Writing, I have learnt, is about a time and a place. I am not claiming to speak a universal truth, just what my experience has taught me. It could be a truth about others, and then again it might not be. But it is a truth about me; a self-revelation and maybe, especially in times of drug induced self-analysis, an epiphany. That truth, simply, I write better when here. Here being the ‘old neighbourhood’. The place where what later became known as A Kenyan Urban Narrative began. The space, next to and a little to the left of Mutua’s kiosk, where we sat on stones, sipped on Napshizzle and wrote.
I have spent the last few months in and out of this place. In and out of this place trying to track old friends and make new acquaintances with the hope of reconstituting The Potash Book Club. In and out of this place trying to find an entry back in and be able to, once again, call this home. My successes have been way too few and far in between. Most of the old friends are long gone; most of the new acquaintances are too young and ‘intellectually’ distant from me. It really is a shame about the kids that hang out here now, they idle away their time just like we used to, but they do not indulge their mental faculties in the same way we did. They drink a lot more than we did and read a hell of a lot less. Which is polite for: They read nothing.
In truth, I have had only one real success, here, in the last two weeks. I have been writing. Writing seems like the only way I profit from being here. And when you think that it is the writing that took me out of this place, to begin with, and about the only thing I took with me, then it seems as though that has always been the worth of this place to me. But it isn’t and it shouldn’t appear to be so. This place gave me writing and a lot else too. A lot else like friendship and the camaraderie and firm bond of a shared experience. Family. At least all that when it lasted because I do not feel it anymore.
Trying to reconnect with this place, I feel like all the things that this place gave me have been stripped away and all that is left is the writing. The writing that seems to come to me, words and sentences instinctively forming in my head, the moment I enter this neighbourhood. The only thing being that then more I stay, the more time I spend talking to people here, the swifter the words and sentences arrange themselves into paragraphs.
Over the years, after I first left, I felt as though my writing was getting bland. Worse still, I felt as though I had lost familiarity with my writing voice. That I had even no story left in me to tell. Sometimes, agonised to tears, I would come down this way. Come down in search of both the muse and voice I believed I had left behind. But nothing. All these trips turned out to be were pilgrimages to the past of a writing me. A past not grand in itself but at least one that was insurmountably better than my present. A present of more craft and less art. A present of words correctly spelled, sentences well punctuated and, alas, no story.
It is then that I realised that the audiences might be out there but my writing lived down here. So, with big little steps, I have been working on my return. My return to this place where what later became known as A Kenyan Urban Narrative was born. A place where audiences will elude me but my writing will get better. A place where I can write and write and hope to be read, at least, when I am dead.
And with yet another, perfunctory Hello World of a blog post behind me, do allow me to return to the real writing.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Saturday, November 07, 2009
THE STRAIGHT MAN'S BIBLE OF KINKY SEX?
I have long learnt the folly of using the Bible as an excuse/ explanation/ Justification for anything. When I was a young boy, growing up in a very Christian family, I was taught that the Bible was the word of God. “In the beginning was the Word,” the Gospel according to John begins, “and the Word was God.”
Then I grew older, read a lot more than the Bible, and suddenly it was like Jesus Christ himself was standing before me yelling: Ephphatha. Open up. And the eye of my mind become open to the fact that if the Bible was indeed the Word of God, then God is man’s literary plumbing. The truth of the Bible became to me not the words but the words and meanings that men put into it. And there could be as many truths in the Bible as there were men who would care to read it. I could find my own version of truth in the Bible as much as the next man could find theirs, or in some cases, the lack thereof. The Bible thus became for me not the word of God but an oracle as crazy as its next reader.
I still read the Bible, but now only as an exceptional work of literature and philosophy. And to this day, the book of John remains one of the texts I admire the most. From a literary point of view, of course. The Jesus in the Gospel of John has the eloquence of Khalil Gibran’s prophet retold in the mystical realist voice of Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
I say these things because one of my Facebook Friends brought an interesting website to my attention. Sex In Christ- Sexuality according to the word of God, a site that argues that threesomes are scripturally, kosher as long as it is a husband and two women (two men and one woman is homo, silly!) has to be read to be believed.
This site, which reminds us that sex between two men is condemned by the Bible but that joining your wife and her girlfriend in bed is holy in matrimony, must have been written by a heterosexual male pervert who uses the Songs of Solomon to jerk off. If it was up to me, the site should be called The Straight Man’s Bible of Kinky Sex.
But before I let you go and leave the site to speak for itself let me tell you why, according to that site of course, anal sex (before marriage, no less) is in accordance with God’s will:
But no, why don't you go find that out for yourself... I have drugs to abuse!
Then I grew older, read a lot more than the Bible, and suddenly it was like Jesus Christ himself was standing before me yelling: Ephphatha. Open up. And the eye of my mind become open to the fact that if the Bible was indeed the Word of God, then God is man’s literary plumbing. The truth of the Bible became to me not the words but the words and meanings that men put into it. And there could be as many truths in the Bible as there were men who would care to read it. I could find my own version of truth in the Bible as much as the next man could find theirs, or in some cases, the lack thereof. The Bible thus became for me not the word of God but an oracle as crazy as its next reader.
I still read the Bible, but now only as an exceptional work of literature and philosophy. And to this day, the book of John remains one of the texts I admire the most. From a literary point of view, of course. The Jesus in the Gospel of John has the eloquence of Khalil Gibran’s prophet retold in the mystical realist voice of Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
I say these things because one of my Facebook Friends brought an interesting website to my attention. Sex In Christ- Sexuality according to the word of God, a site that argues that threesomes are scripturally, kosher as long as it is a husband and two women (two men and one woman is homo, silly!) has to be read to be believed.
This site, which reminds us that sex between two men is condemned by the Bible but that joining your wife and her girlfriend in bed is holy in matrimony, must have been written by a heterosexual male pervert who uses the Songs of Solomon to jerk off. If it was up to me, the site should be called The Straight Man’s Bible of Kinky Sex.
But before I let you go and leave the site to speak for itself let me tell you why, according to that site of course, anal sex (before marriage, no less) is in accordance with God’s will:
“Are you saving yourself for your wedding night? The Devil wants you to fail, that’s why he puts stumbling blocks in your way. But God wants you to succeed, and that’s why he has given us an alternative to intercourse before marriage: anal sex. Through anal sex, you can satisfy your body’s needs, while you avoid the risk of unwanted pregnancy and still keep yourself pure for marriage.
You may be shocked at first by this idea. Isn’t anal sex (sodomy) forbidden by the Bible? Isn’t anal sex dirty? What’s the difference between having anal sex before marriage and having regular intercourse? Let’s address these issues by debunking some myths about anal sex and God's will.”
But no, why don't you go find that out for yourself... I have drugs to abuse!
Sunday, November 01, 2009
CONSTITUTIONS DON’T MAKE HOMOPHILES
“That's what the niggers don't realize,” says Jack Nicholson’s character in The Departed (2006), “If I got one thing against the black chappies, it's this - no one gives it to you. You have to take it.” It is the same problem with Kenya’s gay activists, or so thinks our guest blogger. Njoroge Matathia of The Black Campaign returns to these pages with a demand for a more forceful political and social engagement on gay issues in Kenya. Arguing that in the eyes of the Kenyan public there are no homosexuals here, he concludes that the gay community has itself to blame for the perpetuation of that misconception. Matathia then proceeds to call for a more public approach to activism and falls slightly short of demanding that the gay movement radicalise.
We share these opinions, our emphasis though being on the need for radicalism, but if he has failed to express them succinctly in his rather long essay then the fault is his and not that of this blog.
***
by Njoroge Matathia
“The union is abnormal. As an African and a church leader, I am ashamed. We should advice others not to do the same,”1 Anglican Archbishop Eliud Wabukala, said. He was responding to the news of a wedding between two Kenyan men held in London recently. A wedding that, according to media reports, Kenyan religious leaders have described as “unacceptable and unnatural”.
The Archbishop’s point of view I respect, it is his collation of Christianity and ‘Africanness’ that I sneer upon. I desired to respond to that, point out the irony in a casual call to ‘Africanness’ by someone whose job description begins with ‘Anglican’ but I held back telling myself that I, like him, would be missing the point. The point being: A wedding.
People love weddings. Love weddings because they are a celebratory rite of passage into that much revered social status of Married. Weddings usher in marriage, the only state within which societal sanctions allow you, nay, consider you respectable enough to have sex and to raise a family. Ideally, weddings are seen as a celebration of love between two people. A love so deep and special that those that share it declare it publicly and make a commitment to love and care for each other until death parts them.
Weddings let the whole world know that X loves Y. Weddings say: Charles Ngengi loves Daniel Chege Gichia and promises to do so, forever after. Love and companionship are the dominant tropes weddings sell with sex remaining a subtext too subtle to be discerned by the youngling flower-girls and pages who these events are meant to and do inspire.
But when Njenga wedded Gachie, the tables turned. Sex was elevated from subtext to issue- the only issue. Worse still, it was as though a sexual pervert had stood up in public and threatened: I, Charles Ngengi swear I will bugger that Chege guy to death! And over the next few days our MSM (pun intended) and online media spaces proceeded to work up and host what seems like a national disgust at the idea of, not just any men but two Kenyan men having sex with each other. For once an opportunity, to see and hopefully discuss homosexuality as more than sexual intercourse between people of the same biological sex, was ours to grab. Kenya, as a nation wasted that chance, the Kenyan gay community- its so called activists, specifically- squandered it.
The Kenyan gay community had a chance to say, look it is not just about sex, it is about human relationships. If we must talk about sex, then let us begin with the fact that two gay girls can meet, date and fall in love without ever having had sex. You know, just like with ‘normal’ people, if one partner is not ready then she just is not ready. And if you really care about that person and that relationship then you, well, wait. Sometimes a gay boy sees another boy and is filled with lust for him- you know, just the way a straight boy would feel about a girl- he propositions him and if the other is good to go, then he is good to go. Bottom line is casual sex is simply that, casual sex. If the issue is sex, then all sex is sex regardless of where your penis ends up. Thank you very much for your questions but we must now move on to a more important conversation: Sexuality.
Gay folks, in Kenya, did not do that. They neither pre-empted public debate’s, predictable, slide into how gross gay sex is nor attempted to shift it back to sexuality and lifestyle choices when it did. Right from the get go, the homophobes came out to play and for now the ball remains in their court. Maybe until Moreno Ocampo arrives next week and Kenyans can forget that small bit of gay silliness and get back to real issues: politics. Get back to politics the deafening silence of the Kenyan gay community having once again established the fact that there are no gay people in Kenya. That there are no gay Kenyans, just a few misguided youngsters who knowing no better allow themselves to be fooled by mzungus and their money into allowing themselves to be sexually abused. I mean, wasn’t that Ngengi guy lured by a mzungu guy to London? Now he is recruiting for them and we do not know what to do but leave our children to the grace of God.
Granted that, in truth, there exists a huge gay community in Kenya, nobody is gay in Kenya. A paradox it may seem until you consider that physical existence is never a guarantee of social existence. In colonial Kenya, the Africans it was said were to be seen but not heard, it is worse for gay people in Kenya today- they can neither be seen nor heard. In those days, the Africans lived at the social periphery- their existence known but their presence ignored- but gay people are living in social cemetery- unheard of and unknown. Gay people in Kenya are not ignored, they do not exist.
Because gay people do not exist in Kenya is it not preposterous to enshrine gay rights in our constitution; protect the interest of homosexuals as a distinct category? As we speak the Committee of Experts on Constitutional Review, charged with preparing a draft constitution soon to be put to referendum, has stated that they will not include gay rights in the draft. In a telling, if slightly ironic statement, the Nation reported a member of the committee, Mr. Otiende Amolo, as saying that
“[t]he new constitution is supposed to cater for the interests of both the majority and minorities, […] but same-sex marriages had been rejected by all religious groups.”2
Of great import too is the manner in which the issue of gay rights was, allegedly, presented to the committee. Mr. Amolo, it is reported, said:
"On several occasions some British MPs have approached us on the gay matter. They wanted us to include homosexual and lesbians' rights in the draft. But we told them that such a thing cannot happen because if we did so, a majority of Kenyans will reject the draft during the forthcoming referendum."3
Assuming the Mr. Amolo was not misquoted, then two things become self-evident. First, that consensus amongst all religious groups (their leaders to be precise) means consensus amongst all Kenyan minorities and majorities. Second, that gay rights were only put on the committee’s agenda (not by any Kenyan or group of Kenyans) by foreigners. By British MPs, specifically, in whose country two Kenyans have already found a safe haven for their ‘unnatural and unacceptable’ union. The two points together speak to the argument- proven through deduction by the lack of any memoranda from gay Kenyans to the committee- that there are no gay people in Kenya.
Big jump, maybe, from weddings to constitution making but with it a significant reframing of the homosexuality debate. To begin with, though the stance against homosexuality taken by the religious groups is based on their moral and doctrinal perspectives, by arguing these points in a political space, they politicise homosexuality. By not responding- in political spaces- to the politicisation of their way of life the Kenyan gay community cedes any political ground there is to be won. Importantly, by not being the first to politicise their interests, the gay community becomes relegated to the unfortunate place of second guessing the political agenda set by their opponents.
It can be argued that their existence being, technically, illegal in Kenya means that homosexuals cannot publicly present memoranda. But truth is that declaring oneself to be a homosexual in Kenya is not in and of itself illegal. While Kenyan law criminalises acts- sodomy and the cryptic ‘acts against the order of nature’- it is society that anathematises homosexuality as a concept, identity and lifestyle. Thus, a public declaration of ones homosexuality puts you in danger of social ostracism and mob justice rather than criminal prosecution and jail. Therefore, if the written law and social values were two cats, gay rights a mouse and we had only one bell, which one ought we to bell first? The more vicious one of course; social stigmatisation of homosexuality rather than the laws that purportedly criminalise it.
And the first steps towards fighting social stigma are a broader public awareness of the stigmatised social reality coupled with, hopefully, a level of acceptance or, at the very least, tolerance.
Unfortunately, acceptance or tolerance are processes rather than events; fortunately, what is sought is not universal acceptance or tolerance but a modicum of it. It is in this environment that changes in the law begin to make sense. Laws in themselves do not change people, reason does. If it were, by any wild chance, possible to enshrine the rights of sexual minorities in the Kenyan constitution now, the only thing the gay community would come out with is the lesson that constitutions do not make homophiles. Just look at South Africa and their much celebrated gay friendly constitution and then look at their statistics on the ‘corrective rape’4 of lesbians.
But all is not lost. The rights that gay Kenyans deserve can be achieved but they will have to be earned. They will have to fight for them on two fronts, the social and the political. In the social, an intense public awareness campaign around gay issues must be embarked on. One that begins with the subtle and progresses towards the blatant. Think of a move from pamphlets, stickers and other merchandise in not only English but also Kiswahili and other languages. These can be dropped at market centres, people’s doorsteps and such places. Guerrilla social marketing, if there is such a thing. With time it will even be possible to have a gay character in a local TV show. The key thing, though, is to target rural areas more than the urban ones.
The political front is the hard part. The Kenyan gay community will need martyrs for this. It must be borne in mind that all significant political change in this country has been cut with blood. Why should gay people hope to be any luckier? They must get out on the street and march for their freedom, wipe off the spit and blood from their torn bodies and souls and march again. History has taught that easy civil rights victories are few and far in between. In the meantime gay Kenyans must ask themselves not what laws are against them but what laws are for them.
What laws protect them not as homosexuals but as both citizens of Kenya and human beings? Does the Sexual Offences Act limit rape to actions against heterosexuals? Does the penal code say, categorically, that the assault, infliction of grievous bodily harm or the murder of a homosexual is not a crime? Because lawyers, judges and policemen are products of our homophobic environment, it means that crimes committed against homosexuals do not get prosecuted, do not find their way into civil court and if they did the offender could claim the victim’s sexuality as a mitigating circumstance or cause for extreme provocation. But for how long can a precedent setting prosecution remain elusive? Haven’t we seen one yet?
It is alongside laws that rights and responsibilities exist. One great argument proposed by sexual rights activists, and one that I have used often in other writings, frames sexual orientation within the language of rights. That sexual (orientation) rights are human rights. Unfortunately rights are a moral issue that can only become legally relevant when they are politicised. And as we have seen, the Kenyan gay community has lost both the moral and the political argument. They have lost by default merely by not being seen and heard, in any significant way, enough to count as a constituent demographic group in Kenya. They have lost the advantage of having drawn first blood; stepping up and stepping out to frame the public discourse on homosexuality in their favour. They have refused to exist validating the myth of their non-existence through inaction.
It is this lack of political action and a refusal to engage the public on their issues that irks me the most about gay activists in Kenya. If they are involved in any activism at all then it plays out in formal spaces socially and intellectually distant from the broader publics they need win over. They play safe- talking heads at conferences that preach to the converted- while the world out there is living in the blissful heathenism of homophobia. “We are here, we are gay,” they whisper to each other inside their closet and then wonder, at the next exclusive conference, why no one knows they exist.
1. http://www.nation.co.ke/News/-/1056/673614/-/uo10l1/-/index.html
2. http://www.nation.co.ke/News/-/1056/674074/-/uo1kcr/-/index.html
3. http://www.nation.co.ke/News/-/1056/674074/-/uo1kcr/-/index.html
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrective_rape
Njoroge Matathia is a Nairobi based writer and social scientist. He can be reached at http://theblackcampaign.org Check that site over the next few days for a downloadable PDF version of this essay.
We share these opinions, our emphasis though being on the need for radicalism, but if he has failed to express them succinctly in his rather long essay then the fault is his and not that of this blog.
***
by Njoroge Matathia
“The union is abnormal. As an African and a church leader, I am ashamed. We should advice others not to do the same,”1 Anglican Archbishop Eliud Wabukala, said. He was responding to the news of a wedding between two Kenyan men held in London recently. A wedding that, according to media reports, Kenyan religious leaders have described as “unacceptable and unnatural”.
The Archbishop’s point of view I respect, it is his collation of Christianity and ‘Africanness’ that I sneer upon. I desired to respond to that, point out the irony in a casual call to ‘Africanness’ by someone whose job description begins with ‘Anglican’ but I held back telling myself that I, like him, would be missing the point. The point being: A wedding.
People love weddings. Love weddings because they are a celebratory rite of passage into that much revered social status of Married. Weddings usher in marriage, the only state within which societal sanctions allow you, nay, consider you respectable enough to have sex and to raise a family. Ideally, weddings are seen as a celebration of love between two people. A love so deep and special that those that share it declare it publicly and make a commitment to love and care for each other until death parts them.
Weddings let the whole world know that X loves Y. Weddings say: Charles Ngengi loves Daniel Chege Gichia and promises to do so, forever after. Love and companionship are the dominant tropes weddings sell with sex remaining a subtext too subtle to be discerned by the youngling flower-girls and pages who these events are meant to and do inspire.
But when Njenga wedded Gachie, the tables turned. Sex was elevated from subtext to issue- the only issue. Worse still, it was as though a sexual pervert had stood up in public and threatened: I, Charles Ngengi swear I will bugger that Chege guy to death! And over the next few days our MSM (pun intended) and online media spaces proceeded to work up and host what seems like a national disgust at the idea of, not just any men but two Kenyan men having sex with each other. For once an opportunity, to see and hopefully discuss homosexuality as more than sexual intercourse between people of the same biological sex, was ours to grab. Kenya, as a nation wasted that chance, the Kenyan gay community- its so called activists, specifically- squandered it.
The Kenyan gay community had a chance to say, look it is not just about sex, it is about human relationships. If we must talk about sex, then let us begin with the fact that two gay girls can meet, date and fall in love without ever having had sex. You know, just like with ‘normal’ people, if one partner is not ready then she just is not ready. And if you really care about that person and that relationship then you, well, wait. Sometimes a gay boy sees another boy and is filled with lust for him- you know, just the way a straight boy would feel about a girl- he propositions him and if the other is good to go, then he is good to go. Bottom line is casual sex is simply that, casual sex. If the issue is sex, then all sex is sex regardless of where your penis ends up. Thank you very much for your questions but we must now move on to a more important conversation: Sexuality.
Gay folks, in Kenya, did not do that. They neither pre-empted public debate’s, predictable, slide into how gross gay sex is nor attempted to shift it back to sexuality and lifestyle choices when it did. Right from the get go, the homophobes came out to play and for now the ball remains in their court. Maybe until Moreno Ocampo arrives next week and Kenyans can forget that small bit of gay silliness and get back to real issues: politics. Get back to politics the deafening silence of the Kenyan gay community having once again established the fact that there are no gay people in Kenya. That there are no gay Kenyans, just a few misguided youngsters who knowing no better allow themselves to be fooled by mzungus and their money into allowing themselves to be sexually abused. I mean, wasn’t that Ngengi guy lured by a mzungu guy to London? Now he is recruiting for them and we do not know what to do but leave our children to the grace of God.
Granted that, in truth, there exists a huge gay community in Kenya, nobody is gay in Kenya. A paradox it may seem until you consider that physical existence is never a guarantee of social existence. In colonial Kenya, the Africans it was said were to be seen but not heard, it is worse for gay people in Kenya today- they can neither be seen nor heard. In those days, the Africans lived at the social periphery- their existence known but their presence ignored- but gay people are living in social cemetery- unheard of and unknown. Gay people in Kenya are not ignored, they do not exist.
Because gay people do not exist in Kenya is it not preposterous to enshrine gay rights in our constitution; protect the interest of homosexuals as a distinct category? As we speak the Committee of Experts on Constitutional Review, charged with preparing a draft constitution soon to be put to referendum, has stated that they will not include gay rights in the draft. In a telling, if slightly ironic statement, the Nation reported a member of the committee, Mr. Otiende Amolo, as saying that
“[t]he new constitution is supposed to cater for the interests of both the majority and minorities, […] but same-sex marriages had been rejected by all religious groups.”2
Of great import too is the manner in which the issue of gay rights was, allegedly, presented to the committee. Mr. Amolo, it is reported, said:
"On several occasions some British MPs have approached us on the gay matter. They wanted us to include homosexual and lesbians' rights in the draft. But we told them that such a thing cannot happen because if we did so, a majority of Kenyans will reject the draft during the forthcoming referendum."3
Assuming the Mr. Amolo was not misquoted, then two things become self-evident. First, that consensus amongst all religious groups (their leaders to be precise) means consensus amongst all Kenyan minorities and majorities. Second, that gay rights were only put on the committee’s agenda (not by any Kenyan or group of Kenyans) by foreigners. By British MPs, specifically, in whose country two Kenyans have already found a safe haven for their ‘unnatural and unacceptable’ union. The two points together speak to the argument- proven through deduction by the lack of any memoranda from gay Kenyans to the committee- that there are no gay people in Kenya.
Big jump, maybe, from weddings to constitution making but with it a significant reframing of the homosexuality debate. To begin with, though the stance against homosexuality taken by the religious groups is based on their moral and doctrinal perspectives, by arguing these points in a political space, they politicise homosexuality. By not responding- in political spaces- to the politicisation of their way of life the Kenyan gay community cedes any political ground there is to be won. Importantly, by not being the first to politicise their interests, the gay community becomes relegated to the unfortunate place of second guessing the political agenda set by their opponents.
It can be argued that their existence being, technically, illegal in Kenya means that homosexuals cannot publicly present memoranda. But truth is that declaring oneself to be a homosexual in Kenya is not in and of itself illegal. While Kenyan law criminalises acts- sodomy and the cryptic ‘acts against the order of nature’- it is society that anathematises homosexuality as a concept, identity and lifestyle. Thus, a public declaration of ones homosexuality puts you in danger of social ostracism and mob justice rather than criminal prosecution and jail. Therefore, if the written law and social values were two cats, gay rights a mouse and we had only one bell, which one ought we to bell first? The more vicious one of course; social stigmatisation of homosexuality rather than the laws that purportedly criminalise it.
And the first steps towards fighting social stigma are a broader public awareness of the stigmatised social reality coupled with, hopefully, a level of acceptance or, at the very least, tolerance.
Unfortunately, acceptance or tolerance are processes rather than events; fortunately, what is sought is not universal acceptance or tolerance but a modicum of it. It is in this environment that changes in the law begin to make sense. Laws in themselves do not change people, reason does. If it were, by any wild chance, possible to enshrine the rights of sexual minorities in the Kenyan constitution now, the only thing the gay community would come out with is the lesson that constitutions do not make homophiles. Just look at South Africa and their much celebrated gay friendly constitution and then look at their statistics on the ‘corrective rape’4 of lesbians.
But all is not lost. The rights that gay Kenyans deserve can be achieved but they will have to be earned. They will have to fight for them on two fronts, the social and the political. In the social, an intense public awareness campaign around gay issues must be embarked on. One that begins with the subtle and progresses towards the blatant. Think of a move from pamphlets, stickers and other merchandise in not only English but also Kiswahili and other languages. These can be dropped at market centres, people’s doorsteps and such places. Guerrilla social marketing, if there is such a thing. With time it will even be possible to have a gay character in a local TV show. The key thing, though, is to target rural areas more than the urban ones.
The political front is the hard part. The Kenyan gay community will need martyrs for this. It must be borne in mind that all significant political change in this country has been cut with blood. Why should gay people hope to be any luckier? They must get out on the street and march for their freedom, wipe off the spit and blood from their torn bodies and souls and march again. History has taught that easy civil rights victories are few and far in between. In the meantime gay Kenyans must ask themselves not what laws are against them but what laws are for them.
What laws protect them not as homosexuals but as both citizens of Kenya and human beings? Does the Sexual Offences Act limit rape to actions against heterosexuals? Does the penal code say, categorically, that the assault, infliction of grievous bodily harm or the murder of a homosexual is not a crime? Because lawyers, judges and policemen are products of our homophobic environment, it means that crimes committed against homosexuals do not get prosecuted, do not find their way into civil court and if they did the offender could claim the victim’s sexuality as a mitigating circumstance or cause for extreme provocation. But for how long can a precedent setting prosecution remain elusive? Haven’t we seen one yet?
It is alongside laws that rights and responsibilities exist. One great argument proposed by sexual rights activists, and one that I have used often in other writings, frames sexual orientation within the language of rights. That sexual (orientation) rights are human rights. Unfortunately rights are a moral issue that can only become legally relevant when they are politicised. And as we have seen, the Kenyan gay community has lost both the moral and the political argument. They have lost by default merely by not being seen and heard, in any significant way, enough to count as a constituent demographic group in Kenya. They have lost the advantage of having drawn first blood; stepping up and stepping out to frame the public discourse on homosexuality in their favour. They have refused to exist validating the myth of their non-existence through inaction.
It is this lack of political action and a refusal to engage the public on their issues that irks me the most about gay activists in Kenya. If they are involved in any activism at all then it plays out in formal spaces socially and intellectually distant from the broader publics they need win over. They play safe- talking heads at conferences that preach to the converted- while the world out there is living in the blissful heathenism of homophobia. “We are here, we are gay,” they whisper to each other inside their closet and then wonder, at the next exclusive conference, why no one knows they exist.
1. http://www.nation.co.ke/News/-/1056/673614/-/uo10l1/-/index.html
2. http://www.nation.co.ke/News/-/1056/674074/-/uo1kcr/-/index.html
3. http://www.nation.co.ke/News/-/1056/674074/-/uo1kcr/-/index.html
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrective_rape
Njoroge Matathia is a Nairobi based writer and social scientist. He can be reached at http://theblackcampaign.org Check that site over the next few days for a downloadable PDF version of this essay.
Friday, October 30, 2009
NAIROBI NIGHTS: URBAN BEATS- The Party
It has been one of those times when the Nairobi cultural scene has more to offer than the time one has. And when I, who has so much idle time in his hands, says I am pressed for time, then you know it has been an intense schedule. The German cultural weeks, beginning October 18th and ending tomorrow have been particularly charming. But I only managed to attend two events: the screening of Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's The Lives of Others (2006) and Wanuri Kahiu's 12 minutes long sci-fi Pumzi (2009) at the Goethe Institute. Too bad I cannot be bothered to write reviews because they are both really important movies in their own rights.
On the 27th of October, I was back at the Goethe Institute for the opening of IngridMwangiRobertHutter's exhibition, Intruders. Ingrid Mwangi was born, to a Kenyan father and German mother, in Nairobi in 1970 while Robert Hutter was born in Ludwigshafen, Germany in the same year. Together they form the 'artisticly inspeparable identity', IngridMwangiRobertHutter, through which they do their art and, as Hutter puts it, 'other things together'. Those other things include raising their four children. Intruders, on show till the 12th of November at the Goethe Institute, is IngridMwangiRobertHutter's first solo show in Kenya.
At the opening I met up with Andy Teichmann and Sasha Perera. Andy, who I did a night out with back in February, is one half of the techno DJs unit Teichmann Brothers while Sasha of the Berlin based eloctronic band Jahcoozi. The Teichmann Brothers and Jahcoozi will alongside the b-boy artist Raphael team up with the Kenyan acts of hip hop DJ Bob of Headbangaz, house and techno DJ Drazen and the Swahili hiphop crew of Uko Flani for a party to draw the curtain on the German Cultural Weeks. Christened URBAN BEATS, the party will be held at the Marshall's service workshop in the ground floor of Marshall's House on Loita Street from 9.00p.m on the night of October 30th.
*Unfortunately, I can neither post the event poster nor attach links because either blogger or bad internet will not allow me. I cannot even format the text!
On the 27th of October, I was back at the Goethe Institute for the opening of IngridMwangiRobertHutter's exhibition, Intruders. Ingrid Mwangi was born, to a Kenyan father and German mother, in Nairobi in 1970 while Robert Hutter was born in Ludwigshafen, Germany in the same year. Together they form the 'artisticly inspeparable identity', IngridMwangiRobertHutter, through which they do their art and, as Hutter puts it, 'other things together'. Those other things include raising their four children. Intruders, on show till the 12th of November at the Goethe Institute, is IngridMwangiRobertHutter's first solo show in Kenya.
At the opening I met up with Andy Teichmann and Sasha Perera. Andy, who I did a night out with back in February, is one half of the techno DJs unit Teichmann Brothers while Sasha of the Berlin based eloctronic band Jahcoozi. The Teichmann Brothers and Jahcoozi will alongside the b-boy artist Raphael team up with the Kenyan acts of hip hop DJ Bob of Headbangaz, house and techno DJ Drazen and the Swahili hiphop crew of Uko Flani for a party to draw the curtain on the German Cultural Weeks. Christened URBAN BEATS, the party will be held at the Marshall's service workshop in the ground floor of Marshall's House on Loita Street from 9.00p.m on the night of October 30th.
*Unfortunately, I can neither post the event poster nor attach links because either blogger or bad internet will not allow me. I cannot even format the text!
Sunday, October 25, 2009
POTASH BOOK CLUB: Letter to a Convict
Then he answered and spoke to me, saying, "This is the word of Potash to N-, saying, 'Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit,' says commander of Armies.*
House,
Some people say that jail changes you, and it should. But that only if you are a criminal; a menace to the public, judged so by a system that is both fair and just. If on the other hand you are a prisoner of conscience, put away- the machinations of the unjust working in overdrive- to silence you, prison should not change you. Must never change you.
True revolutionaries; earnest believers in a just cause, can only be judged not by what they said before they went to prison but by what they say after. What did Kenyatta say when he left prison? What did those tortured under Moi say when they, finally, took over the reigns? What will you say, when tomorrow they set you free? That God is God all the time, huh? So let us forgive them for they know not what they do?
God is good, indeed. The God otherwise known as Capital.
It has been a long road since November 1997 when a third column was presented to you. Many have been martyred that no one will ever know of, many have sold out who history will judge harshly.
But one thing is certain, the Potash Book Club will rise again. Damn well it will, and this I swear by the spirit of our forefathers.
Potash
*Proper attribution for this quote is problematic. Early on in this decade, a slew of photocopies of handwritten texts were to be found circulating among the youth of several low income areas in Nairobi. Many of them contained lengthy passages from both Shakespeare and the Bible reworked with Kenyan characters and situations. With every subsequent photocopying, came redactions as is evident from this quote that is obviously originally sourced from the book of Zechariah, 4:6.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Homosexuality: A Brief Rant
Nothing irks me more than a bigot with a bad argument. With the reports, in the last week, of a marriage between two Kenyan gay men and the introduction of an Anti-Homosexuality Bill into the Uganda parliament, this type of bigot has come out to play. The basic argument: Homosexuality is both against Christianity and Africanness.
Previously, on this blog, we have had a quick read through of what the Bible- the foundation of Christianity- has to say on homosexuality. That we insist is our own reading of the Bible and respect the fact that others can choose to read it differently. Anyone can read the Bible and find in it justification for all manner of hateful behaviour and that, whether it be slavery or homophobia, we respect. Respect it in the same way we respect all other opinions even when they significantly diverge from ours. To respect the opinions of others does not make them right, but it calls upon them to respect ours too or at least gives us the right to demand that our opinions be respected.
The opinion, held unwaveringly on this blog, is that up there with other recognized freedoms, id est, speech, religious belief, ownership of property, et cetera, lies sexual orientation. Whether people are born homosexual or choose to be so is moot our concern being that there are human beings who are homosexual. Irrevocably homosexual. And because they are does not mean they deserve special rights. What they deserve is equal rights. In the language of rights, homosexuals should not exist as a distinct category, because they belong in the same one as Ours: human being. In the same vein, there should be no category of laws that address homosexuals, specifically.
We, also, hold that the greatest sexual crime is non-consensual sex; where consent is established- between adults of a sound mind- the law can go jerk off.
Rants aside, we hope to engage you more on the Bahati Bill in Uganda and the whole business of homosexuality and Africanness soon. With time, it can be hoped that our region will arrive at a decent place where you do not have to be a cow to demand that cows be slaughtered humanely. But before then, universal human rights, must claim martyrs. Stand up and be counted.
Tweet your vitriol to @Potash
Previously, on this blog, we have had a quick read through of what the Bible- the foundation of Christianity- has to say on homosexuality. That we insist is our own reading of the Bible and respect the fact that others can choose to read it differently. Anyone can read the Bible and find in it justification for all manner of hateful behaviour and that, whether it be slavery or homophobia, we respect. Respect it in the same way we respect all other opinions even when they significantly diverge from ours. To respect the opinions of others does not make them right, but it calls upon them to respect ours too or at least gives us the right to demand that our opinions be respected.
The opinion, held unwaveringly on this blog, is that up there with other recognized freedoms, id est, speech, religious belief, ownership of property, et cetera, lies sexual orientation. Whether people are born homosexual or choose to be so is moot our concern being that there are human beings who are homosexual. Irrevocably homosexual. And because they are does not mean they deserve special rights. What they deserve is equal rights. In the language of rights, homosexuals should not exist as a distinct category, because they belong in the same one as Ours: human being. In the same vein, there should be no category of laws that address homosexuals, specifically.
We, also, hold that the greatest sexual crime is non-consensual sex; where consent is established- between adults of a sound mind- the law can go jerk off.
Rants aside, we hope to engage you more on the Bahati Bill in Uganda and the whole business of homosexuality and Africanness soon. With time, it can be hoped that our region will arrive at a decent place where you do not have to be a cow to demand that cows be slaughtered humanely. But before then, universal human rights, must claim martyrs. Stand up and be counted.
Tweet your vitriol to @Potash
Friday, October 16, 2009
JUST A BAND ALBUM LAUNCH
Self-effacement might have led Just a Band to describe themselves as an Experimental Boy Band but what they have turned out to be is a cult. That is a thought, I must return to on another day, but for now I have to go hustle because money, El Nino or the lack of a ride cannot get in the way of my attending the launch of their sophomore album kesho. The album, simply titled 82, will be launched at The Godown Arts Center, Industrial Area.
Here are the details, also available on Facebook:
“We've just released our second album - 82 and we'll be putting it out there with song and dance. Join us on Saturday 17th October from 7pm at the Godown Arts Center till much later (with the help of DJ Drazen). The album will be on sale for... Kshs. 500.
Advance tickets: Kshs. 400
Gate tickets: Kshs. 500
Advance Tickets available from:
The Sound Africa Store,
Ground Floor, 20th Century Plaza
Mama Ngina Street
CBD, Nairobi
The Bonk Store (opposite Steers Westlands)
Bishan Plaza, below Black Diamond
Mpaka Road, Westlands
The Godown Arts Center,
Dunga Road, Industrial Area
Nairobi.
AND from any of us band members, should you meet us. :D
With the gracious support of Penya Africa, The Godown Arts Center, ESL, bONK, Kiss FM and Kiss TV.”
Just a Band is as Urban Kenya as it gets, and this blog is proud to big them up big time, now and in future.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
