In Western culture it is generally considered, by those who consider themselves liberal or progressive, that homophobia and discrimination against gay people is morally wrong and should be opposed at personal, social and political levels. Western society has moved from a position a few decades ago where homosexuality was illegal, to allowing civil unions of same-sex couples and, more recently, sanctioning same-sex marriage. There is still a great deal of prejudice towards homosexuals in Western European society, but the prejudice is becoming less and less acceptable.
The situation is quite different in many, probably most, countries in Africa. South Africa is a clear exception, because gay people’s rights are enshrined in the Bill of Rights of the Constitution, written following the country’s liberation from Apartheid. In a number of African countries homosexuality is illegal and there are severe legal punishments in force, including the death penalty (in Mauritania, Sudan and northern Nigeria – according to Wikipedia entry on ‘LGBT rights in Africa’). In any country, including South Africa, gay people can be subject to prejudice, discrimination, threats, violence, and even murder.
Clearly, all extra-judicial action against gay people should be condemned. But what of countries where the law itself prohibits homosexuality or, even, the ‘promotion’ of homosexuality; and where the leaders and, no doubt, many citizens, claim that homosexuality is contrary to their culture or religion? Do people of Western heritage have a right, politically and ethically, to oppose homophobia and the persecution and prosecution of gay people in African countries? Do African societies have the moral right to discriminate against homosexual people?
‘Many African leaders feel that gay rights are against their cultural and religious value systems and believe they have a sovereign right to reject what they see as an imposition by mainly Western nations, which attempts to affect national sentiment via aid.’ (Wikipedia, ibid.)
The US president Barak Obama took the opportunity during his visit to Kenya in July 2015 to appeal for the application of human rights to gay people. Obama is of African heritage and has family members in Africa (quite a lot, apparently), so his appeal couldn’t be dismissed as the interference of a white Westerner. The Kenyan president’s polite response was that gay rights was a ‘non-issue’.
We can frame the issue like this. Do people of Western heritage who are identified with a tradition that so wrongly enslaved and subjugated and colonized African peoples have the right to criticize the discrimination and oppression of gay and lesbian people by African countries or African people who claim that homosexuality is against their culture or religion?
The past behaviour of European nations should certainly make people of Western heritage sensitive to the statements they make and the likely emotional response of peoples who were subject to European barbarism.
And the problem is that, although it’s been 35 years since the last remaining European colony in Africa was liberated (Zimbabwe in 1980), and 45 or 50 years since all but a handful of African states were liberated from European control – and over a hundred years since South Africa ceased to be a European colony – the power of the wealthy Western nations and the global dominance of the English language (with its cultural references that are foreign to non-native English speakers), can easily create the impression that Africans are second-class citizens in the global context.
There is no doubt that whiteness is associated with cultural and financial power and status in the present; and there is a historical legacy that makes this more poignant emotionally for people who identify themselves as a people oppressed by slavery and colonialism. The historical wounds and the vast inequality that separates the Western world from most of the people of Africa makes race a very sensitive issue indeed.
The incredibly substantial significance of all of this could hardly be overstated. But does it mean that people of Western heritage shouldn’t criticize what they regard as gross injustice, such as homophobic oppression, because that oppression is claimed, by those who support it, to be integral to the society’s culture?
Imagine where such an argument would lead. Female ‘circumcision’ could not be condemned. Stoning as punishment for a woman’s adultery would need to be tolerated. We’d need to accept a society’s belief that girls shouldn’t be educated. Racism itself must be tolerated because it is part of a society’s ‘culture’. If all of this is to be tolerated, why not mass murder or ‘ethnic cleansing’? The argument is clearly absurd.
Westerners should be careful to avoid the accusation of hypocrisy by having the awareness to avoid making judgements selectively. If we do this, we can point out the hypocrisy of condemning racism while perpetrating oppression against gay and lesbian people.
Of course, oppressors will always try to silence their opponents and may well try to suggest that a person’s race or heritage prohibits her from engaging in an issue. There are factors that divide people. Race is such a factor. But far more significant than our perceived differences is our common humanity. Where people are oppressed and subject to violence because of their beliefs, sexuality, gender, race, or anything else, we are right to expose and condemn the oppression and violence. If we are of Western heritage, we need to make our criticisms with sensitivity and an awareness of the historical context. But we have a human responsibility to take a stand in defence of other human beings, because our common humanity trumps all perceived differences. This is the only way to make the world a better place for all its inhabitants.
racism issues 