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7 “We are proudly African and we are proudly LGBTI”
91This chapter concludes the analyses from the preceding chapters through the Foucauldian framework to answer Weber’s questions “What is “homosexuality”?” and “Who is “the homosexual”?” and identify the figuration of the homosexual in relation to the debates on SOGI rights within the UN (Weber, 2016b:11). Subsequently, Weber’s queer logics of statecraft will be applied to determine if Queer Theory can aid understanding of South Africa’s inconsistent approach to SOGI rights.
7.1 The Figuration of the Homosexual - SOGI rights as un-
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7.1.1 SOGI Rights in the Discourse
The analysis presented in the previous chapters demonstrated that across the African continent two prevailing narratives have been used to reject African sexual and gender minorities and their rights.
Firstly, that sexual and gender minorities and their rights are not universal and conflict with African religions, traditions, cultures and beliefs. African political homophobia framed homosexuality as un- African and thereby through these claims envisaged a particular heteronormative African cultural and traditional value system that has been used for political expediency to bolster domestic political support, engender communitarian nationalism and scapegoat an already othered community in political brinkmanship with both domestic and international rivals. Secondly, rejecting SOGI rights is an anti neocolonial act that rejects the coercive imposition of Western moral decadence and preserves African nationalisms to which SOGI rights have been deemed counterproductive. Since African states are not implicated in historic colonialism to promote these rights on the continent is therefore also deemed un-African.
Likewise, within the UN opposition to SOGI rights from members of the African Group have centred on concerns that they lack universality and conflict with supposedly heteronormative African cultures and traditions, and consequently their promulgation is perceived as neocolonialism. Thus, the proclamations by African UN delegations to particular African traditions, cultures and beliefs can be understood within the continental context as a replication of the idea that SOGI rights are un- African, a sentiment exemplified by Mugabe’s outburst of “We are not gays!” (UNGA, 2015).
Likewise, the claims to preserving developmental independence and adherence to protecting sovereignty and national self-determination in states that have not been implicated as colonisers, again renders the neocolonial coercive tactics as un-African.
Un-African thereby exerts productive power to reject external influences and reinforce anti-colonial credentials among African leaders. Homophobic leaders and politicians of African states use the un- African framing to define foreigners and queer Africans as a threat to the existence of African states and the continent (Weber, 2016f). The un-African subject therefore becomes a queer, gender non- conforming, black or white, European or North American. Likewise, in Rao’s reading of the African Group objection to the establishment of the IE SOGI in the UN, which argued that “non- internationally agreed notions such as sexual orientation and gender identity [were being] given attention, to the detriment of issues of paramount importance such as the right to development and the racism agenda” suggested that “in the imaginary of the African Group the unmarked black subject of racism is straight” (UNGA, 2016a; Rao, 2020: 133).
Consequently, this framing of SOGI rights as un-African identifies states supporting SOGI rights as un- African. Whilst this is clearly accurate for those states of GRULAC and WEOG that lead on this issue, it presents a problem for South Africa, a state most recently implicated in colonial activity and continental hegemonic ambitions, which is explored later in this chapter.
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7.1.2 Productive Power of Homonationalism
As noted by the anti neocolonial framing of claims against SOGI rights, a regime of productive power that informs this debate has been the idea of a binary between modern states that embrace queer populations and traditional states that don’t. As an extension to this long-standing separation in IR between developed states of the global North and less developed states of the global South, homonationalism focuses particularly on support for SOGI rights.
Puar’s (2007; 2013; 2015) queer theoretical concept of homonationalism highlighted how states from the global North were implicated in the framing of SOGI rights as a Western concept by juxtaposing their liberal, pro-gay values against the backward oppression found in predominantly Muslim states (Puar, 2007; 2013; 2015). Exemplified in the post 9/11 rise in islamophobic and pro- SOGI rights political discourses in the Netherlands that marked Muslim societies as homophobic and
“backward” (Mepschen and Duyvendak, 2012:70), this concept has been reflected in the similar narrative of homophobic Africa. Homonationalism has been defined as,
“an analytic category deployed to understand and historicize how and why a nation’s status as “gay-friendly” has become desirable in the first place. Like modernity, homonationalism can be resisted and re-signified, but not opted out of: we are all conditioned by it and through it” (Puar, 2013:336)
Often this sexual exceptionalism has been framed on an assumption of an always-existing SOGI rights attitude in states of the global North that were previously anti-LGBTI rights, which reflects an equal “historical amnesia” witnessed in African claims to heterosexual purity (Currier, 2019:246).
Homonationalism demonstrated how the embrace of more liberal approaches to certain sexual and gender minorities throughout the global North had served two political purposes. Firstly, in welcoming those who have adopted lifestyles that conformed to many aspects of heteronormativity, including marriage, child rearing and military service, while citizens with other, less conventional relationships and life pursuits continued to be ostracised as undesirable or unpatriotic. Secondly, it created a binary between those states, predominantly, of the global North deemed modern, progressive and inclusive and those, predominantly, of the global South with less liberal attitudes to SOGI rights as deviant, homophobic and regressive (Puar, 2007; 2013).
The first purpose defined homonationalism as a form of nationalist homonormativity, however its globalisation now functions to divide and identify likeminded groups of nations (Puar, 2007:36-40;
2013). Consequently, Currier concluded that “[c]ontemporary transnational imaginaries treat Africans as homophobes and Northern countries as beacons of social and political progress”
(2019:238). This has been evidenced in international rankings such as Newsweek’s 2014 “Top 12 Most Homophobic Nations” (Strasser, 2014). Whilst the Western framing of homophobic Africa
“reduce[d] ethnic and cultural complexity on the continent to the singular assignation of “African”
and consign[ed] citizens of African nations to the category of “homophobes”, leaving little room for how age cohorts, ethnic groups, and religious groups vary in their attitudes toward sexual diversity”
(Currier, 2019:239), un-African arguably reinforced this concept and achieved a similar outcome.
143 Homonationalism has had a particular impact on African states that have resisted the adoption of SOGI rights, which has been reflected in the continental desire to preserve idealised traditional families. Additionally, Rao noted, in his study of the development of the Ugandan AHA, homonationalism positioned Uganda both as inherently backward, but also the homophobic claims of Western evangelical churches denied agency to Ugandans for self-determination, thereby rendering Ugandans as victims of a “Western culture war” (Rao, 2020:33). This created two contradictory binaries in the media, which on the one hand characterised a progressive West in contrast to a prejudiced, backward Africa and on the other, fuelled by anti neocolonial African leaders, a morally deviant West against pious, ethically superior Africa. This provided a foundation for the rejection of the neocolonial imposition of SOGI rights.
Indeed, western states have historically constructed states of the third world as queer in many forms including economically, developmentally, socially and sexually. African economies have been perceived as underdeveloped, African societies as socially and politically backward, and their people as sexually perverse, even “effete and effeminate” (Kapoor, 2015: 1611). Even in their attempts to develop, the West has defined states of the global South as “emerging”, but never quite fully formed. Kapoor (2015:1611) further suggested that in the post-colonial period third world states have sought to reject the sexual queering, remarking that while they sought to adopt the Western neoliberal economic model, they rejected the neoliberal rights.
Objections to these global stereotypes have been apparent in the statements of the members of the African Group and the OIC. This western homonationalist rhetoric has been reframed by these objectors to redefine SOGI rights as a symbol of western perversions, as evidenced in Cameroon, where opponents have railed against corruptions of the West to protect African values from depravity (van Klinken, 2020:345; Ndjio, 2016; Awondo, 2010). African leaders have objected to the western characterisation of their states as less advanced in relation to these issues and to reassert their sovereignty, they have rejected pressure to conform, as witnessed in the UN statements on sovereignty and development. Rejecting pressure to conform to the demands of activists and states from the global North has reaffirmed national moral and political authority over the threat of perceived neocolonialism (Awondo, Geschiere and Reid, 2012:154).
Whilst the African Group has rejected imposition of un-African SOGI rights, South Africa has responded with calls to avoid coercion, continue dialogue and avoid singling out individual or groups of states for vilification. Both discursive practices can be recognised as responses to the homonationalist stereotyping. However, whilst the African Group vehemently reject the implicit accusations, South Africa, caught between the two sides of the debate, seeks to moderate the invective from the global North and mediate between the two opposing blocs to achieve progress, bringing the state into direct conflict with its neighbours and the concept of un-African.
7.1.3 The Normal and Perverse: (Un-)African
As noted above, in the UN debates the African group has sought to assert a particular framing of SOGI rights as un-African. Various African states have repeatedly rejected SOGI rights, both in
144 national and international debates, as an affront to traditional African values and beliefs, which thereby marks the epithet un-African as an indicator of ‘the perverse’.
Defining SOGI rights as un-African ascribes a certain identity to African states. The post-colonial African state has been constructed as a binary gendered, heterosexual, masculine, patriarchal state protector of moral authority and traditional beliefs, culture and religions. However, this claim represents conservative desires of the political elite and falsely universalises notions of heterosexuality and binary gender identities on a realistically much more diverse population. In this way, it has been demonstrated that un-African makes false claims to homogenised traditions, cultures and religious beliefs whose real purpose is to challenge the advance of liberal, progressive rights-based regimes from the global North. Despite the falsehoods behind the claim, it continues to be used to reject SOGI rights and the states that support them as un-African.
In contrast, African has therefore become a challenge to the encroachment of neoliberal, rights- based norms, which have been framed as neocolonial. The charge of neocolonialism revealed African political anxieties that included the need to overcome the colonial past as well as fostering a cohesive nationalism in states that are marked by considerable social, political and sometimes religious difference. This challenge can also be understood as invoked by a fear of losing agency, sovereignty and self-determination in the face of powerful international pressure from INGOs, donor states and international institutions. In this way African has become defined as the traditional, moral, heterosexual, reproductive state that respects national determination, democracy (albeit narrowly defined as the support of majoritarian opinions on sexuality), sovereignty and anti neocolonial. Therefore, to be African is to be normal, while un-African is perverse.
Thus, un-African has become a figuration intended to exert power to establish continental conformity in opposition to SOGI rights. This figuration implicates all states that vocally support such rights within the UN. South Africa, with its liberal constitution and foreign policy commitments to advancing human rights and pan-Africanism is caught within this framing as both normal and perverse. This has led to inconsistent actions on SOGI rights within the UN and which have characterised South Africa as paradoxical, unpredictable and incoherent on this issue.