Name: Mathias Søgaard (B. 1985)
Nationality: Danish
MA At The Centre For African Studies At The University Of Copenhagen (2013)
BA In Religious Studies At The University Of Southern Denmark (2010)
Master Student: Mathias Søgaard
Supervisor: Associate Professor, Niels Kastfelt
Submitted: August 2013
Defended: September 30th, 2013
Summary: Thesis Challenges Perception About Homosexuality Being Un-African
I have published my final thesis as e-book titled “Consequences of Imposing the Homo/Hetero Binary and the Prospect For Decriminalisation of MSM in Contemporary Ghana“. The stem from the fieldwork I did in Ghana from 2011 - 2013, where I interviewed several Ghanaian students.
The thesis has 6 prime conclusions
1) Homosexuality, as a concept, is imported from Europe, but same sex intimacy is as African as the colour of the skin. Like anywhere else in the world, people have enjoyed each others intimacy. In a strictly Ghanaian context, I refer to scholars such as James Christensen and Nii Ajen, who describe same-sex activities among Ghanaians. This is supported by Prof. Akosua Adomako Ampofo, who in an article in Daily Guide, 2012, said, that there was ““ample evidence” that homosexuality was and is a common African practice. For the slowest reader, this is reiterated by citing Prof. Attipoe who conclusively states that same sex intimacy is “homegrown”, and the impact of foreigners and prostitution are “insignificant”.
2) The idea homosexuality is un-African or a Western import, that myth has it origin from the racist paradigm created during colonialism. Back then the idea was, that Africans were children (inferior), and as being such, untainted. Whereas, the Europeans were the adults (superior), but they had been corrupted by adulthood, hence they had also been sexually corrupted, unlike the Africans. When Europeans saw Africans engage in same sex intimacy, it was explained that Africans, since they were untainted children, must had learnt this from morally tainted Europeans. Today, we know this was false. But African scholars have internalised this racist paradigm, and the resulted is that Africans are keeping the racist binary alive.
3) The real problem is not the general level of homophobia, the real problem is the perceived corruption, where the report from Ghana Integrity Initiative (2011) is used as the main reference. Ghanaians argue that corruption is on the raise. The rich people (big men) are accused of “chopping” the money instead of sharing it. One methods in voicing critique is to accuse the elite of being homosexuals or to support homosexuality in order to receive money from Western countries. This was seen by the gay-allegations of VP Amissah-Arthur, and of Prez. Mahama in the aftermath of the nomination of Mrs. Oye Lithur. Thereby the elite is not only portrayed as being financially corrupted, they are also shown to be morally corrupted willing to sell Ghana to the highest bidder. Today, homosexuality is used as a convenient scapegoat to explain the perceived, to a certain point, unrealistic level of wealthiness of a socalled “big man”. Some Ghanaian students suggested that a homosexual could earn up to 20,000 USD per “fuck” with a big man. But the elite cannot be touched, so the anger of corruption is projected onto the common man, who cannot afford watch dogs, guards or big walls. Thereby, the best way to fight homophobia is to fight corruption.
4) Homosexuality is also a way to reclaim dignity. For long Africans have been told they are nothing. Since colonialism they have been placed in the bottom. By articulating the idea, that Africans are morally superior, they place themselves on top above Europe, the USA and others. They turn the hegemonic upside down. The problem is, that Ghanaians accept that Europeans are superior otherwise. If Ghanaians felt they were equal to the rest of the world, there would be no need to postulate a moral superiority. The feeling of inferiority is present by the continuation to use bleaching agents. Prof. Akosa argues, that 50 - 60 % of all Ghanaian women have tried bleaching agents. “White” is still seen as something superior. This feeling of being moral superior, but otherwise inferior (self-hatred), has sparked an African nationalism, that is rather exclusionary in nature, which creates a space for violence, discrimination and ultimately death for the many who are seen as a threat simply because they are seen as not part of “us”. Again the irony is, that the postulated “authenticity” of representing a superior morality is based on a racist paradigm from the colonial era.
5) The political elite uses this in their own interest. They are happy for the discussion on homosexuality, since important matters such as schools under trees, malaria, dumso dumso, corruption scandals and unemployment are not taking headlines, while people discuss homosexuality. The best thing about this is, that unlikely the other issues, it cannot be measured. The media can measure how many people suffer from dumso dumso, and they can compare figures. But you cannot check if the numbers of homosexuals. Thereby a politician or a pastor can promise whatever, since they only have to pretend to show action, but they do not need to do something.
6) Lastly, a critique of some of Ghana's journalists who have abandon the job of good journalism by their lack of basic skills such as source criticism. I mention the example of Mr. Ansah-Addo, journalist for Daily Guide. He blindly accepted the myth, that homosexuality was imported which was postulated by Rev. Martey in the article “Minister Okays Gays”, September 2011. The journalist did not act as an impartial watchdog, the journalist was a mere tool for false propaganda. Another history is the manipulation of data. Ghanaweb published a story that claimed that 82 % of Ghanaians abhored homosexuality (http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=246024). In reality the figure only covered how many Ghanaians that belonged to a Christian denomination, nothing else could nor can be determined from that figure alone. By jumping on the bandwagon, the media is not only responsible for spreading false information, they are also responsible that clergy and politicians can misuse that misinformation for their own personal gain to spread disunity, and to get away with corruption while reporters are busy spreading the racist paradigm originated from colonialism about homosexuality.
This thesis is available on http://www.openthesis.org/document/view/601692_0.pdf (PDF), or it can be read on http://www.modernghana.com/news/512619/1/consequences-of-imposing-the-homohetero-binary-and.html
Acknowledgements:
Before you begin to read this thesis, I would like to thank the people that made this happen. I would personally like to thank every single informant, who believed I was important enough for them to dedicate their precious time with me, for some that meant hours of conversation. You gave me an insight into your world and let me into your hearts. Without your help, this thesis would not have been possible. I owe you everything.
I would like to thank the Headmaster of Christ Jesus Educational Centre, Mr. Kumi, and the Headmistress at McCarthy Hill Basic School, Mrs. Lydia Asare, for accepting me as a volunteer in 2006, and for our friendship ever since. I would like to thank the headmistress, Mrs. Mary Amankwaah, and teacher, Mr. Robert Asante, at Odorgonno Senior High School, who allowed me to interview their students. I would like to thank the Minority Rights Officer, Mr. Samuel Azumah Nelson, and the Programmes Manager, Mr. Robert Akoto Amoafo, at HRAC for having time to talk to me in the midst of Mrs. Nana Oye Lithur's acceptance as Minister. I would like to thank the entire Ndubisi family for letting me into your home and hearts in 2006 and for always being supportive, The Sackey and the Obour family for always having your door open, especially Sam John, who invited me to his village, and by doing so, he created an everlasting memory. And at last the Afriyie and the Dickson family for your endless hospitality and understanding. I would also like to thank Dr. Akosua K. Darkwah from the Department of Sociology at the University of Ghana and Ph.D. Serena O. Dankwa who came with helpful advise in relation to materials relevant to this thesis, and law lecturer at the University of Ghana, Mr. Kissi Agyebeng, for elaborating on the implications of the criminal code of section 104(1)b.
Then I would like to thank virtually everybody, who has been around me for the past two years for accepting my, at times, endless talking about homosexuality and “doing.”
I hope you will all find my thesis worth the trouble.
Acronyms
AI - Amnesty International
AIDS - Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome
BBC - British Broadcasting Corporation
CAHG - Coalition Against Homophobia in Ghana
CEPEHRG - Centre for Popular Education and Human Rights, Ghana
CHRAJ - Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice
CPP - Convention People's Party
CRC - Constitution Review Commission
CSC - Communication for Social Change
GAC - Ghana AIDS Commission
GALAG - Gay and Lesbian Association of Ghana
GII - Ghana Integrity Initiative
HIV - Human Immunodeficiency Virus
HRAC - Human Rights Advocacy Centre
HRW - Human Rights Watch
IGLHRC - International Gay And Lesbian Human Rights Commission
ILGA - International Lesbian and Gay Association
LGBT - Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender people
MARPs - Most At Risk Populations
MP - Member of Parliament
MSM - men who have sex with men
NDC - National Democratic Congress
NGO - Non-Governmental Organisation
NPP - New Patriotic Party
OSSA - Odorgonno Senior High School, Accra
PCG - Presbyterian Church of Ghana
PNDC - The Provisional National Defence Council
SHS - Senior High School (formerly abbreviated SSS - Senior Secondary School)
UCK - Unnatural Carnal Knowledge
UK - United Kingdom
UN - United Nations
UNHRC - United Nations Human Rights Council
USA - United States of America
USAID - United States Agency for International Development
WHO - World Health Organisation
WSW - women who have sex with women
Introduction
The aim of this paper is to provide an insight into the dynamics between the MSM and WSW and the surrounding community, to analysis the impact of the belief that MSM and WSW are imported and the implications politically and individually. This paper consists of four parts. Part I presents the methodology, problems involved in the making of this thesis, and an introduction to Ghana and the Ghanaian society. Part II provides the reader with information about how MSM and WSW portray themselves, and how they navigate within a Ghanaian landscape that to a large extent frowns upon such relationships. It also consists of an analysis and discussion of CEPEHRG, one of the largest LGBT-organisations in Ghana, to demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses of such an organisation in a Ghanaian context. Part III discusses from where the belief that MSM and WSW are imported originated, the judicial implications, and the functionality of the usage of homosexuality by Ghanaians, where it is foremost used to create a space which allows Ghanaians to criticise the elite, who is viewed as becoming increasingly corrupt, and how the West is seen as a culprit in the enrichment of the perceived corrupt elite. Part IV provides a prediction of the prospect of Ghana decriminalising MSM in the future. The paper ends with the overall conclusion.
Part I - Background Information
About the Author
I am a white, male, heterosexual Dane in my mid-twenties, and my first visit to Ghana was as a volunteer for the NGO named American Field Service in 2006. During my six months stay with a host-family in Accra, I experienced opinions that differed significantly from the ones I knew from Denmark. Among the numeral conversations, homosexuality was one of the more frequent issues that came up during these discussing. Several of my Ghanaian friends expressed a strong aversion against this practice and against those who were involved in this practice. Therefore, I found myself surprised that suddenly one of my friends, Kwabena , came forth that he felt grief that he had feelings toward men. When I returned to Denmark I was enrolled at the course in Comparative Religious Studies at the University of Southern Denmark. After I received my bachelor degree, I was enrolled at the Centre of African Studies at the University of Copenhagen in 2010, which enabled me to return to Ghana in 2011 and again in 2012 to conduct fieldwork on this very issue. Each fieldwork approximately lasted six months.
Methodology
The prime target was the youth between the ages of 16 and 28 in Accra, where the majority of the people, I interviewed, came from Awoshie and Santa Maria that are the names of two suburbs in Accra. The interviews conducted in those suburbs were due to my stay in A-Lang, which is located in Santa Maria in a walking distance to Awoshie. The opinions expressed among this age group would provide an indication if Ghana will move toward South Africa, which is the only country on the African continent that has legalised same-sex marriage, or if Ghana is drifting toward Nigeria and Uganda, where the parliaments want to criminalise homosexuality further
The selected informants were chosen based on the age group, and that they lived in one of the aforementioned neighbourhoods, because that would enabled me to know the informants better and it would be easier to find time to conduct interviews (Spradley 1979:51). This would create a better fundament to create trust between myself and the informants, which was essential to gather trustworthy information. Supplementary, my informants and I would live in the same environment, which meant that we could converse about shared experiences. The problems created by electricity failure [light-off] was (and is) a common subject of conversation. I would as well engage in participant observation by participating in the daily lives of my informants, which included visiting their church, their family, watch a football-match and/or to share a local meal . In the end I interviewed forty people, where ten were doing MSM and one were doing WSW. Qualitatively the interviews differ, some informants I only met, others I met on a regular basis, and hence the information became more comprehensible. Among the forty people I interviewed, were fourteen students, seven males and seven females between the ages of 16 and 20, who came from OSSA, a larger public SHS, located in Awoshie, where I was allowed to interview students for two days only. Because of the sensitivity of the subject, the door was not allowed to be shut completely to the room where the interview took place. The negative implications were that the students were less talkative and I refrained from asking certain questions, since I did not want the students to get into trouble if a teacher overheard a question he disliked. On the other hand, I obtained information from people who came from outside the neighbourhood, which provided in insight to how the issue of homosexuality was perceived outside of Santa Maria and Awoshie, and information on how it was to be a student in Ghana from both boarder and day-students.
The sampling of people I interviewed, who were engaged in MSM and WSW, were found across Accra. The natural cause for this was the use of the snowball sampling (Hammersley and Atkinson 1995:135 cited in Groes-Green 2010:59). MSM-informants would give me the number of their MSM-friends, and their network was not linked to one specific location but rather to various locations.
A second methodology applied was the usage of social networks such as Facebook. Facebook proved not only to provide a space to follow the discourse of Ghanaian self-identified homosexuals, but also as a place to find potential informants such as Edmund, who sent me a private message, if I would like to meet him, where we decided to meet at the Accra Mall, and later he invited me to a party.
Thirdly, I collected data through a rather unstructured approach inspired by Jordan Smith (2008). This methodology allowed me to become part of the community, which included to sit in a bar and have a conversation with the other customers and to participate in friends' birthday-parties and church-related events, since people would often be more open and be in a good mood. Frequently, people would ask what I was doing in Ghana, where I, depending on the location and the person, would reply that I was here to learn more about how Ghanaians viewed homosexuals to observe people's reactions to my response. When taking the taxi casual conversations between the driver and I would include everything from marriage, remarks on a recent football match to the popular complain that the “big men” were “eating alone”, referring to the common belief, that the rich elite failed their obligation to share their wealth, and hence the belief that the elite kept the wealth to themselves.
Fourthly and lastly, I kept myself oriented through articles from the local media. Shortly before my arrival, an unknown NGO wrote that there were 8000 homosexuals in Central- and Western Regions, where the Minister of Western Region, Mr. Aidoo, called for the arrest of all “homosexuals and lesbians”. (Ghanaweb 2011). The implication was that the issue of homosexuality made headlines in the local media. The media included the printed press from mainly the two nationwide newspapers the Daily Graphic (state-owned) and the Daily Guide (private), but also the ones available on the internet such as www.ghanaweb.com. The coverage of homosexuality exploded after remarks from the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, in October 2011, where he declared, that Britain might cut its aid to Ghana, if Ghana did not adhere to “proper human rights” in relation to end prosecution of sexual minorities (Daily Graphic 2011; Daily Guide 2011). The second public roar occurred in January and February of 2013 in relation to President Mahama's (NDC) nomination of Mrs. Lithur, the executive director of HRAC . She stressed that human rights included homosexuality, and hence the homosexuals were protected under the law (Lithur 2011). In both cases pastors, politicians, scholars and NGOs expressed their thoughts on this matter. Data from the media is therefore comprehensive, and it would be used in the analyse.
Interviews
Interviews were semi-structured, since the questions were prepared, but each informant was provided a room to change the path of the conversation if (s)he wanted to. The negative implication was that I did not manage to go through all questions with every informant because of time-limitations. Positively, this methodology allowed informants to form their own path to a wider extent, and hence I became aware of underlying discourses I had not thought of prior to the research, and it created a space in which informants could use their own terminology to describe their reality. Thereafter, I would incorporate their verbatim in future interviews (Spradley 1979:19, 73). Before every interview, I promised each informant full anonymity and confidentiality.
The interview was built in sections, where questions about MSM/WSW and emotions relating to this issue were deliberately placed at the end inspired by Ph.D student Oxlund (2010:91), who had conducted researches on intimacy in South Africa and Rwanda. I would start to ask the informant about how his or her day went and about his or her dreams for the future, which included questions relating to marriage, children and traveling. This served two purposes: it would make them talk about issues that were not considered taboo to make them feel less tense, and I would be able to paint a biographical picture of the person sitting in front of me to be able to connect that information to what the informant would say about his/her notions relating to sexuality. I brought a voice recorder to each interview, but the majority of the interviews are not recorded. Before I started an interview, I would ask the informant if (s)he accepted the interview was recorded, and if the informant declined or displayed any discomfort, I would not turn the recorder on, and the interview would not be recorded. Another reason why few of my interviews are recorded, was, that I was nervous about bringing up the issue of tape recording in fear of scaring an informant, or the informant would withhold information fearing a third party would hear the interview. As I gained more confidence, I began to bring forth the recorder more frequently, and I discovered that my fear was often unfounded. However, all MSM and WSW-informants expressed concern about having their voice on tape. The result is that I do not have any interview with an MSM or WSW on tape. Informants, who were not involved in MSM or WSW, I did, however, manage to record, which was helpful, when I needed to listen to an interview to hear how I preformed and to listen to what the informant said, and how it was said.
Problems
The main problem is that the collected data are from people from the capital of Accra, with the result that statements and opinions shared by my informants cannot be assumed to be shared among all Ghanaians. To compensate for the limited coverage, this thesis makes references to other researchers such as Hengeveld (2012), who interviewed WSW in Cape Coast, Ph.D. student Dankwa (2009), who did research on WSW in Accra and Eastern Region, and Dr. Attipoe (2004), who analysed 150 questionnaires and interviews of self-identified MSM from across Ghana.
Finding an Informant
In Ghana you are confronted with a different notion of time. I have spent numerous hours waiting for an informant to show up. As Hengeveld also experienced during her fieldwork among WSW in Cape Coast (Hengeveld 2012:39), informants would for various reasons not show up without notice. Reasons for why informants would not show up, were often that they had to run errands for their parents. This made it difficult to conduct interviews, and some informants became overly unstable that they could not be used as informants.
Another problem was the widespread (mis)conception that I was rich. I have spent incalculable hours, where I tried to convince people that I did owe a car, that my parents were not wealthy, and they did not send me money. The patronage system is still strong in Ghana, and I was perceived to be a possible strong patron. When I went to the marked or I took a taxi it became the norm that the price offered was “obroni-price” [white man's price], because the perception was that I had money and hence I could afford paying extra. When I hang out with my friends' peers it was not unusual that one or more of them asked whether if I would “dash” [hand over] a phone, a laptop or a VISA. As a consequence, money became a factor in finding an informant, because an informant could be disappointed, when I did not share the wealth, I was perceived to possess.
The element of flirting (Groes-Green 2010; Spradley 1979:45) caused some minor problems. Near Kaneshie Market, which was half an hour's drive from A-Lang, I met Sarah, 18, who tried to be casted for a local film-production. The three conversations we ended up having always ended with her expressing her love for me followed by a request for a smaller amount of money. It provided an insight into the art of flirtation of some females, and how they used that for personal gain, but as Groes-Green (2010) argued, her interest was to present herself as good as possible with the consequence that she would tell me what she believed that I would like to hear, which generated bias in the gathered information. Another example was from my first interview with John (2011), who traded sex in favour of economic gain. During the first interview, he mentioned, that he preferred to “fuck” white people. This information could be correct, but the colour of my skin could also have influenced his answer, where I noted several times that part of our conversation was akin to a sales-speech, where I could be perceived to be a potential customer. This problem leads to the most fundamental question, when we are discussing sexual taboos, because how trustworthy is the date collected? Parker writes:
“There is perhaps no area of social research that poses greater challenges than the study of intimacy and intimate experience - on topics such as gender identity, sexual desires and practices, emotions and affairs of the heart - has been one of the least developed areas of investigation in nearly all the social sciences over the course of the twentieth and early twenty-first century.” (Parker 2010:viii).
When I began to engage in conversations with friends and people in the neighbourhood about my research, the most frequent warning was, that I should be aware that I should not become a homosexual. Out of the fourteen students I interviewed at OSSA, nine students concluded that if you surround yourself with homosexuals or support them, you would be(come) one of them. The people I interviewed from the neighbourhood from outside OSSA, four out of twelve related this to the state of being possessed by a spirit. These notions did make it difficult for people to confirm that they knew an MSM or WSW by fear of being categorised as one or to be that they were possessed by a spirit because a spirit can be contagious. These notions further complicated the task in meeting MSM or WSW, and to make such a person to open up. MacDermot expressed his frustration with lying informants, when he discovered a Nuer man dressed as a woman, which was “so totally against what the Nuer had been telling me”, he argued (cited in Epprecht 2006:193). Groes-Green shared a similar experience. A female respondent first argued, that she always made a partner use a condom before engaging in intercourse. When Groes-Green talked with her privately, she changed her answer.
“You [female respondent] once told me [Groes-Green] that there is no way you would allow a guy to have sex with you without a condom? Clearly annoyed she answered, “Yes, I know, but you do not seem to understand. Do you think I will just tell you everything, just because you ask me? Please. There are some things you do not understand unless you are there, unless you
are in my shoes.” (Groes-Green 2010:63).
Bleek describes how after he has interviewed informants and gained their trust, the information differed from the answers the same informants provided when they were asked to fill a survey handed out by nurses (Bleek 1989).
“They had been interviewed without realizing that their responses would eventually come under my eyes. When I compared their answers with what I knew about them, I was abashed. They had lied lavishly, presenting themselves in terms that they expected would make the nurses respect them. Some of their answers were so far removed from the facts as I knew them that I was confounded.” (Bleek 1989:319).
He argues that people lie to protect themselves in order to present themselves as a respectable person. That provides an informant with an incentive to lie. However, Bleek notes that when he engages in personal interviews, informants would present a more trustworthy image of themselves (Bleek 1989).
By participating in the daily lives of my informants, I tried to put myself in their shoes to create a bond of trust, which would generate more accurate answers and thereby produce more reliable data. Especially the MSM and WSW often narrated stories that would have been almost impossible to gather through a questionnaire.
My Appearance and Problems It Creates
I am a white, heterosexual Westerner, who's native tongue is Danish, whereas the informants were mainly speaking Akan as their native tongue. However, it was not a problem during interviews, which were conducted in English. The people were fully capable to describe their opinions in a colourful and descriptive manner, which is due to the fact that English is the official language in Ghana with the implication that English is taught in schools from an early age. But it excluded me from having conversations with Ghanaians who did not master English well. The problem became immediate when I tried to listen to people's conversations. An example of my limited vocabulary was the lack to capture the pronominal distinctions of genders in Twi. When two females in public would talk about “that s/he knows how to do it”, a listener does not know whether they refer to a man or to a woman (Dankwa 2009:198). I was also excluded from several radio channels, where mainly Akan or Ga was spoken, which could have provided me with valuable information during the heated debates on homosexuality that peaked at the press conference held by former President Mills on November 3, 2011, on the threat made by Prime Minister Cameron one month previous.
My colour could also have influenced some answers from my informants positively and negatively.
The colour signified that I was a stranger, who did not present a threat to the everyday lives of my informants. Thereby by being categorised as a stranger, I represented a safe space, which allowed an informant to be more open (in Simmel's “the Stranger” cited in Gammeltoft 2001:277). My appearance was an advantage in relation to MSM and WSW, because homosexuality was regarded as an imported practice from the West, which I represented, hence I could be viewed as being more tolerable of this practice, which made some Ghanaians more willing to talk to me, where some Ghanaians revealed, that they fantasised about doing MSM, something that they had not told anybody because they feared the response from their surroundings.
On the other hand, especially after Cameron's threat, rumours began to spur that I was a homosexual trying to convert others to become homosexuals as well. On two occasions I was verbally attacked by people who loudly condemned me for being one.
Prior to my arrival to Ghana I was concerned if the fact that I am not a homosexual would have a negative impact on answers from MSM and WSW because I was not one of them, which could have helped in generating trust and therefore to generate more reliable data. However, I did not experience my sexuality as a problem in the gathering of information. The issue was the confidentiality handed over to me by the MSM-informants; often I would be around their closed relatives, who “did not know”, meaning that they were unaware of the sexual “doing” of an MSM-informant. Thereby, I tried to be extremely careful not to expose any of the MSM-informants unintentionally. However, it also created a shared and secluded space, which was hidden from the people who “did not know” from those who “did know”. That made the bonds between the informants and myself stronger, where none-verbal language was used to exchange information (Dankwa 2009:198; Hengeveld 2012:30).
During my six months' stay in 2011, I rented a room at a local family in A-Lang, where rumours began to emerge that I was a homosexual. In September 2012, I returned to follow the presidential election to observe if the issue of homosexuality would become an issue, and to meet with informants. I rented a room at the local guesthouse, Eno, located in A-lang as well. The rumours grew in strength where at a certain point I felt that I had to inform the landlord that the rumours were false. I feared the landlord could be forced to throw me out in order to protect the respect of his family and his guesthouse. This fear is not uncommon as noted by Gaudio, who did research among the 'yan daudu [men who act like women] in Northern Nigeria. They have to keep a low profile to avoid being evicted by the landlord (Gaudio 2009:114). I became part of the community with all the benefits that spurred from rich conversations and the ability to follow the everyday life of Ghanaians, but also with the realisation that I did not transcend the community, but I was a part of it and I had to take into account the attitude of my persona to remain a part of it.
Homosexuals?
Massad criticises the homo/hetero binary, that states that either you are a heterosexual or a homosexual. He argues that homosexuality belongs to a Western discourse and therefore represents Western hegemony. Consequently, to be a homosexual does not make sense to the majority of people that live in none-Western countries. Western LGBT-organisations are “hetereosexualizing” the world with the implementation of this binary, which creates homosexuals where none previously existed (Massad 2007). Massad does not argue that same-sex practices did and does not occur in non-Western societies, but people, who engage in what organisations, such as ILGA, define as homosexuality, do not necessary identify themselves in those terms. He further argues that scholars and activists transform MSM and WSW into passive subjects, they label in order to promote their own personal agenda (ibid:189). In Nigeria 'yan daudu riga [skirted dan daudu] regard that to be a 'dan daudu is like a shirt you can pull on and off at will (Gaudio 2009:9). Gaudio argues sexuality is not about what you are, but what you do. “The doing” is also highlighted among Ghanaian MSM and WSW, who describe themselves by stating, that they “do it”, when they talk about their sexuality (Hengeveld 2012; Dankwa 2009).
“It also lends support to scholarly arguments that gender, sexuality, and other ”identities” should be seen as practices rather than the essences, as things people do rather than things people are.” (Gaudio 2009:65).
This is supported by Christensen, who did research in the Gold Coast, todays Ghana, among the Fanti. The belief was, that those born with a light soul would desire men, and those born with a heavy soul would desire women. If a man desired another man, it was because he was born with a light soul . The result was that their relationship would still be viewed as to be between a man and a woman (cited in Murray and Roscoe 1998:105). This is to exemplify that in parts of the world sexuality is fluid by being attributed to what people do, and, therefore, sexuality shall not be viewed as representing a stabile identity. As Massad, Epprecht questions whether the world can be seen as fundamentally heterosexual, where he joins hands with Gaudio in understanding sexuality as fluid, that cannot be reduced to a binary system. The word homosexuality has a historical etymology, that cannot be understood as transnational, transhistorical, and misunderstood to be “self-explanatory unaffected by language.” (Epprecht 2008:113). The implication is, that it is not self-evident that we can call an MSM or WSW for a homosexual, because we do not know if the person would identify him or herself as being one (Epprecht 2008:17). Even if a person defines him or herself as being homosexual, we cannot naturally assume the word connotes the same understanding for the informant and for the researcher. The implication of the wording “doing” also implies you can stop “doing” it, which underpins the fact that sexuality is understood dynamic that is defined by your actions. The flexibility of “doing” possesses a problem to the queer theory. Butler (1999) and Sedgwick (1990) challenge the sexual binary by arguing in favour of the existence of a third gender or a third sexuality. However, they still define you in relation to something that you are rather than an identity that you can take on and off like a shirt at will. For this reason this paper does not find the queer theory useful to fully understand the concept of “doing sexuality” in contemporary Ghana. In Ghana, one of Dr. Attipoe's MSM-informants notes, that he likes both anal and vaginal sex, because two is better than one, and “people will not suspect what is going on.” (cited in Epprecht 2008:129). In Ghana -as in other parts of Africa- children play an immense role within society, where to have children is not a choice but an obligation. As Dr. Attipoe's informant notes, to have a relationship is not necessarily a matter of affection, but can be a strategy to keep the affection toward your own gender hidden from your family. We could label an informant a bisexual, but bisexuality requires sexual attractions for both sexes (see Gustavson 2009 among other scholars), but when to have children is a social and moral obligation, to have sex with a person of the opposite gender is not a choice. Thereby to have sex with one from the opposite gender cannot be defined as bisexuality (Gaudio 2009:10). Thereby, to have a spouse of the opposite gender does not logically follow that you are sexually attracted to him or her. A research from USAID in co-operation with CEPEHRG and Maritime argue that nearly two thirds of all MSM have had sex with at least one female partner in the past year, and one third with multiple female partners (USAID, CEPEHRG and Maritime 2010:4). As a consequence, it would be wrong to label an informant a homosexual or a bisexual without knowing how the person labels him or herself. For this reason I have chosen to replicate Epprecht's terminology by using MSM and WSW (Epprecht 2008). These terms will be used unless a person or group defines themselves otherwise. However, the usage of these terms has a built-in problem, with the element of sex. The anthology “Boy-Wives and Female Husbands” enumerates accounts from missionaries and anthropologists, from people who did not define what they were doing as sex, but e.g. as “playing”. From Ghana Ajen writes:
“Nearly all the men admitted to having played with other males at least at that stage in their life [childhood].” (Ajen 1998:132).
Or sex constitutes penetration. When Kendall interviewed women in Lesotho. She asked a local woman, if she knew of women who shared blankets together [to have sex]. The woman replied:
“It's impossible for two women to share blankets (…) you can't have sex unless somebody has a koai [penis].” (Kendall 1998:228-9).
But when Ghanaian men talk about sex, it does not necessary connote the act of penetration, but it can as well be the squeezing the breasts of the woman (Bochow 2009:402).
Despite the problem in defining sex, whether a penis is required or not, and whether penetration must occur or not, the terms MSM and WSW are the best in describing the people this paper wants to examine, because these terms allow for a fluid understanding of sexuality, whereas the term homosexuality signifies a stabile identity that stands in opposition to heterosexuality.
The fluidity of gender and sex further complicates the task of interviewing. The interviewer can establish a safe space by gaining the confidentiality of his informants but without gathering accurate data, if the interviewer is unable to ask the right questions. To overcome this problem, I lived in the same milieu as my informants to get into their shoes, to try to learn the language, and to understand their culture. In relation to this paper, the complication in gathering accurate information about sex and partnership was that I could not instinctively use words such as sex or homosexuality, because the informant might not recognise those words in relation to his or her reality, or the informant and I would have diverged interpretations of these terms. This was why such words were avoided, unless the informant used these terms him or herself during an interview.
An Introduction to Contemporary Ghana
The borders of Ghana were a product of the scrabble for Africa at the Berlin Conference in 1884-85. Ghana was named the Gold Coast by her British colonial power, and changed to Ghana after her independence in 1957. The name Ghana dates back to the ancient Ghana Empire, that was located in todays Mali (Mensah 2010:45-6). Kwame Nkrumah (CPP) declared Ghana independent on Marts 6, 1957, and since independence Ghana has suffered under numerous coup d'état (Cooper 2002:162-3). The first coup d'état occurred in 1966, which removed then-President Nkrumah from power, and the last one happened in 1981, when Rawlings (PNDC) launched his second coup d'état to remove the short-lived Limann administration. His military regime ended in 1992, where a new constitution was written, which transformed Ghana into a multiparty democracy, and Rawlings (NDC) won the elections in 1992 and 1996. In according to the constitution he drafted, he stepped down in the year 2000, and John Kufour (NPP) took office. In 2008 Mills (NDC) won the election, and after Mills' death in 2012, vice-president Mahama (NDC) ran for office and won .
The Ordinary Ghanaian
In Accra the first thing a foreigner will notice are the numerous billboards and posters for a broad variety of churches. 83 % of Ghanaians define themselves as Christians, 11 % as Muslims, and the remaining are predominantly traditionalists (PEW 2010:20). The vast majority of Ghanaians in my neighbourhood proclaimed they went to church every Sunday, which corresponds with the findings of PEW (ibid:23). In the last decades, Christianity in Ghana has become more charismatic (Gifford 2004:23-6, Dickson 2003), where the interpretations of the scriptures underpin the importance of prosperity, where God blesses a good believer with wealth. Several pastors preach about a future with big cars, and they promise that you will “receive more than you can carry” (Gifford 2004:49). Sermons take place virtually every day of the week including evenings and nights , a church can be a massive building to a tent in a backyard, and it is customary for visitors to introduce themselves for the congregation. The only church where I did not do so was, when I visited the International Central Gospel Church (ICGC), which is one of the largest churches in Ghana sermoned by pastor Mensa Otabil . Religion is also present in radio and TV, and on my bus-rides to Tema Station, a pastor would often preach inside the bus where passengers could buy his CD or booklet. Additionally, pastors can be observed -and heard- in some of the major bus-stations, while they are preaching in a microphone supported by loudspeakers. Shops frequently have a quotation from the Bible or the Quran above the entrance, and trotros [minibuses] have stickers on or inside the vehicle with quotes from the Bible or the Quran as well. The belief in spirits is widespread, where pastors proclaim that they can deliver a person from evil spirits. A spirit can look like a person , and be the cause of your misfortune, and spirits or the person who casted the spell can show themselves in dreams (Gifford 2004:100; Pew 2010:30). In this reality pastors also serve as protectors from a world inhabited by spirits everywhere. Despite the overwhelmingly presence of religion, football is an issue that can compete with the importance of religion. The majority of Ghanaians has a team they support, and several drinking spots offer their costumers the opportunity to watch matchers from Champions League and the local Ghanaian league live.
However, you can observe that shop-owners do not watch a church-program or football while waiting for customers, instead they are watching one of the many soap-operas from mainly India and Mexico synchronised into English or local movies from Ghallywood and Nollywood, and people with access to cable watch popular series from the USA such as “The Big Bang Theory.” In the evening, drinking spots play local as well as international music, where the youth goes clubbing, when they want to enjoy themselves. This is to underscore that even religion plays an important role, it is evenly important to emphasise that Ghanaians are influenced by and part of the international community as everybody else.
Society
“It is the blinding gleam of beautiful new houses and the shine of powerful new Mercedes cars.” (Armah 1968:56).
The presence of patrimonialism is ubiquitous. As argued by Chabal and Daloz, you become accustomed to the existence of mansions in slums and the view of shiny cars on unpaved roads (Chabal and Daloz 1999:42). Achebe argues, that Africans want to be oppressed in style. If you have power, then you must display your wealth for others to know, that you are a big man (Achebe 1988:138-9). Armah narrates a scene, where a professor holds a lecture to the party men of CPP in how to achieve growth. A party man present cannot remember what the professor said, only that he fell asleep because the professor looked poor (Armah 1968:132-3). Thereby, to display your wealth is to display your power, and the lack of public display of wealth is a display of your lack of power. To be perceived as a strong patron [a big man], you must display your wealth, which nourishes an ostentatious living (Chabal and Daloz 1999:15; Smith 2008:141-2). Patrimonialism is based on a patron's ability to gather resources and redistribute it to his cliental. Smith argues that patrons feel burdened by the demands of their clients. On the other hand, clients complain that patrons fail their obligation to distribute their wealth. Instead it is argued, that patrons keep the wealth to themselves (Smith 2008:141-2), which is supported by the research on corruption by GII (2011) . The implication is that corruption is not when you give your clients access to resources, it is when you refrain from doing so. A patron that denies his cliental access to resources will experience hostility and suspicion (Chabal and Daloz 1999:38;107; Smith 2008:11). Today, patrimonialism is institutionalised by being incorporated within state apparatus in relation to the Weberian description on the shift from traditional to rational-legal legitimacy, a shift which is referred to as neo-patrimonialism (Chabal and Daloz 1999; Therkildsen 2005), which was vocalised through the immortal words of Ghana's first President Nkrumah: “seek ye first the political kingdom.” (Cooper 2002:67). It is common among Ghanaians to express certain acts by referring to bodily functions such as the big men are accused of “eating alone” or that a person “vomits money” (Mbembe 1992; Smith 2008:157). In 2011, GII asked Ghanaians how they perceived corruption in the country. 92 % agreed, it was a serious problem, and the police were rated as the least trusted institution, and the politicians as the least trusted individuals (GII 2011). This situation leaves the youth handicapped, because they have not accumulated enough wealth in order to become strong patrons, they feel disempowered by the perception, that the rich elite prevents them from obtaining wealth (Chabal and Daloz 1999:33-4), and the police protect the elite. Additionally, the Ghanaian society is to a large extent gerontocratic. This is observable by the frequent usage of titles you are obliged to give to a person older than yourself. Titles are often “uncle” or “auntie”, or “sister” or “brother.” The titles do not necessary refer to a biological relationship but refers to your internal hierarchical status. You are expected to respect an elder ; if your father asks you to run an errand, you do as you are told to show him respect. By re-articulating titles on a daily basis, the hegemony of the elderly is ubiquitous and internalised from an early childhood. The implication of a hierarchic society based on patronage is that people expect more from their vertical relationships than of their horizontal ones (Chabal and Daloz 1999:17; Cooper 2011:170). When the vertical relations is perceived to be broken, it further sidelines the youth. Not only do they not have the wealth to position themselves as big men, they are disenfranchised by a gerontocratic society, where patrons do not give them access to wealth. With a low or no income the youth is more often forced to pay bribes to get access to state institutions and organisations compared to the patrons (GII 2011:11-12).
The Importance of Children
Miescher explains how important parenthood is by referring to the meaning of “cpanyin”, which has two primary understandings. The first one is becoming a man , which stands in opposition to being a child, and secondly, to become a so-called big man. A Ghanaian man tells an anecdote from his childhood of a man, who was impotent; he became the laughingstock of the entire community because, “he was the antithesis of the cpanyin”, because he could not become a father (Miescher 2005:155). Gaudio reports a similar account when he analyses his findings from video recordings where older 'yan daudu behave in a manner, that are expected in order to be considered big men, which implies to have children (Gaudio 2009:144-6). In the Nigerian movie “Ibro Dan Daudu”, the comedian playing a dan daudu expects to be treated as a man. When he enters his home he demands respect from his wife and his daughter despite of his feminine dressing and the dislike it generates from his family (Gaudio 2009:147-8).
This thesis and the thesis from Hengeveld (2012) argue that Ghanaians additionally see children as a safety net when they reach old age. The children will take care of you and carry on your family name. To have children is your safety net, when you grow old, and they are a guarantee that you are not forgotten. Sophia, 27, explains this by referring to the circle of life. When the child is young it needs help from its parents. When the parents become old, they need help from their child. If parents do not have children, whom would help them, she asks (Sophia 2011). A man who has sex with another man is still a man, and he wants to be treated as such, as the movie “Ibro Dan Daudu” illustrates, and to be a man you must procreate. As Miescher notes, the lack of having children connotes that you cannot become a cpanyin, and thereby, you are neither a man nor a man worthy of respect. As aforementioned, this is the reason, why this paper refrains from using the term bisexuality, because procreation becomes an obligation for both genders (Gaudio 2009:10; Hengeveld 2012:61-62).
Relationship and Sexual Affairs
During a visit to the Accra Mall, Clement, 17, a Catholic and a SHS-student told me, when he was looking at some expensive shoes, that he was searching for a sugar mommy (Clement 2012). A sugar mommy is ordinary an elderly woman, who will act as a patron in return for sexual favours. Clement would like to have some nice shoes, and a sugar mommy could buy him those shoes. The need for a sugar mommy or a sugar daddy if the patron is an elderly man, is shared by a number of young Ghanaians. The papers P&P (short for People and Places), Da Vibe and My Joy all have sections where men and women explicitly seek a sugar mommy or a sugar daddy. The need for such can be due to the fact that many students complain about fees for school, uniforms, books and food. Some also complain that teachers request money for items teachers are supposed to hand out for free. If a student fails to pay the requested fees, the student would not be allowed to take the exam and/or allowed onto school properties. Several of my friends who suffered from financial problems would stay home for days or even weeks until they could pay the requested fees before they could return to school. This creates a situation for the need to have a sugar mommy or daddy, who can help you to pay the necessary fees and, as Clement notes, to pay for items you cannot afford, but also to take you out to see a movie for instance. This also enables you to exhibit your wealth, which improves your social status.
The issue of sex is foremost displayed in numerous magazines sold next to ordinary newspapers, with stories on how to please your partner, the sex-position of the week, sex-novels and people can write in anonymously to seek advice.
The aim of this section was to provide the reader with a background information of Ghana. The next chapter will describe how MSM and WSW manage to navigate within the Ghanaian landscape.
Part II - Who Are the MSM and WSW?
Part two consists of three parts. The first part will cover the MSM and WSW-environment in Accra, and part two describes whom the MSM are from information deriving primary from interviews with a selection of MSM-informants. This part also includes a WSW-section, however, the information on WSW derives primarily from secondary sources, since only one interview with one WSW was conducted, and then participation-observation of Yvonne, a woman, who has defined herself as “gay” since 2011, who very kindly borrowed me her couch during my first days in Accra in 2012. The last and third part covers an analyse and discussion of the LGBT-organisation CEPEHRG.
Network and Acceptance
The MSM and the WSW meet through their created networks, these networks primarily stem from friends that introduce you to his or her friends and so forth. Anna, 28, a WSW-informant argues, that if she is lonely in a bar one nigh, she can make one phone call and thirty minutes later a woman will show up to keep her company (Anna 2012). At parties they can disobey some of the socio-cultural norms, which permit some of the more effeminate men to walk more femininely than usual.
I was invited to an engagement party by Edmund, whom contact me over Facebook, and worked as a peer-educator for CEPEHRG. At the party, I observed how openly he and his friends conversed. In 2013, I celebrated New Year with two of my MSM-informants, and all the participants were MSM or “knew”, meaning that they are not themselves doing MSM or WSW, but they “knew” their friends did. It is normal to observe men dancing together at regular parties, but the audience allowed the MSM to dance more freely. It was exemplified with the dance of two men, where one man would move his buttocks toward the man dancing behind him, and his dancing partner would learn his genitalia toward his buttocks to simulate intercourse. In Accra, there are a number of bars and neighbourhoods , where MSM and WSW can go out to dance and to meet peers in more secured spaces. At certain bars you may encounter female and male prostitutes also known as “moneygirls” and “moneyboys” , who are males such as John, and Hengeveld interviewed a moneygirl who probably offered sexual services to WSW (Hengeveld 2012:40). The existence of people offering sexual services to other MSM and WSW signify that there is a local market of Ghanaians who enjoy sex with one from their own gender.
However, when you are among people, you cannot tell who is doing it, and who does not. MacDarling, the founder and chairman of CEPEHRG, tells, that he once went to a party with an MSM-friend, but he tried to hide whom he was. It was not until later he discovered that the other people present were all “doing it” or “knew” (MacDarling 2012). Norkor states that you cannot tell “if she does it” (Dankwa 2009:199), so you try to flirt in secret. Norkor continues by stating that you will begin to “build the relationship”. You and your friend will dress in the same room, and on the third week she would make a move (Dankwa 2009:199). Edmund argues, that if you share a bed with another man, you will try to touch him to monitor his response (Edmund 2011). Hengeveld received suggestive messages, where her informants called her “dear” and “sweetheart” to await her reply (Hengeveld 2012:29). These acts are socially acceptable behaviour, since it is not unusual for two women or two men to dress in the same room or to share a bed. If an MSM or a WSW makes a move that is rejected by the friend, (s)he can make the excuse that it was an accident, and the transgression of the accepted social behaviour did not occur. It is also acceptable among women to call each other “sweetheart” or “dear” to display their level of friendship. It does not denote that there are any sexual tensions between them, but there might be (Dankwa 2009).
With the widespread access to the internet, either through modem or from one of the innumerable internet cafés, dating sites and social media such as Facebook have become increasingly popular means to contact other people. The problem is the widespread problem of fraud. The organisation Gayghana warns that you can become a victim of internet scamming, and you must be aware that the police can be culprit (Gayghana). Because of the law against UCK , you risk prison if you do not obey the police and you face the risk to be exposed on tomorrows' newspapers. Furthermore, if a friend or a family member discovers that you are doing it, they can blackmail you, which can vary from extortion of money to rape (MacDarling 2011). To be exposed you also risk to be ostracised and prosecuted by your family and neighbours . A male student, 19, OSSA, argued, that his friends used to beat up men that looked feminine to teach them a lesson . In response to this issue of robbery the group fakers2go emerged in 2009 to expose people who pretended to be homosexuals, but in reality were robbers or scammers, according to fakers2go. These activities are also referred to as an act of 419. Smith defines 419 as:
“In practices of 419, the perpetrators undertake actions to deceive others in schemes that ultimately benefit only themselves.” (Smith 2008:223).
However, there tends to be a level of acceptance toward WSW in the Ghanaian society. An article from The Spice explains to its readers how a man can enjoy a threesome consisting of one man and two women. The paper advises how the two women can pleasure each other, where cunnilingus is mentioned as an option, since the man in most of the shown positions can only pleasure one woman at a time (The Spice 2011)and the magazine, Da Vibe, publishes a novel in which a fictive female character narrates her sexual experiences with two other women (Da Vibe 2011). Additionally, I observed a man near the Accra Mall, who openly tried to sell a pornographic movie featuring two black women. In relation to MSM, I once noticed the American series “Queer As Folk” for sale near Nkrumah Circle, but I did not observe any direct display or stories of acceptance of MSM in public.
To sum up, the MSM and WSW rely to a wide extent on their network, and they can move about in certain neighbourhoods more freely than in others. On the other hand, they live in constant fear to be exposed. Blackmailing, robbery and rape from strangers and from your own family and friends can occur, which includes prosecution and ostracise, which can result in suicide. It is intensified with the high level of distrust to the police, where Gayghana is explicitly hostile to the police, and the law on UCK is said to be used as as a remedy by perpetrators in order to keep victims silent of the assaults. This forces the MSM and WSW to hide their feelings from outsiders, since outsiders represent a potential danger. The distrust creates a space for vigilant groups such as fakers2go, which is a symptom of the general fear the MSM and WSW feel is ubiquitous in their daily life, and this fear has now moved into cyberspace. On the other hand, the public allows some homo-eroticism to occupy the public space. However, in the past movies and Christian booklets warning the public on the dangers of WSW had been issued (Dankwa 2009).
Who Are They?
This part will introduce the reader to the Ghanaian MSM and WSW through a selection of interviews to provide an insight into their lives and thoughts. But first this paper will briefly introduce the main terms used by MSM to describe themselves. On the social media and among MSM-informants, people commonly refer to themselves as being either bottom/queen or top/king. To be bottom/queen refers to the male being the beneficiary during intercourse, and to be top/king refers to the male being the benefactor. A man that enjoys both positions is a versatile. The term “Kojo Besia” is used as a local synonym for an MSM (Ajen 1998) and usually by the media (Boateng 2011a; Daily Guide 2013 ; Daily Guide 2013a ). Kojo refers to the name giving to a boy born on a Monday , and Besia is Fanti for woman. The derogative term for an MSM is “trumutu.”
Kwabena and Kojo Kwabena
Kwabena is a young man in his mid-twenties, unmarried and employed. I met him during my first visit to Ghana in 2006, where he expressed great confusion concerning his feelings toward men. In 2011, we frequently met, where he came by for shorter visits, where we would often watch a movie. When we were watching local movies, he would often declare that this or this actor was “gay”. When I asked how he knew an actor was “gay”, he would reply that it was what the rumours said. Once he brought an episode of the American series “Dante's Cove”, where the protagonists are two, white, male homosexuals. This illustrates that Ghanaians are aware of movies from outside Ghana, and thereby Ghanaians are as much part of the international community as everybody else, and they are influenced by the homo/hetero binary from various sources.
He began to realise that he had feelings for other men, when he was in primary six. He felt that he was closer to his male than his female friends. He emphasised that he had not met any gays beforehand, that could have influenced him. His first time with a man happened at SHS during vacation, where most of the students had left. When he woke up the following morning, he endured shame and he feared that some students had seen them together. He began to isolate himself and to spend hours reading, where the books allowed him to escape the world around him.
He is a member of a pentecostal church, which he visits in waves. For a month he can visit the church every Sunday, and suddenly he would not show up for months. Sometimes, especially when he was younger, he feels like he is the son of Satan, when he goes to church. The shame of his life would break him into tears, when he returns home. To cope with the shame he has begun to write poems, “I write best when I am sad”, he stated (Kwabena 2011). At church he would meet with his friends, where they will talk about work and school, but he keeps his feelings toward men a secret. When I ask whether he believes this is a choice or if he is born with these feelings, he replies:
“If it was a choice, I would never have chosen this. I have to be two people. Imagine if other people saw you as this Danish guy Mathias, but inside you felt like a South African. So every time people were around you, you should speak and act like a Dane, even it is not you. If there was a pill that could make me straight, I would take it. Why go through all this pain and lies if it was a choice?” (Kwabena 2011).
The willingness to take such a pill is shared with his boyfriend Eric, who said the that sometimes, he tells Kwabena, that he wished Kwabena was a girl (Eric 2011). Eric is known and accepted by his family, where he has been introduced as a friend from their common workplace.
In order to hide whom he is from his family, he has girlfriends to lower suspicion. Often the female and him are just friends, but he would define himself as bisexual , but he prefers to be with men. He stated that he had been with eight men, one of whom he met online.
To keep his two identities separate, he has to keep this it a secret from his family, since he fears that his family would not see him as they do now, and that they would not love him as they do now, if he told them about his feelings toward men. The fear of revealing his secret and to risk being ostracised from society has the implication that only five or six people know about his secret, and he has not told any female about this. On the other hand, he declares that when he gets a good job and has gained the respect of the community, he would be strong enough to come out which could be in the year 2020.
Kwabena introduced me to Philip, a man in his early twenties, and Catholic, but he joined a protestant church with one of his business-partners. He stated, that he had been with one man, but he would not define himself as gay. He argued that his uncertainty could derive from his childhood, where he was abused by his uncle. He believed the majority of “gays” chose to be this by choice, and the practice was part of the African culture. In the past African fetish-priests did not marry, but they still kept young men around, he smiled. He argued, that Ghanaians who criticise gays should remember that the Bible said that “thy without sin, cast the first stone” [John 8:7] (Philip 2011).
Kwabena defines himself as a top, but he has been bottom twice. In the future he would like to get married to a woman, who would know about his secret, and he would be faithful to her, with the implication that he would suppress any feelings for men, which he could do, he believes.
Kojo is a man in his mid-twenties, who is a friend of Kwabena. In October Kojo and his friend Samuel picked me up at the Accra Mall, and this was the only time I met Kojo. They drove me to Lapaz. This interview takes place during the drive from the Accra Mall to Lapaz. Samuel is the driver, Kojo sits on the front seat and I am on the back seat. Samuel is one of his few non-gay friends, who “knows”, Kojo says. Salomon does not like what he is doing, but he accepts him. He defines himself a gay, however, he did not know about of the word “gay” until 2004. He used to describe his behaviour as a feeling as something that develops, but “you try to fight it.” (Kojo 2011). He reiterates the same opinion shared by Kwabena and Eric:
“If there was a pill [that could make me straight], I would take it.” (Kojo 2011).
He elaborates, that it is because of the way he is treated, and just as Kwabena he finds this difficult. None of his family members “knows”, but he believes that they might accept him if they did know, but it would be awkward. When he is around friends, who “do not know”, they talk about football, but gays prefer to talk about fashion, he argues. When he was younger his feelings made him feel sad, but today it saddens him less, because of the support he receives from his partner. He would like to get married to a woman within the next two years, where he declares, that he would like to have one child and perhaps adopt one. At the age of twelve he had sex with a man for the first time, and since then he has been with five women and ten men.
“There are some gays who only like guys. I am not like that, I also like girls” (Kojo 2011).
He defines himself as a versatile, and on his mobil and computer he has a lot of pornographic materials. When the questions relating the use of condoms, he declares, that he always uses a condom, except when giving a blow job:
“How can you use a condom, when giving a blow job?” (Kojo 2011).
He is a member of a pentecostal/charismatic church that he visits every Sunday. The pastor is his neighbour, but he emphasises that he goes to church because he really wants to. He argues that he does not believe what he is doing is a sin? He reads the Bible generally, meaning that he does not dwell at specific events like the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, and he believe that he will “definitely go to Heaven”. We arrive at Lapaz, and the interview ends.
Kofi and John
Kofi is a man in his early twenties, whom I met a November evening, when I was heading home from Odorkor. Because of the traffic he offered that we could walk together instead. He asked what I was doing in Ghana, and I replied, that I was in Ghana to talk to young Ghanaians about their attitude on same-sex relations. He smiled and replied that he knew a lot of people, who were doing it. I asked if he had any feelings toward men? He smiled, but he did not answer, but when we were almost home, I asked him again, if he had feeling toward men, and this time he smiled and nodded (Kofi 2011). He showed me his house, where I was introduced to his family, who did not know about these feelings. Before we departed we exchanged numbers, and the following weeks I tried to contact him, but his phone was switched off, and his family did not know about his whereabouts.
One evening, Kofi unexpectedly knocked my door and asked if he could stay here for the night, so I invited him in. The following morning, we walked together to the station, where we began to talk. He mentioned that his priest [Catholic] recently asked, if he had slept with other men, because one from the congregation had raised that allegation. Kofi denied the allegation that he had slept with other men, but he confirmed to his priest that he was gay. The pastor pleaded him to stop and, according to Kofi, nothing else. Kofi exhibited great fear that he would go to Hell, when he died. He turned to me and asked what I thought about Hell and homosexuality. I replied that in the Bible Jesus never mentioned homosexuality, and that the Bible also condemned fornication and adultery, which many Ghanaians did, so in worst case, he was not a greater sinner than an average person. I change the subject and asked him about his thoughts on marriage. Since he was only attracted to men he did not have any plans in getting married in the near future, but that his family would start to ask questions, if did not find a girl before a certain age (Kofi 2012). He got into a trotro, and I did not met Kofi again.
John
John is an effeminate man in his late teens. He has four siblings, and he is the fourth born. We met in a hotel where he approached me by asking if I “wanted” something. We decided to exchange numbers and to meet the following week. Before our first meeting, I clarified the fact that I was not interested as a costumer. At the beginning of the interview, he talks about that his elderly brother is also gay, and since John found out, they had been best friends. He joins a pentecostal/charismatic church, but he has to join a differently youth ministry, because that one offers choreography practices. He goes to church every Sunday, but later on he corrects himself by saying that he has not been in church for the past two weeks. He believes that what he is doing is a minor sin, that it is worse to kill a gay than to be one (John 2011), and only God knows if he would go to Heaven.
He argues that he is gay because, when was in primary six, he was fighting with his cousin, and during the fight the cousin stuck something in his anus . He states that if it was a choice to be gay, he would still choose to be gay, since most of his friends are females, and he feels like a female trapped in a man's body. By being gay you can “find your own feelings”, he states (John 2011). He is very proud, that he can walk like a female, but in public he tries not to.
“I can walk like a lady, but I don't do it. People will shout: Gay! Gay! Gay! And I would feel ashamed. That is why I try to act like a man, when I am in public like in church.” (John 2011).
His first real relationship happened at the age of thirteen, when a twenty-two years old man asked if he would like to be his girlfriend. They were together for a year and a half, but they had to break up, because the boyfriend became jealous, and the boyfriend began to beat him. He has had around six boyfriends and no girlfriends, and at the moment he is just having a boyfriend for fun. When he is having sex, he is always the queen (John 2011), however, when I talked to him in 2012, he had become a volatile, which means that he can be both the king and the queen, but he still prefers to be the queen (John 2012). He is currently a border student at a mix SHS in Central Region, but he does not have boyfriends at the place, since it can be dangerous, he says (John 2011). He mentions that a fellow male student had a profile on Facebook, where this student explicitly sought men to sleep with, and John advised him to be careful (John 2012). His female friends know about his boyfriends, and they tell him to be careful and to use a condom. His pastor will never know about this, because that would make him shameful. His father knows, because he once walked in while he was with another male, but the father never talks about it, and john believes that his dad has told his closest relatives, but that they act as though they do not know about it (John 2011).
He stays around hotels to find clients, where most of his clients are Ghanaian men, and he explains that elderly men prefer blow jobs, while the younger ones prefer “fucking”. The whites prefer that sex is more soft, and they are better at getting him in “the mood” (John 2011). In contrast Ghanaian men prefer sex to be harsh, and if the sex is not harsh enough, they will beat you, he complains.
He charges 40 GHc for a blow job and 60 GHc for sex. He insists, that he always uses a condom, but after a while he states that if a person offers him 100 GHc, he sometimes does it raw [without a condom]. Furthermore, if there are no flavoured condoms available, he sometimes preforms fellatio raw as well. Because of this he gets tested for sexually transmitted diseases every three month at CEPEHRG (John 2011). Even if he was not paid for sex , he would still continue to have sex with other men, because this is a part of him, he argues. But he accuses many of the men who also offer sex for not being real gays, but they just want to earn some money. These men hate him, because he is real, and they do not like real gays, he argues (2011). At the Accra Mall John introduces me to his friend Peter, who also earns money through sex, however, John is his mentor. They have divided the hours between them, where Peter looks for clients in the afternoon, and John will start to look for clients by nightfall (John 2011) . The last time John and I met was in 2012. He wanted to show me a porn movie he has on his phone, after he discovered a porn movie on my laptop from Edmund, who gave it to me in exchange for “Dante's Cove “, which I got from Kwabena. Thereafter, he returned to his boarding school.
WSW - Doing Supi
Traditionally, the term “supi” relates to the relationship between a female junior, which is a first year student, and a female senior, who is a last year student at SHS. The junior will wash the seniors cloths and run errands for her, and in return the senior will show the junior around the school area and provide help, when or if the junior needs it. The relationship between a junior and a senior, also known as a supi-relationship, can be very close with the element of exchange of gifts and at times very personal letters, but the term supi did not use to connote any intimate relationship between the junior and the senior. However, when Dankwa interviewed Mensah, a woman, who went to boarding school in the 1960s, she distinguished between two kinds of supi-relationships; the normal ones, where supi related to that of a close friendship, and then the sexual relationships, where a junior might be lured into sex by her senior (Dankwa 2009:196). However, Mensah did not denote lesbianism to the term supi until the 1990s. During the 1990s, the locale movie production produces several movies which portrayed women engaging in the practiced of supi as lesbians, who were a danger to the social and biological order (Dankwa 2009:197). These movies gave supi-relations a bad name, and it became associated with lesbianism. As a consequence, today, supi is understood in relation to the act of WSW. A further implication is that SHS are regarded as breeding institutions for WSW but also for MSM (Modern Ghana 2003; Daily Graphic 2006; Krampah 2011). However, the majority of the women Dankwa interviewed were not boarding students, but they met their partner at regular social gatherings such as in church, at school or on the football field (Dankwa 2009:198). I interviewed Anna, a woman in her late twenties, who worked for CEPEHRG. She met her first love, Monica, at her boarding school, but Monica was not her senior but a fellow student (Anna 2012). Hengeveld interviewed seven WSW in Cape Coast, among the WSWs was Mavis, who noted, that she knew she has had those feelings before she met her senior. For Naana it was the opposite situation, she was the junior, who was flirting with her senior Esi (Hengeveld 2012:43-44).
The junior-senior relationship displays a general cultural advantage for WSW in Ghana. It is socially acceptable for two females to form very close bonds, which manifests itself through the act of writing letters to one another, sharing a bed, to hold hands and to sit on each other's labs, and Dankwa further notes that it is common for two females to share a bucket shower at compound houses where neighbouring tenets are to share one bathroom (Dankwa 2009:200). These activities do not allude homoeroticism (Dankwa 2009; Hengeveld 2012). On the other hand, it creates a space for WSW, where they can be together, because the community will perceive these activities as part of a normal female friendship. When Anna talks about her relationship, she says that she and Monica used to be together all the time.
“My parents just thought we were the best of friends.” (Anna 2012).
Three of the women, Hengeveld interviewed, declare that they are virgins. To have sex involves penetration with a penis, and until they have been with a man, they have not had sex (Hengeveld 2012:51). When WSW talk about their sexuality, they generally reference to the word “doing”, which, as with the MSM, strongly demonstrates the understanding of the flexibility of sexuality. The implying of “doing” is that you can start to do it as well, as Norkor explained, that she can make every woman to do it (Dankwa 2009:199).
The reference to God is common among WSW. Tereza prays to God every day, and Esi declares that religion is the single most important thing in her life (Hengeveld 2012:35-39). However, Anna has stopped going to church, but she views herself as religious (Anna 2012). Esi, as Kwabena, often finds herself crying after church, when she walks home by thinking about that she is having a girlfriend (Hengeveld 2012:39). As with the MSM, very few people know about their sexual endeavours. Mavis fears literally, that her parents would kill her, while Lee notes that many people “do not know her.” (Hengeveld 2012:33-35). Anna states that only a few people “know”, and she would never tell her mother, since she fears it could kill her mother (Anna 2012).
To summarise, the MSM and WSW appear to fear three things: family, friends and God (Hengeveld 2012:30). Most of them mention that they began to have their feelings before they had their first sexual encounter. Dankwa's remarks that most of her WSW-informants were never boarding students disproves the popular theory that boarding schools should be breeding grounds for MSM and WSW.
The tool of silence works on two levels; the silence allows Kwabena and Eric to participate in social gatherings, but John brings forth a different notion of silence. His father caught him, with the implication that his family most likely knows as well. But by refraining from talking about their son's sexual encounters, they do not bring it into being, and the respect of the family in the community can stay intact.
Many of the MSM and WSW are well-informed of what is going on in the outside world. Kwabena is fan of the series “Dante's Cove”, and he also watches series such as “Queer as Folk” and “Noah's Arc”, while Yvonne, who borrowed me her couch, enjoys the British series “the L Word.”
Several of the MSM and WSW express regret, shame and sorrow for what they are doing, and the limited number of people who know about it can have severe negative implications. John gets beaten up by his customers, but he cannot confide in the police or his family. Kwabena and Esi express a deep personal burden by trying to unite their love lives and their religion, a burden that for a period of time led to isolation for Kwabena. If an MSM or a WSW finds a violent lover, as John did, they have few people that can come to their aid. Despite many of them characterising sexuality as “doing”, some MSM identify with the term “gay” as well (Edmund 2011; John 2011; Kofi 2012; Kojo, 2011; Kwabena 2012), and some WSW refer to themselves as lesbians, however, in more flexible terms (Hengeveld 2012:39-42; Anna 2012). In relation to HIV/AIDS, it must raise some concern that John opens for the possibility that he can have sex without a condom, if a client offers him a sufficient amount of money, a practice that is not unusual among people trading sexual favours (GAC 2010). Furthermore, several MSM switch between having girlfriends and boyfriends, which aggravate the risk of spreading HIV/AIDS. Also Kojo's comment about fellatio can have negative impacts on the national combat of HIV/AIDS, which is worsened by the fear visiting a health clinic, a problem emphasised by Dr. Attipoe, who calls for the removing of laws that hinder people from visiting health clinics (IGLHRC 2007: 2, 70).
CEPEHRG
CEPEHRG is a local NGO founded by MacDarling, who is a self-identified homosexual, in order to give the homosexuals in Ghana a voice. The first time MacDarling was named a “gay-leader” was in 2006 in relation to the so-called “Gay Convention” in Accra. MacDarling dismissed this convention as false propaganda created by the media to stir homophobia (Ghanaweb 2006). Since then, he has been named the gay-leader of Ghana, when the media wants to know about the situation for gays in Ghana (Honderich 2011; Pink News 2011), and MacDarling is also referred to by international LGBT-organisations . In relation to HIV/AIDS, CEPEHRG is one of the most popular NGOs used to collect data on the issue of MSM. An example of this is the report on condom-usage by MSM (CEPEHRG 2011), which was supported by organisations from the USA. According to a source working for GAC, peer educators working for CEPEHRG are secretly hired by GAC to assist them in collecting data on MSM in relation to GAC's fight on HIV/AIDS. This is to demonstrate that MacDarling is among the most used sources by international and national organisations concerning MSM in Ghana.
CEPEHRG and MacDarling are active on Facebook, where they provide their followers with advice in how to engage in safe sex, and how to deal with the national authorities. People who come to their programmes, are provided with free condoms and lubricants, they offer HIV-tests, and since all the people working there are either doing it themselves or show acceptance toward MSM/WSW, people feel more safe to visit their office. Kobby, who is a peer educator, puts it this way:
“If you go to the hospital and the doctor feels you are gay, they will look and treat you differently.” (Kobby 2012).
As aforementioned, John gets tested every three month by CEPEHRG, CEPEHRG uses peer educators to arrange meetings and programmes, and to inform their friends about CEPEHRG. I visited one of their programs in 2011, where the majority of the visitors were younger men. Images of different kinds of sexually transmitted diseases were shown, and a wooden penis was used to demonstrate how to put on a condom correctly. When the meeting came to an end, the vast majority accepted to do a blood test to know their HIV-status.
CEPEHRG provides a safe haven where people can meet potential partners in a safe environment, and each member can discover that there are others who share the same feelings they do themselves. Anna states that when she and Monica visited a CEPEHRG-program for the first time, she felt amazed by discovering that they were not the only ones experiencing those feelings.
However, there are several problems in a priori accepting CEPEHRG, and in particular MacDarling, as the primary source of MSM and WSW in Ghana. If we did so, we would overlook different agendas MacDarling has in promoting himself as the legitimate spokesperson for the MSM and WSW, and the possibility to ignore his personal and economic advantages in having an NGO.
Ferguson argues that we shall not see an NGO and the state as occupying two contrary oppositions, instead they occupy the same space and several NGOs are deeply interwoven financially with the international community just as the state (Ferguson 2006; Chabal and Daloz 1999:23-4). We can therefore not presume an NGO represents a bottom-up approach, or that an NGO should be analysed differently or less critically, than we would analyse a state-operating agent.
In the articles written by Honderich and Pink News, the situation for MacDarling, and homosexuals in general, is described negatively. The articles are not incorrect, but they also function as an intermediary for sympathy from the outside world in order to raise funding and to mobilise support for MacDarling (Ferguson 1994; Hoad 2009:83-85; Massad 2007). As a consequence, he has an interest in promoting a biased presentation of reality to legitimate his NGO, which increases his accessibility for funding. In none of the articles does MacDarling mention that neither the Attorney General and Minister for Justice, Mr. Martin Amidu (NDC), nor the Head Commissioner of CHRAJ, Mrs. Lamptey, argue that homosexuality is a criminal offence in Ghana (Daily Guide 2011a; Lamptey 2011). Amidu said it most clearly by stating that:
“Your house is your castle; your room is your castle, what you do there is nobody's business.” (Amidu 2011).
CEPEHRG evolved from GALAG, also founded by MacDarling, but GALAG did not attract enough donors, so MacDarling decided to establish CEPEHRG to replace GALAG. Today, GALAG is no longer in use, Anna argues (Anna 2012). However, GALAG appeared on an open letter dated November 3, 2011 in response to Prime Minister Cameron's threat (African Activist 2011), and again in May, 2012, praising President Obama for supporting same-sex marriage in the USA (MacDarling 2012a). This begs the question, why MacDarling keeps GALAG alive, at least on paper, when CEPEHRG should be its replacement. MacDarling is the chairman of four organisations, GALAG, CAHG, CEPEHRG and CSC, and they all revolve around the issue of homosexuality. By running multiple organisations , he can apply multiple times under different names, which further increases his chances of getting access to funding. He advocates that donor countries should increase aid to LGBT-groups, which would benefit himself economically. MacDarling also refers to the users of CEPEHRG as “LGBT-people” on ILGA (2011) among other places, because he has an interest in been framed as a gay-leader, because it increases his accessibility to funds even further.
The problem, with referring to MacDarling as a gay-leader, is, that ILGA, and other LGBT-organisations, has an interest in re-articulating the homo/hetero binary. By publishing articles from people as MacDarling, they prove their legitimacy to get access to resources (Massad 2007). The money that MacDarling receives comes from the outside, and by articulating a reality into being that fits the Western homo/hetero binary, he addresses a problem, that Western donors can relate to in order for him to raise awareness and create sympathy for donors to understand, that this is an urgent problem (Hoad 2007:80-85; Massad 2007). Thereby ILGA and MacDarling reaffirm each other which benefits them both financially. By labelling people as homosexuals in parts of the world where sexuality is understood as flexible, they succeed in creating homosexuals where previously none existed (Massad 2007).
LGBT-organisations traditionally work within the structures in defining your sexuality as “being”, but the majority of both the WSW and MSM define their sexuality in terms of “doing,” which does not fit the Western perception, and it is therefore unclear who the LGBT-people in Ghana are, and how many they are. Furthermore, Kobby bemoans that lesbians do not know of the existence of CEPEHRG (Kobby 2011; 2012). Additionally, CEPEHRG - and the other organisation set up by MacDarling- is primarily Accra-based, however, it has to be noted that CEPEHRG is trying to expand their organisation to Kumasi and Ho. The reason could be to avoid having a list of members which could potentially put their members' lives at risk if the list became known in public . On the other hand, we do not know how many or how few people CEPEHRG actually represents, and thereby his status as “gay-leader” is questionable, also related to the fact that his organisations are primarily located in one region, and a significant numbers of Ghanaians do not adhere to the Western binary.
However, it must also be remembered that the money allocated to CEPEHRG is used to cover numerous expenses such as employees, various projects, condoms, pamphlets, research and HIV-testing equipment. But they also cover expenses such as MacDarling's four-wheel vehicle (Chabal and Daloz 1999:23-4). CEPEHRG hands out free condoms at the program and in January 2011, I observed that several men were taking three or more boxes of condoms each. Some of my MSM-informants argued, that these condoms were sold below market price by the people attending programmes held by CEPEHRG .
Here the issue of patrimonialism becomes part of the picture. MacDarling is the patron, and he has to nourish his cliental. He has to display his wealth so his cliental can observe, that he is a so-called “big man”, and he has to redistribute wealth not only to the employees but to the participants as well, who expect free condoms in large quantities, which he has to provide. This might explain why he runs multiple NGOs, at least on paper, and his reluctance to close GALAG.
On the other hand, CEPEHRG does run several projects to help MSM, MSM are coming to their clinic to get tested for HIV, the distribution of condoms promotes safe sex, which is necessary to combat HIV/AIDS, and you can ask CEPEHRG questions over Facebook.
But MacDarling and his employees do not transcend the patron-client relationship, it means that money from various donors is also used on four-wheel cars, iPods and other electronic devices that donors might not perceive as appropriate spending. A counter-argument would be that if MacDarling did not drive a big car and nourished his cliental, it is a possibility, that nobody would come to the meetings, and CEPEHRG would not reach their target group. We must not forget that a person who does not display his wealth displays his lack of power (Armah 1968; Achebe 1988).
MacDarling cannot and should not be seen as a spokesperson for MSM or WSW in Ghana. According to several now former peer educators, CEPEHRG has a problem with attracting WSW. The terminology, such as the usage of “LGBT-people”, and the medium of information by MacDarling, such as ILGA and IGLHRC, strongly indicate that his primary target group is not the local scene. When MacDarling raises his voice, it is rarely in the local media, but rather aimed at an audience located in the West, for whom the homo/hetero binary is more meaningful. On the other hand, MacDarling does represent a voice of the MSM and in a more narrow sense the voice of Ghanaians who do define themselves in relation to the this binary, where access to international series revolving around self-identified homosexuals, and access to the Internet in general have an impact in how MSM and WSW begin to identify themselves. In addition, the increased coverage of homosexuality in the media spreads the binary of being rather than doing sexuality. When the media refers to several practices as being “homosexual”, it enforces the binary upon the population at large. The influence from the outside world is also a critique of Massad. The Ghanaian MSM and WSW are not passive recipients to whom Western countries impose their binary paradigm as otherwise suggested by Massad (2007:172). They are active subjects, who are influenced by their interactions with the world around them in the same manner the rest of the world is. However, it is still questionable how many Ghanaian MSM and WSW, who would label themselves in a static understanding of “being” homosexual. Justina calls what she is doing is “lesbian”, but she does not want to be called a lesbian (Hengeveld 2012:42). In general, the wide usage of “doing” conflicts with MacDarling representing himself as a spokesperson for a LGBT-community in Ghana.
Part III - Perceived Empowerment and Disempowerment
Part III will try to discuss and analyse how and why the term “homosexuality” has become an issue in Ghana. This paper follows in the foot steeps at the general and increasing body of knowledge (Dankwa 2009; Epprecht 2006; 2008; Evans-Pritchard 1970; Gaudio 2009; Hengeveld 2012; Hoad 2007 and Murray and Roscoe 1998 among others) that argues that MSM and WSW are not imported terms or a Western invention. The Professor at the Institute of African Studies from the University of Ghana argues, that “there is ample evidence”, that homosexuality is not a foreign practice (Ampofo 2011). This paper will therefore not include a discussion whether MSM and WSW are imported practices or not, since this would be a quasi-discussion. Instead this paper aims to illustrate the power relations that are articulated in contemporary Ghana and the functions homosexuality serves for the local Ghanaians and what the functions reveal about the power dynamics internally within Ghanaian society and externally between Ghana and the outside community. The following chapter begins by locating the origin of the source for the widespread belief that MSM and WSW are imported and hence un-African.
Colonialism and the Creation of the Other
Most of the data we have about colonial Ghana -and Africa- derive from European missionaries and scholars who wrote down what they observed (Epprecht 2008:31). The impact is, that our historical knowledge of Ghana's past is to a large extent coloured by past European paradigms that were present in the 19th and 20th centuries. These paradigms manifested itself in both Africa and what was known as the Orient, which is why this paper refers to scholars such as Said and Buruma in
analysing the impact on colonialism in Ghana.
One of the methods in legalising colonialism was the idea of white superiority that should enlighten
Africans, who were seen as being inferior (Gaudio 2009:37). Africans were children while the white man was the adult, who had to educate the children to make them become adults as well (Hoad 2007:5), which created the (in)famous idea of the white man's burden (Gaudio 2009:37). The world was seen in binaries, the primitive versus the civilised, the uncultured versus the cultured, the child versus the adult, the pure person versus the corrupted. This discourse was highly dominated by the thinking of evolution, which argued, that we evolved through stages. The erroneous conclusion became that the white man was more evolved than the black man, and hence the white man represented the higher and final evolutionary stage, which the black man should strive to achieve.
“Orientalism, therefore, is not an airy European fantasy about the Orient, but a created body of theory and practice in which, for many generations, there has been a considerable material investment.” (Said 1979:6)
Significant investment was put forth in relation to prove Africans were children, and that Africans and Africa were considerably different from Europeans and Europe. As the Orient (Said 1979; Buruma and Margalit 2004:148), Africa was lumped together and portrayed as a radical other, and as a created mirror in order for Europeans to create their own identity, where Africa became the negative image of what Europeans were not (Ferguson 2006:1-13; Mbembe 2001). It became an instrument to demonstrate European civilisation and legitimise the act of imperialism. When immoralities were observed among Africans, such as MSM and WSW, the Muslims and the white man himself became explanatory for such moral decay (Ajen 1998; Epprecht 2008:70-5, 132-144; Hoad 2007:4-5). Such belief was visible by scholars such as Sir Burton, who wrote:
“The negro race is mostly untainted by sodomy and tribadism.” (cited in Gaudio 2008:184).
This created the paradox, that on one hand, Africans were seen as primitive children that needed the help by the Europeans to evolve. On the other hand, Africans were portrayed as pure and untainted children that must be protected from the Europeans. In both images, we found “the other”, who stood in opposition to the white man. The created image of “the other” was used by Europeans to legitimise a racial dominance, while today these images are constructed by Africans, the same people, the paradigm previously ascribed as children. In the book “The West in the Eyes of Its Enemies”, Buruma and Margalit argue that for many people in the Middle East, the West is believed to be tainted, from which the people must be protected from. They refer to the phrase “westoxication”, a combination of the two words, the West and toxication, to demonstrate the belief that the West is seen as inherently toxic (Buruma and Margalit 2004:29, 109). The racial rhetoric, which was previously constructed and articulated among Europeans has been internalised by the colonised, who re-articulate the racially embedded rhetoric in construction of a self. The belief that MSM and WSW are a pollution imported from the West as false, is best argued by Dr. Attipoe, who analysed 150 questionnaires and interviews of self-identified Ghanaian MSM from across Ghana. He conclusively states that the sexual choice of MSM is “homegrown”, and the impact of foreigners and prostitution are “insignificant” (Attipoe 2004, also cited in Epprecht 2008:128-9).
Simultaneously, the old version of the white man's burden is kept alive by the West, by the creation of being developed or underdeveloped. The economic binary gained populace with the speech held by President Truman in 1949, in which Truman divided the world into these two realms. Hundred of millions of people became underdeveloped overnight (Esteva 1992:6), but the original discourse remained: Africans still lack behind Europeans, and Africans still need the help from Europeans to strive for the final stage of becoming developed. The consequences are as paradoxical as the idea of Africans being children. On one hand, Ghanaians represent a higher stage in relation to morality, because they have stayed untainted from the polluted West, a remnant of the era of colonialism. On the other hand, the West is viewed as what Ghanaians must strive toward to achieve economically. Ghanaians have to protect themselves from the West, but they should also mimic the West to reach the same economical stage. This paradox is visible, when we observe long queues of people trying to obtain a VISA to a Western country (Masquelier 2007). The vast majority of the informants state, that they would like to travel to the USA or the UK, which is interesting considering the fact that people often ascribe countries that legalise homosexuality, would be subjected to God's wrath, but when the focus is on economic gain, this view no longer applies.
The positive focus on economy has the impact, that culture can be viewed as counter-productive. This often includes a debate on the patriarchy system, which hinders women in pursuing their worth (Awuni 2011; Adichie 2013). Cultural norms that stand in opposition to modernity and development are articulated as obstructions religiously by the focus on prosperity (Gifford 2004:26; 49). The importance of preserving the “authentic” culture of Ghana becomes important when culture is used rhetorically as a bulwark to speak against MSM and WSW to maintain the belief that Ghanaians are at a purer stage than the Europeans. Following the retirement of former Pope Benedict XVI, the Ghanaian Cardinal Appiah Turkson argued that homosexuality was inherently against the cultures of Africa (Turkson 2013). The same rhetoric can be found among educators in Ghanaian tertiary level of education. Professor Annum held a speech at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), where he referred to homosexuality as imported (Annum 2011). This belief is also articulated by the use of pseudo-science, where the Ghanaian Chief Psychiatrist, Dr. Akwasi Osei (2013), and the President of the Ghana Mental Health Association, Reverend Godson King Akpalu (2011), argue that homosexuality is a mental disorder , that requires treatment. Thereby the belief that homosexuality is un-African is kept alive by African intellectuals referring to European sources to legitimise a selective, authentic culture.
”The irony is deepened by the fact that today in debates about sexual rights it is often African intellectuals citing Western sources who authenticate African customs and supposed family values that were absolutely and essentially intolerant of homosexualities.” (Epprecht 2009:31).
A more direct influence of colonialism is visible in Ghana's code of law concerning sexual conduct.
Unnatural Carnal Knowledge
Large parts of Ghana's criminal offences act are based on the criminal code from the British
Common Law (HRW 2008). In relation to same-sex intimacy, section 104(1)b says:
“Whoever has unnatural carnal knowledge of any person of sixteen years or over with his consent is guilty of a misdemeanour.” (Mensa-Bonsu 2008).
Lawyer and lecturer at University of Ghana, Mr. Kissi Agyebeng, enlists several problems with section 104(1)b. Firstly, there is the ambiguous term, “unnatural carnal knowledge”. To understand what UCK means, he defines what natural carnal knowledge is. The act of natural carnal knowledge is the act in which the penis of a man penetrates the vagina of a woman. This denotes, that UCK is when the penis penetrates something besides the vagina. Thereby, WSW is legal, since carnal knowledge, natural as unnatural, needs the penis of a man, hence the reference to “his” in section 104(1). Furthermore, fellatio is prohibited, and so is anal sex between a man and a man, but as noteworthy, also between a man and a woman. Traditionally, the law has been understood to target MSM, but it is not directly stated. Despite the confusion, penetration must occur, and if two or more adults, with consent, engage in UCK, it is difficult to present evidence in court that penetration did in fact occur, Mr. Agyebeng argues (2011), since often it takes place behind closed doors. Furthermore, someone must file a case before the police can investigate. If it happens with consent, it is unlikely that the adults engaging in the act will file a case to the police.
“The law is just hanging there symbolically.” (Agyebeng 2011).
In connection to the unverified rumours that 8000 homosexuals were to be found in Western and Central Regions, and the Minister of Western Region, Mr. Aidoo, called on the security forces for “the immediate arrest of all homosexuals” in July 2011 (Aidoo 2011). Mr. Agyebeng denies that such an action is legal, since it is legal to be a homosexual in Ghana, and it is legal for two men to kiss in public (Agyebeng 2011). Since the court requires evidence of penetration in according to the law concerning UCK, it would be difficult to obtain evidence that a given person has engaged himself in the act of UCK.
The ambiguous nature of the law is a reason why several human rights lawyers argue that homosexuality is legal (Lamptey 2011; Lithur 2011; 2013). The law on UCK is based on sexual morality present during the British Victorian Era in the 19th century, in which sexuality was considered a taboo, but the taboo began to take its shape already from the 17th century (Foucault 1976). The act of homosexuality was punishable by death, and to refrain people from engaging in what was viewed as unnatural it became a taboo and criminalised (Epprecht 2008: 38-40; Hoad 2007:76), and the law on UCK in Ghana is a vestige of the oppression of sex and the desire to control the bodies of its subjects from her former colonial power.
“To deal with sex, power employs nothing more than the law of prohibition. Its objective: that sex renounce itself. Its instrument: the threat of a punishment that is nothing other than the suppression of sex”. (Foucault 1976:84)
When Ghana became a sovereign state in 1957, Ghanaian politicians decided to replicate large parts of the Common Law, the consequence is that section 104(1)b is imported from Britain. Today, it is merely judicially symbolic due to its embedded limitations, but it has factual consequences. It prevents MSM and WSW from contacting the police in the case of a violent spouse, and the law forestalls especially MSM from visiting a health clinic, as Kobby argues. Furthermore, the law makes life easier for robbers and 419-perpetrators in general to take advantage of the situation. A robbed MSM cannot tell the police how it occurred in fear of facing prosecution for violating the law, with the additional threat of appearing on the front page of tomorrow's newspapers. As a result robbers can sleep safely at night knowing their victims cannot confide in the police (MacDarling 2011), and MSM and WSW live in fear of being exposed, humiliated, harassed and beaten up every day.
To sum up briefly, the idea homosexuality is imported is deeply interlinked to Africans' interactions with their colonial powers. During colonialism it was the European powers that believed they had the right to define the paradigms that determined how the world should be understood and constructed. Whereas today, Africans demand a place in the international hegemonic body, where they want to define whom they are themselves. The irony is that the sources which Africans refer to in defining what is African and what is not, originated from the era of colonialism which colours the interpretation of how Africans and Europeans are portrayed today.
Why Homosexuality Gains Importance
This part will mainly focus on the time from the Fourth Republic and onwards, which begins with the end of dictatorship and the beginning of multipartyism in 1992, when Rawlings (NDC) took office democratically after ruling Ghana for more than a decade under a military regime.
Prior to the establishment of the Fourth Republic the issue of MSM did not cause headlines in the newspapers, nor was it a subject for discussions among the average Ghanaian (Appiah 2010; Dankwa 2009:196). Furthermore, it was not perceived as something specifically un-African or a virtue interpreted as imported. This is connected to the absence of the homo/hetero binary, and therefore a discussion of homosexuality would have been void. Today, this proven by the fact that several MSM and WSW did not know of the term homosexuality or to the Western understanding of the homo/hetero paradigm until recently.
Instead to explore the causes for the increased focus on MSM, this thesis will start to argue what the causes are not.
It is not the sexual act, that is the cause for the hostility toward MSM or WSW. Neither the article from the Spice on how to have a threesome in which two women sexually please each other, nor the story from Da Vibe caused any public disturbance. When Da Vibe published another article featuring a man and his wife engaging in anal sex, people did not take notice.
“She raised her legs up to my shoulders and uttered the words I never thought I would hear her say…”I want your cock in my ass””. (Da Vibe 2011a).
In relation to sexual intercourse, particularly the act of MSM, is linked to the spread of HIV/AIDS (Duodu and Ahenkro 2011), an argument also used by the Ghanaian Ministry of Education (Krampah 2011). But HIV/AIDS cannot be used as explanatory against MSM. Studies from the 1980s show that men and women in Africa are infected equally frequent (Smith et al 2009). Since 2001, Ghana has experienced a decline of 66 % in the number of people infected with HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS 2012), and CEPEHRG (2011) argues, that MSM are aware, that they need to protect themselves from HIV/AIDS by using condoms. Peace FM (2012) reports that the sale of condoms has increased, and Ghanaians' life expectancy is raising significantly (World Bank 2011). In the same period of time, the presence of drinking facilities promoted among MSM to be “gay-friendly” are increasing, and with access to the social media through the internet on phones, it has never been more convenient to find a partner. This contradicts the idea that MSM is the main cause of HIV/AIDS in Ghana, since we should expect the rate of HIV/AIDS would increase with easier access to meet with other MSM-peers.
The obligation and importance of having children and the strive to become an cpanyin has not changed significantly, which the current desire to have children is a strong indication of, regardless of what sexuality people are doing. This is the reason why this cannot be used as an explanation, why Ghanaians have become more hostile toward people doing MSM and WSW.
It could be argued that homosexuality is viewed as a problem that needs to be addressed, but also this answer is negative. The biggest problems that the informants enlist are the high level of unemployment, electrical failure , poor sanitation and corruption. These issues also recur thorough the Presidential Election in 2012, where the issue of homosexuality was virtually non-existent.
Religion has also been used as an explanation for the rise of hostility against homosexuality. However, the current interpretation of the practiced religion is changing (Gifford 2004), which this paper will argue is because religion is a reification, since it is a practice of man. When a practice changes so does the religion, and therefore religion is subjected to the change of man. As a consequence, the cause of the change toward MSM and WSW among Ghanaians shall be found in what caused the change of man that made him change his practiced religion , and we do not find the cause by looking at the concept of religion itself.
Consequently, we have to look elsewhere for the causes for the gaining populace of the belief, that homosexuality is an imported practice from the West, which the following chapter will elucidate. This chapter will firstly discuss the creation of belonging and the feeling of becoming an Ghanaian, where homosexuality is utilised by the common man as a weapon to create a history which the binary paradigms during colonialism robbed him from having. Secondly, homosexuality as a mean to criticise the elite, whereby homosexuality can be seen as a symptom of a general distrust toward the local elite as well as the West.
Autochthonous - Creating Ghana
When the Cold War came to an end with the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, the patronage system in Africa collapsed as well. The Western powers did no longer need to support their patrons in several African countries financially that had caused several proxy wars across the African continent (Chabal and Daloz 1999:116-7; Cooper 2011:159; Smith 2007:97-9). The patron lost access to resources, which he formerly used to redistribute to his clients, so patrons began to search for a new source or revenue. The international community refused to continue to send aid to Africa, unless African leaders vowed to change their manner of governing. As African leaders still wanted to receive aid, this meant that many allowed democratic elections and the creation of multipartyism to take place (Chabal and Daloz 1999:118-9).
In Ghana, President Rawlings called for election in 1992, which ended nearly 10 years of dictatorship. Several candidates could now run for election, and at the same time the country secured its access to foreign aid. One of the methods, in order for a candidate to get the majority of the votes, is, to decide what it means to be Ghanaian. By having the ability to decide what is Ghanaian, you can decide what is not Ghanaian. This sparks a national need to define what Ghana culture is. The problem is that the borders of Ghana was done by the colonialist regardless of the ethnic groups occupying the space. Ghana is in this regard a miniature of Nigeria thus making it a cosmopolitan state (Fardon 2008). It consists of several ethnic groups, with different languages, histories and cultures, which impedes the creation of a nation-state. Today, Ghanaian scholars are discussing in how to create an inclusive Ghanaian self. Scholars from humanities argue Ghana should construct their own language in singular (Lauer, Amfo and Anderson 2011), and Otabil stresses, that a local Ghanaian name can also be your Christian name, which disparates the custom of naming your child with a Ghanaian name and a name from the West such as John, Daniel or Charles (Otabil 2004:15).
Nguyen (2010) underlines that the issue of morality, in particular sexual morality, has become a
barometer for the authenticity of the truth, and thereby used as an indicator of what authentic culture is or is not in West Africa. Barth (1969) argues, that people are more inclined toward group affiliations where they feel rewarded. By formerly being categorised as primitive but untainted children, and later as underdeveloped in contrary to the developed West, Ghanaians has created an identity of being morally uncorrupt in comparison to the imagined corrupt West (Amoako 2011; Daily Guide 2011b). By doing this, Ghanaians turn the international hegemony upside down, which provides a space of power on the international scene, where they have historically been placed beneath Western countries, they now place themselves above by articulating an identity where they are morally superior compared to Europeans. The focus on morality has in the recent years target what the general public refers to as homosexuality as imported from the corrupt West, and therefore it threatens the imagined unpolluted social fabric of Ghana.
But the creation of an authentic culture has exclusive ramifications. In an understood binary autochthony/allochthony (Ceuppens and Geshiere 2005), you are considered to be allochthonous, if you are a homosexual, and you can no longer reclaim the benefits of belonging. Furthermore, you are viewed to be contagious (Foucault 1976:118), which a Ghanaian writer documents by comparing the act to rotten fruits and cancer (Ogboro 2013). As such you have to be removed from society, and such rhetoric ignites threats of violence, oppression and hatred, not only toward the supposed homosexuals, but also against those who express support for them or their case.
“If you support them, you are part of them.” (OSSA, male, 19, 2011).
“you know birds of a feather flock together.” (Stephen, 2013).
Consequently, people who express support of homosexuals risk to be condemned as being homosexuals themselves. Programs Manager at HRAC, Robert Amoafo, comments, how he is struggling to make his family and friends to understand that his profession is to protect the human rights of all Ghanaians, because not everybody has come to terms that homosexuals also have human rights. The implication is that because he assists them judicially, there are some who believes he must also be a homosexual (Amoafo 2013), why else would he help them. The day after Mills' press conference on Nov. 3, 2011, Mrs. Lithur published an article in which she argued homosexuals also had human rights that must be respected. Within the same day, more than a hundred Ghanaians had commented on the article online, in which several openly accused Mrs. Lithur of being a lesbian (Lithur 2011).
The Ghanaian born and associate professor at the University of South Florida, Edward Kissi, held a lecture in Ghana themed: “On Human Rights and the Debate over Dignity and Social Order in Africa”, on June 5, 2013. During his lecture, he called for the acceptance of diversity, where he declared that sexuality was as immutable as the colour of our skin (Kissi 2013).
The harsh treatment and insults from even your own family creates a hostile environment, which expectedly intimidate some people from engaging in the public debate in fear of the repercussions and confrontations they could face, if they, in public, displayed support for the homosexuals.
A female student from Ateco High School cites John 15:6 that argues that those who do not believe in Jesus should be treated like an useless branch that shall be burnt, which she translates that homosexuals should be killed. The belief MSM is a foreign practice and the people practicing this are polluted also affect the rhetoric of chiefs and the police, which are reported to encourage extrajudicial violence (My Joy Online 2012; Dawuni 2013 . When the media, politicians and clergy repeatedly refer to MSM and WSW as homosexuals, they articulate the Western homo/hetero binary into existence by categorising MSM and WSW as being homosexuals in contrary to heterosexuals (Massad 2007), and thereby also transforming sexuality into being rather than doing sexuality. Thereby, the Ghanaian public becomes culprit in popularising the binary, which validates the agenda of LGBT-groups such as CEPEHRG in hetereosexualizing the world, which provides a space for groups such as CEPEHRG and ILGA. The problem is, that this narrative does not wholly describe the perceived reality shared by several MSM and WSW, where the Ghanaian public and CEPEHRG transform MSM and WSW into passive rather than active subjects, they label to pursue a personal agenda. On the other hand, the usage of homosexuality in the Ghanaian public does create homosexuals, as Kojo narrates, he did not know of this terminology before 2004, which he now uses in describing himself. By articulating the binary into existence MSM and WSW begin to identify themselves in according to this paradigm, which justifies the existence of CEPEHRG, and validates the homo/hetero binary in the general media. Furthermore, it is still the West that decides what the authentic culture of Ghana is. Intellectuals maintain to select sources that to a large extent reflect the racist paradigms present during colonialism in order to define what they are not. Barth argues that culture as:
Since culture is nothing but a way to describe human behaviour,” (Barth 1969:9).
The consequence is that culture does not make man, but man makes culture, and by people doing MSM and WSW, it ipso facto becomes part of Ghana's culture. However, informants are unable to define, what they believe the Ghanaian culture is. The most common answer is either silence or that Ghana has many cultures, that are defined by what people eat, dress and what language they speak, which neither MSM nor WSW threaten. It is when the issue of homosexuality appears during a conversation or interview that people add procreation , which can be linked to the significance in becoming an cpanyin. But the vague understanding of what a Ghanaian culture is, makes it possible for people to define what is not the “authentic” culture of Ghana, which can have severe repercussions for those who are excluded by the local discourse. Supplementary, Ceuppens and Geshiere argue, as the world becomes more global, the need for a local identity increases (Ceuppens and Geshiere 2005:387), where homosexuality is used in defining what Ghana culture is not, to form a self independent from the global world. The problem is to define what a Ghanaian culture is instead of mirroring a perceived monolithic West in what a Ghanaian culture is not. As a result the issue of defining an “authentic”culture has becomes a battleground where different positions try to claim ownership of what represents the true culture. The moderator for the PCG , Reverend Emmanuel Martey, is outspoken in defining what Ghana culture is not (Amidu 2011, Martey 2011). Thereby, Reverend Martey's argument is obliquely supported by the journalist , which emphasises the influence opponents of homosexuality enjoy in the local media, but also the struggle in constructing a Ghanaian self in opposition to their colonial legacy (Hoad 2007:77).
MacDarling points out that the law used to prosecute homosexuality is imported (Ghanaweb 2006, HRW 2008), thereby both sides try to legitimise their arguments embedded in a pre-colonial historical context representing an authentic truth. Ghanaian culture stands in opposition to their colonial legacy. Their aim is to discharge the colonial impact from the pure Ghanaian core, so the undiluted matter is left. Reverend Martey argues homosexuality is imported, while MacDarling argues the laws against homosexuality are imported, which includes him in the discourse in being Ghanaian, whereas the discourse presented by Reverend Martey excludes MacDarling and a large number of Ghanaians from belonging. The arguing is therefore not about homosexuality but part of a larger discourse in defining a self.
The issue of belonging as an exclusive discourse is not only about to create a sense of belonging,
but also to construct a world, where homosexuality represents the West, thus to support or to be a homosexual is akin to supporting the West, whereas to be against homosexuality, it to display your belonging to Ghana. The Daily Guide makes this abundantly clear, when President Mahama stood accused of being homosexual after he appointed the human rights lawyer, Mrs. Lithur, as minister. The newspaper began to run campaigns suggesting that the appointment of Mrs. Lithur was connected to President Mahama's American and homosexual friend, Mr. Andrew Solomon. The conspiracy was, that Mr. Solomon allegedly paid 20,000 USD for a copy of Mahama's book, and by this act Mr. Solomon had bribed the Ghanaian President, and thereby Mahama was no longer loyal to Ghana (Daily Guide 2013b; 2013c). All accusations were dismissed by Mr. Solomon (2013) in the New York Times, which was published in Ghana as well.
Reverend Martey re-articulates the colonial paradigm that dictated over the lives and bodies of Africans (Hoad 2007:67), whereas MacDarling subscribes to the Western binary homo/hetero paradigm. Thereby, they are both deeply intertwined within a colonial and contemporarily discourse, while they claim to represent an authentic pre-colonial culture. But they do also both challenge the binaries created under colonialism. When Europeans placed Ghanaians on the first evolutionary stage, Ghanaians were robbed of having a culture or a history in contrast to Europeans. By Nkrumah changing the name from the Gold Coast to Ghana, a Ghana comes into existences that transcends the colonial binaries, and thus challenged the hegemony by giving Ghanaians a history. The debate between MacDarling and Reverend Martey is a continuation in the creation of a Ghanaian “self” independent from colonialism. By arguing there is a Ghanaian culture that existed prior to colonialism, they challenge the racial binaries by creating a Ghanaian culture and hence making Ghana akin to European countries, and hence dilutes the image of an “other”. The problem is, as Epprecht aforementioned illustrated, the interpretation is largely based on Europeans' conceptions of Africans, and therefore the culture that is said to be authentic is a product of how Europeans once viewed Africans.
Homosexuality as Empowering and Disempowering
This section will focus primarily on the consequences of Prime Minister Cameron's threat to suspend or cut its aid to Ghana, if Ghana did not stop to prosecute their sexual minorities by the Autumn of 2011 . The prosecution of sexual minorities in Ghana is also documented by the US Department (2010). The threat to suspend stirred a criticism of Cameron, that this was an act of neo-colonialism, by reviving the belief that Europeans still believe they are superior to the African man. The implication was, that this move was met with hostility from the Ghanaian population at large, which the open letter written by LGBT-groups across Africa to Prime Minister Cameron exemplified (African Activist 2011), and a shared feeling of fighting colonialism emerged. In newspapers, TV, radio and among the common man on the street stood united in what they saw as a continuation of the West treating them as they did when Ghana was a colony. When President Mills came forth on November 3, 2011, to announced that “[W]e Will Not Support Homos” (Mills 2011), he sent three messages. Firstly, that he displayed his loyalty and belonging to Ghana. Secondly, that he showed bravery by standing up against Ghana's former colonial power, and thirdly, that he was not a homosexual.
Empowering
The resentment of the move by Prime Minister Cameron is visible in articles such as “[O]pen Letter to The Right Hon. David Cameron” (Brazi 2011), where Mr. Brazi compares the situation to the era of slavery, where even slaves were said to throw themselves overboard than to engage in being “sodomized” by the British brigades, when transported to America. Professor and second deputy speaker of the house, Mr. Ocquaye, defies Prime Minister Cameron by referring to the belief, that it contradictes the culture of Ghana, where to give in to Cameron's demand would demise the very foundation of Ghana (Ocquaye 2011). The magazine “The Sage” creates a historical linkage to the fight against homosexuality with the fought for emancipation (The Sage 2012). The threat of Prime Minister Cameron also unites LGBT-organisations across Africa against Cameron, among these organisations are CEPEHRG, CAHG and GALAG (African Activist 2011).
As aforementioned, the level of corruption is perceived to have increased over the past three years (GII 2011). Smith (2008) argues the “big men” are believed to keep the money instead of sharing it, which has resulted in the collapse of the quid pro quo based patrimonial system. The consequence is that people express a growing distrust to the patronage system. Nguyen (2010) argues the patrons are percieved to be intertwined to the moral decay, a belief also reflected in Ghana by the common man. The greed of the rich has entered the moral sphere, where they engage in “predatory sexual practices” (Nguyen 2010:161). In September 2011, I conversed with two young men in their mid- twenties. When the issue of homosexuality came up, one of the men raised his voice and said:
“You see, a gay will never suffer because the big men are supporting him. A friend of mine living in this neighbourhood is gay, and because he did that he got a car, nice house. He will never miss anything.”
Nana, 27, an unemployed man, argues, that men who have sex with a rich man would earn 10,000 to 20,000 USD per night ( Nana 2012). James, 18, SHS, defines homosexuals as a clan, where the clan-leader recruits members in order to accumulate money (James 2012). Other Ghanaians describe that men and women engage in MSM or WSW with rich people do it in order to get access to a spiritual power that is transferred sexually (see Dankwa 2009:197), where sex that transgresses the cultural-social norms transfers the spirit, which is a symptom of the immoral sexual practices the rich are believed to practice in order to obtain wealth and power. The belief that homosexuals receive money in exchange for sexual favours share similarities with the existence of sugar mommies and sugar daddies. This is to point out, that the idea of having sex in favour for financial gain is not something new, but it is a well known practice.
Therefore, rumours of alleged homosexuality often involve a person from the rich and powerful elite. Especially Vice President, Amissah-Arthur, has been publicly alleged to be homosexual. The rumour began in early 2012, where the paper the Daily Guide interviewed Mr. Owusu-Sekyere, who confessed that a minister and he had been “gay lovers” since SHS. Mr. Owusu-Sekyere explained that he confessed, because the minister had not paid him the agreed amount of money (Owusu-Sekyere 2012). The article confirms the popular public beliefs: SHS are breeding grounds for homosexuality, the rich men are involved, and they are greedy. The belief the name of the secret minister was Amissah-Arthur gained populace, and in August 2012, Amissah-Arthur was forced to defend his name in public. He agreed that Mr. Owusu-Sekyere and he knew each other from SHS, but the accusation, that he should be “gay” is a “fabrication” to “extort money” (Amissah-Arthur 2012).
In February 2013, President Mahama got involved in what the media named the “Gay Pal Scandal” . Mahama rejected that he knew the American homosexual activist Andrew Solomon prior to his book launch in the USA. However, in his book “My First Coup D'Etat”, Mahama included Solomon, among other people, he thanked personally in the making of his book.
“Andrew was also quite generous with his referrals and other such literary resources. I will always remember the fantastic dinner party Andrew hosted for me in his Manhattan home that set the ball rolling.” (Mahama 2012:316).
The Minister of Information and spokesperson for the President, Mahama Ayariga, apologised on the behalf of the President for incorrect information (Daily Guide 2013d). Simultaneously, President Mahama tried to get his minister-nominee Mrs. Lithur accepted as Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection in parliament. Mrs. Lithur is a human rights lawyer and the executive director of HRAC, and she is known for arguing that human rights also protect the homosexuals (Lithur 2011; 2013). It was rumoured that the nomination of Mrs. Lithur was connected to the USA, that was said to have supported the nomination of Mrs. Lithur. The presumption the USA was connected to the nomination of Mrs. Lithur was created by President Obama's support of same-sex marriage in May 2012 (Obama 2012). President Obama was believed, that he wanted to promote homosexuality by the use of President Mahama (Daily Guide 2013e). The rumour Mr. Solomon allegedly paid 20,000 USD for Mahama's book fits the narrative that Western lobbyists have taking over the country by the greed of the rich elite, who indulge themselves in sexual misconduct and they can be easily bought.
To connect sexual favours for personal financial gain is known, as the practice of sugar daddies and sugar mommies display. These stories illuminate the empowering discourse, where the topic of homosexuality creates a space which permits Ghanaians to articulate critique of the elite that is said to become increasingly corrupt, and the youth can challenge the gerontocratic structures, which is not possible under normal circumstances. The rich elite is connected to the global scene, where homosexuality also creates a space for Ghanaians to criticise Western countries, which are observed as culprit in their leaders becoming increasingly wealthy. The perception that the elite does not share the money is articulated in the unrealistically amount of money the elite is said to spend on sexual favours, where it is believed that a rich man can pay up to 20,000 USD per night, when John notes he is paid 60 GHc. The presumption the elite is incredible rich is also attributed to include the people from the West, where several Ghanaians ascribed my colour to wealth symbolised through the common phrase “dash me.” Thereby homosexuality becomes a mean to criticise the perceived corruption with corruption, but it also contributes to the perception of the disempowerment of the ordinary Ghanaians, which the next section will try to cover.
Disempowering
The issue of self-victimisation by the discourse that Ghana -and Africa as a whole- is untainted of homosexuality is ubiquitous. The image creates a Ghana that is the victim of Western pollution means that the people engaging in the act of MSM have fallen pray to Western influence, and therefore they have to be rescued. People described as homosexuals, become passive objects without a free will, that shall be protected from the active subject, the West. In the article by Brazi, he refers back to the era of slavery, thus creating a historical linkage to present day, where Ghanaians are still oppressed by the now Western powers. Ghana is not up against Britain alone, but they are up against a mighty monolithic block named “the West” that Ghanaians should try to protect themselves from. By Ghanaians comparing themselves to the age of slavery, they reiterate a hegemony where they place themselves beneath the West, which further links the fight against homosexuality to the fight for emancipation, which connotes that Ghanaians are victims.
The same belief that connects homosexuality to corruption, which creates a space for verbalising of critique of the rich men is also disempowering (Smith 2008:153). By constructing an image of the extreme wealth of the elite, the average Ghanaian makes him or herself more poor, which intensifies the perception of the wealth the elite believes to possess. This is exemplified by the belief how much money a rich person is willing to offer for sex, which connects the belief a homosexual will never suffer financially, and the perception the rich are willing to sell to the highest bidder, which proves the perceived moral corruption of the elite.
Thereby, Ghanaians express their own powerlessness by their shared mistrust to the mechanism that drives patrimonialism, which is embedded in the phrase “eating alone”. By creating a world where the elite enrichment stems from perceived hidden and mysterious acts in co-operation with the outside world, Ghanaians create a narrative of a connection between homosexuality and enrichment. Ghanians end up protecting the big man-institution, “since the ultimate source of inequality remains mysterious, hidden, and possible unknowable.” (Smith 2008:153).
To sum up Part III, the change of attitudes toward homosexuality is intertwined within the historical interactions between Europeans and Africans, where the predominantly European paradigm that transformed Africans unto uncivilised but also innocent children is internalised, which is caused by the sources available in Ghana are written by Europeans, which are the sources African intellectuals utilise in creating a national belonging independent from colonialism, which Epprecht characterises as ironic. In addition, the influence of colonialism is visible in the Ghanaian code of law concerning UCK. The current predominantly paradigm divides the world into being developed or underdeveloped, which preserves the previous hegemony, where Ghanaians continue to be placed beneath the West. By creating a Ghana untainted of homosexuality, the paradigm is turned upside down, by Ghanaians placing themselves above the West by referring to the West as corrupt, which creates a space for them to stand up against their former colonial master, which is observable in the rhetoric used, when Prime Minister Cameron threatened to suspend aid to Ghana.
Homosexuality functions as a created space for Ghanaians to voice their critique of the broken system of patrimonialism, where the patrons are deeply interlinked with the outside world, which the “Gay Pal Scandal” illustrates. On the other hand, homosexuality also disempowers Ghanaian, by articulating their moral superiority by reminding themselves of what they are not, and the critique of the elite preserves the system by the common belief that the means in how the rich elite obtains access to resources remain hidden and mysterious. Ghanaians continue to articulate a reality into being in which they are still beneath the West, and the common Ghanaian feels deprived of the ability to change the situation. Thereby homosexuals are subjected to the frustrations of the elite, whom the common man cannot touch.
Part IV - The Prospect of Decriminalisation of MSM
This last chapter will foremost include some of the interviews where some of the informants express rather positive views of what they call homosexuals, the progressive voices in the debate, how politicians react when the issue of homosexuality is present in the media, and the impact the heated discussions have had on politics, and how homosexuality is portrayed in popular culture.
This will pave the way for a broader and more nuanced understanding in what direction Ghana might take in relation toward legalising or criminalising homosexuality in the future, and to illustrate that the choice is not naturally given, due to the many discourses present in contemporary Sub-Saharan African
Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa have taking very different positions in relation to this sensitive issue. South Africa decriminalised homosexuality completely in 1994 by the transition from Apartheid to democracy, and it legalised same-sex marriage in 2006 . The former President of Botswana, Festus Mogae, has called for decriminalising of homosexuality in Botswana (BBC 2011; Mogae 2011). In Uganda politicians are working on an anti-homosexual bill, which could sentence a person to a life time in prison, and Nigeria has passed a bill further criminalising homosexuality by increasing the punishment from up to five years in prison to up to fourteen years in prison. This move is said to be because of Prime Minister Cameron's threat (Reuters 2011). The bill was re-introduced in May 2013 (Reuters 2013), but it has not yet been signed into law by President Goodluck Jonathan. In the twelve Nigerian northern regions, which incorporated shariah into their code of law shortly after the end of the military regime in 1999, capital punishment is applicable, but it has reportedly not been taking into practice in relation to a man or a woman found guilty in the act of homosexuality (HRW 2004).
The different stances on the continent are best described when former South African President, Thabo Mbeki, criticised the Ugandan MP, Mr. Peter Bahari, one of the leading architects behind the bill which aims to criminalise homosexuality further in Uganda. Mr. Mbeki drew parallels to the anti-homosexual bill in progress in Uganda to the situation in South Africa under Apartheid (All Africa 2012). Mr. Mbeki turned the issue of whether homosexuality was un-African around, where decriminalising of homosexuality became African whereas criminalising became a continuation of Apartheid.
African writers also begin to include acceptance of homosexuality into their stories. The Nigerian-American writer Mrs. Adichie narrates in one of her short stories, the story of the Nigerian man, Mr. Chinedu, living at Princeton in the USA, who tells the love-story between him and the Nigerian man, Mr. Abidemi. Mr. Abidemi ends up leaving Mr. Chinedu because he has to fulfil his customary obligation by marrying a local woman. The short story is told without condemnation to the reader, who is represented through the female character, Mrs. Ukamaka (Adichie 2009).
Informants
Despite the fact that the vast majority of the informants expressed dislike toward homosexuals, predominantly against male homosexuals, they also disliked the idea, that homosexuals should be sentenced to death. Among the fourteen students from OSSA, only one female believed the death penalty should apply, if the person kept committing the same offence, and one female student would not exclude the possibility the death penalty could be necessary. On the other hand, three students, one female and two males, argued, that homosexuals should not be punished, they should be informed on the consequences of their acts, but it was their choice.
A striking point among informants, who tended to be more positive toward people informants referred to as homosexuals, was, that they had friends were doing it. These informants more often denied the belief that you could become a homosexual by being around one, and to disbelieve that a male homosexual would need to use pampers due to the else common perception that anal sex would destroy your anus (also see Akpalu 2011; Anyani-Boadum 2011). Informants who have at least one MSM or WSW friend denied that they had changed sexuality and they refuted that their friend had tried to “lure them” into doing it. The same male student, 19, from OSSA, who described how his friends used to beat homosexuals, confesses that he has a male friend who is a homosexual. He argues, that it is against the Ghanaian culture, which he briefly defines as a marriage between a man and a woman, but he also argues, that they are humans, and therefore they have rights.
Another interesting point of view is that often when informants argued in favour of a punishment for homosexuality, they tended to change opinion, when the question involved a person they personally knew.
Female, 16, OSSA, argued that a homosexual should spend life time in prison, however, when the question was what she would do, if her best friend told her, that she was a lesbian, then the female informant argued their friendship would continue, and she would keep her friend's secret.
James, 18, also argued a homosexual should spend life time in prison, and that he hated them. When the question changed to what he would do if his best friend told, he was a homosexual, he nearly mimicry the answer from the female student from OSSA. James would continue to befriend him, and he would keep the secret. During the interview, James confessed, that he knew of four males from his university, who were homosexuals , and he continued to befriend them. He clarified that he did not hate them, but he hated what they were doing, which allowed him to maintain their friendship (James 2012), which divided them as friends from their sexual practice.
David, 27, a graduate from the University of Ghana and a youth minister at his local evangelical church, stated, that he used to believe that you could become a homosexual by being around one. When he got hired by GAC to conduct interviews in relation to a then on-going mapping of MSM in relation to MARPs and HIV/AIDS, he had to meet and talk to Ghanaian MSM. He continues to believe that homosexuality is caused by spirits, but he has become more tolerant toward them, which is emphasised by the fact that he referred to one MSM as his “brother”, and that he has stopped believing that you can become a homosexual by spending time with one (David 2011).
Anabell, 20, student, described how she had heard and seen lesbians at her SHS, because the female students shared rooms, but that she would never report lesbianism to the headmaster, because it was more important for the students to finish their education than to be thrown out of school (Anabell 2011).
Ghanaians also tend to have two and rather conflicting positions toward homosexuals. On one hand, they advocate homosexuality should be punished, on the other hand, they also refuse to execute the punishment they just advocated, when a homosexual turns into a person with an identity, such as a personal friend. None of the informants were willing to expose a friend if the risk was death, and at worst they would start to ignore their friend. Nana, 27, an unemployed man, revealed that a homosexual should serve either 30 years in prison or face the death penalty. When the question concerned what he would do if a friend told him, that he was a homosexual, Nana would leave the person alone, but he would not expose him.
Virtually none of the informants who did not do MSM or WSW advocated that homosexuality should be legalised, because they argued that it would promote it, and a significant majority advocated punishments often prison for a definite or indefinite period of time. In general, some informants state that they have friends who are doing it, and all the MSM and WSW informants state they have friends who are not doing it, which strongly indicates that a segment of Ghanaians tends to be more friendly toward the MSM and the WSW by the result that they befriend each other without fearing they will become homosexuals themselves. When I interviewed Kojo, his friend Samuel drove the car, and even Samuel expressed dislike for what Kojo did, he accepted him. Yvonne shared an apartment with her female roommate who did not do WSW, but she accepted that Yvonne did, which allowed her to invite her girlfriend over, where her girlfriend could stay for one or more consecutive nights.
Voices in the Public Debate
This section will focus on the progressive voices in the Ghanaian debate in relations to the heated debates that ignited in the aftermath of Prime Minister Cameron's threat and during the nomination of Mrs. Lithur.
The internal conflict in relation to Ghana has already been described briefly with the example of Mr. Amidu (2011), who argued in favour of property, which practically negated section 104(1)b, while the Minister of Western Region Mr. Aidoo (2011) called for the national forces to arrest all homosexuals. Following the statement from Mr. Aidoo, Mr. Kofi Wayo, the founder of United Renaissance Party (URP), declared his condemnation of homosexuality, but he emphasised that they were human beings, and, therefore, “should be treated with respect.” (Wayo 2011).
The day after President Mills had declared that he would never support legalising homosexuality in Ghana, Professor Ampofo, said that Ghanaians were hypocrites and thereby declared that:
“We have become a very intolerant nation.” (Ampofo 2011a).
Human Rights lawyers often argue, that homosexuals have rights, where Mrs. Lithur is one of the more vibrant voices , but also the lecturer of law at the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration, Ernest Kofi Abotsi, is active. He supports the opinion of lecturer of law, Mr. Agyebeng (2011), that homosexuality is legal (Ghanaian Chronicle 2011; Abotsi 2013). Lawyer and MP, Dr. Dominic Ayine (NDC) refers to the Ghana constitution article 35:
“The State shall actively promote the integration of the peoples of Ghana and prohibit discrimination and prejudice on the grounds of place of origin, circumstances of birth, ethnic origin, gender or religion, creed or other beliefs.” (Article 35(5)).
Dr. Ayine argues, that this article clarifies the lack of a proper definition on UCK (Abotsi 2013). Mrs. Lamptey, the head commissioner of CHRAJ, concurs that homosexuality is legal, however, she states that it is legal as long as you do not practice UCK, and that the act should stay illegal until Ghanaians are ready to change the law. However, she expresses support for decriminalisation of the act as well (Lamptey 2011; 2011a), which is the support to abolish section 104(1)b.
The female writer, Ms. Mardey questions, why Ghanaians care about the issue of homosexuality.
“We have people who are dying from malaria, people without clean drinking water, high unemployment, and people dying from diseases that are so simple to treat. All this and we worry about what somebody else is doing in their bedroom.” (Mardey 2012).
She calls Ghanaians “proverbial bullies”, who take on the weak, and thereby Ghanaians forget the armed robber, the murder, the pedophile and those who squander Ghana's resources. These are the people who deserve the anger and not the homosexuals. She reveals, that she knows of a friend, who has a wife, but he also has a boyfriend, whom the wife is unaware of, and Mardey is not willing to treat that person differently, because a friend's preference differs from hers (Mardey 2012).
Another writer, Ms. Boateng, profoundly criticises the churches for their hatred against homosexuals. She indirectly argues that those who worry about what is happening in other people's bedrooms, are the same people who suffer from a sexual deficit (Boateng 2011a). In another article, she argues that homosexuality is Ghanaian, because the Ghanaian ancestors did not discriminate based on a person's sexual orientation (Boateng 2011). Therefore, she declares, that homosexuality is Ghanaian, and the hostility toward homosexuality among certain Ghanaians conflicts with the true culture of Ghana.
During the debate following the nomination of Mrs. Lithur, the Country Director of AI, Lawrence Amesu, defended Mrs. Lithur by stating that Ghana was part of the international community with its membership of the UN, which represented the foundation for human rights, which stated that a person cannot be discriminated against based on “sexual orientation.” (AI 2013).
President Mahama's nomination of Mrs. Lithur received support from politicians from a broad spectre of the political sphere. From the CPP, the Director of Communication, Mr. Nii Akomfrah (2013), from the NDC Ashanti Regional Secretary, Mr. Joseph Yamin (2013), and the NPP, MP for the Assin North Constituency since 2000, Mr. Kennedy Agyapong (2013) who all declared their support for Mahama's nomination of Mrs. Lithur.
Despite the numerous heated debates, Mr. Kwesi Amoafo-Yeboah, who ran for president as an independent candidate in 2008, declared his full support for “gay rights” on his Facebook . He explained his position by stating that he had gay friends, who died in the 1980s of HIV, because his friends were afraid to visit a doctor.
“It makes no sense to me that in this day and age some of us would rather hunt down gay people while armed robbers and corrupt leaders go free.” (Amoafo-Yeboah 2013).
Nearly two years after Mr. Aidoo ignited the debate about homosexuals in Ghana, Professor Kissi gave a lecture in which he discussed homosexuality. After the lecturer, he received positive acknowledgements from the audience, which he described as “quite encouraging” (Kissi 2012).
To sum up briefly, despite the anti-homosexual stance in the media, and the risk of public prosecution, there are people who come forth to support homosexuals and/or to remind people that they are human beings that deserve respect. However, the fact that Professor Ampofo and Mr. Wafo need to reiterate, that homosexuals are human being underpins the trepidation for homosexuals, MSM and WSW in Ghana.
It is important to note that several of the MSM-informants are beginning to associate themselves in relation to the homo/hetero binary, and since 2011, Yvonne has described herself as “gay”. Interactions between Ghana and the international community are observable concerning the influence in relation to see the world as inherently heterosexual, and thereby those who are viewed as different are categorised as homosexuals. Hence, we can begin to apply the Western homo/hetero binary, however, not universally. Despite the fact that several scholars air their voice in the local debate, it is worrying that several scholars remain silent. Most noticeable is the absence of former Secretary General of the UN, Kofi Annan, who has supported decriminalisation of homosexuality since 2003 (Annan 2003). Laymen are present in comment sections on several internet forums, but the ordinary Ghanaian is virtually absent in the local media, and they do not try to calm the masses in the midst of heated debates involving homosexuality in the printed press.
The Impact of External Threats on Political Legislation and Decision-Making
This will be divided into three sections. Firstly, the external threats in relation to the impact of the threat from Prime Minister Cameron, secondly, the impact of the pressure from primarily the clergy, and lastly, how the threats affect political decision-making.
The Impact of the Threat from Prime Minister Cameron
The threat of Prime Minister Cameron forced President Mills to declare on November 3, 2011, that
he would not legalise homosexuality. However, on July 2011, Mills called the editor at the Ghanaian Times to personally complain that one of their journalists wrote that President Mills and his administration were working on criminalising homosexuality (Daily Guide 2011c). The story sparked a debate on President Mills' stance on homosexuality, and this added to the then mounting powder keg on the debate on homosexuality, which Prime Minister Cameron ignited in October 2011. The initial debate began July 2011, with the false report of 8000 homosexuals allegedly living in the Central and Western Regions, followed by the comments of the Minister of Western Region Mr. Aidoo of their immediate arrest. The threat from Prime Minister Cameron became what some MSM and scholars defined as a witch hunt on homosexuals. Editors, social commentators, pastors, imams, politicians, “experts” such as the Ghanaian Chief Psychiatrist, Dr. Akwasi Osei, and scholars came forth to criticise Prime Minister Cameron and to portray homosexuality as something unnatural and imported that stood in opposition to the rich culture of Ghana. The debate transformed into “them” versus “us”, where “them” were the Ghanaians who supported the homosexuals and the West, whereas “us” were the people who tried to uphold and defend Ghana. Hence the binary of autochthonous and allochthonous was articulated, which forced President Mills to express an official stance, which had to be in opposition to Prime Minister Cameron to be categorised as being an autochthonous, defending an imagined -and constructed- Ghanaian culture, promoted as authentic. The need for Mills to hold a press conference, at which he distanced himself from Cameron, was, furthermore, necessary in relation to the up-coming election, where Mills had to attract votes, which limits his flexibility in relation to the issue of homosexuality. If Mills had not held a press conference, the suspicions revolving the elite being accomplices in homosexuality would have grown in strength, which would have created a space for his political opponent Akufo-Addo (NNP). Furthermore, rumours that Mills could have received money from the British deriving from the public belief that the West wants to promote homosexuality and the big men are greedy, could have further destabilised President Mills and the administration.
Prime Minister Cameron's threat brought the issue of homosexuality back on the front page which ignited the discourse of the tainted and corrupted West versus the untainted and pure Ghana. As a consequence, the situation for the sexual minorities in Ghana have to continue to live in fear of being exposed, which prolongs the state in which people such as Kwabena will have to act as being two different persons and the fear to visit a health clinic as expressed by Kojo. The anti-homosexual rhetoric also risks to increasing the stigmatisation to this group of people, which can intensify hate crimes as documented by the U.S. Department (2010).
Despite the fact that President Mills was forced to publicly denounce homosexuality, the government did not enforce an agenda to criminalise homosexuality, which Nigeria did (Reuters 2011). It is also important to notice that neither President Mills nor his political opponent Akufo-Addo tried to harvest political points from the discussion on homosexuality. Mills waited more than a month to comment, and when he did comment, he did not advocate a criminalisation of homosexuality, and Akufo-Addo did not display any interest in discussing the issue. During a brief meeting between Prime Minister Cameron and Akufo-Addo in the aftermath of Mills' press conference, Akufo-Addo politely requested Prime Minister Cameron not to repeat the error to touch upon the sensitive issue of homosexuality, but argued it was an issue Ghanaians must negotiate within on their own terms.
“Democracy is successful where it enjoys domestic ownership. It must not be seen as an imported governance culture, even though its values are of universal validity.” (Akufo-Addo 2011)
Today, the impact of Cameron's threat still lays under the surface, where a spark can ignite the debate on homosexuality, however, none of the two main parties, the NDC and the NPP, display any interest in such a debate. However, a spark from an external threat, akin to Prime Minister Cameron's, can change the political landscape, which could force the political elite to publicly condemning homosexuality to save their political career as Mills did in 2011, which could reverse any progress for sexual minorities, who would risk further exclusion, stigmatisation and violence, while providing fuel to the flames of the anti-homosexual voices (Søgaard 2013).
Threats from Ghanaians against Politicians
The threats from especially clergy grew in strength following the threats by Prime Minister Cameron, which forced President Mills to hold his press conference. Throughout the Autumn of 2011, articles from clergymen advocating that Ghanaians should abstain from voting for any politicians supporting homosexuality (Dreegbe 2011; Martey 2011). Deegbe argued, it was homosexuality that caused the Roman Empire to collapse , which will happen to Ghana if homosexuality is accepted. Such threats might have prevented politicians from calming the masses in fear of being viewed as a supporter of homosexuality and hence lose votes. However, despite the rumours of the Vice President allegedly homosexuality, Mr. Amissah-Arthur did not become a subject of interest during the last months of election, when more serious issues that Ghanaians faced in their everyday life were the subject of discussion in the presidential debates, where issues such as education, irregular supply of electricity [dumso dumso], poor sanitation, infrastructure and corruption were deemed more pressing. The result of the election was that President Mahama and his Vice-President Amissah-Arthur won the election, and hence the NDC stayed in office.
Following Mahama's nomination of Mrs. Lithur as minister in January 2013, the voices of the clergy rose. The Concerned Clergy Association of Ghana stated that the parliament was betraying Ghanaians if President Mahama did not withdraw the nomination of Mrs. Lithur (Wood 2013). The National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS) declared:
“We would like to send out a word of caution that, should Nana Oye Lithur be approved, the Union would have no other option than to unleash the full force of Ghanaian students onto the streets such as not even the gates of Hell can contain.” (Gyan 2013).
President Mahama also faced the “gay pal scandal”, but despite the antagonism from certain editors, clergy and politicians from his own party (Mubarak 2013), on February 1, Mrs. Lithur was approved by the parliament and became the Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, and the threats giving prior to her acceptance were not carried out, and the debate faded out.
The Impact on Decision- Making
In October of 2012, Ghana was subjected to the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) by the UNHRC, that would examine Ghana's human rights record for the past four years. Representing Ghana were Mr. Amesu from AI and Mrs. Lithur from HRAC, who were also involved in collection material for the UNHCR. They advocated the decriminalisation of laws that affected MARPs (Amesu and Lithur 2012). MSM are part of MARPs, and section 104(1)b mainly targets MSM and as a consequence of that, this proposal can be understood for a support of decriminalising for homosexuality in Ghana. One of the recommendation from the report from the UNHRC is:
“The decriminalization of sexual activities between consenting adults and awareness raising in that regard and consideration of the recommendations in the report of the High
Commissioner of Human Rights on sexual orientation and gender identity.” (UNHRC 2013).
Under President Mills the CRC was establish on Jan 11, 2010. Its job was to undertake a review of the Ghanaian Constitution from 1992, and based on the review to “make recommendations to the Government for possible amendments (…) ” (CRC 2010). On December 20, 2011, CRC published its recommendations, which included a longer statement on section 104(1)b. The nine delegates emphasised on the “overwhelmingly” submissions they had received from third parties of why homosexuality should be criminalised (reasons are enlisted on CRC 2011:655, section 120). They concluded, that they could not make the decision on whether section 104(1)b should remain or should be removed. The disagreement is created due to a clash of human rights. Article 17(1) within the Ghanaian Constitution states that:
“All persons shall be equal before the law.”
However, Ghana shall also adhere to the African Charter of Human Rights, which focuses on the group rather than the individual, where a practice can be prohibited if it challenges the perceived socio-cultural norms of Africa (CRC 2011:565-7). Therefore, CRC recommended the case should be moved to the Supreme Court (CRC 2011:657, section 129). On July 16, 2012, the Government decided to adopt the recommendation from the CRC and they transferred the case to the Supreme Court. Despite consistent and mounting pressure from the clergy and from other voices in the public debate, neither then-President Mills nor current President Mahama have made any effort to criminalise homosexuality. The leader of the main opposition-party, Akufo-Addo, has not displayed any sign that he or the NPP would like to criminalise homosexuality either.
Bishop Wood (2013a) argues that 98 % of all submissions to the CRC were against homosexuality, but the CRC resisted the pressure by deciding to take the case to the Supreme Court. The advantage for the Government to leave the process of decision-making onto the hands of the Supreme Court is intelligible. By this act the Government can excuse a possible decriminalisation of homosexuality on the Supreme Court, and thereby they do not risk a smear campaign by the clergy, which could jeopardise the career of the politicians. A politician could not only lose his seat in parliament, but s/he could also lose access to resources, which would affect his or her patronage status.
Popular Culture
In the last section, a short presentation of how the issue of homosexuality is depicted more nuanced in the local movies will be discussed.
The different portrayal of homosexuality is revealed in movies, such as the local movie “Bonsam Gue Mu” [Satan has been arrested] (2011). In this movie the actors are speaking in their local language, which means the segment is primary for an local audience, who might not comprehend English well. We follow two female angels, who observe the consequences for people who have sinned against God. Several sins are numerated, and among the sins is MSM. In one scene we see two men involved in this act, and how they are sent to Hell, where the two men scream in agony while flames of Hell devour their bodies.
However, in the same year the movie “4Play” (2011) was released, starring some of the most popular actors in Ghana, among others Jackie Appiah, Majid Michel and John Dumelo. This movie takes place in Accra, and the audience is the ones who are capable to comprehend English well. Each character bears a secret involving lies, sex and deceit, which the movie unfolds for the audience. The character Ruby, played by Yvonne Okoro, is married to Daron, played by Omar Sherif, suspects her husband for cheating on her, so she decides to visit her husband in his hotel room in East Legon. When Ruby arrives, Daron stands half-naked and defies any allegation, that he is cheating on her with another woman. Ruby is very surprised when an effeminate man, referred to as “the Gay” in the credits, arrives from the bathroom. Daron confesses, that he has been cheating on her by sleeping with another man. We follow how the wife and the husband get divorced, and how she changes her stance on her husband's sexuality. At the beginning, when Daron and Ruby each hires a lawyer to agree on whom gets the custody of their daughter, she refers to her husband as a “beast”. However, as the movie progresses, Ruby becomes less hostile to Daron, and in the end of the movie, she accepts that Daron drivers her and their daughter home after her car broke down. Foremost, throughout the movie Daron is mainly portrayed in a positive lights. He cares about his family, his wife, he is willing to help his family in need, and his language is not ripe with insults. Furthermore, Daron is capable to hire a lawyer, who argues that his client's sexual preferences should not play a role in the decision on the issue on custody. The elements of sin, damnation and spirits are absent, the act is not articulated as a threat to the biological order, and Daron is allowed to see their daughter occasionally.
4Play represents a schism in comparison to the movies from the 1990s (Dankwa 2009:197) and it stands in fierce opposition to the movie “Bonsam Gue Mu”, which exhibits the space the movie industry creates in addressing taboos within the shared public space (Meyer 2004).
To summarise, the Ghanaians' views on homosexuality in Ghana are nuanced. There are strong segments within the Ghanaian community, that believe in harsh punishments for being or doing homosexuality. On the other hand, several informants argued that they would not expose a personal friend. The political elite does not display any interest in utilising the hostility on homosexuality for political gain unless they are forced by external agents such as the one of Prime Minister Cameron. The clergy does serve as a deterrent for politicians, on the other hand, primarily scholars come forth criticising the tone of the debate, where it is argued that the rights of homosexuals must be upheld. The politicians also seem to be less intimidated by the clergy when there is not an election in the horizon, which President Mahama's nominations of Mrs. Oye Lithur illustrates. The limited power of the clergy is also observed by the fact that the people decided to vote in favour of the NDC despite of the rumours of the Vice President's alleged homosexuality. It is unlikely that same-sex marriage will be legalised in the near future, but the possibility that Ghana removes section 104(1)b, which illegalises UCK with consent, is realistic depending on the verdict by the Supreme Court.
Ghana is not drifting toward Uganda, that is moving toward further criminalisation of homosexuality, but neither is Ghana moving toward South Africa where homosexuality represents a political and ideological shift from Apartheid to democracy. Ghana is taking a third road, where decriminalisation is done behind closed doors by means of the Supreme Court, and thereby the political elite can defuse possible smear campaigns from religious voices, which represent a threat in relation to be re-elected.
Conclusion
When Ghanaians describe homosexuality as imported, they adhere to a paradigm originating from Europe. Thereby Ghanaians internalise the belief that Europeans are the corrupted adults, whereas Africans are the innocent children, which is used in the articulation of an “authentic” Ghanaian culture. The focus on homosexuality in the general public is connected to the perceived corruption of the “big men”, who are accused of “eating” their money. Homosexuality is thereby used by Ghanaians to create a space for criticising the elite and the West, furthermore the youth creates a space which allows them to challenge the gerontocratic society. However, the critique also illustrates the perceived disempowerment shared by Ghanaians.
Despite the critique of homosexuality, the political elite does not display an interest in gaining political points by bringing the issue of homosexuality on the public agenda, which is observable by the silence of the NNP in relation to comment on the alleged homosexuality of the Vice President, and President Mahama's friendship to Mr. Solomon
Despite it is the rich elite that is subjected to criticism, it is the common MSM and WSW that are subjected to stigmatisation, violence and harassment, which have severe social implications. The anxiety also keeps them from seeking medical help, where CEPEHRG is one of the few places where MSM feel comfortable to go and get tested. The anxiety to seek medical help can have negative implications on the national fight against HIV/AIDS.
The debate on homosexuality in the media influences some Ghanaians, who begin to define themselves and others in relation to the homo/hetero binary. On the other hand, several Ghanaians still refrain from labelling themselves as homosexuals because the binary does not fit their reality.
Depending on the verdict of the Supreme Court, Ghana could decriminalise MSM on paper within the following years, but the hostility to homosexuality will continue to be present in the general public as long as what the people define as homosexuality is connected to the moral decay of the rich elite and corruption continues to be perceived as a serious problem linked to the distrust to the patronage system. Hence, it is expected to see a decline of hostility toward homosexuality when the level of the perceived corruption declines as well.
Mathias Søgaard
All Rights Reserved To The Author, Mathias Søgaard, Hence Any Reproduction Whatsoever Is Against The Law And Could Lead To Legal Consequences....
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Comments
curse upon curse comes to those who are involved in these practises