How Queerphobia is Derailing Pan-African Progress

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After discovering a Ghanaian student in USA was pushing hatred against the LGBTIQ+ community, Ghanaians on twitter while relying on a scholarship funded on progressive principles including supporting queer students, students from the Global South, first generation students and people with disabilities, Ghanaian LGBTIQ+ activist Papa Kojo revealed this contradiction to the university of the student in question. According to africanews.com Sakyi was on a PhD program in Biological Science at Ohio University. Upon the revelation of his hateful online attacks, including death threats to Papa Kojo, confessing to setting up gay men to be beaten up and blackmailed and wishing to sexually molest lesbians to “correct” their sexuality, Sakyi had his scholarship suspended and his status was put under review.

 

LGBT in Africa
LGBT demonstrations (Photo Credits).

 

The reaction to this was polarized. On one hand, queer people celebrated this victory, calling out the hypocrisy of hateful queerphobes. Papa Kojo put it as such: “Stay away from progressive funding and scholarships if you’re a homophobe. Apply to Iran, Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan since you love oppression so bad.”

 

On the other hand, many Ghanaians who supported Sakyi were quick to invoke the question of nationality, asking how a Ghanaian could do this to a fellow Ghanaian. Notwithstanding the irony of denouncing queer Ghanaians for calling out their abusers in the name of being Ghanaian, the real tragedy in all this is how Africans so heavily centre the west in their politics. Here we have queerphobes who fight the LGBTIQ+ community due to it being “unafrican” struggling to attain western education. Here, we also have queer Africans having been so dis-empowered that we look to the West for justice in the face of a bigoted onslaught.

 

To be sure, queer people are justified in defending themselves even if it means relying on the west. Its problematic to do so for a particular reason but first it must be highlighted on how this is a product of queerphobia on the African continent. At every turn it is repeated that being queer is “unafrican”. Any historical evidence that is brought up to refute it is dutifully ignored and a colonial rhetoric is evoked. Queer people on the continent are denied their history and African identity. What is the end result? It is an increased pivot to the west for identity and alignment with western imperialist measures to suffocate the continent.

 

This is why queer Ugandans cheer on the IMF as it refuses to lend money to Uganda. Even if it comes at the cost of harming the nation, they will take it. A child who received no love from the village will set it on fire to feel its warmth. It would be unwise, however, to trust the IMF. What happens, for example, when the rightward resurgence in Europe becomes consolidated? What happens when Donald Trump wins the white house? In the blink on an eye the liberal breadcrumbs we fight for will be swept away.

 

However, this wouldn’t be good news for Pan-African progress. To delude ourselves into thinking that a more fascist approach to the IMF and World Bank, to scholarships and all things we hold our hands out for as beggars on a mighty continent would be a good thing because at least ‘elijibitiqiugetitimsofunny’ isn’t on the negotiating table between Africa and the West would be foolish. To be satisfied in being puppets for so long as asinine hatred is allowed to roam free on the continent is to spit in the face of everything Pan-Africanism stands for.

 

Pan-Africanism isn’t ensuring queer rights are off the table in getting loans from the IMF, it’s doing away with depending on the IMF in the first place. Politicians in Uganda and Ghana and other African nations do not understand this and that is why even as the draconian Anti Homosexuality Act is being put into effect, politicians still chase after IMF. It was never about African sovereignty and standing up to the IMF.

 

The most damaging part about queerphobia is that it serves as an avenue of division and conquest by and centering of western powers. Such divisions can end fairly easily by having political leaders rebuke western hegemony and choose to stand with queer Africans in Pan-African solidarity. The sole most prominent example of such a move is the charismatic Julius Malema and the Economic Freedom Fighters of South Africa. While celebrating the 10th anniversary of the party’s founding, Malema not only boldly proclaimed his intent to push back on the neoliberal structures that continue the economic inequalities of apartheid but also proclaimed support for queer South Africans. It was a true show of solidarity for queer Africans and a rebuke of western neoliberal politics. The foil to Malema is Bobi Wine, a leader who has been seen as his interest in supporting queer rights is only as strong as he can get western backing.

 

The primary struggle the entire continent faces is a struggle against neocolonialism. It is in fighting the debt traps of western multilateral institutions and fighting western backed corporations. It is in keeping youths on the continent as Africa is on the cusp of a great demographic dividend and fighting against labour exports. It is in upholding and empowering women and queer people, not doubling down on patriarchal and queerphobic rhetoric that only serves to alienate said groups while gifting a pedestal of moral authority to the west. 

 

Shape up African people!

Shape up African leaders!

 

(The Author of this article is George Kiritu Chege. Mr George is a knowlegeable Pan-Africanist thinker and a public speaker.) 

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