A crowd near Mombasa, Kenya, protests near the presence of gays in their community. Photo credit: BBC World Service/Flickr
Every time I read an article about the growing anti-gay sentiments in Africa, I shudder in horror at the pain and violence inflicted on my fellow Africans by my fellow Africans simply because of their sexual orientations.
I grew up in a homophobic society, but articles in the newspapers of violent acts against gays and lesbians weren’t as frequent as they are today. What are the reasons behind this sudden rise in anti-gay movements across Africa? One credible reason might be that people are increasingly being open about their sexual orientation. This situation is compounded by the explosion in telecommunication technology which has made it possible for events happening in one continent to quickly spread to other continents. This increase in awareness of what is happening in other continents makes it possible for real time discussions in Africa of events such as the appointment of Gene Robinson as the first gay Anglican Bishop in the US. As more news relating to gay issues reaches conservative societies, most of them often react defensively to this perceived transgression or moral decay.
However, the one possibility that I would like to address is the West’s involvement in the issue of gay rights in Africa. Particularly, I would like to look at the situation in Uganda where a bill that would sentence to death those perceived to be gay has been repeatedly brought into the country’s parliament since 2009 by one Mr. Bahati (ironically, this means ‘luck’ in Swahili). Particularly depressing is the fact that MP Bahati brought this bill into parliament with the support and urging of American evangelicals as per this New York Times article. Conservatives who are intent on exporting the West’s ‘culture war’ have been funding like minded organizations and politicians in Africa to sponsor bills that would result in the outlawing of gay lifestyles and tough sentences for those found to be gay.
Western governments’ responses to this situation have been mostly impressive and have led to such laws being defeated in legislatures or watered-down versions of the originals passing into law. However, the recent stance by Britain and the US to tie foreign aid to African countries to the upholding of gay rights is misplaced. I would like to see the rights of gay people upheld across Africa! However, a move by Western governments to impose on African societies a new culture smacks of neocolonialism. Using the threat of withholding foreign aid in order to bring about a culture change is nothing short of blackmail. Such actions do a lot of damage to Western diplomacy in Africa. They not only cause an increase in anti-Western sentiments, but also breathe life into the already existing anti-gay movements.
Some might posit that this is just like any other area where Africa has to be brought into parity with the world, and I agree with them to some extent. No one should be discriminated against because of their sexual orientation. At the same time, changing a society’s way of understanding its world should be done in a manner that respects that society’s independence. Having two Western camps fighting their cultural war in Africa only serves to alienate African societies and make their needs secondary those of the feuding parties.
So, the big questions are: When the anti-gay camp fails to get its social policies passed into law in the US, is it acceptable for them to use their resources to get the same failed policies passed into law in some poor African country? And is it right for Western governments to use their economic might to blackmail African countries into accepting a new way of looking at the world that they are not ready for?
What a great article sir! I should be honest, you used your writing talents well here. However, I beg to differ.
When you say that foreign organizations bankroll anti-gay campaigns in Africa, you seem to imply that Africans themselves are receptive to the the idea of legalizing homosexuality. That is not true. From Cape to Cairo, even in rebellious South Africa, nothing is loathed more than gay people. The idea that it is a foreign “malady” does nothing but reinforce the popular antagonists’ position. When Africans team up with conservative foreign groups, it is not because they are being manipulated, rather it is viewed as a collective effort to save Africa from the impeding calamity of moral decay of the worst kind. In Africa, traditional beliefs (which by the way will stay until the end of time) dictate that any act of sexual “deviance” is met with chastity from the gods.This is a pretty serious problem as the punishment of homosexuality hits the community not an individual. The drought spells, plagues and many mishaps that are perceived as punishment for homosexuality can strip families of children, crops or livestock. No one is ready to lose their hard earned property hence people tend to defend their communities against homosexuality with a heavy hand. One must understand the African context of things before trying to dictate the course of action. Recently, Iran openly labelled homosexuality an abomination according to the Koran. Is that wrong? Well, to some to liberals yes, but how can one explain that the gay train is unstoppable to the peddlers of a “holy” life? My recommendation is that Britain and America should create safe havens of the scorned peoples of the world not to try to use their economic and political superiority to judge and impose laws on small countries because these countries pay no tax for aggression. Thank you for reading my two senses…
PS: For a record I am not homophobic, I am just giving my opinion.
Tongisto
1. Am African and I am receptive to the idea of legalizing homosexuality. So are the thousands of people who protest against all the violence meted on people with gay sexual orientations.
2. Traditional beliefs, oh yeah, I was hoping for that one! What do you my friend have to say about the belief that a girl has to be circumcised to become a woman? I know you object to it. And what do you have to say about cultures that believe that having sex with a virgin can cure one of HIV? I know you loathe them. So, why the double standards?
3. Science says that sexual orientation and the amount of sex one engages in has no bearing on the rainfall patterns in that geographical area! And I believe in science.
Leonard, thanks for a great blog post on a very important topic, especially given the recent walkout by some Islamic and African nations at a UN session on LGBT rights. I think I have to disagree, however, with your final resolution that Western countries should not incentivize African countries to uphold LGBT rights. (And I don’t want to say to withhold all foreign aid, but to in some ways financially incentivize a culture change.) Here’s why:
You write:
“Having two Western camps fighting their cultural war in Africa only serves to alienate African societies and make their needs secondary [to] those of the feuding parties.”
The first problem with this is that you are equating radical evangelical groups with human rights organizations. It is one thing to fund hate and violence and completely another to advocate for equal rights for all people, so you should not simply equate the “two Western camps fighting their cultural war”.
The second mistake is to imply that human rights is an issue that should be cultural specific. This is not, after all, a war for Kenyans to stop eating ugali in favor of McDonalds–this is about universal human rights for all people. So to call LGBT advocacy a “cultural war” is, I think, dismissive of the gravity of the problem and the general nature of human rights. You’re right to think that there is such a thing as a culture of respect, but that does not mean that all cultures should adopt that particular way of treating others, while in other cases cultural variability might be more enriching. Not once in your post do you even mention the words “human rights”, which makes me wonder if you are taking the hatred of this phenomenon seriously, or if extending rights to gays is just something nice to do, that we would prefer over violence as you repeatedly say. You should recognize what Hillary Clinton said in her beautiful address to the UN a few months ago: “Gay rights are human rights”. This, I think, is sorely missing from the international dialogue, and African nations want their human rights upheld by foreign authorities when genocides are occurring or when women are being mistreated, but somehow when the gay community is the one in focus, they seem to somehow fall outside the scope of “human rights”.
The third mistake is that you make a blanket statement that LGBT efforts “alienate African societies”–but what do you mean by that? After all, LGBT activists and financial incentives for equal treatment are definitely not alienating the gay community in Africa, so what you mean to say is that they are alienating the homophobic tendencies of African society, which to me seems much more acceptable. The mistake is to exclude members of the gay community in Africa from African society.
The fourth mistake is that you make a euphemism about making the “needs” of African society secondary. But again you should be more specific–exactly what needs are you referring to, and whose needs are those? Is it the “need” to be homophobic? I agree that withholding all aid is perhaps harsh because it penalizes innocent people who have no hand in making political decisions, but perhaps that aid will go to help others in different countries, benefiting the same number of people while still serving to incentivize equal rights. At bottom, there are other financial incentives Western governments could make that would not directly harm other vulnerable populations in Africa.
Some other concerns I have are:
When you write, “a move by Western governments to impose on African societies a new culture smacks of neocolonialism,” I think you are off base to the extent that this is not a move by Western governments to exploit Africa or to somehow benefit the West. This is an attempt from the West to benefit Africa–gays in Africa as well as African society at large–that is paternalistic maybe, but not neocolonial.
You also write that one big question is: “…is it right for Western governments to use their economic might to blackmail African countries into accepting a new way of looking at the world that they are not ready for?” What immediately struck me about this is the comparison to what people in America were saying about Obama’s presidential campaign. As a canvasser for the Obama campaign in 2008 going door-to-door in a conservative area, I heard so many people say in person (as well as on the news) that America was simply “not ready for a black president”. What this came to mean was, essentially, “We are (I am) too racist to vote for Obama.” The rhetoric of not being ready for something is, to me, a modern day form of bigotry, what Eduardo Bonilla-Silva might call “color-blind racism”. Personally, I’m not very interested when people tell me they are “not ready” for human rights. I say then get ready.
Part of getting ready for human rights and LGBT rights, I believe, is just taking the first step. I understand your concerns that the West is “blackmailing” Africa to accept policies it would not otherwise. But this is exactly how change happens. There is a romantic notion that we become ideologically ready for something and then start actualizing it in practice, but that is not how history works. What happens is that some event suddenly changes the status quo, a Brown v. Board moment, or a Martin Luther King. These events are avant garde, they are revolutionary. That people are not ready for them is precisely why they are heroic–they challenge people to accept a new way of life. To this extent, I think that if it takes Western aid to get African nations to start implementing universal human rights to their gay communities, then so be it. It’s a step in the right direction. You’re right that Africa isn’t ready for it, but that’s exactly why it is needed.
Michael
1. Yes, throw money at the problem and it might just go away. Well, poverty hasn’t, and I am sure the same will apply here. What African countries need is education and especially the need to tolerate other people’s beliefs. If you had asked me two years ago if gay rights are human rights, I would have flatly told you that they are not. However, my Kenan education has somehow changed my views.
2. I do not think that radical evangelical groups and the US government are human rights organizations! And I am not sure how I equated them here, but if I did, my bad. The US government is in fact selective in the application of human rights in Africa. Most of the time when the upholding of human rights goes head in head with their interests, their interests triumph over human rights. However, I agree in this case that this campaign is in the interest of Africans. My relatives back home think otherwise.
3. I might not have used the words “human rights”, but I do not have to specifically use them for you to know that I mean that. Talking of human rights, though we might all want to believe that all human rights are equal, we know that in reality, they are not. Therefore, if the majority of a population that does not believe in gay rights do not have a right to education, of expression and of assembly, do you really think that they will take kindly to the few rights they have being threatened because of what they do not believe in?
4. I might have generalized about the West. I would like to say that I know it well, but apparently, I do not. How do you think you faired with Africa?
Leonard, you’re changing your tone a little bit here, from one of principles to one of pragmatics. In your original blog you were talking about blackmail and neocolonialism. Your big questions were: “When the anti-gay camp fails to get its social policies passed into law in the US, is it acceptable for them to use their resources to get the same failed policies passed into law in some poor African country? And is it right for Western governments to use their economic might to blackmail African countries into accepting a new way of looking at the world that they are not ready for?”
These questions are in terms of acceptability and what is right. You’re now taking the approach that leveraging funds might not *work*, in practice, to change the attitudes of Africans, citing the difficulty to alleviate poverty (a totally different issue) and saying that African’s will not “take kindly” to LGBT rights. This is an empirical question that I do not know the answer to, but an important one. So note that my first comment is responding to your original questions about is it right, I don’t think I have enough empirical evidence to guess whether or not it will be effective. My only point is that if it will be effective, and it may well be (I think Obama has done something for race relations in America despite conservatives claiming we “weren’t ready” for him–he is making us ready).
I’ll also want to note that this claim, “if the majority of a population that does not believe in gay rights do not have a right to education, of expression and of assembly, do you really think that they will take kindly to the few rights they have being threatened because of what they do not believe in?” is off base. Phrasing the push for LGBT rights as “threatening” the rights of other Africans is, in my view, not a legitimate way of putting things. Whose rights are really being threatened by extending rights to the LGBT community? Again, you’re speaking about the rights to be homophobic and the right to exercise violence on people you don’t accept. Other than that, the “rights” of Africans are not being at all threatened by extending rights to the LGBT community.
Finally, I think it’s a little bit ironic that you are proving that the West can change people’s outlook on things if they’re just placed in a culture of (relative) tolerance–and I do think Duke is that, despite its failures. You yourself were not ready to hear about gay rights when you came to America, but look at you 3 years later, advocating publicly that you against homophobia and for gay rights. Sometimes what it takes to get people ready for something new is just to place them in that kind of culture, and they’ll adapt to it and come to realize that, in this case, treating gay people with respect is a better solution than exercising violence. So I’ll still abstain from saying whether or not these financial incentives will actually work, but I do want to suggest that you don’t have to look farther than yourself to see an example of how experiencing the values of another culture can make you come to see the shortcoming in your own value system. Africans, I think, have much to teach Americans about valuing things such as the family and education, but I do think that in this case the West has something to teach Africans about equality and peace.
Two really different responses drive home the degree to which we’re on contested ground here. In the U.S., the tide seems to be turning in favor of the recognition of legal equality for gays and lesbians, but even here it’s still hotly contested. Take the current constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage on the ballot this May in NC (this despite the fact that gay marriage is currently illegal under state law). Because the language and ideology of civil rights is central to American identity, I think marriage equality will eventually become the norm here. I think this is a good thing, though it unquestionably does go against the deeply-held beliefs of many people. This is important, but it’s less important to me than the harm done to gays, lesbians, and their families by the continued denial of equal legal status to everyone. But this isn’t clearly the norm now, and so it’s interesting that we’ve become quick to include it in a list of human rights by which everyone should abide.
Despite the warm fuzzies that I get when I think about this struggle here, I don’t have a stake in both sides. My version of Christianity welcomes everyone–gay or straight–as they are, and I won’t stand against equal treatment for my close friends and family. It’s hard for me to imagine what it’s like to fervently belief that homosexuality is against the laws of nature or a deity. It’s easy to believe that you’re totally in the right when nothing’s at stake for you or your community.
Unquestionably, to be homosexual in most of Africa is to be outside the norm–often dangerously so. It’s also unquestionably silly to treat the people of an entire continent as a single, unified bloc. That said, religious rights and the rights to live openly without threat of violence or discrimination might both be considered “human rights.” But it’s not as simple as arguing for or against “human rights”–most people invoke this in a pretty squishy conceptual way. From my perspective, we ought to be careful about the manner and tenor in which we offer support or condemn the lives of others. We’re usually sure the other side is the one making the mistake.
This stuff is hard. More to say but enough for now.
Leonard, unfortunately, I am not African but I have studied and lived among Africans for a long time to make a logical argument for them. Their compounds are very different from the streets of Durham where cars honk and bikes slide while no one cares. In Africa, life is crystal clear, everyone knows everyone and the notion of privacy is limited to only the bedroom of MUM and DAD hence it is obvious that any “deviant” association wont go unnoticed. The examples that you gave to counter my argument are far fetched. It is one thing to harm little babies and another to protect the community’s moral fiber. There is NO African culture that believes that sleeping with virgins cure AIDS. Those are individuals who are ill-informed by bogus traditional healers to perform these despicable acts for self gratification. Yes, science has its place in the community but Africans are not a natural laboratory. People have beliefs that are ESSENTIAL for communities to stand. Some of those important pillars of humanity are tempered with when acts perceived as abnormal are allowed to happen. That rain comes from the clouds is an unobjectionable fact, but also, that Africans should please their departed elders for a good harvest is a fact among them, unless if you want to teach them a new life which I guarantee will be met with outright objection. It is great to promote tolerance of all peoples but we should be careful not to disrespect others by claiming that we are “educating” them because that will yoke us with South Africans who practice “corrective” gang rape of lesbians or Ugandans who butcher homosexuals. The issue of LGBT rights is a complicated code that will take many, many millions of people to fathom and settle for a compromise. Your sharp slate on Africans who deny that homosexuals are natural people will do nothing to resolve the puzzle.
Christian, thanks for your analysis. I think I mostly disagree with the specious claim that “religious rights and the rights to live openly without threat of violence or discrimination might both be considered ‘human rights.’” It’s very questionable that what we’re talking about here are religious rights. As you know, religion has been deployed throughout history as a justification for breaches in what would otherwise be considered moral failures–think the Crusades to opposing abolition and interracial marriage. In the US, which you usefully bring to the fore (reminding ourselves that we are a part of this debate and not just standing over and above Africa), many are now citing their faith in an attempt to fight the legalization of gay marriage. My point is that religion is not something that is exempt from the realm of morality. If my religion tells me to kill thousands of people then that is not my universal human right. If it tells me that I should be hateful towards a group of people then that is not my universal human right. Religion, just like other aspects of culture, has to adjust to the times, and we have seen how that can happen in the West, especially following in the wake of scientific developments and the theory of evolution.
Main point: there is no human right to exercise violence towards others, whether it comes in the form of religion, or culture, or fanaticism. I think you’re absolutely right to say that there is a human right to exercise your own religion, that is, to hold you own beliefs, but there is NOT a right to impose those beliefs upon others, especially if the imposition consists of violence.
I also wonder if we could push this a bit further: “From my perspective, we ought to be careful about the manner and tenor in which we offer support or condemn the lives of others. We’re usually sure the other side is the one making the mistake.”
I just want to say here that there is a difference between condemning the lives of others or being sure someone is making a mistake and realizing that a change would be for the better. I don’t think anyone here is per se blaming Africa for their unequal treatment of gays, but what I am saying is that a change needs to happen. If by “we’re usually sure the other side is the one making the mistake” you mean that I, for example, am confident that it would be better for Africans to treat their gay communities with respect, then yes, I guess you’re right. But this is not the same thing as condemning their homophobic lives. It’s identifying a problem and trying to find a way to solve it. To deny that there are certainly reasons why Africans are denying the legitimacy of their gay citizens would be a grave mistake, as you point out, but the point is that there are even better reasons–reasons having to do with universal human rights (which include LGBT communities and exclude violent religious interpretations)–for accepting gays. And it may be that African nations are not going to be able to see these reasons until they start actualizing a culture of tolerance.
I appreciate your thoughtful reply and the civility with which you did so, Michael. Lots to say. On your first point, that the right to religious practice doesn’t imply a right to harm others, I agree–but I think it’s a little more complicated than I think you do. I allowed some false equivalence in my initial comment, because I think it’s important and useful to think about harm as a multidimensional thing. There are lots of ways to do harm to a community and the individuals living in it without ever lifting a finger. One way is to delegitimize the ways individuals and communities organize their lives. Claims to universal values and rights are compelling, but they really do require some conceptual buy-in. Other systems of thought really do get steamrolled here. Because neither of us are at any risk of suffering from this–we’re the steamroller–I’m wary of assuming this is totally a good thing.
Now, do White House policies promoting tolerance towards gays and lesbians in Africa put pressure on governments to change policy? I think they probably do. Do most people in most of these countries want to change absent this pressure? I think probably not. Is it then fair to characterize this as a kind of blackmail? It’s certainly coercive. Is it worth it? Again I think it’s unclear, in part because the pragmatics matter (will the policy work?) and in part because it’s difficult to make an encompassing harm calculus. In any case, it’s not harm-free.
Here’s where I get uncomfortable, even though I support the outcomes of this policy (and hope the American social conservative policies cited in the original article fail). It comes from your well-argued main point:
Aren’t we imposing our beliefs on people who don’t want to change they way they think? Isn’t that a kind of harm–at least in the short term? Your final point about violence certainly matters, and I come down on the same side of the argument as you do. But collective practice and the language of human rights are sometimes at odds with each other, because the latter assumes individuals as the unit that matters. That potentially destabiliizes culture and belief.
There are winners and losers here, and it’s a good thing to be sensitive to those whose values are being undermined. I’m comfortable arguing that universalistic values like human rights have been increasingly dominant over the past fifty years or so. They’re congruent with (recently) bedrock institutions like democracy, national governments, etc. I’m less comfortable calling this unqualified progress. I’m not in a position to know if it wasn’t.
“Aren’t we imposing our beliefs on people who don’t want to change they way they think?”
I think this an interesting claim that could use further attention, and I’m pretty sure I don’t know the (or if there is an) answer. My original reaction, though, is that this proposition of withholding aid is not immediately concerned with changing beliefs or changing the way anyone thinks, it’s concerned with changing policies. The question then becomes: Does the imposition of a policy of equal treatment constitute an imposition of beliefs? I guess the word “belief” is under examination here. After all, a change in policy does not necessarily constitute any change whatsoever in any particular person’s belief or value system–the immediate goal is that it will influence their actions. No one is saying that we should withhold aid if the citizens of a country are homophobic, but rather, we should withhold aid from those countries in which there are significant de jure elements promoting inequality.
I guess the goal here is to draw a distinction between what the U.S. is doing in their attempt to enforce certain practices of equality versus what African governments are doing in imposing anti-gay legislation on their gay populations. Is there a difference besides just saying that we happen to be right and they happen to be wrong? Aren’t we imposing our will on them just like they are imposing their will on their gay communities? Again, I think violence is the key answer to this problem. I understand your concern that harm is multidimensional and that one way of harming a population is undermining their ideals, but I wonder if we can see this policy change not as an undermining of ideals so much as a prohibition against acting in certain ways. If people want to think that being gay is a sin and people will go to hell for it, then I don’t think government has much of a role in doing anything about that, but I do think that if people think that being gay means that person should undergo “corrective rape”, for example, then that is violence is at another level that cannot be tolerated. I suppose I just don’t see the imposition of violence and the imposition of peace on an equal plane. I get your point that they are both impositions and they both cause harm, but I guess I’ll just push back and say that to me there seems to be a difference in the character of harm between saying someone doesn’t have a right to kill another person based on their sexuality as opposed to saying that they do because of their culture. To equate the two by saying that they are both impositions is, I think, to try to avoid responsibility for making any moral claim, which I suppose has to enter in at some point. So I guess I’ll just stake my subjectivity in here.
I suppose I don’t mean to suggest that physical violence is somehow worse than ideological harm or the undermining of values, but I do think that perhaps governments are charged with protecting the one more than the other. Ideologies can be left up to individuals, but the kind of policies we are talking about here regard specific violent or persecutory practices that are being exercised on an unequal basis.
I’m totally with you about a general hesitation about an imposition of culture and about the multidimensionality of harm, but at the same time I think sometimes we become relativists to the point where we have no stake in the world’s proceedings, as if we’re on a slippery slope that would lead to something like my being from Colorado, for example, limiting my cultural understanding to such an extent that I can’t advocate for gay rights in Kansas. I also get your concern that change should occur from within, and acknowledge that fundamental ideologies cannot simply be imposed from one culture to another, but we are not immediately talking of ideologies here, we are talking about the specific matter of incentivizing policies of equal *treatment* in practice, and I think that this sort of action is justifiable now. We can and must wait for ideologies to change–this will inevitably take time–but to stand idly by while gays are getting harassed, raped, and killed and not try to enforce some policies for equal treatment under the law is, in my opinion, undue hesitation. Now, it is totally an empirical question whether or not this method of withholding aid will in practice reduce violence, but I think that if it can then it is worth it.
Well argued, Michael. Two thoughts and then I’ll take a break from trolling this post for a while.
1) I take your point about radical relativism meaning your status as a Coloradoan discounts any opinion you might have about Kansas. We can both agree that it’s a step too far to say that. Principles are important, but so is context; heading too far in either direction probably leads us away from wise decision making. Sometimes this is relatively simple–I’ve spent time in both Colorado and Kansas and am comfortable saying there’s not sufficient difference between the two to invalidate your views on Kansas. It’s not a meaningful boundary, in other words. The question of whether nation-state boundaries are more meaningful than the Colorado-Kansas state line is a little harder for me to dismiss. National political borders have very real and manifold consequences for the people on either side of them. And so my default is caution. As you point out, too much caution can be as much of a sin as too much relativism. There’s an opportunity to abdicate any responsibility in the name of avoiding the wrong choice.
2) If I’m understanding you correctly, your argument is essentially, “I understand that this policy might do something we could call ‘harm,’ but the potential good from such a policy outweighs the harm.” I think that’s totally defensible. We’ve expended quite a few words going back and forth now, but I initially joined the fray here because I didn’t read anyone recognizing this need to balance goods (or “bads”). Making difficult choices is critical to living ethically, seems to me. There’s an ocean of difference between being thoughtfully decisive and being self-righteous. It’s often easy (and sadly, kind of fun) to be self-righteous, but it’s usually not very helpful. Glad no one seems to be falling into that trap.
Thanks for engaging. I’ve enjoyed it!