Teh Ghey is Africa

[eumelia]

I don't suppose I need to tell you about the inhumane law regarding executing people convicted for the "crime of homosexuality" in Uganda.

I'm not going to write about that right now. I'm going to write about the fact that in Malawi a gay couple will have to face justice after getting engaged.

The fact that they are being charged with indecency is a problem.
The fact that homosexuality is illegal anywhere is a problem.

I have a different issue.

This may seem tangential, but did you know that the indecency and sodomy ("bugger") laws in Palestine were imported by the British mandate after the Ottoman Empire lost the region after WWI.

Did you know that Malawi was also colonised by the British.

In Israel, the sodomy law was repealed in 1988! Israel considered itself a Western nation, with Western values and ideals and ideas, so it repealed them along with the majority of the Western world.

So when I read quotes like:

The BBC's southern Africa correspondent Karen Allen says Malawi is a deeply conservative society.

It feels as though they're saying: "Those stupid, backward, inhumane and atrocious savages don't know anything about being civilised people", when the bloody law was imported by "the civilised" ones in the first place!

But some voices in government have started to call for more openness about homosexuality as the authorities try to tackle high rates of HIV/Aids

HIV/AIDS is viewed as a disease passed by heterosexual intercourse, In South Africa at least (I just know more about it there and can't comment on Malawi). It doesn't bear the stigma of a "gay disease" within black communities, it is more so in white communities.
But because of the lack of acknowledgment of queer people, lack of access to information regarding safe sex and the transmittance of the disease, creates it's own unique problem.

In any event, the couple in the article - Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza - are incredibly brave and I salute them both. I hope they don't end up being punished for their love.

Comments

[avgboojie.livejournal.com]

Um, you ARE aware of the fact that "conservative" means "someone who'd like to conserve things as they are and never let them change", right?
Yes, GB used to have shitty laws (still has quite a few). As did every other country on the globe. This is because this world - I'm sure you haven't missed this fact - is constantly changing, and what used to be the norm in the past, is considered obsolete today.
So, I don't see any problem with the fact that the BBC would be shocked by countries preserving ancient, obsolete laws, even if the ancient, obsolete version of GB WAS responsible for originally instating said laws, way back when. I also don't see any problem with them calling such countries "conservative". Unwillingness to change with the change of times IS conservative, which I don't think you could accuse England of. Not to that degree, anyway.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Can't say I don't agree, but my crimminies with the tone of the article. Having read a teensey bit about Malawi I know that it is dependent on foreign aid both from the UN and the World Bank (two very conservative bodies themselves) that I find it hard to believe that the society is merely dragging its heels in the name of conservative-ism.
Most "conservative" laws are legislated as a reaction to change and they are recent... so, it feeds off each other.

Constant change also means constant backlash.

[lilacsigil.livejournal.com]

Except that GB and other countries are also largely responsible for preserving the conditions of poverty, environmental degradation and war that perpetuate the conservatism, fear and attempts to control social order in the African countries with those shitty laws. So yes, I agree with eumelia that the BBC is being disingenous.

[mao4269.livejournal.com]

I am encouraged by the fact that former Spanish colonies seem to be headed in the right direction in terms of GLB folks (http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/12/28/argentina.gay.marriage/index.html)....Though Spanish imperialism, while it lasted for centuries, never sought quite the effect on social institutions that the shorter-lived British imperialism did...

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Well, South America has generally been more leftist and progressive when it comes to social justice... well, except for the Huntas, American backed dictators, the Drug Lords and Guerilla Warfare, I guess.

[lilacsigil.livejournal.com]

Yes, I've been calling people on this "Africa is backwards" shit all over the internet. Why did Europe have such wealthy, democratic societies that have now evolved into places with relative peace and respect for human rights? Because they were dividing, murdering and plundering the rest of the world to support themselves. And it's still going on today. India had the same issue - no particular laws against homosexuality until the British showed up, and it's only been repealed this year. (Oh, and there were no "Hutus" and "Tutsis" in Rwanda until the French showed up, either - that was an artificial distinction made in order to keep the locals down, and we can all see where that ended up. Rwanda is another country enacting anti-gay laws, too.)

Also, the effects of colonialism mean that many of the colonised countries are *still* struggling with poverty, disease, war and social instability similar to that of 19th Century (or even earlier) Europe - and we didn't see a lot of super-progressive laws or democracies then, did we?

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

And the thing is that the former colonies, especially in Africa are still being exploited for natural resources and money that is bleeds out of the various nations - some of which are in a constant state of civil war (see Congo and Sudan) - goes to multinationals and won't be helped by the UN until they "clean up their act".

Arrgh.

[lilacsigil.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the multinationals pretty much act as rogue states themselves, and are mostly unaccountable; and yet people (including the members of my family who lived in then-Rhodesia) still think it's because African people are backwards, or savages, or inferior, or cruel. It's colonialist rhetoric that feminists and gay activists, at least, should know better than to use.