Peter Tatchell: Evils of colonialism still wrecking lives
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.The conviction by a Malawian court of Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga on charges of homosexuality is the latest example of how, more than four decades after most African nations won their independence, the evils of colonialism continue to wreck lives.
The two men face up to 14 years in jail under laws that were imposed on the people of Malawi by the British colonisers in the 19th century.
Before the British came and conquered Malawi, there were no laws against homosexuality. These laws are a foreign imposition, they are not African at all. Despite independence, these alien criminalisations were never repealed.
Today, the minds of many Malawians – and other Africans – remain colonised by the homophobic beliefs that were drummed into their forebears by the western missionaries who invaded their lands alongside the conquering imperial armies.
The missionaries preached a harsh, intolerant Christianity, which has been so successfully internalised by many Africans that they now claim homophobia as their own culture and tradition.
While many African leaders decry homosexuality as a "western disease" or a "white man's import", the truth is very different.
Prior to colonisation, many tribal societies and kingdoms had a more relaxed attitude to same-sex relations than their subsequent colonial occupiers.
As Rudi C Bleys documented in his book, The Geography of Perversion, the existence and, sometimes toleration, of same-sex acts was used by the colonising European nations to justify what they saw as their "civilising" mission.
To them, homosexuality among the indigenous peoples was proof of their "barbarity" and confirmation of western theories of racial superiority.
Homophobia in Africa is mostly a colonial imposition. But this is no excuse for these now-independent nations to perpetuate colonial-era anti-gay laws and attitudes.
It is time to finish the African liberation struggle by ending the persecution of gay Africans.
The writer is a human rights campaigner www.petertatchell.net
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments