The Ujamaa Centre of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, in partnership with The Other Foundation, the Pietermaritzburg Gay & Lesbian Network, and the KwaZulu Natal Christian Council, inaugurated an annual Eudy Simelane Lecture on the 7th of April 2016. The CIHA Blog brings you this converstation in detail.
Eudy Simelane, a soccer player for South Africa’s Women’s national team Banyana Banyana, was found stabbed to death in April of 2008. Her body was violated and her life taken because her sexual orientation.
The Ujamaa Centre recognizes that in South African communities religious change is central to social change. Those who raped and murdered Eudy Simelane would have justified their criminal actions on religio-cultural grounds. The Ujamaa Centre contests these religio-cultural grounds, collaborating with local faith-based organisations and civil society so that religion becomes a redemptive and life-giving, not death-dealing, resource.
During the lecture, the following video of those who knew and loved Eudy, including her family, was shown to the audience:
Justice Edwin Cameron, an eminent human rights lawyer and Constitutional Court judge, as well as a LGBTI and HIV activist, spoke to the audience focusing on the “hope [Eudy Simelane’s] life engendered. Justice Cameron pointed to multitude of changes being made throughout the continent and the many court cases that offered hope, stating, “The decisions of the courts regarding gays and lesbians should be seen as part of the growing acceptance of difference in an increasingly open and pluralistic South Africa that is vital to the society the Constitution contemplates.” In his conclusion, Justice Cameron assured the audience that Eudy Simelane’s life “was not in vain” stating, “Though we mourn the senselessness of the violence that took her young life, we know that what she believed in, what her life entailed and represented, will triumph in our continent and in our time.” Please read Justice Edwin Cameron’s full lecture provided below:
Eudy Simelane Memorial Lecture by Justice Edwin Cameron