President Obama on his visit to Kenya.

The near rabid response surrounding the speculation that President Obama would address gay rights on his first visit to Kenya as a sitting U.S President seemed poised to dampen his trip. There was the planned nude protest that would show the President the difference between a man and a woman, called off mere days before his arrival. There had been the heavily homophobic sermons pouring out of pulpits on Sundays for weeks now, and the repeated reminders from political figures such as Kenya’s Deputy President, Mr. Ruto, that homosexuality was not African, and Kenya did not have “room for gays and those others.” Meanwhile, Kenyan media was rife with coverage of the topic, and on Twitter thousands of Kenyans using #KenyansMessageToObama had asked President Obama not to address gay rights during his trip.

When the long speculated moment did arrive at joint press conference at the State House in Nairobi, there was a timid exchange of opposing viewpoints between President Obama and Kenya’s President, Uhuru Kenyatta on the issue. President Obama tread around it, speaking to legal equality, drawing on US civil rights history and the resulting damage “when people are treated differently under the law.” President Kenyatta issued a rebuttal with the satisfied look of a school boy who had told off his headmaster, stating that gay rights are not “an issue on the foremost mind of Kenyans. And that is a fact.” Further “there are some things that we must admit we don’t share – our culture, our societies don’t accept.” He was greeted by applause from the Kenyan audience.

These proud proclamations of bigotry as a Kenyan way of being would be comical, except that they have real lived consequences for Kenyans like me. I am Kenyan, I am a lesbian, I am part of our culture, part of our society, and gay rights are at the forefront of my mind. In fact, gay rights never leave my mind; and the right to live, die or thrive that comes with them.

As I watched these two presidents – one fighting for my right to live and the other decrying my existence – I was reminded of a question I had been asked weeks ago. I was sitting in a room full of black women writers explaining the role of the queer African writer in speaking a community into existence, when one of the women had asked me how I felt about writing “from exile.” Exile? I had never contemplated that I was in exile, this being a word for political figures, heroes who have stood and fought for something. It is for the likes of famed Kenyans like Ngugi Wa Thiong’o and Koigi Wa Wamwere whose political thoughts were too ahead of their time, and far too dangerous. It is not for a writer who spends nights spinning letters from the diaspora into articles and essays and never sending them to a home she feels she no longer knows. Yet, the more I contemplated this word ‘exile’, tossing it around, tasting its corners against my mouth, I felt its truth rest upon me. It is true, I am in exile: a self imposed one, for fear that my country will not only reject me, but may harm me. Remarks, such as President Kenyatta’s only reinforce the fear.

As an out LGBTQ Kenyan, I am privileged enough to not have to live with the fear that comes with being gay in Kenya. A very real fear that is realized through harassment, violence, raids on social gatherings, disownment by family and friends, financial disenfranchisement, employment and housing discrimination, and coded laws that punish “homosexual relations.” I cannot even begin to imagine the emotional toll of being queer, let alone out, in an environment like that. Through a combination of pure luck and my mother’s determination to give us a better future, I am able to live a very gay life, freely in a state and country that not only supports my right to love, but guarantees me protection from hate. This country that is America, is not my own, this state that is Minnesota is not my home. But the exclusionary and discriminatory practices perpetrated in the name of culture, and religion that run rampant in Kenya, keep me, and others like me, in homes that are not ours.

The denial of a gay Kenyan existence (because it is not just about rights, it is instead a society’s attempt to deny the existence of an entire section of its population) is an affront to the Kenyan LGBTQ community, their talents, hopes and aspirations. There are many like me: educated, brilliant, creative, innovative minds with much to give and receive in a pluralistic society that is willing to see us as more than a sum of sexual acts. Instead, we find ourselves stifled by a culture that seems hinged on maintaining some of the worst parts of the colonial experience: oppression through religion, division through tribalism, and heavy handed political games in which innocent citizens pay the price. Kenya’s refusal to uphold human rights, whether in regards to sexual orientation, gender, nationality, or tribe, inevitably hinders our growth as a country and progress as a society.

Further, as Kenyans and Africans as a whole, it is time that we let go of this antiquated and thoroughly disputed notion of homosexuality as “Western.” Beyond the paradox of appealing to a Western religion, Christianity, to decry homosexuality, it is a mockery of our history. Colonialism necessitated the use of Christianity and the Bible to justify its actions in oppressing colonial subjects: us. That we now employ the same tools used against us in imperialistic conquests as a means to bury LGBTQ Kenyans and Africans, means that we have not yet learned from our history. It means that we have yet to recognize that this current view of homosexuality held in much of Africa is not of our creation; so it is not our responsibility to proudly clutch onto it, even while the rest of the world moves forward.

Much like we rejected the colonial experience, and the narrative of a white savior, it is time that we reject these views on sexuality that are not inherently ours. The appeal to the argument that homosexuality is Western also intends to maintain the notion of the “untainted African” in pre-colonial Africa, while ignoring the actuality that the exploration of sexuality has never been limited by geographical constraints; Kenya, and Africa, are no exception.

As LGBTQ Kenyans and Africans, we will continue to thrive; the indomitableness of the human spirit prevails. There is no burying us, whether with shame or violence, for we are here and have always been here. I am reminded of a Mexican proverb that goes, “They tried to bury us.They did not know we were seeds.” We are seeds, planting our roots firmly on this earth, intent on flourishing.

++++++++++++
Kari Mugo is a queer writer, born and raised in Nairobi, Kenya and spending
her formative years in the Midwest. She is a contributor for Mshale Newspaper
and Matador Network. 

 

>via: http://africasacountry.com/2015/07/it-is-time-the-need-to-rethink-homosexuality-in-kenya-and-africa/

Comments

One Comment

  1. August 3, 2015

    thank you for your insightful and interesting perspective. i also love the mexican proverb you shared…

    i just now watched a powerful clip of james baldwin, who, contrary to lgbt folks worlwide and pbs specials nationwide, affirmed his same gender-love but did not self-identify as a gay man. baldwin, during a 1963 (!) black power and civil rights movement fueled discussion on marriage equality and love, unequivocally stated, “who people choose to marry and love is their business.”

    baldwin, like contemporary artists including queen latifah, meshell ndegeocello, and frank ocean, choose to be self-determining, in the tradition of critical thinkers, as it relates to their personal sexual identity. they refuse to allow gay, white, male paradigms, created in a white supremacist culture of patriarchy and privilege, shape their sexual expression.

    i agree with you. it is time to re-think homosexuality in kenya and africa. homosexuality is a divine and natural extension of human sexuality: which few people honestly talk about. in fact, america has never held an open dialogue about sexuality – in any expression – from a cultural context, in the nearly 575 years of its adolescent existence.

    but, first, we must unlearn anti-black, anti-female and anti-homosexual attitudes prevalent in western society, because of the power and oppression this society imposes – by default – on the rest of the world, including kenya and africa. we’re quick to label someone ‘homophobic’ when they share an opposing point of view. the recent landmark supreme court ruling on same-sex marriage supports baldwin’s views, yet…

    the essence of homophobia is misogyny.

    the term ‘gay’ was adopted in the early 50’s by a few white, male homosexuals who never intended to benefit the lives of same-gender-loving people of african descent. to achieve their economic and political aim, these men, with the help of other like-minded folks, co-opted the strategies and tactics of the civil rights movement: boycotts, demonstrations, marches, protests, rallies, sit-ins, etc. in 1969, gay became the descriptor of their movement, however…

    being gay is a choice. being homosexual is not.

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