ala is now cal

August 2004: The Coalition of African Lesbians (CAL) is the alliance that use to be African lesbian Alliance (ALA). One of the outcomes of a recent gathering of women in Winhoek, Namibia.

Delegates of the association formally known as ALA (African Lesbian Alliance) visited Sister Namibia's offices, Thursday August 26, 2004. Liz Frank, is a lesbian activist for over three decades and the editor of Sister Namibia: an independent, non governmental women's human rights organisation that works towards a society liberated from patriarchal domination in which all people have equal rights and opportunities and live in peace, prosperity and dignity. Sister Namibia also publishes a magazine every two months; Liz described Sister's and TRP's (The Rainbow Project) - a lesbian and gay organisation - involvement in challenging government's and religious institution's attitudes towards homosexuality. The two organisations wanted to fight discrimination that they were subjected to by their president, Sam Nujoma, law-makers and ordinary citizens.

"In 1995 After the president came out in public, not once but several times, and announcing that he supported Robert Mugabe's statement on homosexuality, we had a lot of then current and possible supporters of our struggle descending and saying they wouldn't like to be associated anymore" said Liz.

"Plus I had my own battle, because I had fallen in love with a Namibian woman and we had made a decision that we should be together, but because of our sexual orientation we were in and out of courts but eventually we won and I obtained my permanent residence of Namibia.

"In 1996 we had to do a lot of damage control, trying to convince supporters to stay with us because we were not doing anything wrong except fighting for what is rightfully ours. We did that through using Sister Namibia as a tool to lobby, making the government to be aware that we existed and through attending government's initiatives and forcing our agenda." She continued.

The ALA/CAL seminar took place on August 23 - 27, 2004 at the Safari Hotel, in Windhoek, Namibia. 25 women from 14 African counties attended including representatives from Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Liberia, Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, South Africa, Mozambique and Namibia.

The idea behind this seminar started in June 2003 when seven women from seven African counties met for a research project that was organised by Gay and Lesbian Archives (GALA) in Johannesburg and they had a vision to know and network with African lesbians. Also in February this year when there was the All Africa Symposium in South Africa, there was a women's cocas in which ALA was again discussed.

The Rainbow Project together with Sister Namibia hosted the seminar. Patricia Macfadden a radical feminist originally from Swaziland but now based in Zimbabwe gave presentations on the intersection between lesbianism and radical feminism and on how being radical feminism can combine with lesbianism. Anjang Tang Suvernananda from the Asian Lesbian Network presented a paper on the difficulties her organisation faced when they first tried organising.

Tang's presentation was really significant because it brought up most relevant issues like, who are the Association's constituency? Should it serve individuals or organisations? Will it serve regionally or continentally? And what about the participants who are from countries where there are no already existing organisations?

During the course of the week, there was a lot of discussing, brainstorming, suggesting, debating and sharing of ideas in groups and individuals, to a point that the name of the Association was changed to CAL - Coalition of the African Lesbians. In one of the afternoons, the conference organisers had organised a public panel discussion in one of the hotels in town, (Windhoek) where the media and some intellectuals were present. Issues of marginalised groups like people with disabilities, lesbian and gay people were brought forth and it was recommended that such groups needed to work together. This would serve to contest the unjust discrimination by their governments and general public that they face in their everyday life and the recognition they deserve as human beings and full citizens were also discussed.

All the participants from the countries invited worked together to build the vision statement, which is:

The Coalition of African Lesbians is a network of organisations committed to African lesbian equality and visibility. CAL works to transform Africa into a place where all lesbians enjoy the full range of human rights, secure in the knowledge that we are recognised as full citizens, with rich and diverse cultures, and a significant and respected presence in all spheres of life, through personal and organisational growth. CAL's work is shaped by an African radical feminist understanding, informed by research, and strengthened by the claiming of social and economic power.

The aims and objectives are:
" to advocate and lobby for political, legal social, sexual, cultural and economic rights of African lesbians by engaging strategically with African and international structures and allies,
" to eradicate stigma and discrimination against lesbians in Africa, to build and strengthen lesbian voices and visibility through research, media and literature and through participation in local and international forums,
" to build the capacity of African lesbians and CAL's member organisations to use African radical feminist analysis in all spheres of life, to build a strong and sustainable lesbian coalition supporting the development of national organisations working on lesbian issues in every country in Africa and
" to support the work of these national organisations in all the foregoing areas including the facilitation of the personal growth of African lesbians and the building of capacity within their organisations.

After this process, all the questions that were raised earlier were answered, when all the participants were given an opportunity to voice on what they think the Coalition should be and how it should carry out its duties. Among other things that were agreed upon was that the constituency should preferably be lesbian only organisations, but seeing that there was only one present, organisations working with other groups such gays, bisexuals and transgenders were acceptable. It was agreed that CAL should start small so it can be able to work effectively and therefore it was agreed that working regionally would be best. CAL agreed and committed to assisting countries without organisations and the example here was Mozambique and Liberia.

The participants also worked on the structure for Coalition where the interim secretarial was elected together with the steering committee. The launch of CAL, is scheduled for 2005.

apologies to patricia mcfadden
By Musa Ngubane

December 10, 2004: Behind The Mask would like to apologize to Patricia Mcfadden for the inaccuracy published in one of our articles which stated that she is a scientologist. The correct information is that she is not a Scientologist. We would also like to apologize for any inconvenience caused by the article.