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In Israel, the sodomy law was repealed in 1988! Israel considered itself a Western nation, with Western values and ideals and ideas, so it repealed them along with the majority of the Western world.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