CONTRALESA Congress of Traditional Leaders of South Africa COSATU Congress of South African Trade Unions. This study uses Queer Theory to examine the inconsistencies in South Africa's approach to the international protection of people with non-normative sexual orientations and gender identities (SOGI).
Background and Problem Statement
However, as will be evidenced in the literature review in Chapter Two, South Africa's approach to foreign policy has been found to be "paradoxical". While the literature detailing South Africa's approach to sexual orientation and gender identity rights is less abundant, the conclusions have been similar, proving that it has been “ambivalent” (Williams, 2017) and “contradictory” (Jordaan, 2017a:222).
Rationale
10 emphasized the importance of reaffirming South Africa's African identity and the potential this could have in influencing South African support for SOGI rights. In addition, understanding why South Africa was hostile to SOGI rights in support of states in the global North could provide guidance for the way forward.
Research Aims
Indeed, it has been noted that adversarial foreign policy practice is neither limited to SOGI rights nor to South Africa alone. Given the magnitude of the challenge to protect and enable the flourishing of queer Africans, understanding South Africa's approach can be an important contribution to advancing SOGI rights on the continent and globally.
Definitions
SOGI Rights' - this includes a range of actual and potential human rights necessary to protect those who are at risk of discrimination and violence because of their sexual orientation or gender identity or expression. "Sexual and sexual minorities" - this includes all those people, citizens and subjects who may be at risk of discrimination or violence because of their sexual orientation, gender identity or expression.
Chapter Outline
Introduction: Unpredictable, Erratic and Contradictory
The six pillars on which the new South Africa's foreign policy was based were human rights. In conclusion, Jordaan demonstrated that South Africa often favored anti-imperialism rather than adapting to the liberal democracies of the West (2020:143).
Conflicting Identities and Interests
Other scholars who have argued that South Africa's "paradoxical foreign policy" is based on a. Landsberg argued that this was an important turning point in South Africa's approach to foreign policy on the continent and the adoption of.
Conclusion
Furthermore, to mitigate this hegemonic image, the South African Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) made it a priority to manage external perceptions of the state, particularly through soft power (Smith, 2016a:138). The next chapter provides the theoretical basis for the study and the rationale for using a queer perspective to clearly try and understand the contradictions in South Africa's support for SOGI rights.
Queer Theory
Queer Theory in International Relations
This absence of Queer IR is surprising since the first monograph to use Queer Theory in IR was published in the same year as Peterson's intervention above. Suggested further applications of Queer Theory in relation to South Africa, Africa and queer Africans are elaborated in the Further Research section of Chapter 8.
Queer Theory and State Identity
However, a queer lens has not yet been used to explore inconsistencies in South Africa's approach to international SOGI rights. This dissertation aims to build on this new but growing body of literature that explores how queer theory can be used to answer these enduring questions about South Africa's inconsistent approach to SOGI rights.
Queer Methodology
Queer Critical Discourse Analysis
The purpose of a queer-critical discourse analysis is to specifically uncover assertions of the normal and the perverse within the studied material and understand how these affect beliefs, understanding and ultimately decisions and actions. Complementing the discourse analysis method outlined above, the interpretation of the results will be completed by implementing Weber's queer logics of statecraft to determine how South Africa identifies in response to the frames of normal and perverse on the SOGI issue .
Queer Logics of Statecraft
In other words, queer logics of statehood reveal multiple and contested identities that reveal plural logics of normal and/or perverse identities (Weber, 2016a; 2016b; . 2016e). In this way, the queer logic of statehood enables the questioning of regimes of discursive power that might explain a seemingly conflicting state identity.
Study Limitations
As an extension of the above concerns, Queer Theory and the 'and/or' construct for state identity of queer logics of statecraft challenge binary thinking in many IR studies (Thiel, 2014; Weber, 2016a; 2016b). It explores the history of the adoption of SOGI rights in South African domestic and foreign policy.
The Adoption of SOGI rights
A year later, the drafting of the new Constitution that would be the foundation for the new South Africa began. 51 nurtured misinformed prejudices that did not always align with the goals of the ANC leadership (Dunton and Palmberg, 1996:47).
SOGI Rights within South African Foreign Policy
They have been reflected in the 1996 DFA Green Paper (DFA, 1996) as well as the 2011 Department of International Relations and Cooperation White Paper on South Africa's Foreign Policy (Building a Better World: The Diplomacy of Ubuntu) and indeed all of DIRCO's strategic plans published for DIRCO , 2011a; 2020a). This period coincided with the completion of South Africa's first post-apartheid foreign policy white paper (hereafter the White Paper).
Conclusion
This shines a spotlight on South Africa's continental neighbors and partners in the African Group at the UN, which is important given the priority given to pan-African relations in South African foreign policy and the commitment to SOGI- rights as key elements of state identity. This chapter provides essential clues to the foundations of the language use and ideas promulgated within the African continent to name, describe and police SOGI rights and citizens.
Homophobic Africa?
- Zimbabwe
- Uganda
- Nigeria
- Senegal
- Gambia
- Malawi
- Namibia
- Liberia
- Cameroon
The timing of this legislation coincided with the passing of the Civil Union Act (2006) in South Africa. International responses to the submission of the AHB in 2009 included the UK's threat to freeze development aid (Osogo Ambani, 2017:44).
Identifying and Interpreting Dominant Themes
Political/Politicised homophobia
This analysis seeks to identify the ways in which sexual and gender minorities and rights have been changed or deviated and how this differentiation has been reflected in political narratives. This analysis identified two dominant narratives that have been used in the implementation of a variety of politicized homophobic strategies across the continent.
Un-African
Moreover, even those who claim that sexual and gender minorities are non-African are secretly aware of their deception. Museveni acknowledges that sexual and gender minorities have been part of Ugandan citizenship ("Ugandan President Yoweri.
Resisting neocolonialism
In summary, the un-African claim leveled at African sexual and gender minorities and their rights by members of African political elites has no basis in fact. These have been linked to claims that sexual and gender minority Africans have been declared.
Conclusion
This chapter reviews his conclusion through a queer-critical discourse analysis of the SOGI rights debates in the UNHRC and UNGA between 2011, when South Africa successfully introduced the first dedicated SOGI resolution (17/19), and 2020, when the UN IE SOGI presented its latest report (44/53). This chapter presents and analyzes the debates that took place within the UNHRC and UNGA on SOGI rights between 2011 and 2020.
The UN, South Africa and SOGI rights
South Africa at the United Nations Human Rights Council
Although South Africa, as a founding member of the UN, had played an active role in securing the recognition of human rights in the UN at its establishment55, the state's suspension from UN activities in 1974 meant that it was not a member of the UNGA until 1994 and the UNCHR until 1997. As it will be noted later, South Africa's ground-breaking 2011 resolution on sexual orientation and gender identity was tabled when South Africa was not a member of the UNHRC.
Evolution of SOGI Rights within the UN
UNHRC's 35th Report of the Independent Expert on Protection from Violence and Discrimination on the Basis of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (Presentation of the first IE SOGI report). 41/18 Mandate of the Independent Expert for protection from violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Analysing South Africa’s Contribution to UN SOGI Rights Debates
South Africa the SOGI Rights Pioneer?
South Africa initially submitted its draft resolution "on behalf of the African Group", but it was manually amended to just "South Africa" (South Africa, 2011a). By the 17th session of the UNHRC in June 2011, South Africa had completely changed the content of its draft resolution.
The Walk Out
The aim would be to educate and raise awareness of SOGI issues to overcome concerns that prevented consensus around their inclusion in human rights instruments at the UNHRC (South Africa, 2012b:3). The Concept Note acknowledged that while there appeared to be consensus in concern about violence and discrimination based on SOGI and that the perceived North-South divide on this issue had largely been overcome, the idea persisted that this was not a priority for the UNHRC and that it conflicted with “personal beliefs about culture, religion and faith” (South Africa, 2012b:1).
South Africa Prevaricates
This time there were no statements in opposition, although the Netherlands reminded the delegates that the wording of the VDPA "implies discrimination based on sexual orientation, as well as discrimination based on albinism which receives clear attention in this session" (Holandë, 2013; UNHRC, 2013a). This may have been a reference to the consensus adoption of the African Group-sponsored resolution on albinism (A/HRC/RES/23/13 Attacks and discrimination against persons with albinism) and earlier concerns that the rights resolutions of the SOGI- to remove other discriminations, such as such as racism and gender-based violence (Gabon.
Seven Hostile Amendments
Furthermore, Jordaan noted that South Africa had been one of the states responsible for reducing the reporting requirement in the proposed final draft resolution from a report to the UNHRC every two years to a single update (Jordaan, 2017a:221 -222). However, it was not mentioned by many states and although South Africa was a member of the UNHRC, they did not speak during this meeting.
Independent Expert Mandate
At the last session of the UNGA each year, the African Group submits a resolution to the UNHRC's annual report for the Third Committee79. Burkina Faso once again ended the discussion by separating the African group with the mandate of the IE SOGI (UNGA, 2016f).
Rejection of the IE SOGI Mandate
The opposition consisted mainly of members of the African Group, the OIC and Caribbean members of Latin America and the Caribbean Group. Although South Africa was a member of the UNHRC, the delegation only spoke in support of IE SOGI's work during the UNGA discussion; they were the only African delegation to speak (UNGA, 2017b).
South Africa Engages with the IE SOGI
Extension/Deferment of the IE SOGI Mandate
The UK issued a joint statement with Argentina as co-chair of ERCSOGI supporting the extension of the mandate. In the end, none of the hostile amendments from the OBI were accepted and the mandate extension passed with a stronger majority than 32/2.
Conversion Therapy
The African Group made no official statement against the draft, and indeed Angola, Burkina Faso and the Democratic Republic of the Congo abstained in all votes; Senegal and Togo voted in favor of most of the amendments, but abstained in the extension. In addition, IE SOGI presented its latest report, A/74/181 on data collection and management at the 33rd meeting of the Third Committee.
Identifying and Interpreting Dominant Themes
Contested Universality of SOGI
Nevertheless, the dominant counter-narrative to SOGI rights has been a rejection of the universality of sexual orientation and gender diversity. In 2011, Nigeria made this claim on behalf of the African Group in response to a statement led by Colombia (Nigeria, 2011).
Protecting Cultural, Traditional and Religious Beliefs
131 This claim is further weakened by the lack of definition of the cultures, histories or traditions that SOGI rights are said to infringe. In debates in the UN General Assembly and UN Human Rights, OIC representatives often made religious arguments against SOGI rights.
Rejecting Neocolonialism
As shown above, these demands for legislative liberty are framed in claims that states in the global North have used coercive methods to force the adoption of SOGI rights. Nevertheless, SOGI rights advocates have attempted to refute the SOGI rights argument as a matter of North versus South.
Conclusion
The imposition of SOGI rights by states of the Global North is a threat to African national autonomy. Likewise, this analysis challenged the supposedly universal nature of the three dominant claims made in SOGI's rights objection.
The Figuration of the Homosexual - SOGI rights as un-African
SOGI Rights in the Discourse
Because African states are not involved in historical colonialism, promoting these rights on the continent is therefore also considered un-African. Consequently, this formulation of SOGI rights as un-African identifies states that support SOGI rights as un-African.
Productive Power of Homonationalism
Western states have historically constructed Third World states as queer in many forms, including economic, developmental, social and sexual. Objections to these global stereotypes have become apparent in statements by members of the African Group and the OIC.
The Normal and Perverse: (Un-)African
Even in their attempts to develop, the West has defined states in the Global South as "emerging" but never fully formed. But while the African group strongly rejects the implied accusations, South Africa, caught between two sides of the debate, is seeking to moderate the invective from the Global North and mediate between the two opposing blocs to achieve progress, putting the state in direct conflict. with its neighbors and the concept of un-African.
Queer Logics of Statecraft: African and/or Un-African
Challenging neocolonialism and amplifying queer African voices
African leaders have called for neo-colonial coercive tactics of SOGI rights that support countries at home and within the UN. South Africa is committed to a dialogical approach to the issue and avoiding naming and shaming.
South Africa the (un)-African State
South Africa simultaneously reflected a pronounced non-African support for SOGI rights and a vocal African refusal to promulgate neo-colonial norms. Barthes's logic and/or allows South Africa to be understood as an African and/or non-African country at these moments.
Further Research
Second, other researchers have found that for many queer Africans, South Africa is perceived as a queer utopia (Camminga, 2018). Finally, an analysis of South Africa's actions within the UN General Assembly and the UN Human Rights Council revealed clear support from certain individuals.
An African Queer Futurity
Draft resolution: Protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity A/HRC/32/L.2/Rev.1, 32nd Regular Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, 28 June 2016. Resolution 32/2 Protection against Violence and Discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity, 32nd regular session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, 30 June 2016.
