by Cilas Kemedjio
On January 10, 2011, a Cameroonian newspaper reported a grant of 300,000 euros (about US $350 million at the time) made by the European Union to three Cameroonian LGBT advocacy groups. The reporter presented the gift as controversial on grounds that it was an infringement on national sovereignty. On September 13, 2011 the Foreign Affairs Ministry expressed its concerns to European diplomats on the need to respect African cultural values and the right to difference (le droit à la difference). On March 29, 2012, another newspaper reported that the US ambassador in Cameroon, Robert P. Jackson sent a letter to the Cameroonian Justice Minister to lobby for the abrogation on the same-sex criminalization law (homosexualité).
This scene has been replayed over and over in many parts of the continent where standing up to the bullying of Western diplomats has become a rallying cry for the newfound African cultural nationalism. We learn from the New York Times article, “U.S. Support of Gay Rights in Africa May Have Done More Harm Than Good,” that more than half of gay-rights diplomacy is dedicated to Africa. This controversial gift of human-rights diplomacy raises uneasy questions and could well be a poisoned gift. It could be perceived, in the best-case scenario, as the virtuous mobilization of political resources to advance a legitimate human-rights campaign. It could also be understood as the exploitation of human rights for political gains. While the jury is still out on these interpretations, such humanitarian interventionism perpetuates the dependency of local advocacy groups. Charity reproduces, and does not have the ambition to challenge, unequal relationships between the rich and the dispossessed. If we translate this uncomfortable truth into the struggle for a sexually diverse and tolerant environment in the African continent, we should consequently come to the conclusion that only a locally based effort will be able to mobilize a broad coalition that could eventually achieve sustainable equality.
For other discussions about LGBTI nomenclature, issues, and politics in Africa, see the CIHA Blog’s four-part series on the subject.
Cilas Kemedjio is Director of the Frederick Douglass Institute for African and African-American Studies at the University of Rochester and co-editor of the CIHA Blog.