Hello All:
Right from the start, the way the noun "Africa" has been deployed in this ongoing exchange has been problematic on several fronts. One, we have read assertions about what "Europeans" observed or found to be present or absent in "Africa" in a very private area of human behavior as if we are referring to a specific fixed home address. Indeed, these "Africa" references are pointing to a vast continent, the second largest in the world with more than 800 ethnic groups and languages, one whose social systems have been profoundly modified, to varying degrees, by exogenous influences, including Islam, Christianity, and even Judaism. So, one has to be especially careful about making assertions about what existed or did not exist at various pre-colonial cultural locations of a vast continent. Apart from the vexed issue of sexual behavior, I have also encountered spurious claims and counter-claims about whether patriarchy or matriarchy predominated in pre-colonial Africa. Second, there were different groups of European mercantilists (otherwise known as "explorers"), including the Portuguese, the British, the French, the Germans, the Italians--in fact, all of Western European maritime powers of that time period. There was also the second wave consisting of the missionaries. As both mercantilists and as missionaries, they tended to leave behind written records of their travels through Africa under their particular individual names, not as "Europeans." Third, some of the comments have included claims about what European mercantilists observed or did not observe while passing through locations of the continent. An important question is this: what did the Africans themselves, ancient and modern, say about the specific type of human behavior in question? What existing research can shed light on this question? When are we going to transcend our acquired predisposition to teaching the world about Africa through the eyes of the colonizers, or through the eyes of an epistemological paradigm which tends to interpret the human experience from its own particular hegemonic prism and passing that off as a universal paradigm? With regards to the sexual behavior that is the subject of this discussion, have you deemed it important to investigate the subject matter through the eyes of the Africans themselves, and not through the eyes of their visitors? Was there a public sexual party or where there public sexual parties where the visiting "Europeans" observed the behavior being attributed to them here? Is it important to investigate phenomena that apply to Africa through the eyes of Africans themselves as subjects of their own human experience, rather than as objects of an imperial project? Can we resist temptation to interpret/contort African affairs in a way that would suit and conform with the dominant and acceptable social code of the day, of our own particular place of abode? In other words, can we resist temptation to simply seek to be politically correct?
We have to be careful when we present our opinions an assertions as fact, or the only truth. Human sexuality (not gender) is very complex, partly because it involves behavior that people (across cultures) may indulge in privately, but would never publicly admit. What exactly is homosexuality? Is it specific behavior, a range of behaviors, choice, etc…?J. Lorand Matory has done done interesting work on this topic in Oyo-Igboho, and beyond.Just because I am Yoruba does not mean I know everything about my people. There is so much knowledge and wisdom out there that is beyond our ken. Yes, ken.We need to be reasonable, and not conflate our knowledge with the truth, nor present logic as the Truth.We need to remind ourselves that what we know today about any subject/topic can always be challenged, reassessed and reimagined.--On Wed, May 12, 2021 at 09:17 Harrow, Kenneth <harrow@msu.edu> wrote:what is the evidence that arab peoples tolerated homosexuality, much less spread it?is there any, or it is just a prejudice?ken
kenneth harrow
professor emeritus
dept of english
michigan state university
517 803-8839
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of OLAYINKA AGBETUYI <yagbetuyi@hotmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 11, 2021 6:10 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Afrocentrism and Homophobia
We've been here before. Africa was not a monolithic centralised culture. Some African communities like the Yorùbá banned homosexuality through the institutiin of taboos. Some communities in northern Nigeria tolerated it as part of the inflitrations from Arab countries..
So the statement that it was the Europeans that banned the practice in Africa is untrue. It was already banned in many African communities before European incursion.
Yes its the West through its totalising mien that now wants all of Africa to embrace homosexuality irrespective of their past variegated histories toward the practice.
OAA
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-------- Original message --------From: Joseph Bangura <Joseph.Bangura@kzoo.edu>Date: 11/05/2021 00:31 (GMT+00:00)Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Afrocentrism and Homophobia
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Edited:
Well, I will not be a spoiler here since the student's grade has been submitted. But it should be noted that homosexuality existed in Africa before colonial rule. In fact, when the Portuguese visited many African societies in the 15th century, they were stunned to observe that some Africans practiced homosexuality, particularly among the chiefs and their pages. The Portuguese were astounded because they perceived the act as a sophisticated lifestyle that Africans were incapable of practicing alongside heterosexuality, polygyny, etc. Briefly put, it was the colonial authorities that banned the practice of homosexuality in Africa because it was not prevalent in Europe at the time. Consequently, many Africans grew up under colonial rule perceived homosexuality as an abomination, a perception that was absorbed and appropriated as a cultural norm. It is the same Europeans backed by the US that are now forcing Africans to be tolerant of a practice their ancestors demonized and criminalized.
--------------------------------------------------------Joseph J Bangura, PhD
Professor of HistoryDirector of African StudiesKalamazoo CollegeTel: 269-337-5785Fax: 269-337-5733
Series Editor: Anthem Advances in African Cultural Studies
http://www.anthempress.com/anthem-advances-in-african-cultural-studies
https://www.cambridge.org/9781107197985
--
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Joseph Bangura
Sent: Monday, May 10, 2021 6:54 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Afrocentrism and Homophobia
Well, I will not be a spoiler here since the student's grade has been submitted. But it should be noted that homosexuality existed in Africa before colonial rule. In fact, when the Portuguese visited many African societies in the 15th century, they were stunned to observe that some Africans practiced homosexuality, particularly among the chiefs and their pages. The Portuguese were astounded because they perceived the act as a sophisticated lifestyle that Africans were incapable practiced alongside heterosexuality, polygyny, etc. Briefly put, it was the colonial authorities that banned the practice of homosexuality in Africa because it was not prevalent in Europe at the time. Consequently, many Africans grew up under colonial rule perceived homosexuality as an abomination, a perception that was absorbed and appropriated as a cultural norm. It is the same Europeans backed by the US that are now forcing Africans to be tolerant of a practice their ancestors demonized and criminalized.--
Sent from my iPhone--Final grades submitted, phew!! What a semester--full of highs and lows. One ambitious and bold final paper stole the show, arguing that aspects of modern Afrocentrism thrive on homophobia.
The student supplied evidence from both colonial sources (colonial moralistic documents, bills passed in the British parliament, missionary sources, etc) and African narratives. One particularly striking source is a Nigerian psychologist arguing in the 1960s that homosexuality was alien to Africa and was a colonial influence.
It's clear that today's homophobia in Africa has a genealogy that runs deep.
It's also clear that, in some quarters, homophobic discourses and praxis are intertwined with discourses of anti-colonial reclamation, of decolonization, and even of decoloniality.
My student concluded that efforts to banish homosexuality, understood as an imported colonial practice, from Africa, and to restore an alleged precolonial African culture devoid of homosexuality and sexualities outside heteronormativity have at times been legitimized by narratives of Afrocentrism and decolonization.
Since, according to him, a heteronormative precolonial Africa never existed, purveyors of Afrocentric homophobia have wittingly or unwittingly appropriated and Africanized Victorian colonial moral panic about homosexuality in Africa in order to make their case against homosexuality.
Simply brilliant! Yes, he got an A on the paper.
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BioDun J. Ogundayo , PhD. Arokesagun--
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