Abstract
International relations play a role in the contestation of sexuality in Africa. Against the assumption that protective homophobia is a domestic issue, Chap. 5 contends that it is an international relations issue. Using US President Barack Obama’s encounters with Presidents Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, Macky Sall of Senegal, and Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya, I argue that Western sexual activism forces African politicians’ public opposition to homosexuality. I examine the nature of inter-continental understanding of sexual politics and the global and local political and religious implications of the same. I conclude that postcolonial and cultural predispositions feed neocolonial accusations as well as claims that homosexuality is un-African. But they also invite public disputes on homosexuality in domestic politics while exposing sexual minorities to political and religio-cultural scapegoating.
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Notes
- 1.
For a detailed discussion on other legal instruments as well as their limitations in international law, see Obendorf’s (1999) “Homosexual Rights and the Non-Western World: A Postcolonial Reading of Homosexual Rights in International Human Rights Law,” Third World Legal Studies 15: 179–204.
- 2.
Here, Museveni seems aware of non-conclusive scientific theories on homosexuality . “They’re disgusting. What sort of people are they?” he said. A day after signing the Bill, Museveni told CNN, “I never knew what they were doing. I’ve been told recently that what they do is terrible [and] disgusting. But I was ready to ignore that if there was proof that that’s how he is born, abnormal. But now the proof is not there.” http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/24/world/africa/uganda-homosexuality-interview/, February 25, 2014.
- 3.
On July 31, 2014, the Constitutional Court struck down the anti-homosexuality law on a technical basis.
- 4.
For the wider discussion of Ubuntu, see Kaoma, God’s Family, God’s Earth, 2013.
- 5.
This situation is not unique to Africa but extends to Europe as well. Just as multi-ethnic states exist (e.g. Belgium and Switzerland), so do ethnic populations across borders—from Hungarians in Romania to separatism from the disintegration of Yugoslavia to Scotland demanding its independence from the United Kingdom. Whereas these examples can inform IR, African history with colonialism and its marginality in the international economic system sets the continent apart.
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Kaoma, K. (2018). Contesting Sovereignty: Protective Homophobia and International Relations. In: Christianity, Globalization, and Protective Homophobia. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66341-8_6
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