Shame on Pride

'Drag Queens ridiculed by beefcakes, Dykes on Bikes proudly donning swastikas on a tired denim jackets, four lesbians getting raped on their way home from Pride and Steven Cohen is labelled 'Satanic', more whites than blacks - I don't feel pride, I feel shame!,

Carl Collison argues on 'Q' website:
http://www.q.co.za/news/2000/11/001101-prideshame.htm

'Pride went up for sale'

Johannesburg's annual 'Pride' went up for sale, Phumi Mtetwa argued in her speech last Saturday. Speaking on behalf of the Lesbian and Gay Equality Project (formerly the National oalition on Gay and Lesbian Equality) Mtetwa stated that 'beging lesbian or gay in this country is by its very nature political.' But did anybody listen? MORE

BEAUTY CONTESTS ARE NOT ABOUT EQUALITY.

Most of the celebrated and colourful events in many lesbian and gay communities throughout the world are beauty contests ( from Miss Butch to Miss Gay SA.) We regard these beauty contests in a very serious light. And our orientation leads us to conclude that beauty contests ( whether they celebrate the "model beautiful body" or "deviations from the norms") primarily objectify women as objects of sex and perpetuate the roles "men" and "women" must play as socialised by a patriarchal society, Kanyiso Sinxotsha and Cornelia argued in the latest issue of Equality, a publicatio by the National Coalition on Gay and Lesbian Equality in Johannesburg. MORE ...

(Un)African?

Why The Hunting Season Has Been Reopened?

Peter van den Akker and Bart Luirink

President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda recently ordered his secret service to arrest all homosexuals in his country. His Kenyan colleague, Daniel Arap Moi did not go quite that far, but Museveni's decision certainly could count on his full support. In Frederick Chiluba's Zambia, the government prevented a newly constituted gay rights group from registering. ... MORE

Museveni, Moi: Don't peep in people's bedrooms

Dear Tingasiga,

In their new war against homosexuality, Uganda's Yoweri Katuga Museveni and Kenya's Daniel Arap Moi have used the Judeo-Christian scriptures and African tradition to buttress their assault on the 'enemy '. Museveni reportedly said that his father and the Bible had informed him that God created only Adam and Eva and not a 'man and man'. ... MORE

BBC poll: Is homosexuality "Un-African?"

The issue of homosexuality is something of a hot potato across Africa. On October 6 1999 for BBC Online reason to organise a poll on the question: 'Is homosexuality "un-African." Here are some of the responses. ... MORE

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Archbishop Desmond Tutu

POLITICS

Gay people change region

Peter Vale writes that the clash between gay people and President Mugabe showed that civil society can play a powerful role in Southern Africa.

When Robert Mugabe savaged the common law rights of gays, he may well have initiated a geological shift in the regional balance of power. ... MORE

Gay Liberation: Race, Class and Gender

Forging a representative Gay Liberation Movement in South Africa

Mazibuko Jara, Sheila Lapinsky

The history of gay liberation in South Africa reflects the history of the country: South African gays were divided along race, class and gender lines despite their common experience of sexual oppression. For decades, the public face of the South African gay liberation movement was white, middle class and male and as a whole it failed to link itself to the broader liberation struggle. ... MORE

AFRICAN RENAISSANCE

'I believe it is the African women who will lead us and realise the African Renaissance'

Nomfundo Luphonwana

 I believe in Thabo Mbeki's vision of the African Renaissance but African women must take their rightful leadership positions in society. Power will not be handed to African women, so it is up to African women to fight for their rightful places in society. Democracy and freedom in  South Africa, and elsewhere in the world, have never been handed over on a silver platter.  For instance Apartheid was systematically destroyed  by the efforts of all kinds of activists. So I would say: 'Come on women, be active and get involved.'... MORE

The Queerness of the "African Century"

Tim Trengove Jones

Can South Africa’s Equality Clause become comfortably incorporated into the African Renaissance? And how to develop an immaterial African queer identity? ... MORE

Anthro-Homo Apologists

Thanks to the efforts of a group of Norwegian researchers, homosexual behaviour amongst members of a tribe in the north of Namibia, a tribe that has not been influenced by Christianity. In the same vein, the American psychologist Marc Carlson unearthed powerful evidence pointing towards similar practices amongst no less than 48 tribes in Zimbabwe. ... MORE

History Tells All

Dumisane M. Dube

In the old days a Zimbabwean man who wanted to have sex with another man could turn to kupindera: he asked his wife to have sex with one of his brothers. So history tells all, argues Dumisani M. Dube. It has hit the headlines that being gay is a style of behaviour adopted from the West. ... MORE

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