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Homophobia in Uganda: Part of Traditional Ugandan Culture or an Imperial Import?
Homosexuality is a crime in 38 of 54 sub-Saharan countries, but by far the toughest anti-gay laws are in place in Uganda. On 24th February 2014 Ugandan President Yoweri Musevini signed into law a bill which “allows life imprisonment as the penalty for acts of ‘aggravated homosexuality’ and also criminalises the ‘promotion of homosexuality’, where activists encourage others to come out.”
Many people believe that homosexuality itself was introduced into Africa by European colonisers. All across Africa, statesmen, religious officials and the media proclaim “that homosexual practices were a foreign imposition and … were not tolerated within African cultures prior to European contact" (Oloruntoba-Oju). However, Western scholars “dismiss such mainstream African contention as a ‘myth’…” (Oloruntoba-Oju). The purpose of this post is to assess, as far as possible, the validity of these claims.
Interestingly, there were no words for the concepts surrounding homosexuality in the pre-colonial local language in Uganda (Oloruntoba-Oju). This in itself may be evidence that homosexuality was considered normal; sex was just sex. It was colonisers that brought in the concept of ‘otherness’ in relation to homosexual behaviour. In fact, there is evidence to suggest that “homosexual behaviours, while not always explicitly discussed or identified as such in the larger public sphere, were often tolerated in pre-colonial Africa than in Africa after the colonial period" (Desai).
It is a fact that “[t]here is little evidence of the persecution, prosecution, or criminalization of homosexuality in pre-colonial British East Africa.” Africa used to be “a paradise in which lesbianism is not only accepted, but is institutionalized in women’s everyday relationships.”(Oyewumi). In fact, “woman-woman marriages have been documented in over 40 ethnic groups in Africa” (Mann), and there are “reports of native conceptions and native practices of male homosexuality in many societies across every region of the continent" (O'Murray).
Then the British came. Colonial lands provided an escape from Victorian sexual prudery in Britain; in this way it is argued that “the formation of empires can be explained [at least in part] by sex drives" (Hyam). The panel that wrote White Boys Do Southern Africa: A Queer Perspective called our attention to the "sexual anxieties of colonialism."
This British ‘prudery’ was soon promulgated in Uganda too. British Colonial rulers imposed sodomy laws in Uganda. For example, Section 140 of the Ugandan penal code, which penalises "carnal knowledge of any person against the order of nature" was a British colonial import (HRW), these laws had the impact of ‘importing’ homophobia into Uganda. This is an example, although a rather disastrous one, of the use of law as a programme for social or cultural transformation.
More recently, “the effect of particularly anti-gay sects of Christianity has had a tremendous influence in sub-Saharan Africa…” (Willets). American evangelist preachers are found all over the Ugandan media e.g. the National Public Radio (NPR), Show: Fresh Air, Finding the Roots of Anti-Gay Sentiment in Uganda.
So, it has been argued that Africa, Uganda included, has always been characterized by diversity in sexuality - both in terms of identity and practices. What is untraditional and un-African is the homophobia, which has found its way into the Ugandan legal system. This homophobia, it is argued, was inherited from European colonialism and perpetuated by certain religious groups and individuals.
However, the idea that homophobia is a colonial import is not acknowledged by the majority of the Ugandan people. They accept homophobia as part of their culture. When these individuals act on their anti-gay beliefs it has disastrous effects on homosexual individuals. For example: “The concept of homosexuality as "abnormal" or against Ugandan culture is deeply hurtful for Frank [a gay man in Uganda]…‘People have the wrong perspective, we love our culture so much,’ he says" (Hogan). People like Frank are not accepted in Uganda. Homophobia is not only emotionally hurtful, but often also physically damaging. For example, David Kato, an avid LGBTI rights campaigner was violently murdered just because he was gay.
So if homophobia has such vile, disastrous effects, then why do Ugandans deny so radically that homosexuality is a part of their culture? Scholars have given a number of different reasons for the African denial of homosexuality as identity. Desai believes that it is a continued reaction to colonialism. He says that “African denial of homosexuality or ‘negative’ reaction to queer discourse may be seen to be the direct result of the psychological and cultural wounds imposed by the colonial encounter itself.” Others believe that it is a missionary imposition. Others still think that the African denial of homosexuality is due to Western cultural influences: “homophobia was introduced … by zealous Christian missionaries as well as by cultural influences arising out of European discourses around sexual morality" (Desai). Oloruntoba-Oju proposes that the “real and logical reason” is, as Modupe Kolawole puts it, that homosexuality is “a mode of self-expression that is completely strange to their [African] world view". In reality it is probably a combination of all of these reasons.
So while homophobia may have been imported, it is nevertheless prevalent in Uganda now. The sad fact is that nowadays, many Ugandans “are disconnected from the sexuality [their] ancestors knew" (Yoruba). In fact, staggeringly so; the Pew Research Global Attitudes Project in 2013 shows that 96% of Ugandans believe that society should not accept homosexuality. This Project also shows that “[t]here is far less acceptance of homosexuality in countries where religion is central to people’s lives…”
So what should be done about it? We must be careful to avoid western hegemonic approaches, especially if Desai’s theory homophobia in Africa is a continued reaction to colonialism has any truth in it. We cannot try and force a morality onto another country with its own cultures and values just because we think it is the right thing to do.
Perhaps then we should present Ugandans with evidence that homosexuality is not unnatural or, indeed, un-African and allow them to reclaim these past traditions themselves. However, we must also be wary of assuming that showing evidence of “African pre-contact “toleration” [will automatically] displace actual contemporary attitude curves" (Oloruntoba-Oju). Trying to show that homosexuality is a universal norm also has its problems: “anthropologists and others have been criticized for roaming the world in search of cross-cultural evidence of the universality of "homosexuality" (Amory). The danger is that they are starting with a conclusion in mind and trying to make the evidence fit. This could lead to a misinterpretation of evidence. The sexual unity theory - the notion that 'if it is found to happen in Africa then it must be, Africa being ‘primitive’, a natural phenomenon' - is also problematic. This not only belittles Africa, but it also assumes that just because something happens, it is natural. Furthermore, some scholars argue that Westerners have indeed misinterpreted the seemingly ‘homosexual’ practices of pre-colonial Africans. For example, Gaudio "cautioned gay western scholars about the dangers of simple-minded interpretations of Hausa men's very subtle and nuanced discussions of their same-sex relationships.” It may be that the terms and analytic categories of ‘homosexuality’, ‘lesbian’, and ‘gay’ are inappropriate to the cross-cultural study of same-sex sexualities. For example, Blackwood argues that "progresss in lesbian cross-cultural studies has been limited by its subsumption in the broader category of homosexuality."' This links back to the idea that African sexuality was more fluid, more diverse and not 'other'.
The solution, then, needs to be one that does not misinterpret the evidence, but accepts it for what it is; that focuses more on the future than the past; and that does not force any Western morality onto Uganda because, as we have seen in the past, this can do more harm than good. Exactly how this solution would work is yet to be seen, but surely it is possible.