African values: Manifesto calls for ‘decolonized’ advocacy against LGBTphobia
‘Freedom, human dignity and tolerance are fundamental African values’
A new human rights manifesto known as the Appeal of Babi calls on African activists and their supporters to adopt a “decolonized” strategy for challenging LGBTphobia and decriminalizing homosexuality in Africa by emphasizing African values.
The movement should be led by local communities of sexual and gender minorities throughout the continent, “L’appel de Babi” states.
One reason for this decolonized approach — a strategy that isn’t dependent on Europe and North America — is that Western support for LGBTQ rights has allowed homophobic Africans to claim that LGBTQ people are un-African and that the West is seeking to impose Western values on Africa.
Not so, states the Appeal of Babi.
“Freedom, human dignity and tolerance are fundamental African values that must be respected and applied to all the children of Africa, without distinction of gender, sexual orientation or gender identity,” the manifesto states.
The manifesto was developed in July 2023 by dozens of French- and English-speaking African activists and academics meeting in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire, a city with the nickname “Babi”. It was published last month by the Global Alliance for Health and Rights (the Alliance Globale des Communautés pour la Santé et les Droits, or AGCS). a network of African associations involved in the fight against AIDS among the most vulnerable populations. AGCS, which is supported by the French anti-AIDS non-profit Aides, helped develop the manifesto.
The Appeal of Babi’s emphasis on African values is a counterpoint to the ideas developed by Swiss-Cameroonian online influencer Nathalie Yamb, who spreads homophobic pan-Africanism to a huge online audience. To counter her positions, “L’appel de Babi” describes and rejects some of the constants of LGBTphobia as it is expressed in Africa:
Sexual and gender minorities and their demands in Africa are seen as an emanation of a Western imperialist anti-African agenda, and in so doing are not seen as stakeholders in pan-Africanism and the values of tolerance and respect that it is supposed to embody.
It’s a short step from ideology to law, and from law to violence, and sexual and gender minorities pay the price, as they do in countries that have over-penalized homosexuality, adding new anti-homosexuality laws to old one, such as Uganda since 2014 and apparently soon Ghana.
Yet African levers exist that can move the continent forward, such as the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the African philosophy of Ubuntu.
The appeal argues for the importance of an authentic pan-Africanism, free from conspiracy, that develops a grassroots commitment to human and social development through autonomous local mobilizations in line with an African agenda.
Because local activists are often ignored by African nations’ public officials and the continent’s human rights agencies, “the reflex of many of our activists and associations is often to ask for help from Western countries.”
But that risks adopting “neo-colonial paradigms in current and future battles,” the manifesto states. “As a result, solutions to the emancipation of sexual and gender minorities are often inspired from outside, to the detriment of real preparation and organization of local communities in a civic approach, anchored in our local and African realities.”
In particular, the appeal includes recommendations to individuals and organizations fighting against LGBTphobia on the African continent:
- For individuals — Get informed, get trained to deconstruct oppressive narratives and put forth alternative narratives within all spaces of expression of citizenship.
- Forge, enrich and build bridges and pan-African networks of human rights organizations, to pool expertise and make our voices heard more effectively.
- Work to overturn laws that are liberticidal and contrary to international charters and treaties signed and ratified by African states, while inviting them to devote 15% of their annual budgets to health spending.
- For funders — Change our stance and make a transparent, frank and sincere commitment to local NGOs to ensure that funds are not used by conspiratorial pressure groups.
- For donors — Don’t use the cause of decriminalizing LGBTphobia in Africa to create parallel initiatives that rely on a handful of individuals to the detriment of other organizations.
For more information on decolonizing advocacy in Africa, please write to the following e-mail address: coordinationagcsplus@coalitionplus.org
