Kenya’s Queer Imbalance
Like so many post-Colonial nations, Kenya continues to rail against its gays. While it’s still technically illegal to be gay in the African nation, ABC News found that gay men have found space in so-called “mixed bars.”
Despite relative freedom on the dance floor, most gay men and women continue to live in fear. Unless, of course, they’re raking it in:
The one exception to homosexual intolerance was, and continues to be, sex tourism. For several years during the Moi regime, there was a club in downtown Nairobi, frequented by British sailors and ex-pats, Steve said, where men could pick up other men, often male prostitutes.In the coastal town of Mombasa, male prostitution continues to be part of the tourism trade without much scrutiny from the government — or even the local community. “If you have money in this country you can do whatever you want,” Steve said.
Isn’t that always the case: whores and their rich benefactors have all the fun!
Whether traveling in Kenya, Tanzania, or Ghana, I’ve always been advised to keep quiet about the fact that I’m gay. In Tanzania, you can be imprisoned; I don’t know the rules in Kenya, but it’s fair to say it’s frowned upon.
And in Ghana, the attitude was that of Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: “We don’t have that problem here.” Except when I finally grilled a few local friends there, they admitted they knew of gay men, and that they were simply social outcasts, to be ignored by society.
The Nazis kept gay meeting places open so they could more easily round up gay people when they cracked down. Kenya needs to uphold basic human rights otherwise it should no longer be recognized as a state by the worldwide gay-allied community and thus no longer provided the protection of international treaties (after all they are violating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the grand-daddy of all international instruments).
It’s a sad state of affairs when I view how the GLBT community is treated in most african countries and it’s double ironic that South Africa, with its apartheid past, manages to be the only african nation where homosexuality is not only legal, but accepted.
Perhaps, if Kenya was a thriving country, with a high standard of living and no institutionalized heterosexism, we might comment on how gay sex workers probably enjoy the lives that they have chosen. As it stands, it’s disgusting to glamorize yet another method by which the Western/European world exploits African people.
It always disappoints me when a community was once persecuted for its color and difference continues to persecute another minority group once it takes power. History repeats itself all the time. Its great that South Africa is in the lead of human rights for the LGBT community. That is a perfect example of how a once persecuted nation is now leading its human rights campaign.
Kenya is going to be one of the last countries to even consider discussing such issues. Till then, its the underground for the gays – which isn’t so bad anyway…”rebellion” against the norm kinda gives it an adventurous sort of feeling.