Reflection on Afritondo Short Story Prize: Africa needs to rethink how it views homosexual love
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In October 2019, we launched the first Afritondo Short Story Prize. We were incredibly pleased with the number and quality of entries. Africa, indeed, has strong emerging voices that are ready to tell the world her story.
Since the theme of the short story prize was love, it was natural that some of the stories were of homosexual love. But most of these stories of homosexual love—at least the ones I read—shared two common motifs: fear and flight. In these stories, you get the feeling that the authors were describing something beautiful, yet perceived as unholy.
Let me explain. You read a story of two men or two women in love, but somehow their love is a sin. So sinful that they are ashamed. So sinful that they choose to leave their partners and live in misery. They literally get up and leave their comfort because of the fear of judgement and exclusion.
I will give an example with an excerpt from one of the longlisted stories, the boy and the beast who lives close to my house. A man writes his male lover:
I, too, feel something. Something
bigger. I’ll say plainly that I’m
in love with you. Every day the
beast is gnawing away at me. But
you see, we won’t survive. It’s invalid.
Even before we began, the dogs had
already laughed at it. Of course, the fire
was too hot, so we had to give it a run
but you see, the gods are watching. The
gods don’t approve. I’ve left the city.
I’m back in my village.
He not only left his lover but also left the city (a good place) for the village (a ‘less good’ place) because the gods don’t approve. The other thing to note is that he went back to his village. It is safe to assume that he had left his village in search of a better life. And yet he goes back because, in his estimation, it is safer not to achieve whatever dreams he has than to love another man.
“About homosexuality being un-African, King Mwanga II was a gay Ugandan king in the 19th century before the British colonisation of Uganda. In fact, homosexuality was criminalised in African countries by colonialists, not Africans. So, what culture? ”
Does art mirror life or does life mirror art? In this homosexual love debate, we know what the answer is. The authors of the short story entries we received were clearly showing how the society they live in more or less rejects and condemns those whose choice of partners is not of the conventional heterosexual strain.
In one story, a woman walks into a river to drown. In another one, a man leaves his partner, goes back to the village to a home that had stopped being home, and becomes mad. It’s all fear and flight.
Maybe these are all stories and the authors' amazing imaginations. Okay, let’s look at the real world.
On March 7, 2020, in Anambra state southeastern Nigeria, a gay man was killed by two homophobes.
In December 2019, forty-seven men were put on trial in Nigeria for public display of affection with other men. The offence carries a 10-year jail term. Just to be clear, you can get a 10-year jail term for kissing a man or a woman.
In November 2019, the police in Uganda arrested up to 125 people in a gay-friendly bar in Kampala.
And these are all in the last year and without any real effort to find examples of homophobia.
The authors that wrote about fear and flight are writing about their society, and no matter what your opinion about homosexuality is, you have to agree that it is sad that any man or woman does not feel safe in his or her country because of their sexual orientation.
But what is it about homosexuality that gets certain people all riled up?
Photo: Dimitar Belchev
I have followed the debate long enough to know that the first thing is religion. That although the bible instructs Christians to “love your neighbour as yourself,” it somehow exempts homosexuals—at least for certain adherents. Some of these people, in a bid to be on the good side of the good book, try to distinguish between the “sin” and the “sinner”.
“I hate the sin, not the sinner,” they say.
First, it takes a lot of balls to label someone a sinner: one, because it is not civil; two, because the good book says you should not judge and, in another place, that you should remove the log in your eyes.
Second, and more important, most people cannot make the distinction between a person and an act. When a gay person is lynched, for instance, is that the “sin” being lynched? Or jailed? Or corrective-raped?
In any case, the argument based on religion does not work because most African countries are secular states, and you should not foist your religion (or your interpretation of it) on another person in a secular state. This has not stopped anyone from trying though.
The other reason people give is that homosexuality is un-African, or not “our culture”, or unnatural. This is even the arguments that some governments use to justify criminalising homosexuality.
One just needs to ask them for their evidence and watch them stutter.
Just a few months ago, the popular Nigerian musician Simi said on a Youtube show that homosexuality was not natural. (Although she has since apologised, it is not clear if her views have changed. In any case, there are people who share a similar opinion, so I might as well address it.) Let’s, for one minute, forget the science that says she is wrong.
How can one be so bold to call the lived experience of millions of people, un-natural? How many centuries have you lived to have such certainty?
Even if it were unnatural, when did it become so bad to do unnatural things? Depending on how much you want to stretch “un-natural”, perhaps wearing clothes is unnatural, but we wear them all the same.
About homosexuality being un-African, King Mwanga II was a gay Ugandan king in the 19th century before the British colonisation of Uganda. In fact, homosexuality was criminalised in African countries by colonialists, not Africans. So, what culture?
This is not a thesis on homosexuality but reading about the hate and injustice that gay people have to face in their own countries is sad.
I think the authors that submitted stories of homosexual love want to remind us that homosexuality is a form of love not just a form of sex. If we have a problem with homosexuality, then we need to check ourselves and our hypocrisy. If you deserve love, your brother or your sister deserves love too.
If that is too much for you, but you believe that God made people, then it is he who made homosexuals too. When you get to heaven, you can take it up with him. But how about some civility for now and look the other way if seeing two men or women in love makes your tummy twinge.
About the Author
Confidence is co-editor at afritondo.com. Follow him on Twitter @cuwazuruike.
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