Anti-LGBT Laws in Africa: Expressions of the Crisis

www.workersalternative.com

On 2/13/14 the Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan announced the passage of tough restrictions on not just gay marriage, but outlawed all homosexual activity and even went so far as to criminalize membership or participation in gay organizations. This was followed shortly after by the government of Uganda strengthening its already harsh anti-gay laws, which also contain language criminalizing the "promotion of homosexuality" Both these governments, as well as western critics have attempted to lay the blame for this discrimination on African culture, but this claim is frankly laughable. Many countries in Africa are controlled by authoritarian right-wing leaders who cloak their capitalist and pro-imperialist policies under the guise of national liberation, anti-imperialism, or even "African Socialism". Crackdowns on homosexuality are justified as "anti-imperialist" measures by the claim that homosexuality is un-African, being a form of decadence brought to Africa by European colonialists, but this claim holds no weight at all. Homosexuality is a natural variation in human behavior, and is found in Africa just as it is found anywhere else. There even exist many traditions of homosexuality particular to Africa. The formal restoration of Democracy in Uganda and Nigeria has not changed this policy substantially. The political structure still remains corrupt, authoritarian in structure, and deeply connected to imperialism.

Behind all the talk about protecting African traditions, there is a technique which is not at all new. Scapegoating has a long history in both dictatorships, and the bourgeois Democratic world - if the people of Uganda and Nigeria are raised in to a homophobic rage, it is hoped by the ruling cliques that the people will be satisfied by this and will forget about the desperate economic situation and oppression which they live under every day. Nigeria and Uganda are not poor countries, this is a gross lie that has been perpetuated by Western Imperialism, they are in fact very rich in natural resources - Nigeria is full of vast mineral wealth, and fossil fuel deposits. Uganda is home to rich soils, and also has fossil energy reserves. It is not the poverty of the country which is to blame - the economy has been growing steadily in both countries, but the wealth has gone to the Comprador bourgeois and companies form Imperialist countries, rather than to fulfill the needs of the poor and working classes. The crisis of worldwide capitalism has left both of these African countries at risk of economic collapse. Both economies are based around a small number of resources which are produced for the export market - Nigerian oil, and Ugandan agricultural products. Small fluctuations in the prices of these commodities have huge effects on the economy, and can push an already impoverished population over the edge. The ruling classes of Nigeria and Uganda fear what will happen if the masses are forced to take up struggle for their livelihoods. It is this that motivates the fake democrats in Uganda and Nigeria, not their love of "African culture".

In the United States, the rights of LGBT people have been used in much the same way, though the results have not been quite as extreme. Very few people are going to deny that the use of anti-LGBT sentiment is a weapon in the arsenal of the Republican Party, but the Democratic Party also makes uses of the rights of LGBT people for their own cynical purposes. When President Obama was at risk of falling behind Mitt Romney during the last election cycle, he was able to produce a huge jump in the polls by suddenly having a change of heart in favor of same-sex marriage. Much more insidious was the way that New York Democrats used their support of the Marriage Equality Act in 2011 as a way to maintain support and portray a progressive image, while simultaneously attacking the benefits of public sector workers throughout the state. Marxists do not believe that human rights are a bargaining chip to be used by cynical bourgeois politicians in order to attack the working class. In Africa, as in the United States the only way to liberate the LGBT community from oppression is to fight for Socialist policies, and to take the power of life and death out of the hands of corrupt leaders and bourgeois politicians. To put the lives of working people in their own hands: Regardless of nationality, sexual orientation, or gender identity/expression.

The intelligent peoples of the African continent shall find their own ways to fight for their liberation - I do not have the knowledge necessary, or the right to prescribe them a path for this - but here in the U.S., the heart of imperialism, the way forward is clear. The working class of this country does not have a party of its own. The only working-class mass organizations that we have are the trade unions, but these are powerless to fight for the demands of working people while tied to the Democratic Party. Only by fighting for trade union independence, and a Mass Party of Labor based on a socialist program, can we look towards a more just and democratic society, and crush the imperialism that keeps our brothers and sisters in Africa in poverty, while they live in some of the wealthiest lands on the planet.