Ghanaian Rule: Gays Be Silent
Discrimination Is Alive and Well South of the Sahara
San
Francisco Chronicle, November 23, 2003
901 Mission St., San Francisco, CA 94103
Fax: 415-896-1107
Email: letters@sfchronicle.com
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/11/23/INGRE344821.DTL
By G. Pascal Zachary
Accra , Ghana—The lead story in a recent issue of
the Daily Graphic, the most influential newspaper in this West African nation,
was designed to shock:
“Four Gay Men Jailed.”
The crime committed by these anonymous Africans was homosexuality. The
evidence against the men included their own photographs and confessions.
Homosexual acts are crimes in Ghana—and across much of sub-Saharan
Africa. The great movement to fight discrimination against people living with
HIV/AIDS—a movement which President Bush has joined by promising $15 billion
in aid for Africa over the next five years—has not elicited any sympathies
for homosexuals in Ghana. As the BBC, the most cited English-language news
source on Africa, recently reported, it remains “tough to be gay” south of
the Sahara.
In Ghana, a homosexual society thrives in the gray area between law and
justice, which is why the recent arrests shocked both gay and straight. A
country of 20 million people, Ghana is an unusually tolerant place. People of
different religions, ethnic groups and races (there is a significant number of
whites, Asians and Middle Easterners in the country) mix well. Ghana has never
had a civil war: a badge of honor in conflict-prone sub-Saharan Africa. Three
years ago, Ghana witnessed a peaceful transfer of power from one popularly
elected government to the next.
Human rights are widely discussed, and increasingly taken seriously. There
are major campaigns to promote the rights of women and children. Acceptance of
people living with HIV/AIDS has steadily grown. Homosexuality remains a taboo,
but gays seem to be safe. Physical attacks against them are rare. In the
capital city of Accra, a trendy street club named Strawberries is well-known
as a gay hangout, and there are a few prominent, if still discreet, clubs
where homosexual men and women party. One gay man even has his own television
show, and while he is publicly in the closet his sexual preferences are no
secret.
Precisely because gays seem so accepted in Ghana, the sensational report on
homosexual arrests in the Graphic—it is owned by the government and sells
more copies than all other newspapers combined—sent a disturbing message.
Even more worrisome was the newspaper’s main editorial the following day,
which blamed Europeans and Americans for “all the reported cases of
homosexuality” in the country.
The four African gays illustrated the problem, the newspaper insisted. The
men had been enticed into such practices by a Norwegian, who gave them money
and gifts in exchange for photos of them engaged in homosexual acts. The
Norwegian posted the photos on the Web and, allegedly, mailed printouts to his
Ghanaian friends.
I am neither gay, nor Ghanaian, but I was a foreigner in Ghana and reject
the argument—heard in other parts of Africa as well—that Western notions
of sexuality have poisoned traditional practices. In my experiences, Africans
simply have a moral blind spot on the subject of homosexuality. For the past
six months I have worked in Ghana as country director of Journalists for Human
Rights, a Canadian outfit that helps African journalists give voice to the
voiceless in their society while raising awareness of human rights abuses. The
editor of the Graphic is a supporter of my organization, and I have held
training sessions for his reporters and editors. The sessions have resulted in
more stories that highlight mistreatment of women and children and the
failures of government agencies to deliver promised services—the
entitlements of taxpayers.
Yet the status of gays and lesbians seems to be an entirely different
matter. When I complained to the editor about bias against gays, I added that
perhaps I had failed to explain the concept of “civic journalism” and the
role of rights for all in a just society. He disagreed. Gays don’t deserve
any sort of protection, he countered. Nor do they or their defenders deserve
any right of reply. In the newspaper’s stories, the accused men were not
quoted; neither were their attorneys nor any defenders of gay rights.
The implication, of course, is that Africans are united against
homosexuality. But they are not; gay advocates are simply terrified of
speaking out, frightened that their support of gays will be interpreted as an
admission that they themselves are homosexual. Two years ago, the silence was
broken briefly by Ken Attafuah, who directs Ghana’s truth and reconciliation
commission, charged with investigating rights violations during more than two
decades of dictatorships. “It should not be left to gays alone to fight for
gay rights because we are talking about fundamental violations of justice,”
Attafuah said on a radio program. “You do not have to be a child to defend
the rights of children.”
The point is lost in Ghana, however. After the gay arrests, I spoke about
media coverage of homosexuals at a graduate course in communications at the
University of Ghana. No one objected to the coverage by the Daily Graphic. But
no one denounced homosexuality either. Instead I received a short dissertation
from one of the female students on how older married women often proposition
her in clubs. Two other females said the same happens to them, that lesbianism
is widely practiced and accepted, if publicly unacknowledged.
The professor, a well-known feminist who is unmarried and about 40 years
old, then interrupted the class to complain—not about the views she was
hearing, but about her failure to attract any lesbian lovers. “Why aren’t
these women propositioning me?” she asked.
One female student shoos back, “At your age, you’re supposed to be
asking me to have sex with you!”
Lesbianism is, of course, less threatening to the men who run Ghana than is
male homosexuality. Yet men display an attraction to other men that is often
dismissed as a show of camaraderie. At a recent traditional ceremony, in which
a young child received a tribal name, the proud father and a half dozen male
friends danced together before a large group. Their movements were sexually
suggestive, and at times they touched, even held hands. I watched the
festivities with one of my European friends, who happens to be gay, and he
explained that such dancing is lauded—so long as the contact between the men
is left undefined. “Speak no evil,” my friend advises.
In Ghana and in much of Africa, a culture of silence exists around same-sex
love—a culture that many Americans, raised on a belief in rights and the
need to “speak truth to power,” find unacceptable. “In the closet,”
which would describe the lives of virtually every homosexual in Ghana, is
meant as a term of derision. Yet “coming out” may not be a solution for
everyone—at least not everyone in sub-Saharan Africa. Americans should no
longer be surprised that their notions of “hypocrisy” are viewed as
quaint—even wrong-headed. In many parts of the world, there is no solid line
between good and evil, and notions of “right” and “wrong” collapse
under irreconcilable tensions between tradition and modernity, the individual
and the community.
In Ghana, then, I am reminded why even American children are sometimes told
that silence is golden. Under the cover of silence, Africans are finding space
to express their sexual freedoms—and without provoking the conflicts that a
more vocal advocacy of homosexuality would surely yield.
- G. Pascal Zachary lives in Berkeley and is the author of “The
Diversity Advantage: Multicultural Identity in the New World Economy”
(2003, Westview Press).
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