Theorizing (Homo)Eroticism in Africa

OUTLIERS A Collection of Essays and Creative Work on Sexuality in Africa

Theorizing (Homo)Eroticism in Africa

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IRN-Africa Editorial Board Amadou Moreau Bernadette Muthien Dorothy Aken’Ova Cary Johnson Charles Gueboguo David Kuria Fikile Vilakazi Gertrude Fester Joel Nana Ngongang Leo Igwe Linda Baumann Magatte Niang Phil Rosenberg Richmond Tiemoko (coordinator) Thuli Madi Unoma Azuah Vasu Reddy Zanele Muholi

Opinions expressed by the authors of articles published in this volume do not necessarily represent IRN-Africa’s views. Comments, suggestions, and reactions should be forwarded to the editor at [email protected]. IRN-Africa celebrates the linguistic diversity of Africa and publishes articles in their original official language (French, English (with its variances), Spanish, and Portuguese. Translations of articles published in Outliers in a language other than English are available on our web site www.irnweb.org. Mailing Address: IRN-Africa C/o CLAGS Graduate Center at CUNY Room 7115 365 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10016 Tel: + (1)-212-817-1955 Fax: + (1)-212-817-1564

© IRN-Africa, 2008. The cover art “Mwalimu” or “teacher” in Swahili by Victor Ehikhamenor

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Table of Contents IMPOSSIBLE AFRICANS Sybille N. Nyeck (USA/ Cameroon)

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SPINNING WITH LONGING Terna Tilley-Gyado (USA/Nigeria/Liberia)

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TWO-STEP SKIP Crispin Oduobuk-Mfon Abasi (Nigeria)

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PRISONERS OF THE SKY Rudolph Ogoo Okonkwo (Nigeria)

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THIS IS HOW IT FEELS Shailja Patel (Kenya)

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TWO GIRLS Shailja Patel (Kenya)

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OUTLIER Cary Johnson (USA/ South Africa)

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NOT BRAVE Bernadette Muthien (South Africa)

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SACRIFICE MAKING HOLY Bernadette Muthien (South Africa)

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YOUR SILENCE WILL NOT PROTECT YOU Yvette Abrahams (South Africa)

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AFRICA AND GAY RIGHTS Leo Igwe (Nigeria)

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THE CONTINENT AS A CLOSET Notisha Massaquoi (Sierra Leone / Canada)

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LES MOTS POUR LE DIRE (FRENCH)

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4 Charles Gueboguo (Cameroon) WOUNDED EROS AND CANTILLATING CUPIDS Femi Osofisan (Nigeria)

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NOLLYWOOD, HIVES, AND HOMOPHOBIA Unoma Azuah (Nigeria)

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SCREAMING Shailja Patel (Kenya)

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RAPPORT PROJET EXTORSION (FRENCH) Charles Gueboguo (Cameroon)

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ANNOUNCEMENTS

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Impossible Africans S. N. Nyeck•

It does not require too much expertise to understand that the African continent is undergoing different transformations with tremendous effects on its cultural, social, political, economic life. The era of grand ideological optimism seems dépassé. With great pain and confidence, we have come to understand the importance of pragmatism and self-critique. Changes that seemed impossible ten years ago are progressively viewed as necessary and unavoidable especially in the social and political spheres. It is not pretentious to suggest that a new era has begun in Africa; an era in which impossibilities are progressively turned into possibilities. These possibilities were certainly broadened with demise of single party systems, the end apartheid in South Africa, still a few but nevertheless successful democratic transitions, and the end of the denial about AIDS infection. Africa is therefore challenging herself in many ways that deserve recognition and encouragement. Nevertheless, these positive changes only suggest partial progress but not the end of the struggle for freedom, justice, gender equality, economic and political development. For instance, the multiplication of military coups and counter coups preserve social, political, and economic unrest and the regions of the Great Lakes. This situation cautions against both the overestimation and underestimation of structural and ideological winds swiping through the continent. The genocide in Rwanda, the ongoing political and economic struggles in Sudan and Zimbabwe compel, us to interrogate the conditions that weaken the development of the continent and those that multiply sites of impossibilities between citizens, political parties, ethnic groups, transnational organizations, and the state in Africa. In this contribution we identify queer eroticism as one site of impossibility that continues to alienate Africans from Africans. While political analysts and economists tend to agree that the developmental crises in Africa evolve around resource, they also mainly focused on natural resources or institutional delinquencies leading to conflicts (Reno 1998; Chabal & Daloz 1999; Bayart et. al. 1999; Vansina 2004; Stiglitz 2006; Collier 2007). In trying to theorize (homo)eroticism, the contributors in this collection shed light on the conceptual and existential crisis on which African queerness is predicated upon. In practical terms, it may seem obvious to argue that queer existence in Africa is intimately connected with the continent’s political and economic struggle. Conceptually, the struggle of queer •

is the coordinator of the International Resource Network in Africa (IRN-Africa) and is a currently pursuing a Ph.D. degree at the University of California Los Angeles. She holds a BA in Comparative Literature (High Honors) and Political Science from Swarthmore College. S.N. Nyeck’s undergraduate thesis “Contempt and the Making of a Nation-State: Homosexuality in the Political Discourse in Cameroon” received The Judith Polgar Ruchkin Prize for the best academic work from the department of Political Science at Swarthmore College in 2007.

6 Africans is unique in the sense the articulation of a “queer” subject is yet to be enunciated. In ethnic conflicts, we know the names and sizes of the groups involved. In democratic transitions, we know the political parties in the game. When we say “apartheid,” we also know where the racial lines are drawn. However, “African queer” is supposedly chasing emptiness; it is a misnomer, an impossibility that the contributors to this volume hold in suspension while they attempt to theorize the problematic of African (homo)eroticism. We use eroticism here to refer to a network of relational behaviors, ideas, aspirations, emotions, common socio-economic, and political dreams about Africa within and beyond “sexual politics.” The end of the social and political denial of African queerness may not bring about all expected answers to the multifaceted challenges associated with the status of “queer” identified as such –Soupi, Woubi, Mvoye, Tomboys, Lele etc.,--in Africa. Nevertheless, the initiative undertaken by Outliers is to identify and theorize the social links that connect and maintain queer people alive as well as the bearings of such connections on the political culture, the economy, and erotic identities in Africa. In order to explore the possibility of an impossible African queerness, the contributors to this collection explore the problematic of change and revolt in contextual terms. These contributors shed light on the multiplicity of socio-economic, spatial, and analytical experiences specific to queer Africans. The “revolt” here is not centered on seemingly competing “values,” but it is as Julia Kristeva puts it, “a relentlessly repeat[ed] retrospective return [to the self] to lead it to the limits of the representable/thinkable/tenable (to the point of possession)1…. of various forms of our [social and political] intimacy.” Revolt in this sense is different from rage and resists the “invasion of the spectacle;” a posture that Osofisan defends in Wounded Eros and Cantillating Cupids. In his essay, Osofisan retraces the shifts from erotic abstract symbolism in Nigerian Literature in the post-Military era to its embodiment of the flesh "as breathing, living, and corporeal presence capable of sensual desire and vulnerable to violation". He uncovers the ideological erotic stereotypes underneath early Nigerian Literature --and pan-African Literature-- and discusses why and how the option for "full disclosure and unrestrained loquacity" has dominated the post-Military era. He also analyzes the impact of globalized "American values" and entertains the possibility that erotic full disclosure in Nigerian Literature may not escape the intrusive frames of the West. With a measured skepticism, Osofisan deconstructs these Western frames. To interrogate eroticism in Nigerian Literature and African society, one must grapple with the multiplicity of subtle strategies and channels through which Eros is represented and brutalities committed in its name. At any rate, the metaphorical staging of the wounded Eros in Nigerian Literature comes with a puzzle and responsibility: the disclosure or embodiment of “queerness” intersects with a variety of loci that need not to be suppressed. Notisha Massaquoi carefully analyzes this puzzle in her article, The Continent as a Closet. She particularly stresses the important contributions of the African Diaspora to the understanding of erotic identities that intersect with African (im)migration and social responsibility. In theorizing queer eroticism, Notisha Massaquoi complicates our understanding of the notion of 'home', citizenship, and belonging to include queer immigrants and refugees. She bridges African queer identities with accounts of "complex, dynamic, and overlapping geographies 1

Kristeva, Julia. Intimate Revolt: The Powers and Limits of Psychoanalysis. New York: Columbia University, 2002, p. 7, 12.

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1 that interrogate transnational subjects, their nation of origin and destinations as well as their understanding of sexual dynamics." Gueboguo’s survey of socio-linguistic representations of queerness in Burkina Faso, Burundi, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Mali, Morocco, and Senegal confirms the importance of discourse on gender and its schematic construction of social mésentente. However, the empowering and disempowering attributes of speech and speech acts cannot be thoroughly assumed without paying attention to the role of lesbian women in social movements, lesbians in women’s movements and the academia in Africa. In revisiting the struggle of women loving women in mainstream social movements, Yvette Abrahams exposes both the strength and limitations of theses spaces for queer women in South Africa. If Abrahams is right in affirming that silence cannot save “us,” Bernadette Muthien poetically argues that neither could bravado and self-sacrifice. Nevertheless, between silence and courage there are many steps (Crispin Oduobuk-Mfon) and because humanism is not a fixed gaze on an island, other contributors (Patel; Tilley-Gyado, Unoma, Johnson, Igwe) articulate a queer socio-political project as a function of African lived experiences and narratives boldly resisting intimate oppression while embodying at the same time utopian possibilities of life as queer Africans. In sum, it follows that the African queer subject identified in these pages emerges at a time of great political and socio-economic transformations and expectations in Africa. We hope to have raised important questions relevant to the construction of a queer identity in Africa, and to have illuminated the fear and hope that the coming of such a social and political subject inspire. The idea of queer Africanness is not rooted in abstracted ideals (Ogoo) that supposedly define what “queerness” is all about. Neither abstraction nor rootedness can be assumed independently without a consideration of the socio-political struggles that bring about the transformation of the African continent itself. The queer African subject is at the crossroad of theses critical struggles that would hopefully find as Oduobuk-Mfon puts it, “a degree of safety in arms-length” and contribute to the strengthening of African polities and social forces spinning with longing for freedom and affirmation.

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Spinning with Longing Terna Tilley-Gyado∗ “It takes a stiff upper lip just to hold up my face. I’ve got to suck it up and savor the taste of my own behavior. I am spinning with longing faster than a roulette wheel.”–Ani DiFranco

My mother had spent the better part of an hour coaching me in the fine art of packing. This was a short visit before my big trip back to Nigeria. As she examined every piece of clothing I intended to take with me for my year-long voyage, I only half-listened, knowing that in the end she would win out with packing wisdom. I was ready to get into the groove of preparation but I knew that this was Mommy’s way of helping. “What kind of clothes are you taking? You can’t just dress any way you want. It’s not America. People will notice. Where are you going with these trousers?” “I love my organic cotton trousers. Those are nice trousers, and it’s going to be hot,” I said to myself. And on we went to the next items, her talking aloud, me saying things to myself. “You better not chase people’s daughters over there oh,” she said. “What are you talking about?” “I know you’re AC/DC, and I’m telling you African people don’t do that kind of thing!” That summer evening, at 21, heading to a place that felt so strongly like home though I had only spent a few short years of my life there was all I could see. I had just graduated from university, years punctuated by attempts to discover and know my romantic, sexual self. In the process, I ran with activist punks, makers of music, wordsmiths, hipster women in the full thrall of themselves in the ways I wanted to be—boldly, unapologetically a lover of women, versed in the many arts of such a stance. I wanted to be as comfortable in my skin as they were. The only role models I had wore Doc Marten boots, nose rings and suspiciously short hair. It was actually a revelation to discover that not all lesbians had short hair, that that was not the only look. What they had in common was that they were largely white women. Always, at the end of the night I would look around; notice that I was the only brown woman in the joint. I was never the desired, only ever a witness to other women desiring each other. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t seem to get a foothold into this world I so much wanted to be a part of. I didn’t know there was really any other world for girls like me. Finally, in my last year I met a brown American woman, Nina. It was a terrible affair in the end, but it taught me there were other brown women like me.

∗

Terna Tilley-Gyado is an educator in New York City. She is also a MetLife fellow conducting research on education policy and advocacy. She holds Masters degrees in Teaching, International Conflict Analysis, and a Bachelor in General Studies in the Humanities. She is interested in the notion of conflict prevention through education. She also enjoys writing and is attempting to write songs.

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1 At the end of my first semester my mother surprised me with a trip to Ivory Coast to visit a close family friend. They had been friends since their teenage years in Liberia, a country I could hardly remember. The red earth, the gated houses, the unself-consciousness of my skin, the heat of the heart in the people I met, shook loose something. For the first time I understood that part of the reason I never seemed to fit anywhere was that I had this blood whose properties I had yet to understand. Ivory Coast isn’t Nigeria or Liberia, but it was close enough to turn on the dormant beacon within me that needed to know where the flesh, bone and marrow of me came from, to know what it was like to be there, to live there, to recognize beauty and ugliness in it and the beauty and ugliness in me because of it. The following year I went to Nigeria for the first time in 13 years. I had not seen my father in just as long. Though I saw him for only a couple of hours in three weeks, when my feet touched the soil, it felt like touching a live wire--everything illuminated, everything brighter, but also disorienting and painful in parts. All the cells in my body arched, chanting home, home, home, home. That visit ignited a passion in me, clarified that though I am an African mostly reared in America, I am still an African person. Some parts of me that didn’t make sense in America made sense there. Though I didn’t fit in all the obvious cultural ways, I could breathe. When I got back to school I knew I had to spend an extended period of time in Nigeria. The infinitely possible space of post-graduation was just the time. My heart begins to race. “What the hell is she talking about? I am insulted. Does my mother think all queer people are lascivious predators?” It is the homo monster of hetero imagining, the lewd-eyed, masculine (meaning not properly dressed to be a respectable woman) monster. Lock your doors!!! Return to your tribal roots!! Only allow your daughters out to work the land and cook until a suitable suitor arrives. When he does, hail his broad, manly chest and deep voice. Or lacking those, hail a worthy dowry. Hetero desire or, at least hetero activity, will keep the homo monster at bay! “I’m not stupid,” I say as disgustedly as possible. The truth is that chasing after anyone’s daughter is the last thing on my mind. But is there something in what she says worth thinking about? Am I a monster because I am queer? I know queer originally means strange, odd, but does it mean otherworldly creature? I don’t think so. “I’m not saying you’re stupid. I’m telling you that African people don’t believe in homosexuality, bisexuality, whatever. White people brought that thing with them. It is not natural for Africans.” Is this true? Was the continent homo-free until white people started colonizing? Were there no male lovers of men and female lovers of women? While this line of thinking seems profoundly suspect and flawed, and while acknowledging that the notion of “coming out” is perhaps particularly American in some ways, it does reveal something equally profound about the experience of being both African and queer. This set of twins has a tenuous relationship. One pushes while the other pulls. During my time at home that year I could breathe, but I was also both visible and invisible. I had never had so much male attention in my life, been toasted with such persistence. Yet I could speak to no one about being queer. If I ever met any other queer people I had no idea. In fact, it felt unsafe to even mention it as a “what do you think of … ?” Sometime during the year there was a story of a group of people starting an LGBT organization who were “invited” to meet with other LGBT people in another part of the country. When they arrived they were ambushed and beat up. Six years later that story stays

10 with me. Now Nigeria stands poised to pass one of the most far-reaching set of laws that would make it possible for someone to be arrested for even reading anything talking about homosexuality, for discussing anything, for even being seen with someone deemed queer. I am paranoid, scared. The fact that I can see the certainty of moral high ground magnified on the faces of those who believe such laws safeguard the souls of the nation leaves me feeling deeply disappointed. People standing so close I can smell them, see the beads of heat-induced sweat on their brows, touch their hands, are the people so convinced that their daughters and sons do indeed need societal locking up. People I can talk to, not far away, hard-to-imagine others. No, it is people I buy akara from, parents of friends, possibly even friends and family. Am I indeed the homo monster of legend? In America, the queer twin can speak. In fact she can speak so much as to be “out” amongst friends, so much as to have a love. Yet here the other twin aches deeply for home, yearning exerting its power in simple ways—the thought of fried rice, of pounded yam, luam. In these dreams of home I want even the ridiculous heat of Makurdi, the perennially pockmarked streets, the Fulani men grazing cows on the side of the highways of Abuja, the purple flowers of Ihugh, the rock mountains of Jos, the trips not yet taken—Port Harcourt, Enugu, Sokoto and every other unknown corner. I open my arms and want to breathe out the longing, have it satisfied when I inhale again. Exhale. Inhale. Spin, yell. Inhale. It is still there. I drop my arms and close the small door in my heart that a distant breeze of hope has opened. I will ask my girlfriend a hug.

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Two-Step Skip Crispin Oduobuk-Mfon Abasi∗

It’s not one of those life and death questions, but should I or should I not let him come meet me at work? It’s Friday. The station would be almost empty by the time I’m done planning my work for next week. Still, Should I risk being seen with some strange guy? There’s enough talk about me as it is. And I really don’t know what to expect. He’s got a handsome pic on his profile. But two previous internet friends have thought me not to trust what people pass along as their pictures in cyberspace. He could be something hideous. Or worse, he could be so obvious even typically non-judgemental guys would have a hard time not giving him the look. That look I get everyday. The one which says, He must be gay! I never bother to explain that I’m not. People see what they’ve been conditioned to see. What if I see him and I get the look on my face? I like him well enough for someone I’ve never seen in the flesh. But do I like him enough to let him near my workplace or the ‘selfcontained room’ I call home? Nosy colleagues and neighbours apart, why should I bring the mysterious too close? There’s a degree of safety in arms-length. So when I’m done, I do a little happy twostep skip; once again a child out to buy sweets and chewing gum and looking forward to savouring their sugary sweetness. Now I can do this and not feel any shame because by early Friday evenings, this part of Abuja, where Sizzling Hot 101 FM is located, is typically empty. I love these breezy twilight times as they bring on nostalgia of happy-sad memories of events I honestly cannot say I’ve experienced but nonetheless relish. Two-step skip, two-step skip, down the hill from the station; Oliver de Coque’s “Identity” the memory-provided soundtrack. Because I also do this on Saturdays when we go for judo classes at Area 10, some of my friends say the child in me is still not ready to grow up though I’m almost thirty. To that I say I’m content to just live my life and leave the analysing to them. At the bottom of the hill I take a taxi to his hotel. Five minutes drive away, the hotel used to be Abuja’s finest only a few years ago. Back then its swanky lounges and bars brimmed with expatriates and high-end sex workers in the evenings. Following privatisation, ∗

Crispin Oduobuk-MfonAbasi lives in Abuja, Nigeria. His work included in Wokshop Engelsk VG1 Bygg-Og Anleggsteknikk (eds. Janniche Langseth, Hege Lundgren, Jeanne Lindsay Skanke) and In Our Own Words Volume 6 (ed. Marlow Peerse Weaver), as well as several other anthologies. His work also appeared on BBC Focus on Africa and Crispin’s “Petrovesky and Polarbywll” was named a Notable Story in the 2005 Million Writers Award. His “Maiduguri Road” was named a Notable Story in the 2006 Millions Writers Award.

12 there are still expatriates these days, but the sex workers are basically all kinds now and nobody has any illusions whether the hotel has gone to seed or not. Before leaving the taxi at the back parking lot, I call him on my phone because I know the house. If you ask at the reception for a guest, they’ll put you through to him on a house phone. It’s up to him to tell you his room number, invite you there or come get you himself. If he tells you his room number and says you should come up on your own, you’ll have to sign in with the security people at the main lifts. “I’m here,” I say when he answers the call. “Okay,” he says. “Come up. 909.” I get out of the taxi and walk into the hotel through a side entrance. The security man there greets me with a broad smile. I know what he’s thinking. With my braided hair, frilly shirt and feminine trousers, he’s taken me for a musician. I smile back and nod at him, turn left and go for the staircase. On the first floor, I go to the main lifts. Unguarded at this level, I can use one all the way to the ninth floor without having to sign in. That way, I two-step skip the security system. ‘Dave’ is as good-looking as the picture on his profile at Gaydar.com. He has on a loose T-shirt and casual trousers that aren’t bad. I like his clean-shaven face with the extrabright eyes that should belong to an over-excited kid. But he looks bigger than I expected and has a bit of a paunch that I’m careful not to look at. I’d have had one too if I didn’t exercise so much. “Hi,” he says. “Hi,” I say. We shake hands and I notice how large and powerful his palms are as he ushers me in. His suite isn’t small. But within the same building I’ve been in bigger ones in the course of work, interviewing some person or other, usually a musician. This suite has a double bed, two armchairs and a low table with several magazines on it, including one where there’s story about me; hot DJ on the rise, that sort of thing. There is also a writing desk with a chair to go with and, of course, a large TV tuned to CNN rests near a dressing table with a wellpolished mirror. I settle into one of the armchairs. “So you say you’re a radio presenter.” His tone accuses me of lying and I don’t like it. I reach for the magazine with the story about me; open to page 17 and show him the article with the name I’d given him at Gaydar, which, unlike his ‘Dave’, is my real name. “Ah, so it’s true,” he says. “And you used your real name. You know, I thought you were lying.” I wave it aside. “So what brings you to Abuja?” “Business. What can I get you?” I don’t think I deserve that curt reply but I’m hungry and if I hadn’t come to meet him, this being Friday evening, I’d be treating myself to something nice at a good restaurant. So I ask for fried rice and chicken and non-alcoholic peach wine. Dave calls room service. While he speaks on the phone, I pick up the TV remote and indicate to him that I would like to change the channel. He motions for me to go ahead. I flip through until I come upon Macy Gray performing ‘Time of My Life’ on MTV. I sit forward and bob my head to Macy’s funky vibe. “So you like music.” Dave puts down the phone.

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1 “Don’t you?” “I like Fela and Femi, especially ‘Beng Beng Beng’.” I chuckle. “I like Fela too and I like that Femi song but the album disappointed me.” “Ah, that’s because you’ve not seen him perform live!” Apparently I’ve said something wrong. Dave sounds angry and he looks as if I’ve desecrated his god. Though there’s no way of knowing how he can be certain I’ve never seen Femi perform live, I want to make amends. “Maybe you’re right,” I say in my softest tone. Sometimes when I talk this way many people give me another look. The one that says with disgust, why is he trying sound like a girl? I see something of that look now in Dave’s face. I look away. “You should see Femi on stage, then you’ll know he’s really his father’s son!” Considering that I’ve not raised any doubts as to whose son Femi Kuti is, I don’t see why Dave should shout at me. I want to mumble something about how it’s not a big deal but I think better of it and sit back. “Femi is good-o! He’s really good!” I nod even though I’m not sure this is going right. I wonder if it would be okay to leave. Perhaps it’s the child in me again but right now I feel like two-step skipping and this certainly is not the atmosphere for it. Then I remember I’d made him call room service. I wish I’d gone to a restaurant instead. We sit in uncomfortable silence while I pretend to watch MTV with more seriousness than a music channel deserves. On the net Dave is usually chatty and funny, eager to share anecdotes about his work and family, especially his twin brother who he seems to think is the most enviable man alive for being successful with women. I am disappointed to find Dave so bland, inane even, in person and I wonder how I could ever have thought of him as sophisticated. “You know you look like a girl,” Dave says suddenly as if he’s just discovered this fact. I shrug. I’d shown him my pictures on the net and had explained that I wished more than anything else that I’d been born a girl. I’d also mentioned that I’d been accused of having a serious case of vagina envy. I thought he understood all that well enough. “Especially with the way you’ve done your hair,” he adds. “It suits you. Fine chick.” That is both funny and embarrassing. From many other persons, in many other situations, I’d have accepted ‘fine chick’ as a compliment. Coming from Dave in this setting, it is awkward to say the least. Then he blows me an air kiss and I throw my head back and laugh because now I know for sure this isn’t going right. Several people I know, including my girl and coworkers, question my sexuality sometimes because, braided hair and ladylike clothes apart, I’m one of those men born with very noticeable feminine traits. My colleagues often tease me about my voice and gestures. I’ve even overheard some call me Dan Daudu, the northern derogatory term for a gay sex worker. Okay, so I too have sometimes wondered about myself. It’s why I registered with Gaydar. In meeting Dave, I’ve come for an evening of intelligent conversation on art, politics, and, well, okay, gay issues as well. I guess at some level it can be said that I’m exploring. Perhaps even experimenting, though this truly is a mysterious world to me. And yet somehow air kisses aren’t in that picture. Certainly not at this stage. I begin to plan my departure. Make that ‘escape’.

14 I’m thinking how this is all an anti-climax after eight months of chatting on the net and my joyful two-step skip just minutes ago when suddenly Dave stands before me with his penis erect and pointed at me. “Oya, suck,” he says. “Hey!” I jump up, push him back, step away and glare at him. “What’s the matter with you?” “What do you mean?” he’s surprised. “What do I mean? Please behave yourself!” I want to throw up. A knock on the door startles us. “Room service!” a voice calls from outside. Dave zips up his trousers and goes to the door. I follow him and step into the bathroom as he opens up. Kneeling over the toilet bowl, I try to vomit. Nothing comes up. I close the bowl and sit on the cover. I decide to wait in there and leave immediately the room service person leaves. There is no way I’m going to touch that food. It seems to take forever. Then I hear the door opening and closing so I come out in a rush and make straight for the door. But Dave is waiting for me. He grabs my right arm by the elbow and slams me against him. “Where are you going?” “Home!” I say, forgetting I’d warned myself not to say a word to him again. “You haven’t eaten your food. You can’t go yet.” “I’ll pay for it,” I say, digging in the hip pocket of my tight-fitting silk trousers for my Friday evening treat money. “I don’t want your money!” Dave’s grip tightens on my arm. The arm is hurting like mad. Being bigger, I know Dave can do a lot of damage to me. Besides, our Judo teacher often says: “When overpowered, cooperate until you get your chance to strike back.” So, wishing I’d paid more attention to the Judo lessons instead of bobbing to memory-produced soundtracks, I follow Dave back into the sitting area. He pushes me into the chair I’d been sitting in “Oya, eat,” he says. I glare at him. If looks could do any damage, he’d be mincemeat in a matter of seconds. He laughs; deep and guttural sound, something from a horror movie. I’ve ‘explored’ myself into a nightmare. Dave slaps his thighs and laughs harder. “You are just like a woman! Look at your face! See your red lips. Did you use lipstick?” He laughs at his own joke while I continue to hate him with my gaze. “You don’t want to eat again?” I ignore him. “Oya, take off your clothes let’s fuck.” I stand up. My heart pounds in my ears. “Take off your clothes,” he repeats, undoing the zip on his trousers. He quickly pulls off his T-shirt. I look around for a weapon. A tray of food where the magazines had been. The magazines now on the bed. The TV playing ‘What’s Luv’ by Fat Joe featuring Ashanti and Jah Rule. Tears sting my eyes.

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1 “Oya now?” Dave says, taking off his trousers. I can see the bulge where his huge erection is struggling to escape his underwear. Despite the situation, I’m mildly fascinated. I wonder what the monster behind the underwear really looks like. As he works the trousers past his knees though, a light bulb flashes in my head but I ignore it and jump over the food in a bid to escape. It’s a bad jump. One foot sends both the tray and me to the floor. Cutlery clatters, glasses break and food spills everywhere. I immediately realise I’ve sprained my right ankle. Plus I’ve hit my left shin against something hard. Horrible pain washes over me as I crawl away on my stomach. Dave jumps on top of me. A thick palm holds my neck down while he pins my left hand with his knee. Struggling underneath him, I regret not acting on the flash of inspiration I had by kicking him in the groin. “Please, please stop,” I cry. “You think I flew in from Lagos to come and joke?” he whispers fiercely. I feel his breath burning my neck as he forces down my trousers. “See-o! Na woman pant you wear sef! See your ass!” His joy astonishes me. “Big and clean, men! You dey shave everyday?” What point would there be in telling him I naturally just don’t have any bum hair? A wet finger forces itself into me and I squirm. I try twisting out of his grip but his palm tightens around my neck. Two fingers, then three. I feel nauseous as slimy saliva slithers down the side of my right buttock. I buck up hoping to throw him off but Dave punches me in the back and raw pain makes me slump back down. I feel the tip of his penis on my bum and I go wild. “Please! No! I beg you in the name of God! Don’t! I’ve never done it before. Please!” Dave’s response is short. “Shut up!” I raise my head and scream for help. Dave slams an elbow against my head and I cut my lip on a spoon on the rugged floor. “Stupid idiot!” he curses. “What did you come here for? Today I will see what my brother sees in you bastards!” Brother? I’m trying to digest that when a second brainwave hits me. Dave is still forcing himself into me. “Use cream,” I shout. “Use cream!” I feel him hesitate. “What did you say?” “Use cream,” I repeat. “There should be some on the dressing table.” He seems to take forever making up his mind. In the meantime his erection is throbbing irritatingly against my bare skin. Furtively I look around for other pieces of cutlery. The fork is a little way off to my right. “Don’t move!” Dave snarls something ugly from a horny dog. I hold my breath. The moment he gets up, I reach for the fork. He turns and sees me tightening my grip on the cutlery and he tries to kick it out of my hand. I duck; lunge up with all my strength and jab the fork into his balls. There’s a lot of blood spilling out of him as Dave holds the end of the fork and screams as if he’s become a thousand mad men in one body. Another brainwave and I grab a large plate from the floor and smash it on his head. Now blood is flowing from his head too. Blinded by pain, Dave reaches for me, stumbles against an armchair and falls. He’s still

16 screaming so I pull the mattress off the bed and throw it on him. That stifles his scream a little. I look in the mirror next to the TV. I’ve got food all over me. Dave is still shouting so I reach over and increase the volume of R Kelly singing ‘Thoia Thong’. My sprained ankle makes walking difficult. But, breathing harder than an Olympic sprinter, I’m energised by this narrow escape, this unexpected victory. Inside the bathroom, I use a towel and quickly make myself as presentable as I can. My face is swollen around the left side of the lower lip where I also have a cut. All that will have to wait. There’s a splash of blood on my right sleeve. Can’t venture out with that; I might run into trouble with patrolling guards. So I dip the sleeve in water and feverishly wash it off. When I hurry out of the bathroom into the room, I observe Dave is no longer shouting. Has he just passed out or is he dead? I don’t know and I don’t care. I’m approaching the main lifts on the ninth floor when I see another ‘Dave’, basically the same but smaller in stature, coming my way. This ‘Dave’ has that urbane look I’d mentally associated with the person I met at Gaydar. I turn off into a corridor that leads to the service lifts before he sees me. All my two-step skip happiness has fled as I leave the hotel without passing any security personnel and board a taxi home. Still breathing hard, I sit on the darkened staircase and sob while Angie Stone’s ‘Life Goes On’ wafts out of a neighbour’s window with a bittersweet ambience.

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Outliers Vol. 1, No.

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1

Prisoners of the Sky Rudolf Ogoo Okonkwo∗

Fate’s own was not only the meaning of my name, Nkechi; it was also the petal of my disposition. But those who named me did not know that. “Nkechi, you’ve staged the last stunt of your teen years here in America,” Daddy said casually. “I am shipping you to Nigeria. There you’ll be cured. ” My mother sat on her favorite couch sobbing, profusely. “For everyone else, it is the boys that are hard to raise in America,” she murmured. “As for me, I am impeded at both ends. Nwanyi chi ojoo, woman of bad fate.” She swallowed a lump of phlegm. “See me, a nursing hen deprived of its chicks. To make matters worse, I do not know how water entered the stalk of the pumpkin.” In less troubling situations, Daddy would have calmed her down by saying, “O nu uwa ka anyi no, it comes with life on the earth. On earth we are all prisoners of the sky.” Not this time. I didn’t mind Mummy. She had always been overtly dramatic. But Daddy, a professor of English Literature at York College, in Queens, never was. Soon after he made that statement, he called Sebastian, his brother, in St Louis, Missouri. I was lucky I attended my senior prom before I was shipped out. Though I got into trouble on that prom night when my parents caught me and my best friend, Fiona, red-handed ∗

Rudolph Ogoo Okonwo is an MFA student at Western Connecticut State University. He has a Bachelor of Engineering degree from the Federal University of Technology in Akure, Ondo State, Nigeria. He worked as a reporter for many years in Nigeria, Europe, and North America. He is a columnist for New York based African Abroad newspaper and Houston based Class magazine. His columns appear in many journals including ThisDay, Champion, USAfricavoice, Africa Vibe, Vanguard, and Independent. For five years, he was a columnist for Nigeriaworld.com. His syndicated columns can be read at kwenu.com and Nigeriavillagesquare.com. His short story, Dr. Emenike, is part of the upcoming anthology, Biafran Babies, edited by Obiwu. His compilation of short stories, My Husband’s Wife & Other Stories is slated for publication in the spring of 2008. He is also the founder of Iroko Productions LLC and the Olaudah Equiano Prize for Fiction.

18 in the limousine. I was also lucky because I wasn’t shipped to a strict missionary boarding school to complete high school like other kids of African parents who ran into trouble in America. Instead, with my High School Diploma and thanks to Daddy’s contacts, I went straight to the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, where I began my freshman’s year in the Department of Theater Arts. *** Sebastian bumped into Nkemdirim inside my room at Isa Kaita Hall of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, three years later. She was in a foul mood. It was the day she gave up writing. Nkem, as I call her, gave up writing immediately she learnt that the literary journal, Okike, rejected her tenth short story, Naked Prodigal. Her friends in the English Department told her she needed to be friendly with the editor for her story to be published. She assumed that their advice meant having an affair with the married professor. “I will rather remain unpublished than involve myself in such an act,” Nkem complained sternly. “When my time comes, I will get published.” At twenty-two and in her sophomore year just like me, Nkem had not experienced life. Her mother was a petty trader and her father was a carpenter in their village of Ideani. She went to Queen’s College, Enugu, on a scholarship. She lived a protected life, never feeling that she belonged. I met her in my freshman’s year at a meeting of a pro-feminist group called Daughters of Eve. We were assigned to write a newsletter editorial for our group in support of gay marriage laws passed in South Africa and Massachusetts. In the course of our discussion, Nkem asked me, “Does the gay marriage law passed in Massachusetts mean that you as an American can marry me and then take me to America?” We became friends thereafter and later roommates. She soon metamorphosed into my new Fiona. Sebastian came to visit me because I was helping him find a wife at the university. I arranged a meeting with two girls that met his specifications: gregarious, intelligent, and beautiful. Before he bumped into Nkem, he had met a lovely 21 year-old girl named Amaka. Amaka was slender like a cassava plant, but confident like a bulldog in its territory. She was forward in the questions she asked Sebastian about his career in America and his marital history. It was almost an inquisition, he later told me. She wasn’t going to be cowed because he came from America. As he drove her back into campus after a lunch date inside Nsukka town, he knew it was not going to work out between them. “She was more like the wife I divorced three years ago,” he said. Amaka battered Sebastian’s charm. He lost his enthusiasm about meeting the second girl, deciding instead to reschedule. That was when Nkem entered our room so swiftly that she almost slammed the door on his face as he walked out. At six feet one inch, her presence was as unmistaken as the presence of a baobab tree in a yam farm. With a scowl on her face, she swung her body like a pissed off igede. No eyes, man or woman, could miss her gyrating hips or her full lips red like a gourmet lobster. “Sorry,” she muttered as she quickly climbed on top of a double decked bed in the room, her feet ripping off the wall posters of Audre Lorde and Gertrude Stein. They fell across, partly resting at the lower end of the wall. “Is everything alright?” Sebastian asked.

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1 “Life is not fair,” Nkem murmured, and covered herself with a blanket. Sebastian returned to Enugu that same day and to the United States the following week, his mission to find a homegrown girl for a wife all but abandoned. Then one day, while on a weekly telephone conversation with him, he asked a question he said had been nagging him since his last visit. “Why didn’t you want me to consider your roommate, Nkem?” At first, I was startled. “Who?” I managed to say after a long period of silence. “Nkem, your roommate,” he repeated. “You don’t want her,” was the answer that unconsciously came out of me. “Why?” I had no reason. Conscious that I might raise suspicion unnecessarily, I calmed down and tried to retrace my steps. “Frankly, I never thought of her like that,” I said. “I see her just as my roommate. Not a potential wife for my uncle.” “Is there anything wrong with her being the wife of your uncle?” “No. Not really,” I lied. If Sebastian was in front of me, he would have noticed how shaky my hands were. “She is kind of weird, with all her talks about writing,” I continued. “She is not that sociable. Also, you know she is not in the medical field.” “Ok. Does she have a boyfriend?” “None that I know of,” I answered after a pause. “Unless you count literature.” We left it at that. Days came and passed. Weeks came and passed. I forgot all about it. Then Sebastian called one rainy day in May. This time he insisted on talking to Nkem who was seated at the end of my bed, dressed just in her underpants, massaging my feet. She does this when the other roommate of ours travel. Otherwise, we wait until we can pay for a hotel room behind Zik’s flat. Sebastian told her his mind. We awkwardly discussed it afterwards. I told Nkem all I knew about Sebastian, his real age, which was twice Nkem’s age, his ex-wives, his six children from the white woman and the African nurse. “Without his frequent visits home, his houses, businesses and relationships with my aunts, my Daddy would not have had the confidence to send me home,” I told Nkem. “Death thereby kills as if it was directed,” Nkem concluded as we agreed that she would go ahead with Sebastian’s proposal as long as it ultimately gets her to America. “But no sex,” I warned. “Not until you get to America.” *** We were in our final year when Sebastian flew in for the traditional marriage. He was excited about marrying the most unlikely wife. Having abandoned the search for a pharmacy graduate or a doctor for a sociologist, he was proud of himself that for the first time he had overcome his selfishness. He married his first wife because she came from a wealthy family and the second because she was a nurse. My Mummy also came for the marriage ceremony. It was the first time my mother and I were united in Nigeria. In the past, I was the one visiting my parents in America during the holidays.

20 “You’ve earned your passage to America,” Mummy said, “When you graduate, you can return to the U.S. on a permanent basis,” she added. I did not respond. I pretended I was lost in the festivity. “Tell me you’ve found an interesting young man that will throw this kind of wedding party for us?” Mummy asked, with a chuckle on her face. She looked strange to me after three years of living apart. The bond of motherhood had broken down. Even the bulge of resentment had metamorphosed into a benign cyst of indifference. In many ways, she was just a woman who paid my school fees. “It is in your final year that you must grab a man,” she continued even when I did not show any enthusiasm for a discussion. “After you graduate, men begin to think of you as washed up.” Decorated dance troupes took the stage. They raised dust, flipped themselves in the air, in impressive acrobatic display. Men ate and drank themselves to a state of stupor. I listened to the small talk, some deep and some jovial. I looked to see if in all the ceremonies they had a part that could contain me but I did not see any. It was all choreographed sequences with no room for deviation. Nkem seemed comfortable fully dressed in her traditional lace and wrapper, long hair scarf, with ekete round her waist; sparkling gold bracelets dangled around her neck and wrists. I watched closely as she knelt down and received a cup of palm wine for what was billed as the climax of the event. With cup in hand, she walked around in search of her husband-to-be. In teasing moves, she approached men other than Sebastian as if she was going to pass the drink to them and thereby identify them as her chosen one. As she made her rounds of young men, people chuckled. Then she came near me and pretended she was handing the drink to me. “Mba. No,” sneered a man sitting beside us. “Alu, Abomination,” exclaimed another behind. The gathering rose with a deafening whoa. Mummy frowned at that unplanned skit. “It is not funny,” she muttered. “You don’t pick your eyes with the same object you use to pick your ears.” But it was funny to Sebastian for he was never told the real reason why I was shipped to Nigeria. It was a family secret not even he was aware of. “Do you plan to stay here for postgraduate studies?” asked Mummy when Nkem and Sebastian were lost in the dance of the maiden spirit. “Your Daddy and I will come back home and teach at one of our colleges here if you are staying. You know, when a farmer encounters something larger than the farm, he sells the barn.” I rolled my eyes. When she bopped her way into the dance court to spray money on Sebastian and Nkem, I said to myself, “After Youth Service, I shall return to the States.” *** Numerous Nnokwa people in the New York tri-city area came to J.F. K airport to welcome Nkem. Sebastian flew down from St. Louis. He planned to spend three days in New York before flying home to Missouri.

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1 At the Arrival Lounge of Virgin Atlantic airline half a dozen of my people had lined up. I saw my Daddy and Mummy on the front roll, waiting. Everyone had a wide smile on their faces. I sat inside a news agent’s, wearing my traditional baggy khaki pants, a big Tshirt that hid my breasts and a face-cap. On the front of my T-shirt was written, Against Conformity. On the back was Free to Love Anyone I choose. Seven years ago when I rejected pretty-girl-Barbie-outfits and started dressing this way, it drove Mummy crazy. That was when Sebastian began to call me a tomboy. As passengers trickled out, into the waiting area, Nnokwa people’s eyes were focused on every young black women walking down. I sneaked out of the news agent’s store and found my way to the front row, carefully hiding my eyes behind dark glasses. As I was supposed to be in Akure, Ondo State, for my National Youth Service, there was little chance I could be spotted. And then, Nkem emerged in her pretty low cut African dress, strapless on one shoulder; she walked with long strides, swinging her hips. Her bright colors gave her up amongst the group of passenger flocking out. In quick succession, Sebastian and I stepped out from the gathered crowd. But because I had a longer stride, I got to Nkem first. Upon seeing me, she dropped her luggage on the floor and gave me a warm embrace. I raised my heels up, lifted my head gently up and she gave me a passionate kiss on the lips. Sebastian froze. And so did friends and family that had gathered. I removed my glasses and they all squawked, whoa! Mummy’s scream pierced through the lobby before she fainted.

22

This Is How It Feels∗ Shailja Patel∗ when you go down on me wind blows fragrant through my garden from your hungry lips earthquake tilts my pelvis chalice for your sips your tongue a hot wet finger separates my labia as swimmer cleaves the water as a seamstress slices silk this is how it feels when you go down this is how it feels when you awake sleeping flushed-pink clit child in her bed you slide back her fleshy hood out she pops all rosy plump to sing as you go down your tongue now a silver fish flashes up my narrow stream your tongue now a matador ∗

This poem first appeared in From Porn to Poetry, ed. Susannah Indigo and Brian Peters, Samba Mountain Press, 2001. ∗ Shailja Patel is a Kenyan poet, playwright and theatre artist. She has performed in venues ranging from New York’s Lincoln Center to Durban’s Poetry Africa Festival. Her one-woman show, Migritude, received the Ford Foundation funding for a Kenyan tour, and an NPN Creation Fund Award. CNN describes Patel as an artist “who exemplifies globalization as a people-centered phenomenon of migration and exchange.” The Gulf Today (United Arab Emirates) Calls her “the poetic equivalent of Arundhati Roy.” Visit Shailja Patel at www.shailja.com.

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Outliers Vol. 1, No.

1 taunts rogue bull between my hips and when your lips enfold my clit grape so ripe she begs to split her skin a million vines flow burgundy through every last capillary my fingers rumba in your hair living forest on my belly you leave grape juice handprints on my butt as I birth your face between my thighs this is how it feels when your tongue enters me scarlet sacred blasphemy sanctified profanity three thousand years of history two inquisitions fourteen million witch burnings untold lobotomies clitoridectomies Freudian armies of male god prophets stand at the gateway brandishing weaponry howling you may not enter you just grin your wicked grin flick a finger at their din you slip your tongue you slide your tongue you plunge your tongue up into me it’s true we really do change the world by f**king yes the revolution is our naked bodies woman’s mouth on woman’s cunt woman’s lips in woman’s labia woman’s tongue in woman’s yoni girl sings orchards into vineyards into joy laughs joy

2008

24 into another girl’s garden let it give Pat Robertson Dr Laura screaming slavering wet dream nightmares here between my legs eighteen wheeler trucks turn cartwheels skyscrapers fall to their knees solar systems burn and shatter pyramids give up their dead END Two Girls∗ Shailja Patel We were two girls one brown, one white. Loved each other from Kenya to England. We held hands on an East London street. All hell broke loose. They came for me again last night teenage faces twisted, teenage mouths spat vipers through my dreams Fucking Paki dyke! F**king lesbian cunt! We’ll take you down we’ll smash your face in, where’s your girlfriend tonight, Bitch? We believed that love could make us heroes we believed that two could fight the world we believed the wolves would never get us we held hands on the street, made love in the dark, listened for firebombs through our door, eldritch scream of rocks through our windows. I said police and you said no I said fight and you said no ∗

This poem first appeared in Trikone Magazine, Trikone Press, 2004.

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1 I said kill and you said no I yelled how can you love me when you won’t protect yourself? You shouted I would die for you, but I will not strike in violence! and the wolves snarled at the keyhole, shoved hatemail in our letterbox, swung broken bricks in alleyways, spat at us in the Post Office queue. The shopkeepers looked away, the neighbors looked away, the passersby looked away. We were two girls, one brown, one white, we broke the rules. Wog fucker they howled at you Paki lover, does your Paki girlfriend take it up the arse? Fucking dyke, they stabbed at me F**king Paki Lezzie Dykey, Dykey, where’s your white bitch girlfriend? We held each other in the night, whispered stories, waited for daybreak two little Kenyans who dreamed of a world where girls, one brown, one white could love each other unhated. We didn’t last. forgive me is all that we can say years go by and still words don’t come easily I walk down the Castro now and tears sting my eyes at two women kissing kissing in sunlight You call me from Australia, talk of your PhD subject: “The postmodern construction of lesbian identity in Melbourne.”

2008

26 I say Crazy Mzungu. I tell you I preach third world politics from Berkeley stages, I tell you of Americans with Kikuyu names they can’t even pronounce and we both laugh at how far we’ve come from two little Kenyans wide-eyed at the bizarre western world. and we both stop laughing at the same time. The ache of the years we’ll never have is in the silence between us the 10 000 miles we’ll never bridge is in the silence between us the knowledge that I will never see you alive again is in the silence between us You say What and I say Love I wish we’d-you say yes, I know the ache of the years we’ll never have is in the silence between us the 10 000 miles we’ll never bridge is in the silence between us the knowledge – and I say What and you say If we could go back I’dI say Hush my darling we did it right as right as we could we just believed the story was ours to tell we just believed the world gave a damn about love. There were two girls one brown one white who held hands on a London street all hell broke loose. Who live now across the world

The International Resource Network in Africa 1 one in Australia dying one in America aging one who cries over women kissing in the street one who can no longer see the street one who sits up late at night typing, typing, needing to tell needing someone to know that once there were two girls. END

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Outlier Cary Alan Johnson∗

I rail against any attempt to see my sexuality, my sex, my sexing as mainstream. Normally, I'm abnormal. I grew up and fed up on John Rechy's the Sexual Outlaw have always seen myself an incubus in the city of Lost Angels. I am a brother of Samuel Delaney's Time Square Red, Time Square Blue. Tell the truth. There were dicks. They were sucked. It was lovely. I'm a freak of brother from the People's Republic of Brooklyn who has chosen to live my life in Africa (dark, Dark Continent) loving brothers loving brothers knowing sisters (really knowing/trying). Black men loving black men remains a revolutionary act. Marrying, adopting kids, serving in the military. Dreaming the American nightmare. That ain’t my revolution, though it may be for some. ∗

Cary Alan Johnson is an author and activist, born and raised in Brooklyn. Cary has been active in gay politics since 1975, when at the age of 15 he joined Gay Youth on NYC. During the eighties he was instrumental in the founding of a number of Black Gay organizations including the Committee of Black Gay Men (CBGM), the Blackheart Collective, Gay Men of African Descent (GMAD) and Other Countries: Black Gay Men Writing. He served on the first board of directors of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) and marched in the first Black Gay Pride March down Georgia Avenue to meet the March on Washington in 1979. Cary is a poet, writer of short fiction and journalist. His work has appeared in numerous publications including Other Countries1, the Road Before Us, the Greatest Taboo, In this Village, Gay Travels, the James White Review, the Agni Review, Changing Men, and Joseph Beam’s Brother to Brother. Cary is currently working on a novel.

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1 I'd rather f**k an Iraqi than kill him.

Kenya, November 2007.

Not Brave Bernadette Muthien∗ These tears roll down my cheeks like tanks thru deserts cos wars are waged on bodies in souls everywhere women children darkies queers aliens others like me especially you made me grin all morning right beyond my new gynae visit and your voice still warms me love fragilifies me please hold me thru these crucifixions other worldly visitations so I can do what I’ve been borne to and hold your delicate laughing heart’s space too. Sacrifice-Making Holy Bernadette Muthien

∗

Bernadette Muthien co-founded and director of the NGO Engender, which works in the intersectional areas of genders and sexualities, human rights, justice and peace. Her community activism is integrally related to her work with international organizations, and her research necessarily reflects the values of equity, social change and justice. She has published widely, written for diverse audiences, and believes in accessible research and writing. Amongst others, she co-convenes the Global Political Economy Commission of the International Peace Research Association. She is a member of Amanitare, the African network of gender activists, Africa Editor of Queries, and serves on various international advisory boards.

30 I spent too many winters drowning in sweat battling demons & blocking angels to have my bloodied independence shattered like a clumsily dropped orchid in bed with only your rainbow jersey & the carcass of a soul stripped naked of guards braces sheets a lumpy mattress on the floor devoid of springs & stuffing facedownspreadeagled as novices become nuns & marry Jesus I offer you this husk to populate with your boundless passions.

“Your Silence Will not Protect You”: Silence, Voice and Power Moving Beyond Violence Towards Revolution in South Africa2 Yvette Abrahams ≠ Khib Omsis *

F—k the Form “For me, becoming a feminist has always been about the joy of being free; of owning the pleasure that comes from constantly growing through engagement and enquiry, and knowing that I have the ability to give pleasure at many levels of human interaction – intellectually, socially, intimately, physically, and sexually – and to receive it as a precious gift. It is the joy of freedom that makes it so empowering.”3 This essay is part of an ongoing experiment with form. It is written quite consciously in the literary style of lesbian political writing of the 1970’s to the 1990’s, i.e. the period before lesbian writing became part of “Queer Studies” published mainly in the U.S. and Britain. This is done in homage to the great writers of that period, like Audre Lorde, Barbara 2

I would like to thank Lindi Nkutha, for whom this paper was originally written, Khosi Xaba for inspiration and Gail Smith who like a true friend sat me down to write. * Yvette Abrahams was born in Cape Town in 1963 to struggle of parents of slave and Khoekhoe descent. She grew up in exile and returned home in 1983. Since then, she has joyfully tried to practice “the constant vigilance” which she affirms is the price of freedom. She was trained as a historian, and after many years in the academia, she became the Commissioner of Gender Equality. She married to a dyke on Freedom day (April 27, 2007). She spends most of her time off the Cape coast planting enough trees to offset two lifetimes of carbon emissions and has no cat. 3 McFadden, Patricia. “Sexual Pleasure as Feminist Choice” in Feminist Africa Issue 2, 2003, http://www.feministafrica.org/fa%202/02-2003/sp-pat.html, pp 5, 7. Last accessed 4/4/2006.

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1 Smith, and Chrystos.4 This experiment also forms part of a solution to an Africanist problematic many of our literary greats have been grappling with for some decades. The questions I have been asking myself are classic: How do we begin to think like Africans? What does it mean to work from an Afrocentric perspective? What is the connection between form and content? What does it mean when we clothe our Africanist ideas in the literary form of a conventional academic article? How does this affect our ability to decolonize our minds? What is the activist impact of mouthing the most revolutionary ideas in words the masses cannot understand, buttressed by footnotes and other Latin conventions inherited through our academic colonizers? Now to say that something is, is not to say that something else is not. My esteem is not exclusive, in other words it does not ignore the literary context of political writing at the time. Certainly lesbian writing was developed within a womb of broader activism and interacted quite consciously with parallel traditions within Panafricanism, Black Consciousness, early indigenous people’s rights organizations, and the women’s movement. I find this particular tradition of political lesbian writing fascinating because it challenged oppressive academic conventions. It was BIG writing. It was not afraid of sweeping generalizations. It ignored contradictions, except where they were painful. It respected emotional truths. It did not seek to prove anything in a positivist empirical sense. It experimented wildly, exhibiting a wild riot of words as lesbians sought to undermine the very foundations of patriarchal language and thought. It was not afraid to fall flat on its face, indeed, it was not afraid. No one but the writer knows the inner struggle that must be won. The first enemy is within. Internalized patriarchy has silenced all of us in varying degrees, but none more so than the lesbian already afraid of her womanhood and who has grown up seeking to hide the secret of her sexuality sometimes even from herself. This early socialization of the closet poses a particular and distinct challenge to the emergence of lesbian writing and that is why in this paper I seek to celebrate the foremothers who started this revolution for us. None of us can work in isolation and the victory of this particular period of lesbian writing was that it created the community where the previously unspeakable was celebrated. It was a bitter battle, yet finally Mary Meigs was able to proclaim: In the last fifteen years, lesbian laughter has broken out in a language revolution. ‘In search of woman-identity: dictionaries were blown wide open, words uprooted, neologisms coined, punctuation upset or willfully ignored, codes, genders and syntax fissured, personal pronouns mixed around.’…Lesbian writers have found freedom by enlarging spaces-in-between, including the space between the cracks. I have found my own freedom in the territory where theory and autobiography meet, in defiance of patriarchal rules that a piece of writing be one thing or the other. And I’ve come to think that defiance is the only answer a lesbian writer can make to the exigencies of

4

Cf. eg. Lorde, Audre. Sister Outsider: Esays and Speeches. New York: The Crossing Press, 1984; A Burst of Light: Essays. Ithaca: Firebrand Books, 1988; Smith, Barbara The Truth That Never Hurts: Writings on Race, Gender and Freedom. Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1998; Chrystos “Headaches and Ruminations” in Penelope, Julia (ed.) Out of the Class Closet: Lesbians Speak. Los Angeles: The Crossing Press, 1994.

32 all expectations, and that each of us must learn to free-fall in our almost unlimited space of possibilities.5 Lesbian feminist understandings of ‘the political is personal’ resulted in things like the usage of the “I” form in articles, the discussion of everything from heartbreak to housework, and a constant slippage between poetry and prose. It is significant that the writers I have mentioned were all poets, indeed, it would be hard to find a major lesbian writer of this period who was not. This literary form sought to say what needed to be said, to think the hitherto unthinkable, and to act on those thoughts in an organized manner to make revolution. In this, undoubtedly, it succeeded. Today, it saddens me that (along with other feminisms) lesbian writing began straightening its linguistic hair in the search for academic respectability. Thus, while I would hesitate to recommend the lesbian feminist style as a model of prose for anybody wanting to pass an exam or seeking a promotion, I would say it is certainly useful to try this experiment for anybody wanting to liberate her mind. Here, I have retained the footnotes as a mean of communicating between the old and the new, i.e. just enough so that this article communicates academically. /Xam In my African culture, the word /xam, “gesels,’ “converse,” implies at least two parties and two acts, to speak and to hear. The word “to tell a story” is inseparable from the word “to listen”. So, in striving to tell a story according to custom and tradition, I have written this paper in conversation with an imaginary sister. She is a composite of the many slights and snubs I have received from heterosexual women over the years, people whom I then thought of as sisters in the struggle for women’s empowerment, and who were probably struggling themselves with their feelings towards women, i.e. at that point me. Now, to say that somebody is heterosexual is not the same as saying she is homophobic. When I use this word, I use it in the same sense as I use the word “man” under patriarchy; the word “capitalist” under capitalism, and the word “white” under white supremacy. It is not so much about what you do; it is about what you are. A heterosexual woman in a heteronormative society is a person who benefits from hetero-privilege. If you do not know what heterosexual privilege is, try telling your mother, your husband and your children that you are a lesbian! Then you will be able to understand hetero-privilege. In order to protect these privileges, a beneficiary will often refuse to hear/see/understand the person who is deprived of those privileges. Like a refusal to see the world through women’s eyes is sexist, and the act of privileging a white worldview over an Afrocentric one is racist, the fact that this conversation never took place is a symptom of homophobia. We are all familiar with the white person who says “but I don’t see colour” without realizing what an utter expression of racial privilege it is to be able not to “see” skin colour. In the same way, to hear me only when I speak as if I were heterosexual is homophobic. My imaginary sister is composed of these women who 5

Meigs, Mary. “Falling Between the Cracks” in Lesbian Texts and Contexts: Radical Revisions. Karla and Joanne Glasgow (eds.). New York: Only Women Press, 1992, pp. 37, citing Cotnoir Louise “Quebec Women’s Writing.” Translated by Susanne de Lobitniére-Harwood. Trivia 13, no. 3 (1988) 13-16, pp. 13.

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1 through denial sought to protect their privilege and silence me. So as a way of saying ‘thank you’ for the learning experience, this paper is my gift to all my imaginary sisters. Here is my life: Silence

Anthropologists, biologists, and historians tell us that all human life began with the black family. It is likely that what we as black people have learned over the millennia could be, must be, of use in mending the world. And as the seminal people, Africans, wherever we are in the world, must be prominent in righting the wrongs of history. The knowledge of healing is in us, as surely as wonder drugs are found in the bark of a tree.6

In decolonising my mind I try, and sometimes succeed, to not be divided. Freedom for me lies in being a whole person, resisting the multiple separations caused by colonialism. As such I do not talk about “sexuality.” In my culture, erotic pleasure without love and marriage is something for young people at a stage of experimentation. I do not judge it when adults do it, but it is not for me. To my mind, the issue of lesbianism is not about “sexuality”, it is about love. I shall not explore the question of why I am lesbian. It is not important, and indeed is a question as devoid of any logical answer as the question of the origin of heterosexuality. Historians have pondered, queer theorists have theorized, debates have raged, social constructionists have attacked creationists, who have responded by ever more virulent Biblethumping; yet at the end of the day from my viewpoint as an individual none of these debates matter. I am. That is a fact with which I have to live in my daily life, and insofar as I am social being, you have to live with it too. Being a lesbian does not liberate me from patriarchy. It simply means I do not have to sleep with it. Because I live in a specific conformation of urban South Africa, I can be a lesbian in terms of my social being as well as my private life. I do not need a man in my bed or in my house. I do not need a man to give me a name, provide me with a piece of land, food, or a roof over my head. A man does not protect me from multiple violations. In this sense I am a social lesbian. I can be one because of certain social conditions that allow me economic independence. It is for this reason that lesbian and bisexual life is at heart a Black feminist/womanist issue. The more we succeed in empowering women for economic independence, the more lesbian and bisexuals we are likely to see in society. I am not suggesting that economic independence causes lesbianism, only that the two are connected. There is a correlation, the variable in this case being freedom of choice. The question of causality is in any case, as I have said, a non-issue. One normally seeks to explain a problem. Lesbians are not the problem; a homophobic heteronormative patriarchal society is the problem. A socially conscious lesbianism is thus both premised on the success of the women’s movement, and seeks to contribute to its further success. 6

Maya, Angelou. “Great Expectations” in Robotham, Rosemarie (ed.) Mending the World: Stories of Family by Contemporary Black Writers. New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2003, pp. ix.

34 In posing social same-sex love as a question of women’s liberation, I shall be dealing with classic feminist questions. I shall define feminism here, broadly, as individuals and organizations seeking the freedom of women and therefore of necessity the freedom of everybody. The fact of women loving women is one I shall treat as fairly constant and present throughout history in different societies. What varies is the extent to which women are able to live out the desires they feel, and the extent to which this desire receives social recognition such as in the give and take of marriage and the formation of families. This is a crucial question confronting women’s liberation. In the extent that we manage to transform the family from the seat of patriarchy to the hotbed of revolution hangs both ours, and Africa’s future. I view the visibility of social lesbian and bisexuals as a key indicator of that change. Because these are such classic feminist questions, it is hard to avoid talking in catchphrases. So I shall not even try, and simply state that this article deals with, first, breaking the silence around women loving women. Second, I discuss the coming to voice of a burgeoning lesbian and bisexual movement in southern Africa. Lastly, I look at how this translates into the taking of power that enables someone like me, for instance, to write and publish on this topic. As far as possible I want to focus on the practical and strategic because it seems to me that this is timely. However, since these things are often hard to separate in practice, I end with the general and theoretical question: to what extent do women contribute to the upholding of the institution of patriarchy? Surely in undermining patriarchy we should ensure that it is upheld by patriarchs and not by women. This is an important question because if there is anything in our behaviour for which we can take responsibility, and change, that should make the remainder of the problem of abolishing patriarchy much easier. Certainly the relationship of heterosexual women to lesbian and bisexuals is an excellent example of how some women uphold patriarchy, and their own heterosexual privilege thereby. Heterosexual privilege I shall define as the ability to gain self-esteem by loving and being loved; the approval, acceptance, and support of society in one’s loving relationships, and the institutional support of the legal, political and economic structures that govern society. All these are things that lesbians and bisexuals have to do without. In my title I quote from the great Audre Lorde who in speaking of the transformation of silence into language and action explained that there is no silence worth keeping.7 In moving from silence to language we first have to overcome our fear. There is a safety in silence. It kills, sometimes, but in moving from the known to the unknown, it sometimes happens that we treasure our fear. It hurts, but at least it is familiar. When we do speak we speak, it seems, of silence. It takes both time and courage to realize, as Lorde has said in her poem A Litany For Survival that When we speak we are afraid Our words will not be welcome But when we are silent We are still afraid.8

7

Lorde, Audre “The Transformation of Silence Into Language and Action.” Sinister Wisdom. Spring 1978. Lorde, Audre “A Litany For Survival” in The Black Unicorn: Poems. W. W. Norton, New York, 1978, pp. 3132. 8

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1 If we do not speak, emote, recover, plot, and plan a road to action we are doomed to live our lives in fear. Where fear lives, love cannot. Dysfunction may find a home, but the sharing and caring which is the foundation of the African family finds it hard to exist. This is not to say that there is not a place for silence. In the unnatural conditions of overcrowding in which most African families live, a decent reticence is sometimes the only privacy we can give each other. I myself still find it hard to speak of my love life in public. There is a traditionalist in me who, when I confront questions, desires to say ‘none of your damned business’. It is a shame and a sorrow to me that my private life should thus be a topic for discussions. Yet, for the silence that is born of fear, there is no place. Love, marriage and families are in part social phenomena, and when society seeks to deny these to me as a privilege reserved for heterosexuals, keeping my private life to myself becomes a luxury I cannot at this juncture afford. This is what Lorde tried to explain in her poem. As her biographer Alexis De Veaux remarks: “The poem’s ‘we’ at once made particular and universalized the private, speaking to the fear associated with the private, and to the importance of articulating the private as an act of survival.”9 To hug our fear to ourselves like an intimate partner is to court destruction. Ultimately, the only way out of fear is to speak. I do not carry this fear alone. In white supremacist capitalist heteropatriarchy, to be a woman is to live with fear. The prevalence of gender-based violence in this country acts to silence us. Fear and disassociation are psychological consequences of the trauma inflicted on us. Makhosana Xaba describes this effect so well in her poem The Silence of a Lifetime: She could not even cry For the shock of what was happening was numbing She kept telling herself she was dreaming Though she knew she was hearing right.10 I do not know what is the relationship between understanding and experience. I do not believe that there is no reality beyond the language, and I have scorned that for a white male middleclass conception that is easily dispelled by a day of gardening. However, I do believe that the interplay between understanding and experience are what constitutes a sound human reality, and that one without the other is a severe deprivation unless it is chosen (as in meditation). Under patriarchy rape is considered beyond human experience, and while the suffering and the pain of the object, and yes the vicarious pleasure patriarchs seem to experience in depicting rape are often portrayed, the act itself is veiled in silence. It is seldom described except in the most clinical of terms. Lacking then, a world of symbolism, a language of pain, a social sphere of communication about the moment of absolute objectification, the inward trauma and the social silence meet to create disassociation. In speaking then about this pain, we are already healing. It is a sign that we are beginning to reassociate with the world. Each one of us who speaks adds to a beginning of a social language in which to describe the indescribable. It brings violence against women into the realm of human experience. 9

De Veaux, Alexis Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde. New York: W. W. Norton, 2004, pp. 206. Xaba, Makhosazana “The Silence of A Lifetime” in These Hands. Limpopo Elim: Timbila Poetry Project, 2005, pp.18-20. 10

36 This requires an incredible amount of courage because of the fear that when we speak we will not be heard. It is not only that violence deprives us of speech. It is that when we are ready to speak, we are at a loss with what to say. What fuels our fear of speech is that in this patriarchal society what we hear is often so woman-hating that we are short of role-models of woman-loving voices. The language, so to speak, is lacking. All too often, as Myesha Jenkins says in Another Woman Is Dead we are afraid Because we said nothing Because it was too personal Because we didn’t want trouble Because we didn’t want to know11 Women die and continue to die in silence, and from silence. In a society filled with language and images that hate and objectify women, the public lack of a woman-loving language can kill us. This is why lesbian and bisexuals have such an important role to play in Black feminist/womanist struggles. No one loves women like we do. In order to love a woman, we are prepared to risk our jobs and confront social hatred, lifelong ostracism, rejection by our families and our churches, as well as the violence of patriarchy. That is a whole lot of love. When we are silenced, what is silenced with us is the language of loving women that could save even a heterosexual woman’s life. For those of us who live this reality, silence alone can kill us. Simply to be unable to be yourself, and to be under the necessity of hiding your deepest emotions is like a spiritual death. Rosalee Telela has made this point eloquently in her poem Unbroken Silence Seeking to violate All that you Were Is like needing To destroy part of your soul12 The part of our soul which is not attacked by the social void in which we must live truly suffers. When we are not silenced we are misnamed. Telela goes on to define this mode of woman-hating Names given to you Labels of intolerance Bitch, witch; But you were Mother of revolutionaries Sister to all Lesbian!13

11

Jenkins, Myesha, op. cit., 2005, pp. 21-22. Telela, Rosalee “Unbroken Silence” in Berman, A and M Krouse (eds.) The Invisible Ghetto. Johannesburg: COSAW, 1993. 13 Ibid. 12

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1 Name-calling is a way of misrepresenting our inner reality. Our lives become so distorted by those who have power to speak that woman-hating words become the dominant reality. As this hatred is spoken and acted out against women over and over again, we begin to cease to hear that inner voice which says that we are lovely and worthy of being loved. The mental and physical space within which we are meant to speak is finite. We have only so many hours in the day in which to speak, so many pens, ink, paper, and other physical media with which to speak. So, besides the infliction of trauma, the silence around the act, and the name-calling, the other way in which patriarchs silence us is simply through talking endlessly. By occupying the social space for speech, the matters and concerns of patriarchy become of exaggerated importance. The voices of woman-hatred crowd out our space for speaking. You can measure this quite easily. Simply go into a bookstore or an art gallery, and count the numbers of works by women of any sexuality, and how many by men.14 Time the minutes on radio and TV or count the column centimetres of any of our newspapers. You will see how women are simply crowded out of public discursive spaces. We are silenced not only by hatred but also because patriarchs simply drone on and on. They do not even see how we are deprived of our right to voice because they are not quiet for long enough to listen. And it stands to reason that if women as a group are silenced then the lesbian and bisexuals within that group are doubly silenced. Lastly we are silenced because when we speak we are often misheard. Quite obviously, to the extent that patriarchs are busy talking, they are failing to develop good listening skills. It is probably for this reason that, when I speak as a lesbian I am interpreted through the variety of stereotypes there exist about me in popular culture. It is a way not to hear me. Tricia Rose has argued that: Using simplistic categories may also encourage women who are looking for a way to express difficult experiences to grasp at the most socially acceptable label for their experience, thus collapsing complex and important aspects into the master narrative… How do we tell a story that moves across so many labels, as all our lives do? And most important, how can we – given the histories of manipulation, fragmentation, and denial of space for black women’s own sexual stories - in good conscience subject black women’s sexual narratives to these fragmenting strategies?15 If we are to cease to speak about silence and begin to give words to other parts of our experience, we need to understand not only the ways in which we are prevented from speaking, but also the ways in which our communication has been over determined by sexism and racism. We may deny it, indeed, we may be so used to the background noise against which our lives are played out that we do not notice it anymore. Patriarchal ideas of who we are (or supposed to be) mean that when we do speak, our fear that we will not be heard is a justified fear. It is not all in your mind.

14

. No, this is not to say that all men are women-hating, simply stating the fact that they are people with a privilege to protect. 15 Rose, Tricia Longing To Tell: Black Women Talk About Sexuality. New York: Farrar Strauss & Giroux, 2003, pp.6

38 As I tell my story, I have little hope that the background noise will disappear. Though we love women, our love is limited in its social impact when we are not heard. To make my meaning absolutely clear, let me define what we are talking about. Maya Angelou has this to say about love: By love I mean a condition that we are capable of and desperate for, which envelops and sustains and supports and encourages and doesn’t even have to touch... Yes, absolutely. I mean love that says, I free you; because only when we are free can we do the work of mending the world.16 When women loving women are silenced, we are not free. The very engine of a movement for women’s empowerment is broken down. That is why I ask you to hear me. For too long countless women have been forced to live the life recounted in Brenda Fassie’s classic love ballad Life Is Going On We’ve been trying Trying to find a place for love Where we can be together But we’ve been hiding Hiding the love we both know Is going on Oh, life is going on But it’s up to me and you What we’re gonna do?17 Try to imagine what it is like when you are punished for being what you are! Try to imagine a life where at first you even lack words for what it is you feel, and where the sheer act of naming is at once a relief and an imperative for survival only through the deepest secrecy! This is the life of many Black women even today in relatively liberal South Africa. Thus a sangoma (traditional healer) remembers the beginning of her love affair 14 years ago: I believe that’s where it started because after my husband paid lobola [brideprice] for her, she didn’t waste any time and moved in with me. Two weeks later when we were alone she started to ask me if I was a lesbian and bisexual and why I got married [to a man]. I told her the reason why I got married and asked her to explain the words gay, lesbian and homosexual to me. She explained them to me and we kept on talking. Then during our lovely conversation, she asked me how I felt about her. Did I feel attracted to her or what? I didn’t know what to say; then my heart started beating so fast that I found myself mumbling. She kissed me and told me that she was a lesbian but that she had to hide it because of how life was in the rural areas… I just shook my head, then we kissed and we never told anybody. We sleep together staying in the same house. She helps me inside the house and even assists with teaching the trainees. She has learnt to beat the drums and the trainees take her as their mother. They love her so much although they don’t know that we are lovers. It’s just between her and me.18 16

Angelou, Maya, “Great Expectations” pp. xii. . Fassie, Brenda “Life is Going On” on Mina Nawe CCP World Music, Johannesburg, no date. 18 Nkabinde, Nkunzi “’This Has Happened Since Ancient Times… It Is Something You Are Born With’: Ancestral Wives Amongst Same-Sex Sangomas in South Africa” in Morgan, Ruth and Saskia Wieringa (eds.) 17

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My question is not how love can survive in the absence of social approval, support, and a family network. Women loving women quite clearly can go on doing so in a silence that stretches for years and even decades. The daily details that build love and strengthen relationships are not lost: lovely conversations, a pot of food here, a hug and kiss there. But a love that exists in secret cannot do the things by which Angelou suggests love is defined. It brings us joy, but it cannot free us. Therefore it shall not free you.

Voice We tell our stories of war Like stories Of love, innocent as eggs But we will meet memory again At the wall around our city, Always for the first time19 The written history of the organized lesbian and bisexual struggle to survive and resist in South Africa is not extensive, probably because we are still so busy struggling.20 I came to the lesbian and bisexual struggle late in life. First there was the Black struggle, then the women’s struggle, and not that either of them are won, but the love that is in me for Black women came to care more and more for the fate of my own. Strategically this has proved a good move. If the family is the foundation for the African revolution, I reasoned, then how can we fight on while homophobia is tearing families apart and destroying its members? When lesbians and bisexuals speak, they speak of violence: After I gave birth to my son I started to hate my grandfather very much. I wanted to let someone know about it but I could not do it. When I tried to tell my grandmother she beat me up and said that I was making up stories, so that was the other thing. I was very close to my grandmother and I wanted to ask her why she beat me up because I was telling the truth. I used to hate him so much because I felt I was not like everybody else, and I was feeling dirty inside and I was the only that knew about this secret. The other thing that makes me angry is that he died in 1997 and in that very year I got raped again… I wanted the whole family to know about this because maybe I am not the only one. I was thinking about my younger sisters, and the thing that

Tommy Boys, Lesbian Men and Ancestral Wives: Female Same-Sex Practices in Africa. Johannesburg: Jacana Media, 2005, pp. 244. 19 Baderoon, Gabeba “Always For the First Time” in The Dream In the Next Body. Kwela Books, 2005, pp. 22. 20 Cf. Koen, Karen and Patricia Terry “South Africa” in Rosenbloom, Rachel (ed.) Unspoken Rules: Sexual Orientation and Women’s Human Rights, International Gay Lesbian and Bisexual Human Rights Commission, USA, 1995; Fester, Gertrude “Lesbian and bisexual Lobby: Apartheid’s Closet” in Reinfelder, Monika (ed.) From Amazon To Zami: Towards a Global Lesbian Feminism. London: Cassell, 1996.

40 made me angry is that he used to beat me up all the time and he knew that I was so scared of being beaten. He would say that if I tell, I would die.21 In retelling this story, I would not like to feed into the stereotype that lesbian women are women-loving because of rape and childhood abuse. Not only does this stereotype hide a very strange attitude about the love of women – are women so disgusting that it must take the violence of men to love them? – but it also is factually wrong. If the stereotype were true, one out of two women in South Africa would be lesbian or bisexual, which is unfortunately not the case. I would like to ground our solidarity in a shared oppression. Like heterosexual women, Black lesbians and bisexuals experience a multitude of violence. We also experience added oppression. As we learn to keep silence about our sexuality we are forced into silence about the violence done against us. In this sense, the silence inflicted upon us by the loss of heterosexual privilege reminds us of the powerlessness inflicted by rape. It is this double violation that makes many lesbians feel that: [w]e are living on a different planet. Men would want to rape you just because you are a lesbian. They want to make sure or remind you that you are a woman. The other problem is that we dress like men and people don’t like it. Men say we dress smarter and better than they do; they also say we have money … Some say we have beautiful girls.22 As with heterosexual women, rape and the threat of rape function as important means of social control. As it used to be for heterosexual women in the past, other women (or matriarchs) contribute to this social control by keeping silent about the abuse, enforcing silence on the victim, and continuing to show solidarity with the perpetrator. Twenty years of breaking the silence around the rape of heterosexual women means that for them, the secondary victimization of enforced silence is now changing. But for lesbians, it has turned out that our new visibility may have led to an escalation of this violence. Some believe that breaking the silence has posed such a fundamental challenge to patriarchy that it is responding by increasingly virulent attacks on our bodies and spirits. At least this is the opinion of Funeka Soldaat when she writes, After 1994, many gays started coming out to their families. Most parents didn’t deal with this and evicted the children. There may also be changes in the house, for example they wouldn’t speak to you, etcetera. And so some people would voluntarily move out of the house. A member of the family, like a cousin, will rape a lesbian and the family refuses to lay charges because they want to deal with it in the family. And so also the lesbian would voluntarily move out of the house. The highest number of evictions seems to be in Guguletu, where we have about five cases a month. Lesbians seem to ‘hang’ in Guguletu and move there. The second most cases are in Khayelitsha, where I know of about six cases per month. I am a longstanding member of the ANC, which makes it easier because of my personal relationships with 21

Cited in Kheswa, Busi “’My Attitude Is Manly… A Girl Needs To Walk On The Aisle’: Butch-Femme Subculture in Johannesburg, South Africa” in Morgan and Wieringa. Ibid., pp. 202. 22 Cited in Kheswa “’My Attitude Is Manly” in Morgan and Wieringa. Ibid., pp. 218.

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1 comrades over the long term. So when I started coming out in 1990 it was easier [for me]. After 1995 new lesbians coming out would be too militant and so increase their suffering with their families. Most lesbians move from the Eastern Cape to Khayelitsha to come out [just to be] surprised by widespread homophobia (sic).23

While lacking Soldaats’s extensive experience in practical fieldwork, this is a point on which I feel obliged to somewhat hesitantly differ. It seems to me that women get raped, anyway, whether they speak or not. Silence does not protect us. The explanation may be that the structural violence that is patriarchy seeks a target, and socially visible lesbians and bisexuals become a focus for the violence that would otherwise be directed towards heterosexual married women. If this is true it should not surprise us that heterosexual women are sometimes most active in the destruction of the family embodied in throwing their children out of the house. Perhaps they are hoping that the violence will follow their children and leave the house. Gradually, we are changing the climate around gender-based violence against heterosexual women. Slowly but surely, this is becoming delegitimized. However, as these examples show, the rape of women-loving women remains as legitimate as ever. The men who are raping or threatening to rape of lesbian and bisexual women simply do not think it is wrong. Neither, by all reports, do the women who support these men. It seems that the violence of patriarchy, instead of diminishing by twenty years of struggle, is merely turning towards targets that remain unprotected by the women’s movement and women at large. This is not revolution. It is not even reform. It could be called a collective expression of battered women’s syndrome. It is not unknown for women who are relatively powerless to turn a blind eye, if not aid and abet, the violation of another. The mother who refuses to hear about the rape of her daughter by a man on whom they are financially, emotionally or socially dependent is the classic example. Could this be what is happening to our women’s movement? Perhaps fortunately, lesbians are responding by refusing to co-operate. By and large, and despite the formation of separatist organizations, we are not leaving the organizations and institutions of which we are a part. Instead we are talking back. Increasingly, we are taking on heteropatriarchy out of a sense of the respect that is due to us. As one woman said to her pastor, My parents who have given birth to me within the church and would never say to me that I have to leave the church just because I have relationships with women. My parents brought me to the church and the church likes me and unfortunately while I am having relationships with women I am staying in this church. God who has given birth to me in this church made me like this until He will change me and so I will not be chased away by your preaching and I will stay here in this church. This church has been built with the 30 dollars contributions that I have been giving.24 23

Cited in Muthien, Bernadette. Meeting Women’s Needs: Report on a Pilot Study. Cape Town: Triangle Project, 2005, pp. 13-14. 24 Cited in Khaxas, Elizabeth “ ‘I Am a Pet Goat, I Will Not Be Slaughtered’: Female Masculinity and Femme Strength Amongst the Damara in Namibia” in Morgan and Wieringa.Ibid., pp. 146.

42

In the same way, we are not leaving the women’s movement. Though out of the closet, we are here to stay. We are, however, beginning to wonder when our comrades will give up their heterosexual privileges and join us in the trenches of creating women-loving lives. Despite some few shining exceptions, it seems as if heterosexual privilege, including the privilege of not seeing the epistemic violence done to us, is the last thing conscious feminists will give up. Some will even justify it by blaming the victim. Whether the precarious solidarity displayed by the women’s movement will remain intact is a question we can only answer in political practice. The answer lies in women’s ability to ensure that there struggle is not just against patriarchy, but also against the principle of hierarchy itself. In other words, the more revolutionary our struggle, the more likely it is that we will stick together. This applies to Africanism as much as to Black feminism/womanism. Thus in pondering how we can move from silence through language to action Lorde asked a pertinent question: Why is women loving women so threatening to black men, unless they want to assume the white male position?25 This question is important. If I were to identify the most pressing problem in postcolonial Africa, then surely it is black men’s determination to be on top. Issues such as land, water and sanitation, food and clothing, education, health and housing should be at the top of our list of priorities. Yet these are all questions we can solve. The technology exists to do so. What we have not yet managed to sort out are the forms of human organization that could deliver these concrete things. Like Lorde, I think it is wise to consider why the African patriarchy finds lesbian and bisexualism so threatening. Is it because they wish to keep all the women to themselves, or is it under themselves? The price we are paying for this is an inability to devote attention to more serious issues. While women and children starve – lesbian and straight alike - the fact of the matter is that fundamentalist religion, along with cell-phones, BMW’s and three-piece suits, are as un-African as some people would like to pretend that lesbian and bisexuals are. None of us are winning in the “I am more African than you” competition.” To put it in the words of Mary Hames, Attacks on homosexuality in the name of preserving African authenticity are a prime example of the licence enjoyed by homophobes at the cost of the dignity of lesbians and gays. When sections of society or representatives of the state claim that homosexuality is not African, I tend to wonder what they really think Christianity is.26 The competition itself is a symptom of our childishness and evidence to the colonization of our minds. We have come to believe the white man’s myth that we are unable 25

Rich, Adrienne “Interview with Audre Lorde”, cited in De Veaux Warrior Poet, pp. 213. Hames, Mary “The Women’s Movement and Lesbian and Gay Struggles in South Africa” in Feminist Africa Issue 2, 2003, http://\www.feministafrica.org/fa%202/02-2003/sp-mary.html, pp 1 of 3. Last accessed 4/4/2006.

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1 to govern ourselves, and so instead of taking our adult responsibility to sort out a moral philosophy and a social organization that can actually feed the hungry and clothe the naked, we are playing silly games. So I am not trying to play on anybody’s sympathy. Heterosexual feminists do not need to fight homophobia because they feel sorry for us. They should rise against it because it is about them. A homophobic moral philosophy undermines the African family. Inasmuch as it undermines the African family it also undermines the social organization that is fundamental to our communities, countries and continent. It keeps us from moving forward. Power The historic connection between economic independence and lesbianism is the root cause of the homophobia embedded in African patriarchy. After all, if a woman does not need to be married to a man and bear sons in order to eat and stay alive, then when will it all end? We might just cease to provide the free labour that keeps patriarchy ticking and the African man on top. Homophobia needs to be seen together with gender-based violence as a system designed to enable the exploitation of the free labour of women. After all, one of the most basic ways in which women are discriminated against is through economic exploitation. Women today are oppressed and are being forced to work without getting paid. Slavery is illegal in the constitutions of countries throughout the world, but in all these countries women work without getting paid for their work. When one puts all this work together, we can root the continuation of patriarchy in the unpaid care economy. The unpaid care economy is the economy which lies side by side of the paid, productive economy, but which is not seen. The language of silence veils the slave work that is the foundation of the capitalist economy. This free labor is called ‘women’s work’ and is therefore not recognized. Yet the paid economy could not exist without the care economy. As Genevieve Vaughan wryly observed, the micro-economics of a different (gift-based) macroeconomic system takes place in every household. Women’s un-monetized gift labor has been invisible to economists until recently because those who were practicing the values of exchange were the only ones studying it. Now some women economists, who like other women have been socialized towards mothering and the practices of gift giving, are applying gift values to the study of exchange and to their profession and are experiencing a great deal of healthy cognitive dissonance.27 The care economy refers to the reproductive work women do which men generally do not. It is unpaid. It restocks the pool of employees/workers which companies and family farms need in order to produce and make money. By making babies and thus, people, and by bringing people up until they are of a working age, women also make workers for the economy. It may be argued that parents have a duty/obligation to care for their children, as indeed they do. It is odd, however, that women carry out this duty more than men. So this 27

Vaughan, Genevieve. “For-Giving: A Feminist Criticism of Exchange.” Austin: Plain View Press, 2004, pp. 53.

44 argument does not release us from the obligation of asking why this particular duty belongs only to women, rather than men, simply because they are women. Men and women both have hands to work and hearts to care. With the exception of the first task, physical reproduction, there is nothing else that prevents this work from being done by men. The ‘duty’ argument, therefore, merely shows that we live in a society ruled by continued gender inequalities. It could be argued that the unpaid care economy has been taken into account in the wages paid to men. In the sense that it is found in the assumed ‘family wage’ paid out to those men who do work. This would be fine, if there was any country in the world with a labour market in women’s care labour, where one was able to determine what was the market wage for such labour, and whether women elsewhere in fact were receiving the equivalent in food, shelter, etc. However today, this argument no longer makes sense because most women work. In Africa most women have always worked. Also, this argument assumes that the wage that is paid to the breadwinner, that is the person working and bringing money into the home, actually does reach the care workers, i.e. women. This cannot be shown to be the case. Many single working mothers carry the burden of the double working day. These women get no money from fathers. For this argument to make sense it would have to be shown, rather than assumed, that even married or co-habiting women have any access to their husband’s earnings. Moreover, in Africa, where 75 % of the continent’s food is produced by women in small scale and non-cash survival farming and where women perform a staggering 66 % of their labour hours without pay, this argument makes no sense.28 When women have to take most of the responsibility for providing the family’s food, the wage that is paid to working men definitely is not a ‘family wage.’ When you see homophobia, have another look and see if there is not a woman working for free somewhere in the background. And see the connections between that slavery and our state of unfreedom! I pose no threat to your freedom, only to the nexus of oppression you think of as your comfort zone. If centuries of unpaid labour have not destroyed the African family, it is certain that lesbians and bisexuals are not going to do it. Instead, when we reject the silence about women loving women, we open up a space for us to begin to talk about other things too, like slavery. It is for this reason that it is so important to be a social lesbian and bisexual, to speak about our love and let it be visible. It demarcates an important boundary that would otherwise remain fuzzy.29 When people throw stones at me, they are so obviously not doing more useful work. Homophobia needs to be seen as part of the patriarchal toolbox designed to keep women down. So where do you want to be? REVOLUTION Question: My experiences as an activist have always been coupled with a lot of disillusionment and self sacrifice and pain. I’m not as active as I should be, and your challenge brings a lot to the fore. I wonder how, I mean, I am young, and I’m thinking about the future – Angela: How old are you? 28

Figures calculated for 1990/1991. UNECA/African Centre for Women African Women Report: Participation of Women in the Economic Sector 1996, pp. 78 and 68. 29 Cannot resist the story of the Christian fundamentalist march against gays and lesbians that walked past three women’s shelters, 2 orphanages, an old age home and a squatter camp in order to reach town and vow to rid society of the ‘scourge.’

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1 Question: Twenty three. If I do this – Angela: You already have your activist era behind you? Question: And I’m already taking a break. That’s what worries me. Angela: Have you ever had difficulties in a love relationship – have you given it all up? Question: No. Angela: Because of the pain you’re not willing to give up love? Well, then why should you give up justice?30 It never hurts to restate the obvious. In order to build a revolution we need to see where we are going. Although we must build on the best of the past, we cannot go back, only forward. The place we are going is a place we have never been in our life-time: freedom. To find the way there we need visionaries, poets, dreamers, rebels and freethinkers. The place where we are in the South African freedom struggle is a very particular one. We have solved some of the big political problems. But when we blind our visionaries and silence our poets, we are obliterating our roadmap to the future. It is because of this that I question the feminism of heterosexual women who do not actively, openly, and loudly support the rights of their lesbian and bisexual sisters to live out their vision of a women-loving world. Having said that, I think we have spoken enough of rights. I have transformed silence into language. What we need now is action. I would suggest that the first step is for women and the women’s movement to take responsibility for our own actions. To what extent do we enforce heteropatriarchy on each other? My vision for the future is for us to examine the ways in which we as women uphold the patriarchy. If we can identify the ways in which we do this, and then cease to do it, surely half the battle will be won.

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Davis, Angela. “Dialogue” in Bright, Susan (ed.) Feminist Family Values Forum: Mililani Trask Gloria Steinem, Angela Davis, Maria Jimènez. Austin: Plain View Press, 1996, pp. 66.

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Africa and Gay Rights Leo Igwe∗

Will Africans ever accept gay rights as human rights? Will African governments ever decriminalize homosexuality and abolish all forms of discrimination based on sexual orientation? These questions have become pertinent given the heated debate, tension and division over homosexuality in Africa since the consecration of Gene Robinson, an openly gay bishop in the American Episcopal Church. The controversy has pitched a conservative religious majority of Africans who oppose the rights of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, and Transgender (LGBT) against the liberal minority of humanists, human rights activists and religious liberals who support these rights. Today, the general impression is that Africa is a homophobic society unrepentantly opposed to the rights of LGBTs. In this piece, I will argue that this is not true, and that precolonial Africa was tolerant and accommodative of people with diverse sexual orientations. ∗

Leo Igwe is the executive secretary of the Nigerian Humanist Movement and the director of the International Humanist and Ethical Union in West Africa. He is also a member of the International Resource Network-Africa and a staunch defender of young girls against sexual abuse in Nigeria.

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1 The image of homophobic Africa is a product of cultural corruption and misrepresentation by Christian and Islamic fanatics and their political cohorts – which Humanists in Africa must try to correct and eradicate. Challenging the Un-African Myth One popular myth being trumped by homophobes and gay bashers is that homosexuality is un-African. They argue that homosexuality is a perverse sexual habit introduced to Africa by westerners. This claim is blatantly false, and does not in anyway takes into account the cultural facts and realities in pre-colonial Africa. Before the advent of Western and Arab colonists to Africa, the black continent comprised autonomous communities, kingdoms, ethnic nationalities and peoples with diverse cultural norms and ethos. The different group entities were governed by legislations, conventions and consensus of traditional rulers, priests and elders. Cultural norms were based on the needs of the society and whatever each group considered to be good, right and proper. Due to high mortality rate, there was great emphasis on procreative and reproductive sex as opposed to non-procreative sexual relationships. So, heterosexuality was the norm, because it served a need. It guaranteed the continued existence and survival of the society. That heterosexuality was the norm does not imply that homosexuality was never practiced or that homosexuals never existed in Africa. Homosexuals existed but they never enjoyed full rights as heterosexuals. Homosexuality was practiced but it was not accorded that same status as heterosexuality. And it is interesting to note that among the Igbo in southern Nigeria, ‘same sex marriage’ is practiced. Women marry women. A childless woman or one who has no son is allowed to marry another woman who arranges to bear children with a man outside the marriage. Normally, sex outside marriage is considered a taboo that is an immoral act. But in this case, it is permitted for childbearing purposes. The popular and traditional perception is that homosexuality lacks any reproductive and procreative intent and is therefore futile. “What has somebody to gain by having sex with someone of the same sex?” A Ghanaian recently asked me. Because of the emphasis on reproductive sex and childbirth, homosexuals in Africa were forced to live and express themselves privately and secretly, but certainly not without the knowledge of other members of the community. So homosexuals contracted heterosexual marriages, just to fulfill the social --not necessarily the individual-- need for children and lived ‘normal’ lives. Homosexuals lived under false identities, and operated behind sexual masks. And this was not just the case in ancient Africa, but it was also true, until recently, of other cultures and communities worldwide. Traditionally in Africa, homosexuality was not perceived as evil as it is the case today. In pre-colonial Africa, people were penalized, lashed, exiled, stoned to death, for murder, rape or theft and not just for homosexuality where such penalty existed. Gay people have always existed in Africa, but as a minority. Following the introduction of Islam and Christianity in Africa, hatred, persecution and liquidation gay people replaced cultural toleration. So, it is homophobia, not homosexuality that is alien to Africa. The Negative Influence of Christianity and Islam Religion -especially Christianity and Islam – has had a very negative and corrupting influence on African thought and culture. After centuries of indoctrination, proselytizing and

48 brainwashing, most Africans abandoned their traditional religions, thoughts and ethos, and embrace the alien dogmas and doctrines of Christianity and Islam including the teaching that homosexuality is evil, sinful and criminal. The Bible made it clear that homosexuality is an offence against God. In the Old Testament, gay sex is believed to be among the sins that led to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Under Islamic Sharia, sodomy is a crime punishable by death. Today, Africans fear, hate, and discriminate against LGBTs mainly because their Bible and Koran tell them to do so. Africans persecute gays and lesbians because their religions sanction and sanctify it. What we are witnessing today in Africa is a religious – Christianity and Islam – based homophobia. The Political Angle Western and Arab imperialists did not just impose their religious norms on African converts and colonies. They also introduced legislations and constitutions based on their faiths and holy books. After gaining independence, African leaders adopted with slight alterations these colonial legislations as national laws. Former British colonies – Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, etc., based their constitution and criminal law on the British Common Law, which until the 60’s criminalized homosexuality. Islamic majority states like Sudan and Libya based their national legislation on the Sharia that sanctions death for gay sex. So, in contemporary Africa, homosexuality is illegal because of a colonial legacy and legislations that African governments have refused to revisit, revise or abandon. Incidentally, Britain whose laws were adopted by many African countries at Independence has decriminalized gay sex. Christianity in the West is becoming tolerant and respectful of the rights and identities of LGBTs. In Africa, political and religious leaders still have their heads buried in the sands of outdated and abandoned legislations and revelations. Thus the time has come for African leaders to revise and reform national legislations and religious teachings to reflect the progress humankind has made intellectually, socially, morally and culturally in this 21st century. The Challenge Facing Humanists in Africa Humanists support gay rights and oppose all forms of discrimination against people on the basis of their sexual orientation. In Africa, humanists face a dire and daunting task. This is because Africa is a deeply religious society. And what prevails on the continent is a religion-based homophobia. And humanists themselves constitute a minority in the region. One of the challenges facing humanists in Africa is correcting several misconceptions being peddled by homophobes and gay bashers to justify gay attack persecution and killing. They include claims that homosexuality is a bestial act and that gay sex is sinful, and unnatural. Humanists need to enlighten Africans so that they would understand that homosexuals are human beings- equal in dignity and right with other humans. Africans need to know that the holy books were written at a time gays had not gone open and public with their orientation and identities. Additionally, they also need to realize that the sacred texts sanction a lot of immoral acts like slavery, genocide, racism, oppression of women, torture, and inhumane and degrading treatment as well and therefore cannot serve as a moral guide for humanity in this 21st century. Humanists need to support efforts to decriminalize homosexuality and abolish all forms of discrimination against LGBTs in Africa. They need to get African countries to

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1 realize that state sponsored homophobia is in breach of their obligations under the international human rights law including the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights. Humanists need to campaign vigorously for the separation of all religions and states because it is the mixing religious beliefs and politics that makes homophobia a state policy in most African countries. In Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Egypt, Libya, Sudan, the anti gay legislations have the staunch backing of religious groups. In South Africa, most of those who opposed the legalization of gay marriage were religious organizations. And it is only by keeping religion and the state separate that the influence of religious groups on policy and laws can be effectively curtailed, and neutralized. African humanists must strive to ensure that their governments and laws are secular, that is, beneficent and protective of all, and oppressive and biased for and against none. Globally, humanists have championed and realized social reforms in different areas of life. In the West, Humanists have contributed to the revision of laws and the enactment of progressive legislations in the areas of abortion, birth control, divorce, voluntary euthanasia, and gay marriage in spite stiff opposition from religious groups and theocratic institutions. In Africa the stage is set for humanists to repeat the same feat and contribute to the enlightenment of the continent. African Humanists must lead the way in the fight against homophobia and in the struggle for the abolition of all forms of discrimination against people on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, belief, sex or sexual orientation.

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The Continent as a Closet: The Making of an African Queer Theory Notisha Massaquoi∗ “I hope to see more women being liberated or stand for what they believe in and hope to see a universe free of discrimination torture and violence.” Fannyann Eddy, educator/activist and founder of the Sierra Leone Lesbian and Gay Association (SLLAGA)

Several years ago my 17 year old neighbour was so excited to show me a copy of a local Canadian gay newspaper. Inside there was a wonderful picture of her kissing her girlfriend at a solidarity protest event. A violent attack on a queer couple reignited the spirit of grass roots organizing in Toronto where I live and approximately 80 people staged a kiss in solidarity against gay bashing in our communities. They were also raising public awareness for gay marriage which was being debated by the Canadian Parliament at the time. My neighbour is black, female and queer,31 living in Canada and despite the rights and freedom she is entitled to enjoy as a Canadian born citizen she must still fight for the basic right to live in a homophobic free environment. I can not help but think about this through the lens of being a queer African originally from Sierra Leone who lives in Canada and what does that same fight mean as I oscillate between my two worlds. As members of the Canadian parliament prepared to debate and cast their vote on same – sex marriage, myself and members of the African queer communities in Canada were reeling from the brutal murder of Sierra Leone queer rights activist Fannyann Eddy32 on September 29, 2004. This vicious attack on such an internationally prominent, outspoken queer rights activist was a wake up call for members of African queer communities not only on the continent but for those of us living in the Diaspora. It epitomized the brutality of persecution experienced by members of the queer communities globally, the lack of protection afforded by our communities and the dire need for a unified global movement which could protect the rights of all, challenge cultural norms, provide support and monitor the human rights of queer individuals globally as opposed to the sole enhancement of the rights of those living in the West. The brutal murder of ∗

Notisha Massaquoi is originally from Sierra Leone and currently resides in Canada. She is the Executive Director of Women’s Health in Women’s Hands Community Health Center for Black women of color and a Doctoral Candidate at the University of Toronto. Her most recent publication is the edited book Theorizing Empowerment: Canadian Perspectives on Black Feminist Thought (Inanna 2007). She is currently working on a second collection with Selly K. Thiam entitled None one Record: Stories of Queer Africa. 31 I use the term queer as an act of agency and in reference to same sex desire or any alternative to compulsory heterosexuality. I use this term with particular reference to same sex desire from an African context in which labels such as lesbian and gay are not fixed identities and where there are a multiplicity of sexualities not yet defined within an African context. 32 Fannyann Eddy age 30 was an African leader in the queer rights movement. She founded the Sierra Leone Lesbian and Gay Association and was comfortable being known as the only openly queer person living in her country. Fannyann Eddy, was repeatedly stabbed, raped and her neck broken. Her murder took place on the night of 28/29 September, 2004. Assailants broke into the SLLAGA office in Freetown, while she was working alone late at night. She is survived by a 9 year old son. Just prior to her death she made a submission to the United Nations in Geneva addressing the persecution of queers in Africa, urging African political leaders to address homophobia in their countries.

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1 Fannyann on African soil challenges our queer immigrant and refugee notions of home and return, it challenges our taken for granted rights and freedoms as members of queer communities in the Diaspora and it challenges our notions of citizenship and true belonging within a nation. What we essentially have are multiple imaginings of home which influence and are influenced by identity, perceived freedom and the political strength to effect change (Mohanty 1998; Lemelle et al, 1994; James 1994). On the one hand those of us living in the Diaspora are fighting to increase our rights in the West and push the western queer rights agenda in which we are still marginalized as African people while at the same time we are fighting for basic survival and validation of our existence in countries of origin. Arguments have been made that transnationality and migration are shrinking the possibility of an operative civil society in developing nations or that the creation of transnational communities is due to the increasing failure of a civil society in developing nations (Mohanty 1998). This decontextualized analysis is further perpetuated within the western notion that the ability to facilitate movement towards the advanced west symbolizes passage from the primitive to the civilized and a form of upward mobility for the non westerner (Bammer 1994; Brennan 1997). Those that remain behind will subconsciously or even consciously be viewed in a state of inferiority. We are clearly seeing this racist discussion play itself out in the west’s depiction of the treatment of queer citizens in Africa. Despite the fact that human rights abuses linked to sexual orientation happen in every country globally, the issue has clearly become a North-South discussion in which the Africans barbarically kill queer citizens while Canadians are humanely debating whether they can marry. Gay bashing in Canada is seen as a random act of violence by a homophobic individual and gay bashing in African nations is seen as the backwardness, primitiveness of the entire society. As queer Africans living in the Diaspora we often get caught up in surviving, and managing the settlement, the immigration process and navigating an inhospitable racial environment but we also must remember that we have an important role to play in the queer rights movement both in the west and on the continent. Our presence and participation is important in dismantling the marginalization which persists within the western rights movement as well as in the validation of our existence in countries of origin. Both politically and economically transnational Africans have a vital role to play in contemporary social processes operating at an increasingly global scale, and any theory which truly reflects queer Africans must account for complex, dynamic, overlapping geographies and oscillating identities while interrogating the relations between transnational subjects, their nations of origin and destination and an understanding of cultural and sexual dynamics. One of the biggest challenges facing any project that attempts to dismantle or interrogate a system in which one group dominates another is to provide for a new system that does not reproduce the structure of the old one (Fanon 1963). In proposing a need for an African queer theory to emerge, there must be a strategic effort to avoid simply assimilating to dominant western culture essentializing notions of queer identity. We must become fluent in each other’s histories if we are to undo the ingrained mythologies that constrain us (Alexander 1997). It is not my intention with this project to correct the record of queer African invisibility by locating queer African heroes and sheroes from our past, a strategy that has often been used by African and Black nationalist movements. Instead I am developing tools and methodologies to interrogate the conditions that make possible, and those that constrain, the emergence of individuals to be called queer Africans.

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52 The idea that the emergence of queer Africans might be a desirable outcome remains unthinkable for many. A queer African theory aims to identify some of the changes in our political and cultural approaches necessary for the realization of such a potential. These changes, I believe, will facilitate positive modes of thinking and behavior beyond the current exclusionary logic. Heterosexism for example can be overcome only by actively imagining a necessarily and desirably queer world (Warner, 2002). African queers exist by virtue of the world they elaborate together. This project elaborates the many diverse truths and challenges facing queered liberation projects both in terms of identity and space. It also highlights that any movement of queer liberation can not be representative without proactively addressing community - building, providing the tools for communities to do so and reaching beyond the intellectual landscape of academic theories. We are looking at the rearticulation and reconfiguration of queer lives that do not necessarily resolve or dissolve its conflicts and tensions but instead refashion them into proactive patterns of thought and behavior. I am suggesting that we strive to identify the constructed silences within our work and transform them into meaningful practice. By expanding the ways that we think about queerness we will also be opening up our theories to a wider audience (Escoffier 1990; Berube et.al. 1991; Valdes 2002). What is an African queer theory? One way to understand its purpose is to look at how we intend it to operate. The queer project I imagine is one in which the theory functions as a narrative of Africa’s political history and queer Africans relationship to it. It operates as an articulation of the courage and power of queer Africans and our historical resistance to oppression. And finally it functions as a utopian story for our future as queer Africans on the continent. This theory links our common understanding of a shared past, an assessment of our present circumstances and a solution for a shared future. A queer African theory links us globally with the experiences of all queer communities, while honoring our unique experiences as important. A queer African theory is the articulated consciousness of our awareness as queer Africans dependent on geographical and historical context. It is the recognition of the current sites of impossibility for us as queer Africans and the possibility of future transformations. In the final scene of the Dakan (1997), the first queer feature film from sub-Saharan Africa, we see two young male lovers drive off towards the unknown. What has unfolded in this film is the story of two young men who by "coming out" to their African families must disappear, become invisible, due to the fact that their society does not yet have the capacity to recognize their union. As a result, the film itself does not have the capacity to depict how life unfolds for these two men as they decide to accept their destiny and form a lasting relationship. The fairytale ending is not possible here since narratives are not available for the integration of queer relationships into mainstream African society. While “coming out” in North America is becoming almost trendy and mainstream, this however is an African story whereby one is forced into non-existence, into obscurity by the same act. The father of one of the young men articulates the potential consequences of “coming out” in an African context. “Do you know what this means? The whole town, our family will be scandalized, horrified, everyone will be terrified by the two of you, the whole country will treat you as outlaws and criminals.” Theoretically speaking in an African context by “coming out” one runs the risk of shaming, terrifying and losing not only family and community but also ones nation. The category of queer is a category in which one becomes an outlaw and is operating outside the

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1 boundaries of the nation therefore positioning one to be punished within it and banished from it for disrupting heterosexual norms. I am using the film Dakan (1997) as a starting point for a much broader discussion within which to theorize a life experience which has yet to be imagined on any large scale. The nonheterosexual African cannot be imagined and therefore occupies a space of impossibility in a family, in a community, in a nation. As was stated by a mother in the film when her son asks her if it is bad to be attracted to another boy, “It never happens, since the beginning of time it never happens.” There is a cultural assumption of heterosexuality being the only legitimate sexual expression and with this heteronormativity being taken for granted, same sex relations are rendered invisible. This phenomenon is also noted by Machera (2004) in the response given by African students when the issue of homosexuality is raised in the classroom: “That is impossible! It can’t happen! If it does, they will be cast out! I would advise them to go to America”… the suggestions are endless – no compromise” (p. 163). One of the biggest challenges of queer Africans globally is invisibility (Murray et. al., 1998;Arnfred, 2004). It is a common belief that there is no such thing as homosexuality in most African countries. Currently South Africa is the only country on the continent that recognizes the rights of the gay and lesbian citizens and all others have sodomy laws and/or homosexuality is illegal. It therefore becomes obvious that the creation of an effective queer African presence behind any border would involve the active rejection of the notion of invisibility globally within our nations of origin and within nations of the African Diaspora where African bodies are also present. We must therefore address concepts of queerness on the continent simultaneously as we address them in the African Diaspora due to the fact that these same concepts travel with queer African bodies as they cross borders. We must also link the idea that the struggles of queer Africans everywhere is vital testimony to the presence of same sex desire on the African continent. In order to identify ourselves rather than be defined by others, we must first see and come to know ourselves. We can no longer cooperate in the maintenance of our own invisibilityessentially facilitating the queer disappearance of Africans. Our silence as queer Africans can no longer protect us. The practice of erasure inevitably facilitates imposed violence on queer Africans and undermines the political project of community formation both locally and globally. This practice effectively undercuts the intellectual integrity and moral force of sexual orientation justice (Valdes 1997). If we have no language to articulate queer identities in Africa, if we claim they do not exist, then our persecution also does not exist. An unfortunate result of these efforts to address and remedy the historical denial of queer Africans by expanding our understanding of who might constitute the historical queer African is the creation of the essentialized queer African. Due to lack of documentation and theorizing about African same sex desire and a reliance on a western queer theoretical framework, our attempts to recuperate historical accounts may identify queer subjects past and present who may not themselves identify as such and leave out those who comfortably are situated within the identity. For example, in Swahili there is no equivalent word for "homosexual" - although a word for feminised man exists, and the word basha indicates a male penetrative partner. Boywives were recognised in Zande, Arab/Bantu and Siwi cultures, often with family approval. The boy would later be married to a woman, the former "husband" paying the bride price (Murray et.al. 1998). To label customary and complex relationships as "queer" or homosexual as colonial

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54 officials did, is the work of arrogant reductionism while the subsequent essentializing of identity by enlightened modern day queer activists strikes against the multiple competing aspects of sexual behavior versus sexual identity in African societies. It must then be the work of the current project to make culturally based distinctions between queer African behavior and queer African identity. Being queerly marked entails the realignment of identity, politics and desire as one moves between cultures, metropolises, regions and nations. Being kisi, kifi, buyazi, mashoga, tousso bakari, a grinder, AC/DC, woubie, a woman who does business, a Tommy boy, homosexual, lesbian, queer, gay, transgendered involves answering to those terms, acting on emotions, feeling desire and engaging in the sexual practices that have different meanings dependent on the social environment. What does it mean to be queerly marked and answer to those terms in Africa and what happens when that queerly marked African body becomes transnational in the west as part of the African Diaspora? The possibility of future imaginings of queer African lives is needed for the future imaginings of an African queer theory. Future imaginings of an African queer theory will lead to the development of a framework that enables us to articulate the complexities of the lives produced by interactions of race, nationalism, culture, ethnicity, identity and sexuality. Primarily, concerned with documenting past and current manifestations and implications of same sex attractions, queer theory operates from the perspective that heterosexuality or normative sexuality could not exist without queer or anti-normative sexualities. How do sexualized identities shaped by silence, erasure and invisibility coexist with other sexualities? How do we as queer Africans articulate the stories that shape our lives? I do not wish to essentialize the experiences of queer Africans across a continent, nor do I wish to engage in an Africanist discourse which according to Said (1993) “is the systemic language for engaging with Africa for the West, associated with primitivism, tribalism and African provenance” (p.193). There is still an assumption that Africa as a whole can be described and discussed within the confines of a few generic descriptors and the diversity of each country can be collapsed into sweeping generalizations (Mohan et. al. 2002; Steady 1987). I hope not to replicate this trend and I am well aware that although there is some degree of similarity in the experiences of colonization and neo-colonial economic relations shared by the countries of the African continent, a single paper cannot reflect the tremendous diversity and complexities of a continent comprised of 53 states and a population of over 700 million and its relationship to sexuality and sexual identity. The most I can hope to accomplish is to make certain assumptions based on generalized commonalities concerning issues such as the impact of government policies, western interventions and the situation of and the situated experiences of queer Africans throughout the Continent and in the African Diaspora. I hope to explore the idea that there is a central point of departure that needs to be defined in order to create the basis for a foundational engagement with queer theory from an African location. The current practice of centering queer theory within a Eurocentric framework cannot determine our lives. It must be from the central location and experience of being a queer African that I am determining the definition of my life. As queer Africans publicly emerge and demand political voice and representation, we are resisting cultural homogenization. The emergence of the queer African then requires theoretical changes to political and culturally based approaches in order to allow for the articulation of who we are, allow us to claim our space in history and create a political platform in terms of rather

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1 than in spite of the dissention that marks us differently from the mainstream African communities and mainstream queer communities (Abou-Rhian 1994; Kyatt 2002). To fully understand and support a queer African framework we need to move beyond the gaze of this group as the history of a marginalized minority population and rather look at the organization of social hierarchies and its impact on queer Africans in the biggest possible sense ( Duggan 1995). Historicity is the sense that things will never be the same and as new possibilities open, old repressive patterns close (Alexander, 1997). It is from this point of departure that my discussion of a queer African theory truly takes shape. Sexual meanings are not universal absolutes, but ambiguous and problematic categories, with this becoming more evident as we explore sexuality and sexual meanings globally. According to Steven Epstein (1994), in the current political articulations of gay and lesbian sexualities in North America, social and cultural norms have been reconceptualized and are standing on their own merit even though definitions are still in my estimation unstably defined and coded. In the North American context the phrase lesbian and gay has become the standard way of referring to what only a few years ago was simply gay and prior to that homosexual (de Lauretis, 1991). Queer politics on the other hand has come to replace older modes of lesbian and gay politics by coexisting along side them and at the same time opening up new possibilities. I am setting up the concept of a queer African theory to deliver so much, despite the fact that in reality it is a theoretical framework that originated and is thoroughly embedded in white North American academic culture. We might want to think of the articulation of a queer African framework as a project of elaboration since the politics of marginal sexualities has not so much been neglected as it has been shielded from public view. Many members of society think that sexuality is a very “straight” forward political matter and that queer people should not be discriminated against and that is as far as their political interest as a group should go. The question still remains as to whether or in what context do queer Africans have political interests that connect them to broader demands for justice and freedom. Michael Warner (1991) asks the simple but poignant question, what do queers want? Any person who comes to a queer understanding of themselves understands that his/her oppression is connected to but not limited to desire, family, fear, shame, healthcare, HIV/AIDS, personal freedom, gender, reproductive rights, parenting, silence, invisibility, public display, terror, violence, intimacy and depression. Being queer means addressing these issues all the time with consequences. A queer African theory allows for the articulation of our lives as queer. It is framed around the confrontation of both personal and collective political forces that oppress us both domestically and internationally under heteropatriarchy33 and europatriarchy34 (Alexander 1997; Valdes 2002). The use of the term queer is based on a particular history and as Africans, we have limited if any history with the word. How then do we insert ourselves into this discussion, how do we lay claim to the discussion? I would say that we are announcing the arrival of a new moment in our political, social, sexual, theoretical and cultural lives through the proliferation of 33

Alexander (1997) explains the twin process of heterosexualization and patriarchy. At this historical moment, for instance, heteropatriarchy is useful in continuing to perpetuate a colonial inheritance and in enabling the political and economic processes of recolonization.

34

The Eurocentric version of heteropatriarchy favours white male supremacist ideologies, customs, language religion etc., and is reinforced through economic, legal and political processes of globalization (Valdes 1995,1996).

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56 reference to queer. We are interrogating the complex system of sexual norms in African cultures, where the normal African is not queer and the normal queer is not African. We firmly locate queerness in an African historical, political and intellectual context. We identify the culturally based problematic that African queer theory intends to address. We are also offering an analysis of the present situation of queer Africans; an interpretation of a queer African past and moving a step closer to the inclusion of queers in Africa’s future. A post-structuralist approach to sexuality understands that there is no true queer history but many histories, nor is there a true queer identity but identities which are fluid and dynamic. For one to announce that “I am queer” is to identify as belonging to a group resisting dominant sexual codes. To announce that “I am African and queer” is not only very brave but is engulfed by notions of globalized categories which are difficult to transport across cultures, between nations and calls into question the very category itself. We need to question whether it is a personal category, political or a linguistic one? For you to call yourself queer possibly means that you are a certain type of person, that you engage in certain kinds of sexual behaviors, that you will have a certain kind of political orientation, that you will dress in a particular type of way, look a certain way. Until a word gains wide usage in the culture, the category, or type of person does not exist (Kyatt, 2002). This concept of queer African invisibility is very different from the challenge of homophobia based on negation. From an African perspective, there is limited need for derogatory language or silencing language to describe us in most of our mother tongues because we don’t exist. There is limited language to engage or not engage in a dialogue about us since we don’t exist. Any homosexual activity that takes place in Africa was brought by the colonizing Europeans, invading Arabs and more recently Americans and for those of us living in the Diaspora it was acquired while we were away from home (Amadiume 1987; Murray et. al. 1998; Arnfred 2004). This line of reasoning leaves no room for the agency of queer Africans, who simply become queer by virtue of foreign influence. African political leaders have facilitated this widespread belief of our nonexistence by publicly denouncing homosexuality. The case in point is the Zimbabwean President, Robert Mugabe’s (in)famous pronouncement at the opening of the Zimbabwe International book fair in 1995 which he publicly described gays and lesbians as “lower than pigs and perverts.” President Arap Moi of Kenya followed suit with claims that “words like lesbianism and homosexuality do not exist in African languages because homosexuality does not exist” (Mail and Guardian Sept 1995). Namibian President Sam Nujoma publicly announced in March 2001 and again on April 1st that “the Republic of Namibia does not allow homosexuality or lesbianism here. Police are ordered to arrest you, deport you and imprison you.” He described homosexuality “as against God’s will” this was coupled with the urging of police officers to eliminate gays and lesbians from the face of Namibia. In July 2000, a Sierra Leone national paper the Concord Times ran a personal opinion column by Kingsley Linton essentially lauding that “Africa has morals whilst Canada has homos” as it made reference to Canada’s media obsession with same-sex marriage when there were more “important” issues to report on globally. These examples of African homophobia are no different from homophobia in western nations but what makes them noticeably unique is the assertion that homosexuality is un-African, that homosexuality comes from elsewhere. It is an impossibility to be both queer and African at the same time and in the same body. To be queer and African is to be excluded from your nation of origin and rendered invisible.

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1 The belief that heterosexuality is the only sanctioned “normal” form of sexual expression is the foundation of an African discussion on sexuality that defines heterosexuality as compulsory and homosexuality as pathological, immoral or deviant (Ratele 2004; Machera 2004). In this vain heterosexuality is normative, healthy, natural, life producing whilst homosexuality is sick, unnatural and deadly (Case 2002; Ampofo 2004; Helle-Valle 2004). With national and cultural imperatives to reproduce citizens, this demand for reproductive heterosexuality positions queer Africans to be regulated and disciplined for expressing insurgent sexuality. Queer Africans are positioned as threatening the nation and the heterosexual African as loyally building it. In Africa, the number of constitutional articles regulating homosexuality varies, but the wording of the offence is virtually identical. For example in Zambia "carnal knowledge of any person against the order of nature" is punishable; in Uganda "any person who has carnal knowledge of any person against the order of nature is guilty of an offence and is liable to life imprisonment." The Nigerian Penal Code states that "any person who has carnal knowledge of any person against the order of nature ... is liable to imprisonment for 14 years" (Behind the Mask, 2005). When the constitutions for these newly independent African nations were drawn up, with Ghana being the first in 1957, our forefathers honoured their former rulers by preserving colonial values that were reformed in Britain over the following 10 years. These laws were rooted in repressive Christian Victorian morality, but were embraced enthusiastically by the African nationalist middle class. As these attitudes filtered through society, they transmuted into a virulent heterosexism; a consequence of African people being culturally stripped of everything by colonial masters, including the promises of a better life after independence. This was in keeping with the phenomenon that colonised peoples often internalise and perpetuate values that pass away in the countries that originally imposed them. It is out of this culture, fortified by widespread contemporary religious practice, that the Continental culture of homophobia has grown. Among the many myths that Europeans have created about the “Dark continent,” the myth that homosexuality is either completely absent, incidental or situational in African society is one of the oldest, enduring and most damaging. By claiming that same-sex relations were solely the result of lack of access to members of the opposite sex due to war, migration for employment, same sex boarding schools part of a short lived adolescent phase, economic gain through prostitution or traditional same sex marriages, the likelihood that an African individual may voluntarily want and find pleasure in a same-sex relationship becomes unimaginable. Essentially within this framework of African sexuality, same-sex relations are discounted and minimized as culturally insignificant or cultural anomalies. It should be noted that within the African sexuality framework that enforces compulsory heterosexuality, there are no references to traditional law, pre-colonial discourse or examples of indigenous African belief systems that singled out same-sex relations as sinful or linked them to concepts of disease or mental health – except in locations where Christianity and Islam have been adopted (Murray et. al. 1998). The colonialist did not introduce homosexuality to Africa but rather the intolerance of it and the systems for surveillance, regulation and laws to suppress it. Understanding African same-sex desire requires not only interrogating the origin of these myths, but also suspending certain deeply held Western beliefs and values concerning sexuality and same-sex relationships.

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58 The theorizing about queer African sexuality is crucially dependant upon the existence of a conception of African sexuality in general. I am not arguing that queer sexualities are derivatives of African heterosexuality but only that we cannot understand the latter without understanding it in relation to the former. This forces us to examine the construction of the continent as a closet for queer Africans. In the west we tend to concentrate on the closeted individual and how we can encourage them to “come out” of their personally constructed closet by focusing on their internalized homophobia, private shame and performative deception. In queer African theorizing there is a need to refocus this gaze to look at how cultures create closets, how colonization has created both closets and oppressive conditions, and how the resulting culture of heteronormativity creates the public construction of the closet. If we accept the existence of the politics of queer invisibility as a historical legacy shared by all Africans, then expressions of queer sexuality are rendered dangerous for both the individual, and to the collective. From this, it follows that the culture of dissemblance makes it acceptable for heterosexual Africans to cast queer Africans as proverbial traitors to the African nation and to the Continent. Conclusion In the formation of a queer African theory it is important therefore to be attentive to the nature and type of process in and through which the collective queer African “we” is constructed. Who is empowered and who is disembowelled in a specific construction of the queer African “we”? How are social divisions negotiated in the construct of the queer African? What is the relationship of this queer “we" to its queer others? My argument here is that a consideration of myself as a queer African living in the Diaspora prompts a different understanding of the mechanisms by which national belonging is internalized in the lives of queer Africans. As a queer African living outside of the Continent and who is being protected by the Canadian Human Rights code how am I imagining a Queer African theory that will centralize the lives of Queer Africans on the continent? What risks am I willing to take? There needs to be an engagement in geographically bound self discovery which involves the understanding of what it means to be an individual whose identity has been imposed upon as a subordinate other, premised on exclusion and invisibility, and also created by acts of refusal. Our existence as Queer Africans displaces the heterosexual norm and launches a critique of African nations from the locational politics where our power as impossible Africans is articulated. Such collective queer African identities acquire specific content from the narratives of belonging and ancestry. Identity becomes a necessary component of agency, resistance and survival and is attained through an ongoing process of self-analysis and interpretation of social position. Every self is a storied self and every story is grouped within the realities of others so that each person consists of both the stories we tell about ourselves and the stories told by others (Venn, 2001). Theories that support the visibility of queer Africans need to amplify how African queer bodies negotiate their identities and politics across dynamic spaces. A Queer African theory is one that clearly articulates the formation of a queer African identity that cannot be separated from the theorization of resistance, revolution and change.

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1 References Abou-Rihan, F. (1994). Queer marks/nomadic difference: Sexuality and the politics of and ethnicity. Canadian Review of Comparative Literature, 21(1/2), 255- 263.

race

Alexander, J. (1997). “Erotic Autonomy as a Politics of Decolonization: An Anatomy Feminist and State Practice in the Bahamas Tourist Economy.” In. Alexander, Mohanty, C. (Eds). Feminist Genealogies, Colonial Legacies, Democratic New York: Routledge.

of J. & Futures.

Amadiume, I. (1987). Male Daughters and Female Husbands: Gender and Sex in an African Society. London: Zed Books Ltd. Ampofo, A. (2004). “Whose ‘Unmet Need’? Dis/Agreement about Childbearing among Ghanaian Couples.” In Signe Arnfred (Ed.). Re-Thinking Sexualities in Africa. Sweden: Almqvist & Wiksell Tryckeri, 115-139. Arnfred, S. (2004). African Sexuality/Sexuality in Africa: Tales and Silences. In Arnfred (Ed.), Re-Thinking Sexualities in Africa. Sweden: Almqvist & Wiksell Tryckeri, 59-76. Bammer A. (1994). Displacements: Cultural Identities in Question. Indiana University Indianapolis.

Press,

Behind the Mask. (2005). Country Profiles. www.mask.org.za. Berube A. & J. Escoffier. (1991). Queer Nation. OutLook(11). Brennan, T. ( 1997). At Home in the World: Cosmopolitanism Now. London: University Press.

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Case, S. (2002). The Emperor's New Clothes: The Naked Body and Theories of Substance, 31(2/3), 186-200.

Performance.

De Lauretis, T. (1991). Queer Theory: Lesbian and Gay Sexualities. Differences, 3(2), xviii.

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Escoffier, J.(1990). Inside the Ivory Closet: The Challenges Facing Lesbian and Gay Studies. Out/Look: National Lesbian and Gay Quarterly,10, 40-48. Fanon , F. ( 1963). The Wretched of the Earth, New York, Grove Weidenfeld. Helle-Valle, J.(2004). Understanding Sexuality in Africa: Diversity and Contextualized Dividuality. in Arnfred (Ed.), Re-Thinking Sexualities in Africa. Sweden: Almqvist & Wiksell Tryckeri, 195-211.

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Khayatt D. (2002). Toward a Queer Identity. Sexualities, 5(4), 487-501. James, C. ( 1994) Diasporas. Cultural Anthropology, 9(3), 302-338. Lemelle, S. and Kelley, D.G (1994) Imagining Home: Class, Culture and Nationalism in the African Diaspora, London: Verso. Machera, M. (2004). “Opening a Can of Worms: A Debate of Female Sexuality in the Lecture Theatre.” in S. Arnfred (Ed.), Re-Thinking Sexualities in Africa. Sweden: Almqvist & Wiksell Tryckeri, 157-173. Mohan, G. & Zack-Williams. A (2002). Globalization from Below: Conceptualizing the Role of the Black Diaspora in Africa’s Development. Review of African Political Economy 92. Mohanty, C. (1998). "Critical Feminist Genealogies: On the Geography and Politics of and Nation," In Ella Shohat, (ed). The Age of Globalization. Massachusetts: University of Massachusetts Press.

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_________. (2003). Feminism Without Borders. Durham: Duke University Press. Murray, S. & Roscoe, W (1998). Boy-Wives and Female Husbands: Studies of Homosexualities. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

African

Ratele, K. (2004). Kinky Politics. In S. Arnfred (Ed.). Re-Thinking Sexualities in Africa. Sweden: Almqvist & Wiksell Tryckeri, 139-157. Said, E. (1993). Culture and Imperialism. New York: Vintage Books. Valdes, F. (1997). Queer margins, queer ethics: a call to account for race and ethnicity in the law, theory, and politics of "sexual orientation." Hastings Law Journal. 48(6), 12931341. _______. (2002). Mapping the patterns of particularities: Queering the geographies of identities. Antipode: A radical journal of geography, 34 (5), 974-987. Venn, C. (2001). Occidentalism: Modernity and Subjectivity. Sage Publications Ltd, London. Warner, M. (1991). Introduction: Fear of a Queer Planet. Social Text, 29, 3-17. ________. (2002). Publics and Counterpublics. New York: Zone Books.

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‘Les Mots pour le Dire’ : De la Désignation de l’Homosexualité dans Quelques Pays d’Afrique Francophone Charles Gueboguo• Burkina Faso: Au Faso, en langue Moré, pour traduire le concept ‘homosexuel’ et partant l’homosexualité, on dit « pouglindaogo ». Littéralement cela veut dire homme et femme en même temps. Il y a là une référence dans les cas où certains individus ont des malformations biologiques, et se retrouvent avec deux sexes. Aujourd’hui on parlerait d’intersexe. Par extension « pouglindaogo » va désigner l’homme efféminé. En Dioula, une autre langue parlée au Faso, pour parler des homosexuels de façon péjorative (pédé), on dit « Tchiété Moussoté ». De manière générale, les jeunes utilisent les termes en français pour dire l’homosexualité au Faso. Ainsi on entendra couramment parler de : « femme ratée ou de femmelette » pour désigner les homosexuels de sexe masculin. Nous avons aussi pu y noter l’utilisation du terme Wolof « goor jigeen » qui littéralement veut aussi dire « homme-femme ». Dans les relations sexuelles, les personnes qui peuvent jouer à la fois le rôle insertif et réceptif sont appelées: « recto-verso ». La relation dans les représentations des individus qui associe homosexualité avec efféminement est claire ici. Il faut noter qu’il n’y a pas de termes pour dire lesbianisme. C’est donc dire que dans l’imaginaire de plusieurs, l’homosexualité ne peut qu’être masculine et elle est par ce fait rejetée parce qu’elle trouble les barrières andro-phallocratiques du genre. D’où cette insistance dans les imageries populaires à réduire la réalité homosexuelle à l’aspect physique nécessairement efféminé. Burundi: Au Burundi, l’homosexualité est dite à travers un clivage qui met les personnes qui adoptent le rôle dit passif dans l’acte sexuel d’un côté et ceux qui sont désignés comme actifs de l’autre. Ainsi, les « passifs » se désignent comme étant des « femmes ». Ils disent qu’ils ont des vagins et que les femmes biologiques quant à elles auraient des « abcès ». La personne active est regardée comme étant un véritable homme et c’est d’ailleurs comme cela qu’on l’appelle : l’homme « mougao ». Les personnes homosexuelles qui sont âgées sont désignées comme étant des grands-mères : « abaketchou ». Il faudrait préciser que c’est dans le milieu homosexuel que les choses se disent de la sorte. Cela nous permet de postuler pour l’hypothèse qu’au Burundi, comme dans plusieurs autres pays d’Afrique, la construction d’une identité homosexuelle chez le sujet passe aussi par une réappropriation symbolique de l’identité de genre féminin. A ce niveau, il n’apparaît plus la honte de pouvoir assumer sa féminité. Ce n’est plus un signe de faiblesse ou d’échec comme cela s’interprète la plupart du temps dans les sociétés machistes et phallocratiques. En se réappropriant la féminité interdite, le sujet finit par acquérir de la liberté en refusant de se soumettre aux desiderata d’un ordre abusif qu’il ne veut plus reconnaître.

•

Charles Gueboguo is the author of La Question Homosexuelle en Afrique: Le Cas du Cameroun, Paris (Harmattan 2006) and is a Doctorate student in Sociology at the University of Yaounde, Cameroon.

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62 Cameroun: Au Cameroun dans les milieux homosexuels, l’homosexualité masculine est traduite par le terme « nkouandengué ». Il s’agit d’un néologisme dont l’existence principale n’a d’autre but que le camouflage langagier aux personnes qui ne le serait pas. L’homosexualité féminine est traduite par « mvoye » et signifie en langue Ewondo, une des langues locales « bien ». « Mvoye » est donc la traduction de ce qui est bien et par extension, les lesbiennes voudraient signifier à leurs détracteurs qu’elles s’inscrivent dans une orientation sexuelle qui ne peut être rien d’autre que quelque chose qui relève de ce qui est bien, merveilleux voire paradisiaque. Le partenaire masculin insertif est dit « koudjeu ! » Il s’agit d’une onomatopée qui traduit la virilité. En français elle se traduirait par « ho hisse ! ». C’est le cri que les hommes poussent lorsqu’ils veulent faire déplacer de lourdes charges. Le « koudjeu » est donc cet individu là qui serait en mesure, sexuellement parlant, de dégager une telle force, une telle énergie pour pousser le partenaire réceptif encore dit « tchouss » dans ses derniers retranchement jouissifs. Les partenaires capables de jouer les deux rôles dans l’acte sexuel sont dits « rectoverso » comme au Burundi ou encore « jupe-culotte ». Le référant vestimentaire qu’on associe socialement pour le premier à la femme et pour le second à l’homme est significatif car les homosexuels montrent par là qu’ils empruntent leur code langagier et d’identification au monde qui les entourent. Le modèle dominant dans la construction identitaire sexuelle semble tirer sa source de l’univers hétérosexuel. Côte d’ivoire : Le système langagier des jeunes en Côte d’ivoire et partant du milieu homosexuel s’inspire d’une parlure qu’ils appellent le « nouchi », qui est un allègre mélange du français petit nègre avec certaines langues locales ou des pays voisins. L’homosexualité se dit aussi ici à travers le clivage passif/actif, qui reste centré sur un modèle hétéronormé. Le partenaire insertif ou actif est dit « yossi » tandis que le partenaire réceptif ou passif est dit « woubi ». Ces deux expressions semblent être des déformations des termes sénégalais Wolof « yoss » et « oubi » qui traduisent la même chose dans le milieu homosexuel sénégalais. Le sujet capable de jouer les deux rôles dans l’acte sexuel est dit « cassette ». Le rapport ici avec le signifiant est voulu, car comme l’objet à l’origine qui peut jouer des deux faces, les personnes à la fois actives et passives jouent également le même rôle. Il faut noter qu’une « cassette » n’est pas un bisexuel, car dans le milieu les personnes bisexuelles sont dites « yossi famo » ; et si quelqu’un est tout simplement gay friendly on dira qu’il est « famo ». Les lesbiennes sont désignées par le terme « toussou bakary ». « Toussou » en l’une des langues locales désigne la fille. Les personnes travestie sont dites : « femmes actuelles », tandis que les jeunes personnes homosexuelles sont désignées comme étant les « forces nouvelles » en référence au conflit armé en Côte d’Ivoire qui a opposé le Nord et le Sud et où l’une des parties prenantes portait le nom de « forces nouvelles ». Mali: Au Mali, c’est également à travers le clivage passif/actif que sont désignés les homosexuels, mais également à travers les classes d’âge. Le partenaire fortuné et d’un certain âge est appelé « ladji baba ». Cette appellation est la contraction de « El hadj » qui désigne un haut dignitaire musulman qui a déjà eu à faire le pèlerinage à la Mecque ; et « baba » signifie le père. Il faut noter que seul ceux qui ont les moyens financiers énormes peuvent se permettre en Afrique de faire le pèlerinage à la Mecque. C’est pourquoi dans ce cas on ne peut s’empêcher d’y voir un rapport de force et de domination qui met la possession d’un certain capital économique au cœur de l’action dans les échangent à caractère homosexuel au Mali et où celui qui est détenteur dudit capital économique joue nécessairement le rôle insertif dans les rapports sexuels.

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1 Toutefois, dans les cas où il y a exception et que le partenaire peut jouer les deux rôles dans l’acte sexuel en fonction de l’autre mais aussi de ses aspirations personnelles, au Mali on dira qu’il est « double face ». Les jeunes homosexuels de la génération montante sont appelés « génération 2000 », par opposition à la vieille génération qui date d’avant 2000. Deux mille est la traduction d’un nouveau millénaire et partant la traduction d’un nouvel air dans le milieu. C’est l’annonce d’un changement dans les manières de faire et d’agir sans précédent dans le milieu homosexuel au Mali. Ainsi, il est dit de cette génération qu’elle s’affiche beaucoup, elle porte des vêtements osés, bref cette génération semble avoir le courage d’exposer au grand jour ce que la génération d’avant s’évertuait à cacher. C’est donc une génération sans tabou et sans gêne. Ils sont la figure de la nouvelle forme d’homosexualité montante au Mali en dépit des contraintes religieuses et coutumières. Maroc : Dans le jargon arabe marocain c’est le terme « loubia » est utilisé pour désigner les homosexuels, principalement ceux qui sont efféminé. C’est l’appellation des haricots verts et par extension il fait aussi référence aux homosexuels ayant le comportement sexuel dit passif. On le voit, à ce niveau, c’est le registre alimentaire qui est utilisé. La finesse des haricots verts semble avoir un lien avec la finesse féminine dans les représentations des personnes homosexuelles elles-mêmes de la catégorie dite passive. Pour désigner les hommes homosexuels qui ont une mine de femme, on fait une fois de plus appel au registre alimentaire, on parle de « petits pois ». Le partenaire insertif est appelé « jider », tandis que les journalistes qui sont gay friendly utilisent le terme « mitli », qui signifie « je suis comme toi », pour désigner les homosexuels dans leurs articles. Sénégal : Le partenaire actif est dit au Sénégal « yoss ». Le partenaire réceptif est un « oubi », en Wolof cela veut dire « ouvert ». Il serait donc ‘ouvert’ comme le serait les lèvres vaginales et par extension comme le serait une femme. Cette association au genre féminin s’inspire de l’environnement social ambiant qui réduit homosexualité avec féminité. C’est la traduction de « gor-jigeen » qui signifie littéralement ‘homme-femme’ et qui s’apparente à une insulte. L’homosexuel ne serait donc pas une entité à part entière, mais bien une chose bizarre entre les deux, plus homme que femme. Il y a aussi un rapport lié à la classe d’âge dans la désignation des personnes homosexuelles, avec la pression des plus âgés fortunés sur les moins nantis et jeunes. Ils sont désignés par le terme « maamaré ». Les plus jeunes qui souvent n’ont pas d’argent sont nommés « mbéré » et on attend socialement d’eux, dans le milieu, qu’ils jouent le rôle passif.

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Wounded Eros and Cantillating Cupids: Sensuality and the Future of Nigerian Literature in the Post-Military Era Prof. Femi Osofisan*

When I saw the eyes My heart lit up… Venus sang through me Wooing me anew Cupid, poised with his bow, Waited to shoot his arrow… [Angela Nwosu, “Yes and No” Waking Dreams, 2002]

Up at least till the turn of the new millennium, you will observe, the exploration of romantic love or of sex as theme was remarkably rare in the output of our writers. Virtually no literary work dared venture, except in the deflected language of metaphor and refringent echo, into the contentious area of carnal experience. From Tutuola to Okpewho; Achebe to Iyayi; Soyinka to Sowande; Clark to Onwueme—we are talking of over four decades of writing—there is no instance of a memorable kiss. The “Drinkard” is too preoccupied with the problems of retrieving his dead tapster from Deads’ Town to indulge in dalliance. Okonkwo, who has several wives to attest to his social success, is presumably too grandiose in his status as a tragic hero, to be caught surrendering even once to a tender caress. In the same vein, although Soyinka endows his Ogunnian characters with the god’s notorious sexual prowess, this detail of their virility was always, until Elesin Oba at least, more of a matter of conjecture, of clever authorial suggestion, than of direct, graphic verism. Even so their concupiscence was held to be secondary anyway to other qualities in their grim encounter with primal forces. Disappointingly for those who care for such matters, Cupid and Venus, the celebrated god and goddess of love in classical antiquity, were not very much in vogue in our midst. Instead, the gods that provided the commonest models of inspiration in the shrine of our literary *

Professor Femi Osofisan is a renowned African playwright and professor of drama. He is currently in the Department of Theatre Arts at the University of Ibadan where he has taught and trained many dramatists for many years.

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1 Art were Ogun, Shango, Orunmila, Esu—and their various equivalents elsewhere on the continent—all conspicuously belligerent and self-assured, and all conspicuously male. As men and metaphors, these heroes were portrayed in the guise of idealist pathfinders, embodying the essence as well as the praxis of lofty things such as war and courage, the mystery of death and rejuvenation, the mechanics of leadership and survival, the amazing hermeneutics of divination, and so on but not, significantly, of love or sensuality. The consensus among our pioneer authors, and their immediate successors, seemed to have been that heroes could not be engaged in the epic battle of rescuing our land and our people from all kinds of malevolent forces, and of constructing a nation out of the debris of colonialism, and still indulge in amatory liaisons, except in moments of careless and irresponsible decadence. That is why women appear in these works, for the most part, only in the margin, largely unheard. Or else they figure merely as female versions of these personifications of the divine afflatus, as analogous incarnations of some mythical ancestor remembered for an extraordinary, antecedent act of valour. Frequently—and the feminists are right to complain about it—the female protagonist was Eternal Mother, a metaphor for procreation, and as bearer of the seed of life, such as Okigbo’s Mother Idoto or Okara’s watermaid. Or—still in correspondence with this conception of the female persona as Divinity—she would sometimes be celebrated too as Exemplary Goddess—or as Enchantress, the essence of Inviolable Beauty, which is just the obverse face of the same abstract symbolism but rarely as flesh—as a breathing, living, and corporeal presence, capable of sensual desire and carnality, vulnerable to violation. Always the woman must be beautiful, sublime, a one-dimensional idol, larger than life, certainly larger than the mundane concerns of human sexuality, because obviously, she was not a human being like you and me but an ideological stereotype. Recalling, for instance, Segi of Kongi’s Harvest, the lover of Daodu. Significantly enough, in their closest moment of intimacy at the nightclub when the very scene seethes with tension and danger, all that Daodu does is descant flowery poetry in her praise! Let us consider Sidi in The Lion and the Jewel. This boastful young woman gets caught in Baroka’s trap; but the consequent scene of love-making between them is depicted not through any physical contact, but symbolically, in the form of Baroka pumping the piston of a crude stamp machine! Nowadays—and this is the point I will be getting at presently—both writer and reader of our times would laugh at such mannered restraint. Our recent writers have perhaps sadly jettisoned the recourse to stylized gestures and rhetorical tropes as antiquated. In the literature of the post-military era, the option is for full disclosure and unrestrained loquacity. What has happened so suddenly to change the tenor and climate of literary taste? What factors have colluded to bring producers and consumers to agree like this to feast together in what may well be described as a salon of prurience? To answer, we will need to remember first that the thematic pudeur we find in the pre-millennium literature was not a fruit of hazard, but an element inherent in its very process of parturition. Furthermore, the almost stifling atmosphere of decorum and conscious self-restraint, in which narrative is trapped in sanitized, all-toopredictable ethical codes, and physical love is either absent or re/presented strictly in selected metaphors, was strictly contingent with contemporary ethos and praxis. What I am saying is that the vacancy in our previous literature of the sensual and the erotic, this absence that now seems astonishing to us, had its roots in the conditioning manners of its genesis, and as well in the extant laws of public morality and of creative practice.

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66 Both of these, we must not forget, demanded of literature, or at least serious literature, that it fulfils two vital requirements: that it should always deal with “important issues” and should maintain a climate of ethical “correctness.” It was complicit with these rules of contemporary bienséance, therefore, that such areas of human experience as amorous liaisons be unvoiced in print, whatever else went on in the loquacious space of gossip circles and social clubs. Literature, according to that ethos, must accept that sensuality is a clandestine business; that affection is a strictly personal matter, and so, must remain delicately mute. This credo was literature’s defining territory from pornography—this notion that romantic relationships belonged, for anyone who put pen to paper, strictly to an austere corner of reticence; and that the open discussion of sex was total taboo. Added to this was the fact that it was in the colonial schools, run mostly by Christian missionaries, that our intellectuals, coming from an oral tradition, had their first encounters with written literature and with writing as an autonomous, self-conscious activity. The very first books that our pioneers read, and learnt to love, were the ones listed in the curricula of the colonial missionary schools—that is, books that were specially selected to inculcate the Christian doctrine and the biblical injunctions contained in the Ten Commandments. Morality and chastity were of the essence, and the threat of hell fire waited for the mortal sins of the flesh. With such a starting point therefore, it was just logical that all these authors should seek to emulate the religious manner of their models and, consequently, strive to be equally chaste and morally clean in their stories. As for their themes, the final decisive influence came later on, when they went up to the university (at Ibadan) after their secondary schooling. Here they encountered a string of authors—once described by Abiola Irele as being “from Spencer to Spender”—who constituted, according to Leavis the enormously influential critic of the time, the icons of the “Great Tradition.” It was a heterogeneous, impressive list of writers, and the emphasis of the English department was to inculcate in the minds of the students, the idea that literature, to quote the words of Boris Ford, general editor of the Pelican Guide to English Literature, “has the power to enrich the imagination and to clarify thought and feeling.” The underlying notion behind this syllabus was thus the belief—spread by the Renaissance, and solidified especially by the Romantic Movement—that literature is a high humanistic practice, or in other words, an occupation that humanizes. Correspondingly, the role of the writer can only become valuable when he or she consents to serve as “the conscience of the society.” This naturally became the consensual manifesto of virtually all our writers right from the outset, this belief that literature qualifies for serious attention only because it demonstrates a “higher” purpose than mere entertainment and contains the capacity to bring a positive value to its readers. But nowadays, when we look at our new crop of writers, from Helon Habila to Okey Ndibe to Sefi Atta to Kaine Agary to Uzodinma Iweala, or even from Akeem Lasisi to Austyn Njoku to Sophie Obi, and note their seemingly unbridled surrender to the goddess of Eros, the question inevitably rises to confront us—has our present literature walked away then from that original purpose? I am saying that, when our pioneer authors began, driven by the influence of their colonial education, to compose their own narrations, they wrote with the belief that literature must address itself to the pressing problems of the day, and therefore to the issues which bear on the health and survival of the collective community, rather than on the private areas of the individual experience. This was the principle that continued to guide all of us, up at least till the beginning of the new millennium. We believed that literature, to be worth its while, must deal with only the important issues of the day, issues which were mainly of the socio-political kind—

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1 such as the abuse of power, the widespread poverty and squalor, kleptomania and corruption in public life, the suffering of the common people, and so on. It followed therefore that such themes as love, or loss, jealousy and ambition, would be considered trivial, except of course in contexts where these passions promoted the well-being of society as a whole, to which they would then be subsumed. This was why romantic love was not a favourite theme, or where it was mentioned, it was only as a means to more serious problems and the female persona was not important in or by herself, but only in her role as a socio-political emblem. And it explained why books like Toads for Supper, or even Jagua Nana, were, in spite of their enormous popular success in the market, greeted with critical coldness and scepticism. From Kong’s Harvest to Aringindin; from The Raft to Another Raft; from the State of the Union to The Eye of the Earth to If To Say I Be Soja; and so on, it is the theme of politics and of our people’s collective adventure in history that dominates. Indeed, when I published Minted Coins in 1988 it was with considerable trepidation, knowing that no serious writer was expected to publish a book of love poems. And not surprisingly therefore the example generated little enthusiasm among writers and bred no immediate followers, even in spite of its having won both the ANA and the regional Commonwealth prizes. This did not mean of course that love poems were not being written—we have sufficient evidence that they were—only that they were carefully limited to furtive circulation and even more furtive consumption. For with the writers of the first three or four generations, it was love of country, not of the opposite sex, that mattered. And you can then imagine why, if they wrote about love so sparingly, our writers had to be completely mute about the subject of sex. But no more. Suddenly now, in the literature of the post-military era, the theme of love has not only grown fashionable and abundant, it has also acquired a spectacular and audacious loquacity. Move over, the Oguns and Shangos and Amadiohas! Venus and Cupid, along with their voluptuous sister, Aphrodite, aka Eros, have come into triumphant season, and taken over the stage. Love between man and woman, this area of the human life that, as we have seen above, was virtually mute in previous literature, or served as mere backcloth for the exposition of more “serious” issues has now, as it were, climbed to centre-stage, and become the central kernel of imaginative exploration. In drama, poetry, or prose fiction, the exploration of romantic situations is now to be found in virtually every book, pursued in graphic detail along all its various stages and manifestations, from the first crush to the final surrender, from intimacy to copulation, and from infatuation to the often-inevitable catatonia that follows a heartbreak. Poetry, perhaps not unexpectedly, provides the most flourishing instance. Everywhere we turn, we seem to hear nothing else now than the chants and hymns of cantillating Cupids or the wailing plaints of Eros. Title after title are tumbling out, in which the verses chant rapturously and without abashment of desire and endearment, of passion and lust, unleashed with their rawest, hedonistic authority. The change is startling. Love all of a sudden has lost its shyness and reticence; poetry its innocence. Compare for instance that, of the forty poems in Mabel Segun’s 1986 collection, titled Conflict and Other Poems, not a single one is a love poem. But now, in the books of the new millennium—Angela Nwosu’s Waking Dreams, Maria Ajima’s Speaking of Wines; Famous Dakolo’s A Letter to Flora, Taiwo Emmanuel’s Naked Songs; Austyn Njoku’s Scents of Dawn; Charles Ayo Dada’s The Ghost of Zina, amu nnadi’s Pilgrim’s Passage, Hyginus Ekwuazi’s Love Apart, and so on and so on—you cannot but be struck by the extent to which the younger poets have turned into “sentimental minstrels” to borrow the late Ezenwa-Ohaeto’s terms.

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68 Space will not permit any detailed reference here to the seminal poems. But one glaring evidence of the transformation I am talking about can be observed in the famous “Kraftgriots” imprint from Steve Shaba’s Kraft Books. This imprint, with its several award-winning titles, has always been more or less characterized by angry voices—of men and women made articulate by disillusionment, and inveigling loudly and eloquently against the country’s state of anomy. But now, read the new titles— from Onookome Okome, Ebinyo Ogbowei, Famous Dakolo, Paulina Mabayoje, and so on—and you will find that, even as the anger persists, the acerbic tones are now more often interspersed with, and tempered by, the soft accents of love songs and passionate madrigals. I am not saying, I hope it is understood, that there no other modes—there are for instance the mocking laughter of Lola Shoneyin’s feminist poems; the genteel elegiac plaints of Ohaeto, Funso Aiyejina or Ojaide, the bitter protestations of Nnimmo Bassey and Joe Ushie, Ademola Dasylva’s uncompromising patriotic sallies; and Hope Eghagha’s intriguing, ceaseless mythologizing; and so on—but these, considered against the powerful tide of present production, are aberrant currents. And the tide has even swept along some of the older poets like Olu Obafemi (Songs of Hope), Bayo Lamikanra (Heart Sounds), Remi Raji (Webs of Remembrance), and Ogochukwu Promise [aka Okekwe] (Templates and Distances)). But the crowning instance, surely, must be—Osundare’s Tender Moments? Or how can we not be stunned that the most recent outing from the leading poet of the radical second generation is a volume dedicated entirely to the seductive power of love! Listen to him: Love can make you run without tiring grow without aging Love can make you creak like a cricket prattle like a cockatoo flaunt your feathers like a peacock flow like a river like a river like a river Love can take you round the world in the quarter of a kiss. [Osundare, “Love Can”] However, even more startling still—and we are coming close now to the core of my essay—is the fact that these new authors are not just willing to treat love themes seriously now, but also that they also plunge—exuberantly, boldly, enthusiastically—into the description of sex and the sexual act without any apparent inhibition! Quite suddenly nowadays there is an unprecedented level of daring, of brazenness—or, if you like, of ruthless nonchalance—in the sheer bluntness with which these narratives are enacted. The old restraints, the prudent silences, the customary reticences, all the shyness and prudery of the past, seem to have been abandoned, and writer after writer now are furiously embarked on a programme of full exposure and unhidden carnality. Even areas that were hitherto considered taboo are now the subject of opulent exposition, I mean areas such as prostitution (Ndibe’s Rain, Nwosu’s Invisible Chapters), or abortion (Agary’s Yellow-Yellow), or sodomy and pederasty (Iweala’s Beasts of No Nation), or gay and

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1 lesbian love (Promise’s In the Middle of the Night). No area of sexual practice or perversion is considered sacred any more, it seems, to the writer’s garrulous tongue. It is almost as if the younger writers, later-day Jean Genets, are motivated by a volition for shock and outrage, for deliberate wounding. Says Chimamanda Adichie in a recent interview published in the THISDAY Newspaper [Sunday, May 13, 2007]: “Perhaps as part of my reaction to the gross hypocrisy around sexuality in our country,” she discloses, “I am interested in writing about [sex] in the most upfront and demystifying way.” I believe we can confidently presume that she was speaking for her whole generation. When Okigbo for instance wrote of love and loss, it was, you remember, with classical grace and delicate refinement: The moon has ascended between us Between two pines That bow to each other: Love with the moon has ascended, Has fed on our solitary stems And we are now shadows That cling to each other But kiss the air only But now, listen to Sophia Obi, one of the new voices, in the poem, “All of Nine Months” in her recent collection, Tears in a Basket. Desire, like fierce ants, mill around my tender loins My waist girdle comes loose waking to a bizarre longing You mount your patient horse… braying with uncommon joy Tongue-tied by the voodoo of your lust, I trail your path to the zenith of fantasy…

This is what I mean that in the new literature, whether in prose or verse, the experience of love has become promiscuously talkative. Hence, the question must be raised—what should we make of this audacious development? It is in prose fiction, particularly, that this new trend towards total revelation and sexual explicitness is most manifest. In fact it can be said that, ever since Habila’s detained poet-journalist, Lomba, was able to win some reprieve for himself from Abacha’s prison warder in Waiting for An Angel, there has been a remarkable upsurge of books in recent years where love, and its turbulent consequences, have formed the core of thematic exploration. With our novelists, and particularly the female authors, love themes seem to have risen to an unprecedented level of popularity, or even, notoriety. From Agary’s Yellow-Yellow, to

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70 Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun, to Sefi Atta’s Everything Good Will Come, to Aipoh’s No Sense of Limits, and so on, it is love, and the various escapades in pursuit of its fulfilment—or its lack of-reciprocation—that are conspicuously the central concern of the narration (I am including Aipoh of course, since she has become one of us!). Sometimes even the themes and the contours of the stories are strikingly similar in these various novels. For instance, both Aipoh and Adichie deal with sibling rivalry and mutual betrayal between two twin sisters. And, though in different ways and degrees of sophistication, both Atta and Agary deal with the pains of thwarted love, and the eventual liberation from the stereotypical roles assigned to the female by social convention. Similarly in all of these books, particularly in Promise, Adichie and Iweala, there are stories of perverted or illicit relationship, all brought about by the uncontrollable, irresistible force of the libido portrayed as liberating even when it is morally indefensible. (Think here for instance of Olanna’s ecstasy and relief, after seducing Richard, her sister’s boy friend. The remorse, much later, does not convince me!). I am struck by the common revelation that the joy of orgasm is stronger than the leash of morality that passion possesses a powerful, primitive uncontrollability, which drives the prose itself to yield to utter frankness, to near-pornographic explicitness. Hear Adichie: She unbuckled his trousers. She did not let him take them off. She turned her back and leaned on the wall and guided him into her, excited by his surprise, by his firm hands on her hips. She knew she should lower her voice because of Ugwu and Baby in the next room and yet she had no control over her own moans, over the raw primal pleasure she felt in wave after wave that ended with both of them leaning against the wall, gasping and giggling.[Yellow Sun, p 282:] Even Jagua Nana would have blushed at this level of disclosure! And if you agree with me—I hope I have furnished the proof above—that no writer, before the new millennium, would have dared surrender to the temptation to be as bold as this, then the question we must ask is this—what is it that has incited our younger writers to this extraordinary level of intrepidity? The answer should not be hard to supply: First, we live all of us nowadays in a new, promiscuous age, deeply penetrated and influenced by American values and the globalized media. And as we are all aware, nothing now in the western world can escape the intrusive lenses and the probing inquisitiveness of the paparazzi. Thanks to this, the old notions of privacy, the consensual secretiveness and “holiness” that used to be attached to such matters as love and sex have long been axed and discarded as antiquated relic. Bashfulness, decency and self-respect have become casualties in the new ethos of the so-called “free society”, where the reigning creed is to “tell it all”. Under the barrage of innumerable newspapers and magazines, these talk shows and reality programmes on television, and such things, our world has been made suddenly naked, and exceedingly, exasperatingly amoral and loquacious. The values of decorum such as we used to know and respect them have, sadly, turned contingent. Hence, because these younger writers are mostly based in America, and are published there—or, where they do not live in America, are nevertheless widely exposed to Western culture and its values—it will be merely hypocritical to expect that they will not be influenced by that culture. Or that they will not be brought to respond to the Western public’s predilection for sex, voyeurism and violence, particularly in the area of popular entertainment. Our aspiring writers, children of the new age of globalization, are inevitably obliged to comply with the ethos of modern Euro-America, if they are to find willing publishers and sell their books, for the local outlets are sparse and miserably incompetent, miserably unprofitable.

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1 Also, we have to reckon with the social and moral consequences of the shock of an epidemic like AIDS, which has forced society everywhere to abandon its old scruples and sensitivity about the discussion of sex in the open and before minors. To all these factors we can also add the fact of the coming of democracy to most of our states in Africa, after the locust years of the military in government. Even if still imperfect, this democracy has led to an expansion in the practice of human rights, including, especially, the freedom of speech. Out of this liberalization, and one of its happy implications, comes the freedom that authors now feel that they possess, from the obligation to focus exclusively on the political theme as before. They can therefore exorcise the guilt that used to prevail about the exploration of topics like personal relationships and psychological trauma. Finally, one must not forget here the important factor of the gradual loosening of the habits of male patriarchy in our societies, which has led to a tremendous increase in female literacy. This access to better education has without dispute emboldened the female voices and promoted the birth of more female authors. The existence of a body like WRITA (Women Writers’ Association) is a visible testimony to this development. All the same, in spite of, or along with these external factors whose effects have been so strategic in the “modernization” of our society, I think we must also include a very crucial but often overlooked element—which is the re-discovery of our own traditions, long suppressed or distorted by the lingering after-effects of religious indoctrination in the old colonial, pedagogical system. In this specific respect, it will certainly be a shock to many of us, the educated elite, to learn that contrary to what we were taught to believe in the Christian or Muslim schools, our traditional societies were frequently unequivocal in the matter of sex and that our societies never put a taboo on the open discussion of it, even in the presence of minors. Thanks to recent studies by scholars like Olajubu, and Owomoyela, for instance, we now have abundant proof that our forefathers never felt that such a discussion could promote promiscuity. On the contrary, they even believed that a periodic allowance of what we now refer to as “licence” was healthy for the purgation and renewal of the society. As Olajubu noted in an article published in 1972 in the Journal of American Folklore, pointed out, “to the Yoruba, sex has a sacred function…[but] in spite of this, however, physical exposure of the sexual organs in life and in art, especially in carvings, is allowed… Obvious references to sex in words, gestures, and songs are also permitted on special occasions. On doors and veranda posts of temples and palaces can be found carvings of women with pointed, oversized breasts, and men with oversized penises. In some cases, for example, on the doors of Ife Town Hall, carvings of men and women in the sex act are depicted.” Even more pertinent to this discussion are the examples that this scholar furnishes from the annual Oke’badan festival in Ibadan, where youths roam the city, singing unimpeded all sorts of bawdy songs. Or this earthy chant from an ijala poet opening his performance: Mo júbà okó tó doríkodò tí ò ro. Mo júbà èVlèV tí doríkodò tó ò sèjè. Ìyámàpó tótó aró n ò dákà e ko kéré, abirun lénu.

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I salute the penis that stands upside down without dripping I salute the vagina that stands inverted without bleeding Iyamapo, please, I beseech you, I do not intend to slight you, you with bearded mouth! Given these examples, how really new is the new licentiousness that we have so far been examining? Can it be argued in fact that there is a direct line of filiation between the emerging literature and that of our predecessors of the pre-Christian, pre-Islam period? Or in other words, is the fresh boldness an attempt, as Adichie claims, to demystify the stultifying hypocrisies of the modern society, imposed largely through the hegemony of imported traditions? It is true of course that for a long time most of us did not know about the earthy part of our culture, exposed by Olajubu and others, as I mentioned earlier, because Christian upbringing had succeeded in alienating us from our oral traditions. To worsen matters, the pioneer scholars who studied and transcribed these traditional texts felt obliged, out of misplaced zealousness, no doubt, to systematically expunge these “vulgar” passages from their published versions! But fortunately by the 1970s a new climate of intellectual daring and of weakened Puritanism permitted our scholars to go back to history and orature, and to undo the harm of the Christian evangelists. Breaking off from the previous prison of self-censorship, the younger scholars rejected the strictures imposed by the older ones (who were ironically their own teachers!) and published the authentic texts of the traditional poets and raconteurs. And the legitimate question which then comes out of this information is the one I asked earlier, namely, whether or not our new writers take note of this precedence when writing their pieces? Agary for instance seems to confirm such intimations, when she makes Ziyalefa (“Yellow-Yellow”) muse as follows one night at the Bar Beach, on her first trip to Lagos: Wishing I was tiring my feet on the dance floor, my mind went to the many nights in the village, either at traditional wake keeping or during one of our festivals, when everyone danced till dawn. Married couples arrived at the venue and separated. New partners coupled for the night, had fun, and then returned to their spouses the next day, hoping that the night’s fun would not produce a child nine months later. There were many excesses at those parties—drinking, explicit dancing, and generally vulgar behaviour. Still that night…I longed for a man to appreciate my gyrating waist… [Yellow-Yellow, p 93:] In spite of such a solid reference to the template of the past, it would be stretching the point too much to claim that these traditional texts have exercised any direct influence on the new writers (Akeem Lasisi may be the exception). I believe the furthest one can go is to say that the anterior texts furnish us with evidence, at least, that the recent explicitness is not strange to our culture, and that the writers are aware of this. Speaking about my own generation, I know that we, as well as our parents before us, were taught in the colonial and immediate post-colonial schools that there was no love theme in our traditional life, simply because black Africans did not fall in love! We did not experience romantic impulses, period! And the reason for such

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1 default, we were told, was that the practice of polygamy and early marriages did not encourage such things as romantic love in our lives. We were told that even though our people were sensitive to the details of the human anatomy and to their erotic possibilities, it was only in a gross manner, associated merely with the utilitarian purpose of procreation, and hence incapable of generating that special sensibility and refinement of spirit that lead to the production of poem or madrigal. Of course we all believed it. But now, all that too has been exploded as a gross, racially constructed fallacy. In a recent collection, for instance, entitled Maternal Divinity Yemonja: Tranquil Sea, Turbulent Tides, two researchers, Lord Weaver and Olukunmi Egbelade, have been able to assemble various love stories in which the deities themselves, and especially Yemonja, are the active protagonists. And how shockingly instructive it is to discover that the great mother of all orisha, Yemonja herself, led a romantic life even more turbulent than that of Jagua! So the new writers do have precedence in our tradition, and their sexual explicitness can be traced back to ancient and indigenous roots. In any case, the argument presented here is this that, if this new literature seems to present a signal that the old society of the post-Independence and the immediate post-Biafran years has gone, it is only because the anguish of that world has further deepened, and not ended. In the new age, desperation has only acquired a different tune. On the surface, what we are being shown looks like the announcement of the advent of a new generation, with a completely different sensibility and world-view from ours. But, as always, we need to be cautious about this surface proposition. Certainly we must not get carried away to imagine that the apparent manifestation of a revolution in the social ethos and in public sensibility is real, that it marks a definite or profound schism between the present and the past; between the new age of the Internet and the traditions we inherited. Rather, what may be closer to the truth is that, if it is indeed a new world out there now, it is also a world racked by the same familiar torments and the enduring angst of the recent past, a world of unceasing anomy perhaps worse than ours. As far as I can see, all the formal signs we see are meretricious. But let me explain. Certainly it cannot be denied that this new literature of our younger siblings displays a new sophistication and precocious assurance, an impressive craftsmanship, a confidence and maturity in the handling of plot and story, that are an exciting departure from the previous works in many ways. The new works tell us, now more firmly than we learnt from Iyayi’s Heroes, that the “Achebe tradition”, or the Age of the “Okonkwo syndrome”, is over. These fictions no longer seek to explain the past, to revive or showcase our cultural traditions, or renew our faith in our broken sense of identity. Instead, the stories are about the here and now, the present-day society and the manifold problems of living in it. Thus there is a definite departure from the familiar village settings of the Achebeans to urban locations, and most especially the city of Lagos. (Promise’s fictitious “Bana” in In The Middle of the Night, is a markedly unsuccessful disguise for Lagos). This implies naturally then a change of cast from village characters—e.g. the babalawos, dibias, of the Elechi Amadis or Wale Ogunyemis, etc—to city dwellers. It means the disappearance from the script of the plethora of exotic customs that the older authors meticulously commemorated—customs such as the breaking of kola, or the chanting of ritual incantations, and so on. Furthermore, we are witnessing a gradual shift from a fixation on the lumpen proletariat (popular even as recently as in Habila, Mark Nwosu, Akin Adesokan, Lekan Oyegoke, etc) to

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74 characters mostly of the upper middle class, well-to-do men and women, living in Ikoyi or Victoria Island (or some equivalent posh neighbourhood in the country). This means of course that the new writers (with the exception of Iweala, whose affiliation is with Saro Wiwa’s Sozaboy) have also jettisoned the linguistic and rhetorical experiments of their predecessors, especially the famous proverbalizations that distinguish Achebe’s characters and help establish their black African identity. The new heroes speak the formal English taught in schools, mingled occasionally with pidgin or snatches of one or other of our indigenous languages, that is, the heteroglossia used frequently now in the circles of the elite. But still, to reframe my central question—In spite of these conspicuous signals of a new dispensation, in spite of this open celebration of the ecstasies of the libido, how much distance, really, can one say the new writers have traveled from the achievement of their predecessors? And my answer is: very little distance in fact. Examined closely, it soon becomes obvious that all this imaginative revolution, together with its shocking licentiousness, is just a professional smokescreen. No, the territory of emotional and somatic experience has not changed; it has only acquired a greater acuity. Terror, anomy and angst are still the recognizable features of the new bloom. The apparent propensity for titillation may rouse a scandal, but in the end it is only an insidious disguise for a lucid confrontation with reality, as established already by the older writers. These new works, for all their foregrounding of love affairs and lurid scenes of love-making, are in the end, only a more subtle, (more clever?) means by these younger authors to intervene trenchantly in the socio-political crises of the age. Beneath the love theme and its myriad turpitudes is always a steady discussion and criticism sometimes very acerbic in fact of the sorry political situation caused by irresponsible and corrupt leadership. And hence, side by side with the erotic moments are vivid pictures of the grim and squalid conditions of the populace. Instead of evasion, what we have, to our surprise, is scathing indictment. This is why I want to claim that, in spite of their temper and iconoclasm, the younger writers are only playing, in a far more poignant, more deadly manner, the same game that we too once played, with even the same motivating furies. They have changed the weapons no doubt; but it is still the same war! The most obvious example here, in line with my postulation, is Promise’s In the Middle of the Night. But even the works that are more ostensibly engaged with love stories are no different in their socio-political focus, only less overt. Thus, for instance, for all its interesting foregrounding of the romantic tangles of the two twins and their lovers, Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun is also equally about the horrors and bestialities of the Biafran war, and the corrosive effects of war in general on human relationships. Similarly in Beasts of No Nation Iweala’s exploration of pederasty and child rape, presented so gruesomely through the eyes of the boy-soldier and victim, Agu, is in fact a deflected mirror of the same theme of the ghastly dehumanization that war brings to the human society. In Yellow-Yellow, Zilayefa’s story seems on the surface to be the narrative of a young woman’s coming of age, and of the painful process of her ripening into sexual maturity. But a deeper reading soon reveals that there are in fact few books that are as detailed and penetrating on the dirty politics of the oil-producing Delta areas and the sorry plight of its victims. Thus, although it is not as directly pitched on this theme as, say, Tanure Ojaide’s The Activist, it seems to me, by its oblique method, to achieve a more powerful impact than many other books on the topic. In addition to all these, there is also the fact that the political background that provides the contextual framework for the narratives of all of these writers—Promise, Abani, Aipoh, Atta, and Adichie—is always deliberately and cleverly allied to that of actual history and lived events,

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1 but in such a manner that the authors are able to again and again voice their grievances without being overtly cumbersome. Always the protests, however trenchant, flow fluidly with the currents of narration, so you almost do not notice the bitterness. Study, for instance, the following scenario as reported by Sefi Atta: Along the way, road blocks had been set up, as they always were after a military coup. Cars slowed as they approached them and pedestrians moved quietly. A truck loaded of soldiers drove past, sounding a siren. The soldiers jeered and lashed at cars with horsewhips… A driver pulled over too late. Half the soldiers jumped down from the truck and dragged him out of his car. They started slapping him. The driver’s hands went up to plead for mercy. They flogged him with horsewhips and left him there, whimpering by the door of his car.[p73] This comes into the story only tangentially, as a side comment to the main narration, but what other essay even directly on the subject could be more denunciatory of the reign of the soldiers in our locust years? Or compare the following scene, as narrated by Adichie: He stopped another car, a Peugeot 403. “Come out right now!” The smallish man came out and stood by his car. The officer reached out and pulled his glasses from his face and flung them into the bush. ‘Ah, now you cannot see? But you could see enough to write propaganda for Ojukwu? Is that not what all of you civil servants did?’ The man squinted and rubbed his eyes. ‘Lie down,’ the officer said. The man laid down on the coal tar. The officer took a long cane and began to flog the man across his back and buttocks, ta-wai, ta-wai, ta-wai, and the man cried out something Olanna did not understand. ‘Say Thank you, sah!’ the officer said. The man said, ‘Thank you, sir!’ ‘Say it again!’ ‘Thank you, sir!’ [p 417] The novel is not a direct diatribe against the soldiers, but its exposure of their terror and its effect on the survivors of the war could not be more devastating! Likewise, Promise’s In the Middle of the Night is a bold and thinly-disguised indictment of the homicidal perfidies of the Abacha regime, all the more admirable in that it was written during the very life of the regime! Thus, without adopting any deliberately combatant or didactic posture, without donning any messianic garb, and by instead deflecting their comments through the mirror of a love story spiced with juicy eroticism, these authors are still able to target all the ills that plague our nation. Just as, you may say, in the works of their predecessors. Always behind the façade of these love stories is a gripping denunciation of the leadership, of the corruption around, and a revelation of the deplorable plight of the common people. This shows in the fact that the three commonest themes that the authors dwell on, are precisely the ones currently considered to be at the roots of our national crises and so needing the most urgent attention. These themes are, by general consensus, the still unhealed wounds of the Biafra war (Adichie, Iweala); the ongoing agitation

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76 for justice in the Niger Delta Region (Yerima, Agary, Ifowodo, Bassey, etc); and the women’s struggle for equity in a largely paternalistic polity (Sefi Atta, Aipoh, Obi, Ezeigbo, etc). This is to say therefore, in case it needs reiteration, that the new writers are, in spite of their seduction by the libido, still as committed as, or even more so than, their predecessors. And Chris Dunton is right to conclude that “… new energies, new emphases, have emerged that leave us with a very different kind of novel now than that envisaged by, for example, Ekwensi or Achebe… [But] in the novels of the last decade the depiction of deprivation, of the stresses and privations of Lagos life for those without wealth, remains fore-grounded.” There are two further features of the new fiction that I wish to bring up for consideration: The first, as is to be expected perhaps, is that, but for a few rare instances—Seye Oke’s Love’s Lie, and Akachi’s Children of the Eagle come to mind—these love affairs hardly ever lead to permanent happiness. The lovers experience considerable anguish, but even so, fulfillment is invariably brief; leading to other tensions. These characters, who are mainly women struggling to free themselves from traditional stereotypes, as Mistress or Mother, try hard to carve a new image for themselves. But they and their spouses and companions are almost always flawed personalities, perverted lovers, wounded Aphrodites or Cassandras, adulterers, cuckolds, prostitutes, and so on. In these novels, the old image of the ideal woman as saint, or goddess, has been turned into a broken myth. But on the other hand, it is interesting that in almost all these works, artists and journalists play prominent roles, and are for the most part presented as positive heroes and redemptive figures. Odenigbo, Olanna’s husband, and Richard, Kainene’s consort, in Adichie’s Yellow Sun are both writer and journalist respectively; Nuru, Elena’s husband in Promise’s Middle of the Night is a celebrated poet; the heroic woman, Grace Ameh, in Atta’s Everything Good is a poet-journalist. Similar figures throng the works of Maik Nwosu, Akin Adesokan, Okey Ndibe, and most notably Helon Habila. My reading of this phenomenon is that these writers are caught between the conflicting responses not only to the country and its unresolved anomy, but also to the various contradictions of our century and our times, and the wager between nostalgia for the past and the incomplete, and inchoate pressures of the present. They are, like several intellectuals, trapped by a paradoxical love of country and the frustrations of living in it. Sorely stretched and distressed on the one hand, they are however, on the other, unable to let go, to give up on the country and leave permanently for exile. Therefore they feel condemned between despair and optimism; between their role as victims and as prophets of hope. The younger writers are unsparing critics, but the suggestion they give in these books is that they survive because they write and create. Writing redeems, they say, and because of that, a creative mind could learn in the end to sublimate pain and deconstruct despair. This, it seems, is the window of hope that these writers offer, that is, as Dunton puts it, “the idea of writing as lifesaver, as self-validation, as a steering mechanism for political activism.” It is here that the possibility lies of eventual triumph over the beast of anomy. This is what would explain, I suppose, the central importance given to Lagos in these narrations. A city of great ambivalence, seething with energy and yet, self-destructive dynamism, it is a perfect trope for the divided self of these writers themselves. Like all those who live there, Nigerians and foreigners alike, the writers view Lagos with reverence and awe, but also with consternation and terror. They celebrate the city again and again in several loving passages, and we can select any among them, but let us listen to Aracelli Aipoh:

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[Lagos] had those surprises that could change lives in seconds, to build and destroy, to fulfil destinies or wipe them away completely…it was like comparing an English garden to an African jungle. Who needed a boring, neat, and well-tended English garden where nothing but a dying snail could surprise you, when you could have a jungle where a lion could pop out any minute… and cause adrenalin to pump like crazy in your veins? [p.126] This is Lagos, symbol of the country’s tumultuous arrival in the market of modernism, with all its pleasure and dynamism, and at the same time the lingering pains of the humanism that our society once possessed but now has lost. Lagos is the concrete face of Eros, just as it has always been from the time of Ekwensi’s Jagua Nana. But does its resurgence in the emerging writers represent a new exoticism, or a subtle strategy to force us to focus more feelingly on the inadequacies and brutalities of our times? Your guess is as good as mine. But it seems to me that, in the age of Big Brother Africa, of Nollywood and proliferating Pentecostalism, of the increasingly intrusive Internet, and such developments in the IT revolution, this will be more obviously the new face of our literature in Nigeria in the new millennium.

Reference: Irele, Abiola. 1991. “Introduction” to Clark-Bekederemo, J.P. 1991. Collected Plays and Poems, 1958-1988. Washington D.C.: Howard University Press. Olajubu, Chief Oludare. 1972. “References to Sex in Yoruba Oral Literature,” Journal of American Folklore. Vol. 85, no. 336. April-June 1972: pp 152-166. Adebayo, Bayo. 2005. A Night of Incantations (and other poems). Ibadan: Positive Press. Adeniran, Tunde. 2005. Labyrinthine Ways (Poems). Ibadan: Kraft Books. Agadama, Efemena. (Undated). Drumbeats for Darkness. Warri: Etones Production. Agary, Kaine. 2006. Yellow-Yellow. Lagos: Dtalkshop. Aipoh, Araceli. 2005. No Sense of Limits: A Novel. Nigeria: Magicword Limited. Aiyejina, Funso. 2004. I, The Supreme and Other Poems. Ibadan: Kraft Books. Atta, Sefi. 2005. Everything Good Will Come. Lagos: Farafina. Dasylva, Ademola O. 2006. Songs of Odamolugbe. Poem. Ibadan: Kraft Books. Diekola, Seyi and Anegbe, Anthony Asemokhai. 2001. Monument: An Anthology of Poems. Ibadan: Bolutife Publishers. Dunton, Chris. 2005. “Entropy and Energy: Lagos as City of Words.” Unp.mss. [Lecture delivered for the Association of Nigerian Authors Annual Conference]. Eghagha, Hope. 2003. This Story Must Not be Told. Lagos: Literary Book Series. Eghagha, Hope. 2004. The Governor’s Lodge and Other Poems. Lagos: Deocraft Communications.

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78 Emmanuel, Taiwo. 2006. Naked Songs. Lagos: Jemie Ventures International. Habila, Helon. 2002. Waiting for an Angel. London: Penguin Group. Ilagha, Nengi. 1999. Mantids. Lagos: Mace Associates. Iweala, Uzodinma. 2005. Beasts of no Nation. New York: HarperCollins. Lamikanra, Adebayo. 2003. Heart Sounds. Ibadan: Kraft Books. Lasisi, Akeem. 2005. Night of My Flight: The Poetry of a Lady About to Wed. Lagos: Full Point Communication and Publications. Njoku, Austyn. 2002. Scene of Dawn. Lagos: Oracle Books. Nwosu, Angela. 2002. Waking Dreams: Poems. Lagos: House of Malaika & Hybun. Nwosu, Maik. 2001. Invisible Chapters. Lagos: House of Malaika & Hybun. Nzegwu, Chinwe Nneka 2000. Elusive Melody Poems. Enugu: John Jacob’s Classic Publishers. Obafemi, Olu. 2001. Songs of Hope Ilorin: Haytee Press and Publishing Co. Nig. Ltd. Obi, Sophia. 2005. Tears in a Basket. Ibadan: Kraft Books. Ofili, Chike. 2001. Our Unspoken Ties. Lagos: Reputation Consulting. Ogbowei, G. Ebinyo. 2006. The Heedless Ballot Box. Ibadan: Kraft Books. Ohaeto, Ezenwa. 2003. The Chants of a Minstrel. Ibadan: Kraft Books. Ojaide, Tanure. 2006. The Activist. Lagos: Farafina. Oke, Seye. 2006: Love’s Lie. Lagos: Splendour Dynasty. Okekwe, Promise O. 2001. Templates and Distances. Lagos: Oracle Books. Okekwe, Promise Ogochukwu. 2004. In The Middle of the Night. Lagos: Oracle Books Limited. Okwelume, Charles O. 2001. Ogurigwe (a play). Ibadan. Spectrum Books. Omamegbe, Ismail. 2005. The Colours of Seasons (A Collection of Poems). Lagos: Oracle Books. Omoniyi, Tope. 2001. Farting Presidents and Other Poems. Ibadan: Kraft Books Osundare, Niyi. 2006. Tender Moments: Love Poems. Ibadan: University Press Plc. Ricard, Alain and Veit-Wild, Flora. 2005. Interfaces Between the Oral and the Written: Versions and Subversions in African Literatures 2. New York: Amsterdam. Segun, Mabel. 1986. Conflict and Other Poems. Ibadan: New Horn Press Ltd. Umukoro, Mathew M. 2002. Obi & Clara: A Stage Adaptation of Chinua Achebe’s Novel No Longer at Ease. Ibadan: Stirling-Horden Publishers (Nig). Ltd. Yerima, Ahmed. 2006. Hard Ground. Ibadan: Kraft Books. Abani, Chris. 2004. Graceland. New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux. Oyegoke, Lekan. Ill Winds. Ezeigbo, Akachi. Children of the Eagle. Ekwensi Cyprian. 1961. Jagua Nana. London: Hutchinson. Launko, Okinba. Dreamseeker on Divining Chain. Ibadan, Kraft Books, 1983. Weaver, Lloyd and Olukunmi Egbelade. 1999. Maternal Divinity Yemonja, Tranquil Sea, Turbulent Tides (Eleven Yoruba Tales). New York: Athelia Henrietta Press.

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Nollywood, Hives, and Homophobia Unoma N. Azuah* Most Nigerian films popularly referred to as Nollywood present an unsophisticated and inhumane image of Nigerians because they lack literary merit, and above all promote homophobia. A glaring problem with Nollywood is the oversimplification by with which conflicts are resolved. Most often, writers of Nollywood scripts bypass the complex process of problem solving people use in real life. As a substitute for engaging their characters in applying intelligence, discernment, inner strength and tempered faith to resolve conflicts, Nollywood film characters are saturated with a sensationalized depiction of voodoo practices conquered by a cartoon-like Christian force that makes all well within minutes. Routinely, this force is tritely manifested in the invocation of the supernatural: a shoddier version of the Greek theater, I’d say. Moreover, a good number of Nollywood’s themes are trapped in the categories of Christian, voodoo/ritual and the sexist stereotyping of women. In fact, Onokome Okome states it succinctly when he says that, “Since the release of Living in Bondage, the stories circulating in Nollywood have remained within … spheres of ... religious spaces such as the church, the opaque but deadly world of the “occult,” and in the city streets where violence punctuates the daily routines of the poor and vulnerable.” He goes further to articulate that the thematic preferences of these movies are “based on the notions of inherited stereotyping of women perpetuated by…patriarchy.” In Michael Dembrow’s words, the specious space Nollywood occupies is “generally sentimental, unsophisticated in style, melodramatic, illogical, and poorly acted.” Further, John McCall observes that “in these videos, the plots inevitably lead to the *

Unoma Azuah teaches English at Lane College, Jackson, Tennessee. She is an MFA graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University. She has a B.A in English from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and an MA in English from Cleveland State University. She has received a number of awards including the Hellman/Hammett award and the Leornard Trawick award. Unoma Azuah is the author of Sky-High Flames (PublishAmerica, 2005) which received the Urban Spectrum Best National Novel of the Year 2006.

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80 same Christian dénouement. An evangelist enters to exorcise the demons, whether of capitalist greed, traditional paganism, or, frequently, some noxious mixture of both. Whatever complex and cruel fate befalls the protagonists, in the end all is remedied by repetition of the phrase, "In the name of Jesus!" Zeb Ejiro adds to this by stating that “the performance of the country’s movie industry is in a pretty bad shape… It is in a bad shape because we have not been able to build structures.” One of the ways Nollywood attempts to free itself of superfluous ideas is by broaching proscribed issues like homosexuality in movies like Last Wedding, Emotional Crack, Beautiful Faces, My School Mother, and End Times. However, these films remain ensnared by feeble characterization, banal finishes and an irrational disapproval of homosexuality. For example, a fairly well produced movie like Emotional Crack is not nurtured to accommodate an objective creativity that would have given room to an in-depth exploration of the human mind, regardless of background or sexual orientation. Instead, populist strictures of sexism and homophobia, typical of patriarchal societies, overrun Nollywood. For instance, one begins to wonder if it is mere co-incidence that all the characters involved in lesbian relationships in Nollywood movies end up tragically. Or could it be the function of homophobia manifesting itself in Nollywood? In the words of Cuca Hepburn and Bonnie Gutierrez, “in the arsenal of patriarch[al] homophobia is a primary weapon used to maintain social control. The function of homophobia is to force both women and men to meet the expectations of traditional sex roles and to support the power imbalances inherent in our existing society.” Could it be that when these Nollywood lesbian characters depart from their expected responsibilities as women who are expected to love men, they are doomed to a catastrophic end? This seems to be the case. The story line of Emotional Crack hinges on an abusive and cheating husband, Chudi, who eventually decides to remain faithful to his wife. But during the course of the abuse, Camille, who incidentally was his secret lover, draws close to his wife Crystal in sympathy. Camille falls in love with Crystal and hopes to hold on to her. But when Crystal decides to break loose so as not to lose Chudi, Camille becomes spiteful and sets herself on a mission to let Chudi see them in bed. This happens, but Crystal gets even more determined to end the relationship with Camille and save her marriage at all cost. Camille goes ballistic. She vows to have Crystal back or end it all. She eventually stabs herself to death. Last Wedding is a story of an arranged marriage. Incidentally the bribe to be, Ann, is a lesbian so involved with her lover that the two women find every opportunity to nurture their romance, even on the bride’s wedding day. Earlier in the movie the bride’s father catches them attempting to have sex in his house. He vows to disown and disinherit his daughter and forces her to promise to sever all ties with her lover. Ann agrees but her lover remains her chief bridesmaid. While the bride, Ann, is being dressed up on her wedding day, the wedding planner steps out to get something; her lover holds her and they get down to an intense romance on the floor. They get so carried away that they are oblivious to the fact that people could walk in on them. While Ann and her lover are carried away in romance, the wedding planner and the mother-in-law do walk in on them; the mother-in-law collapses at the sight. The wedding is stopped and everything is called off. Ann, the lesbian bride, is presented at the end of the movie explaining away her lesbianism: restricted access to boys, sheltered life, authoritarian father, an all girls’ boarding school, and all sorts of preposterous reasons for why she is a lesbian. Ann has to come to terms with the threats her father throws at her: disinheritance and being disowned. In yet another movie: Beautiful Faces, the central character Vivida, is a lesbian on campus who terrorizes any girl she wants. For extra protection from the male cult group, she

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1 grants Nick, the head cultist, sexual favors. She also flirts and imposes herself on any girl she wants, and does this with reckless abandon. Unfortunately, she is tied up in a love triangle when Nick falls for Natasha, the girl Vivida desperately wants. In sum, she is not just depicted as a naughty girl who happens to be a lesbian living her impish life. Her life is further stretched to make her a thief, prostitute, and the gang leader of a vicious secret cult on campus; thr gang of outlaws that attack and intimidate people at will. At the end, Vivida is arrested and accorded the punishment she and her group of lesbian squad deserve. Nick, meanwhile, goes scot-free and is furthermore rewarded with Natasha, the ultimate gift. Additionally, End Times is one of the few, almost non-existent Nollywood movies that attempts to portray male homosexual characters. Most homosexual issues treated in Nollywood are centered on lesbians. Reacting to this concern, an anonymous contributor in one of the largest on-line gatherings of Nollywood fans posed the question: I'm curious, we've seen a couple of same sex relationships in Nollywood flicks, however, they've all been on the female side. Why have we yet to see a same sex love theme flick on the male side? Is Lesbianism not as much of a taboo in our culture as homosexuality? Why then have we seen the former and not the latter? In response, another contributor replies: “It’s funny how Nollywood constantly endorses or portrays lesbianism but not gay men-ism. Maybe its just that women are sexier than men so watching two women feel up on each other is sexier than seeing two men do it.”

The latter retort is the sexist, but popular stance and represents Nollywood’s pattern of producing more lesbian movies than male gay movies. The phenomenon, though, is consistent with male dominated societies because in such societies men are looked upon as subjects while women are seen as items. This is in line with Clatterbaugh’s findings wherein the analyses of masculinity reveals a tendency for the assumption that men are subjects and women are objects. The same prototype controls the way homosexual issues are portrayed in Nollywood. The plot of End Times does not in any way reveal a detailed life of a gay man; it is rather glossed over. The protagonist is a pastor and a homosexual who gets all his powers from the devil. He thrives on deception, deceit and falsehood, but at the end he is caught and overtaken by the Power of God. So, good triumphs over evil. It is evident that the pastor’s sexual attraction to his fellow men is a huge component of his iniquities. In other words, the pastor’s sexuality is lumped side by side with evil. The title of the movie itself is suggestive of what the scriptwriter may have had in mind: a Christian interpretation of the end times and the end of the world. A number of Nollywood experts have excused Nollywood’s weaknesses because according to them, Nollywood is young and still emerging compared to veteran movie industries like Hollywood and Bollywood. For example, the renowned actor Joke Silva opines that, “in the Nigerian home video scene...the low quality of movies that some people complain about is usually because the industry is still growing…In Nollywood, everybody is learning on the job and it’s a bit slow.” But literary merit does not necessarily rely on time for quality. A story is either a bad story or a good one. New-fangled has never been a synonym for mundane or mediocre.

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82 On the other hand, film experts like Hope Eghagha attempt to explain Nollywood’s deficiencies thus, “their expectations were populist and when you are dealing with populism, you tend to de-emphasize art.” However, since Nollywood sets out to reach a broad spectrum of viewers, there exists a need to cater to an inclusive audience. Nollywood consequently needs to work towards credibility and erudition in order to be where it is supposed to be in the world map of movie production. Hence, those who are skilled in the art of screen writing, who are open minded, ready to acknowledge differences without being judgmental or righteous and are able to create convincing story lines, should be made to run the affairs of Nollywood. It cannot be overstated that Nollywood needs a total overhaul in order to embrace the rapid growth it so well deserves.

References Ade-Odutola, Kole. Personal Interview, September 30th, 2007. Anonymous, “Homosexual Themes.” Naijarules.com. September, 2007. Akoma, Chinweoke. “Nigeria….Best Movie Producer in the World.” Sunday Vanguard, August 19th, 2007. Clatterbaugh, Kenneth. Contemporary Perspectives on Masculinity: Men, Women and Politics in Modern Society. Westview Press: A member of the Perseus Books Group, 1997, Boulder, Colorado. Dembrow, Micheal. “Notes from Michael Dembrow” Heritage: Sixteen Annual Cascade Festival of African Films. Portland, Oregon. February, 2006. http://spot.pcc.edu/ ~mdenbrow/heritage.htm McCall, John. C. “Madness, Money, and Movies: Watching a Nigerian Popular Video with the Guidance of a Native Doctor.” Africa Today. Volume 49. Number 3, fall. September, 2002. . Nwachukwu, Mcphilips and Ezechi Onyerionwu. “The Actual Achievement of Nigerian Films Should be gauged in the quality of the film itself.” An interview with Hope Eghagha. Vanguard Newspaper, October 7, 2007. Ogwuegbu, Ijeoma. “Joke Silva…still dreams big.” Onlinenigeria.com. June 10, 2006. . Okome, Onookome. “Introducing the Special Issue on West African Cinema: Africa at the Movies. Postcolonial Text, Vol 3, No 2, 2007.

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1 Osofisan, Sola. E-mail interview. September, 2007. Sargent, Lee, Mary. “Body Politics: Discovering Women’s Sexual Preferences.” Maryleesargent.org, 5, October 1990.

Screaming Shailja Patel I. there are too many battles and too many wounds and I I can’t take it I don’t want to know that Inez Garcia was sentenced to life imprisonment for killing the man who held her down while two other men raped her I want to cover my ears and scream to block out the voices that chant that Piah Njoki had her eyes gouged out by her husband because she did not bear him a son I want to be free of the murder that pounds in my brain because six hundred women a year in Delhi alone are doused in paraffin and burned

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84 burned to death for the crime of too small a dowry I want to pretend it won’t happen to me did you know that a student at Sussex university was raped on her first night in residence by a man who just walked just walked into her room I am not a part of this bleeding this scream I don’t want to challenge argue fight construct confront negotiate beg for change do you hear me I want to retreat to a room filled with± women shut out the night the fear and pain hear myself stop screaming inside unravel my breathing ask in a very low voice dare I claim the right to a voice that does not scream? II. so it wasn’t until I learned to fight I could be sexy the swing of my hip developed and pace with my elbow strike I grew out my hair as my flesh grew harder began to wear lipstick bare my shoulders as I learned to judge how fast to strike and where groin eyes

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1 jugular It wasn’t until I could walk down a street knowing I could turn rage into action that I could strut down the same street say with my stride yes I think I look good too yes I revel in my body yes I love the sun on my skin this body is mine the better I learn to defend it the better I flaunt it from sheer joy III.

for the truth of experience Is in the body when I am a fighter my body is weapon when I am a lover my body is food now my body is paintbrush story truth illusion sing through my limbs like the shock of cold water breathe me clear breathe me free breathe me home.

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Rapport du Projet Extorsion (IGLHRC) Johannesburg du 30 au 31 Octobre 2007 Charles Gueboguo•

Pendant deux jours s’est tenu en Afrique du Sud, dans la ville de Johannesburg, une rencontre organisée par l’IGLHRC autour de ‘Extortion Project.’ La rencontre a réuni à la fois des chercheurs, des avocats, des militants Africains de la lutte pour la reconnaissance des droits des minorités sexuelles. Les objectifs des travaux étaient de: • Se familiariser d’abord avec la signification des concepts ‘extorsion’ et ‘chantage’ • Générer des réflexions autour de la fréquence des extorsions et des chantages que peuvent subir ou que subissent les personnes sur la base de leur orientation sexuelle ou de leur identité de genre • Décider si une plus grande attention devrait être accordée à cette question, dans quel cas essayer ensemble d’établir un agenda de travail autour de la question avec l’IGLHRC. Pour le premier objectif, les travaux se sont déroulés le premier jour autour de certains exercices pour permettre à l’assemblée de mieux saisir les notions d’extorsion et de chantage. Le premier exercice intitulé ‘secret’ consistait à choisir parmi un lot d’enveloppes, une enveloppe •

Charles Gueboguo is the author of La Question Homosexuelle en Afrique: Le Cas du Cameroun, Paris (Harmattan 2006) and is a Doctorate student in Sociology at the University of Yaounde, Cameroon.

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1 dans laquelle un papillon dévoilait ce que le détenteur de l’enveloppe devait considérer comme son secret et ne pas le divulguer à son voisin. Après que chaque participant ait eu connaissance de ‘son’ secret’ il s’est agi à tour de rôle de dire : 1. Comment on se sentait par rapport à ce secret ? 2. Avec qui l’on aurait pu partager ce secret ? Pourquoi et dans quelles circonstances cette exposition de notre secret rendrait notre existence meilleure ? 3. Quelle serait l’unique personne en fin de compte, qu’on aurait aimé qu’elle soit au courant du secret ? 4. Comment on se serait senti si notre partenaire, nos parents, nos enfants ou nos voisins avaient été informés de ce secret ? 5. Et enfin comment est-ce que ce secret aurait pu être utilisé contre nous ? Le but de ce premier exercice était de démontrer que le secret de manière générale a une nature pluridimensionnelle. Les secrets touchent toutes les sphères de nos vies : intimes, publiques, privées etc., et ils nous fragilisent en ceci qu’ils nous exposent d’une manière comme d’une autre. On a ainsi pu noter qu’il y avait dans l’assistance des personnes qui se sentaient naturellement à l’aise d’en parler, tandis que d’autres n’osaient même pas dire de quoi il était question. Pour ce qui est des pratiques homosexuelles qui sont interdites dans près de 38 pays africains, nous avons établis que ces prohibitions font le lit de l’extorsion et du chantage. C’est pourquoi l’hypothèse suivante a été posée : savoir que la décriminalisation de l’homosexualité dans les pays africains passe aussi par l’évacuation du stigma social et de l’extorsion sur la base de l’orientation sexuelle. Ce premier exercice a servi de pont pour générer une réflexion constructive autour de la compréhension des notions d’extorsion et de chantage à partir d’une approche juridique et sociologique. Il en est ressorti que dans la saisie conceptuelle de ces deux notions, l’état de menace reste l’élément central dans leur définition. A cela, il faut aussi ajouter l’état d’inconfort, d’insécurité, de danger et de perturbations ou de troubles psychologiques. D’un point de vue juridique une précision a été apportée, à savoir que l’extorsion, qui n’a rien à voir avec la corruption, requière la menace d’une violation physique, tandis que le chantage a trait à la menace de l’exposition d’un secret sans violation de l’intégrité physique. Toutefois il a été précisé que suivant les pays, cette approche juridictionnelle pouvait varier. En effet dans certains pays, ces deux notions sont soit séparées soit combinées par les législations en vigueurs. A partir de ces pistes définitionnelles, le schéma synthétique suivant a pu être retracé : A

menace

B

Si et seulement si C

ne fait pas

Légende : A : C’est l’initiateur ; le maître-chanteur

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88 B : c’est l’action ou la conséquence/ C’est aussi la menace ou le secret à dévoiler C : c’est la victime ; la cible ou le sujet qui subit la menace ou le chantage D : c’est le bénéfice escompté Suivant ce modèle, un exercice a été proposé aux participants repartis en groupe, qui devaient trouver des exemples similaires à partir des expériences personnelles ou de l’expérience des personnes proches. Quelques exemples choisis au hasard : 1. My ex boy friend (A) threatened to rape me (B) if I (C) didn’t stop seing other women (D) 2. My uncle threatened to tell my family that I’m lesbian if i didn’t have sex with him. (Vous pouvez continuer l’exercice si vous le voulez bien !) 3. My employer threatened to dismiss me if I didn’t stop to work also with LGBTI group. (Vous pouvez continuer l’exercice si vous le voulez bien !) Cet exercice a permis de générer des réflexions dans une sorte de brainstorming de la part des participants. Ils voulaient savoir, entre autres, à quel moment est-ce que l’on parle de chantage et qui en sont les auteurs ? Est-ce que les personnes homosexuelles peuvent-elles aussi faire du chantage sur la base de l’orientation homosexuelle ? Y a-t-il une attitude à adopter de ce fait ? Est-ce que les personnes homosexuelles face à cette situation de chantage et/ou d’extorsion ont-elles des recours légaux ? A l’issue, l’assemblée s’est accordée sur les définitions opératoires de l’extorsion et du chantage suivant : Extortion: Obtaining money, property or services from another person through coercion or intimidation or threats of physical or reputational harm. Blackmail: Threat to reveal information that can be embarrassing or socially damaging, unless the target fulfills certain demands. Après ce consensus, il est apparu évident pour tous d’accorder plus d’attention sur la question de l’extorsion et du chantage sur la base de l’orientation sexuelle. C’est ce qui a conduit le second jour à la proposition de 08 approches pour apporter une réponse à la saisie et à une meilleure connaissance des situations d’extorsions et/ou de chantages que vivent les personnes LGBTI: 1. Certains ont proposé des stratégies par étapes qui incluraient, entre autres, la nécessité de faire un coming out. Le principe voudrait que si autour d’un individu l’on sait déjà qu’il a une orientation homosexuelle, il devient difficile de l’attaquer sur cette base. Cette approche n’a pas reçu le consentement de tous, mais elle a été retenue pour du répondre contexte et des stratégies propres à chaque pays. 2. L’usage des stratégies non légales pour répondre à l’extorsion et au chantage sur la base de l’orientation sexuelle. Il n’ y a pas eu plus d’explication là-dessus. 3. Eduquer les gens à travers de petits manuels, des posters, des affichettes, des tracts sur la question homosexuelle. 4. Problématiser la ‘non africanité’ de l’homosexualité par la démonstration du fait que l’homosexualité est en tout temps et dans toutes les cultures, mêmes dans celles où il n’y pas de locus pour la dire. L’absence de lexique n’équivaut pas à l’absence de pratiques homosexuelles. Tout au plus il pourrait être avancé que certaines sociétés n’ont tout simplement pas modélisé cette altérité sexuelle. 5. Encourager les changements de comportements au sein même de la communauté LGBTI, car dans certains cas, ce sont les personnes homosexuelles qui sont responsables des

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1 situations où le flanc est prêté au chantage et/ou à l’extorsion. 6. Essayer aussi d’utiliser des approches légales quand elles existent. On est parti du fait que parfois il existe des instruments légaux pour protéger du chantage et/ou de l’extorsion que les gens ignorent. 7. Les recherches et enquêtes quantitatives ont été proposées au Cameroun ou/et des enquêtes qualitatives avec les récits de vie, notamment en Afrique du Sud ou en Ouganda. 8. Maximiser l’utilisation d’Internet. Tous les résultats devront être disponibles au plus tard en juin 2008 pour ce qui est des recherches de terrain ou de la conceptions des manuels et autres affichettes et seront présentés sous la forme d’un livre ou de divers articles.

Announcements: The IRN-Africa editorial board is pleased to announce the winners of the 2008 Awards Yvette Abrahams (South Africa), IRN-Africa Desmond Tutu Award Notisha Massaquoi (Canada), IRN-Africa Audre Lorde Award Shailja Patel (Kenya), IRN-Africa Fanny Ann Eddy Award Femi Osofisan (Nigeria), IRN-Africa Simon Nkoli Award Victor Ehikhamenor (Nigeria), IRN-Africa Outstanding Award in Visual Arts Crispin Oduobuk-Mfon Abasi (Nigeria), IRN-Africa Outstanding Award in Creative Writing

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