LGBT in Africa: testimonies of two people at odds with each other
On the African continent, not all LGBT people are equal.
© AFP / Peter Kohalmi
Text by: Sabine Cessou Follow
6 mins
On the occasion of the World Day against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, on May 17, two Africans testify about their lives, poles apart from each other: one, a homosexual in Senegal, must be hide to avoid prison, while the other, a lesbian in South Africa, asserts himself in broad daylight.
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Habibou, 25, is a young Dakarois like any other - or almost. This English student does everything to protect himself from the ambient homophobia and tries to hide his identity as “
goorjigeen
” (“boy-girl” in Wolof). “
The mere fact that the word exists shows that homosexuality is part of our culture. We often forget it, but it was tolerated in our traditional society, before imams put this sort of fixed idea in mind in the 1990s, by targeting only gays and not lesbians.
"
Habibou curses his time, which prevents him from putting on the clothes he likes, from going out with his head held high and enjoying life.
“
I avoid bright colors and floral patterns, I put on jeans and checkered shirts that fit everywhere.
I am on my guard all the time not to appear effeminate.
"
Prison sentences in Senegal
His mother guessed, he says, but the unspoken prevails. “
She hasn't told anyone in the family about it, but I can feel the contempt in her eyes.
The young man is all the more under pressure as he is the eldest of his siblings, and therefore supposed to set an example. He discreetly frequents his friends, in the secret places where they meet. “
It's risky: apart from the scandal that it would provoke to make me unmask, I risk prison on simple denunciations.
"Article 319 of the Penal Code in Senegal is unambiguous:
" Shall be punished with imprisonment of one to five years and a fine whoever commits an indecent or unnatural act with an individual of his sex. "
Habibou was 17 when Barack Obama made an official visit to Dakar. He remembers it as if it were yesterday: questioned by an American journalist on the decriminalization of homosexuality, President Macky Sall declared that
“Senegal is a tolerant country which does not discriminate in terms of treatment on rights […]. But we are not ready to decriminalize homosexuality. This is Senegal's option for the moment. This does not mean that we are homophobic. But society must absorb, take the time to deal with these issues without any pressure.
"
For Habibou, the message is clear: “
Things will never change.
There is no question that I will marry a woman, as some do.
Complying to the point of pretending to be straight is bad luck for everyone.
I will have to go if I want to live in peace.
Hence his choice of English, with a view to a possible departure for the United States, which he rejects each year.
The reason ?
“
My boyfriend is not ready to go, and I am not ready to leave him.
"
Freedom at the heart of the struggle against apartheid
At the other end of the continent, in Cape Town, Khetiwe, at 32, leads a life at odds with that of Habibou. Short hair dyed blonde, this creative in an advertising agency does not hide. On the contrary: she married her partner, a young woman, also Xhosa and originally from Cape Town. They have their home in the bohemian district of Woodstock, not far from the University, and are thinking of starting a family. Khetiwe says she is "
happy
" to live in the only country in Africa where same-sex marriage is recognized and LGBT rights enshrined in the Constitution.
“When
I was 14, I told my parents, teachers in Khayelitsha, that I was a lesbian. With them, it went well. My father supported me, he explained that he had not fought against apartheid all his life so that his children's freedoms were violated. But it was longer and more difficult with my older brother, who was under the pressure of his group of friends, finished machos.
It took years before he accepted that "
his honor was not in question, but my happiness
."
Khetiwe evokes the “corrective” rapes and murders of lesbians, more specifically pointed out in the townships than the gays, not subjected to the same violence. "
Of course, we all have in mind the atrocious murder of
Eudy Simelane in 2008 in Kwa-Thema
, a township in Johannesburg,
" she concedes. A member of the Banyana Banyana (“Girls”, the name of the national women's football team), this lesbian sportswoman and activist was raped and stabbed in the face by four assailants, two of whom were later sentenced to 32 and 35 years. jail.
“
These horrific news items have become one of those topics that the press loves, but the newspapers do not see that our company also produces stars like
Zanele Muholi
,
a lesbian photographer who exhibits all over the world and deals with these subjects in her art.
Mamela Nyamza
, dancer and choreographer, also does it in an open way.
Before her,
Brenda Fassie
, an ultra-popular black singer, had come out of the closet with panache in the 1980s.
"
Khetiwe, "
like no woman in South Africa
", is not immune from the scourge of rape.
But in her everyday life, at work, at her gym and going out, she says she is "
accepted and respected
".
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