Decolonizing the law: LGBT organizing in Namibia and South Africa

Pages17-44
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/S1059-4337(2011)0000054005
Published date22 February 2011
Date22 February 2011
AuthorAshley Currier
DECOLONIZING THE LAW:
LGBT ORGANIZING IN NAMIBIA
AND SOUTH AFRICA
Ashley Currier
ABSTRACT
This chapter considers how lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender
(LGBT) activists in Namibia and South Africa appropriate discourses of
decolonization associated with African national liberation movements.
I examine the legal, cultural, and political possibilities associated with
LGBT activists’ framing of law reform as a decolonization project. LGBT
activists identified laws governing gender and sexual nonconformity as in
particular need of reform. Using data from daily ethnographic observa-
tion of LGBT movement organizations, in-depth qualitative interviews
with LGBT activists, and newspaper articles about political homophobia,
I elucidate how Namibian and South African LGBT activists conceptua-
lize movement challenges to antigay laws as decolonization.
‘‘Sexual colonialism’’ is a problem that some Namibian and South African
lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) activists have identified as
blocking demands for gender and sexual minority rights (Mzizi, 2009).
1
‘‘Sexual colonialism’’ refers to post-independence state leaders’ appropria-
tion of colonial homophobic discourses and practices. At the heart of
Special Issue: Social Movements/Legal Possibilities
Studies in Law, Politics, and Society, Volume 54, 17–44
Copyright r2011 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved
ISSN: 1059-4337/doi:10.1108/S1059-4337(2011)0000054005
17
Namibian and South African LGBT activists’ criticisms of state leaders’
political homophobia is a defense of decolonization. Decolonization refers
to the dismantling, removal, and/or transformation of laws, practices,
ideologies, and institutions associated with foreign occupation and
domination (Saul, 2008).
State leaders in different African countries who denounce same-sex
sexualities also inveigh against colonialism (Aarmo, 1999; Epprecht, 2004,
2008; Hoad, 2007). What state leaders regard as colonial residue in the
present is the existence of same-sex sexual identities and practices they claim
did not exist in precolonial African societies (Franke, 2004). Anti-LGBT
Namibian and South African leaders frame national culture as in need of
decolonization due to the existence of homosexuality and ‘‘lesbian’’ and
‘‘gay’’ identities. This is evident in a 1997 official statement from the ruling
party in Namibia (South West African People’s Organisation – SWAPO)
that LGBT activists were ‘‘not only appropriating foreign ideas in our
society but also destroying the local culture by hiding behind the fac-ade
of the very democracy and human rights we have created’’ (Staff reporter,
1997a). Anti-LGBT state leaders attribute the persistence of ‘‘foreign’’
same-sex sexual identity categories and practices to the ongoing interference
of western donors and LGBT activists (Hoad, 2007). This belief has
motivated the multiplication of ‘‘homosexuality-is-unAfrican’’ discourses
throughout Africa and the defense of colonial- and apartheid-era laws, such
as anti-sodomy laws (Aarmo, 1999; Currier, 2010; Franke, 2004).
In contrast, Namibian and South African LGBT activists have framed the
law as in need of decolonization due to the persistence of anti-LGBT laws.
According to LGBT activists, Namibian and South Africans did not codify
heteronormativity – the structural favoring of opposite-gender sexual
pairings and gender conformity and the assumption that social gender
corresponds in biological sex (Schilt & Westbrook, 2009) – in precolonial
African societies. LGBT activists assert that colonialists formalized legal
and social prohibitions on same-sex sexual behavior and introduced
homophobia to these societies. In this way, decolonization discourse
provides an opportunity for LGBT activists to pursue law reform.
By formulating an alternative approach to decolonization, LGBT
activists are not only modeling a new way to understand law reform as
continuing the work of anticolonial, national liberation movements, but
they are also challenging antigay state leaders’ monopoly on decolonization
discourses and practices. As ‘‘new’’ social movements emerging alongside
decolonization movements or soon after independence (Ballard, Habib,
Valodia, & Zuern, 2005; p. 627), Namibian and South African LGBT
activists have framed national liberation as a cultural opportunity to
ASHLEY CURRIER18

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