Writing Rights

Many years ago, I read Gayle Rubin’s article, “Thinking Sex: Notes for Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality”. I have always remembered her view on sex and politics as cited below.

“The time has come to think about sex. To some, sexuality may seem to be an unimportant topic, a frivolous diversion from the more critical problems of poverty, war, disease, racism, famine or nuclear annihilation. But it is precisely at time such as these, when we live with the possibility of unthinkable destruction, that people are likely to become dangerously crazy about sexuality. Contemporary conflicts over sexual values and erotic conduct have much in common with the religious disputes of earlier centuries. They acquire immense symbolic weight. Disputes over sexual behaviour often become the vehicles for displacing social anxieties, and discharging their attendant emotional intensity. Consequently, sexuality should be treated with special respect in times of great social stress.”

A good discussion on my Facebook page on the Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Bill raised the following points to consider:

1. The closing of democratic space and challenges to authoritarian rule by Museveni in Uganda mirrors the situation in Zimbabwe and the attacks on the LGBTI community by Mugabe.
2. Religious extremists (US Christians and Saudi Arabian Islamism) have influenced the Ugandan political climate.
3. The homophobia is linked to class, gender, national and international inequalities and politics. Friends cited the economy, crisis of masculinity and patriarchy as factors driving homophobia in Uganda.
4. A crude Africanism and the abuse of tradition and culture have all played their part in the persecution of LGBTI communities.
5. Every context — South Africa, United States, Vatican, Iran, Uganda and other places where homophobia becomes state-sponsored or a conservative movement — requires independent analysis that takes into account differences and similarities.

As a consequence, should the LGBTI communities and our allies consider the following issues?

1. How do we move beyond descriptive criticism such as “ignorance”, “intolerant” or “repressive” to an understanding of the power relations that fuel homophobia?
2. How do we address religious and customary law and practice in a context where the majority of people are likely to follow their precepts?
3. How do we break the stranglehold of religion and tradition over the state, or put differently, can religion and tradition develop to be compatible with human rights?
4. If we agree with Gayle Rubin that, in part, conflicts over sexuality are “vehicles for displacing social anxieties”, how do we recognise the need to combine struggles for better wages, education, health, and water with the rights to equality for — among others — women, LGBTI people, refugees and immigrants? In other words, how do we build a politics of rights and social justice?
5. What are the actions that we must undertake in the short-term to stop the Uganda Bill and in the longer-term to build a movement against state-sponsored hate?

Over the next few weeks, “Writing Rights” will publish a few notes and articles that will consider some of the topics. Please contribute to the discussion. I appeal to all friends not to personalise issues, nor to show disrespect to culture, tradition, belief, unbelief or faith. Action and argument against human rights violations must temper its language to allow others to enter the debate without fear.

Zackie Achmat – 10 January 2010