Junta-run Burkina Faso has passed a law banning homosexuality and instituting punishments of up to five years in jail, the latest in a clutch of African nations to pass anti-gay legislation.
“The law provides for a prison sentence of between two and five years as well as fines,” Justice Minister Edasso Rodrigue Bayala said on national broadcaster RTB.
“If a person is a perpetrator of homosexual or similar practices, all the bizarre behaviour, they will go before the judge,” he said, adding that foreign nationals would be deported under the law.
When a society is subject to imperialism, it is unable to resolve precolonial contradictions (ie patriarchal formations). Beliefs and practices discarded by European societies unfettered by imperialism are still present for this reason. Furthermore, colonized societies will desperately hold onto every aspect of the old society in order to resist the repression and erasure of colonialism. This unfortunately results in “backwards” practices resurging. While this incredibly harmful policy must be criticized, it cannot be grounds to dismiss the burkinabe project because traore’s junta fights the very system that impedes the progression of burkinabe society.
Indeed, this is an unfortunate decision that’s not unsurprising, and a common theme within the broader history of decolonial national liberation movements. In particular, the move could stem from conflation of homosexuality with Western influence, which they are trying to wholly eradicate. Interestingly, some of the articles note that enforcement of this is intended to lead to deportation of foreigners, so there’s likely a political pretext behind the decision as well.
Yeah I do believe in most seemingly reactionary countries, by virtue of holding onto incidental racist, homophobic or reactionary beliefs due to leftover super-structures and colonialism, it is still usually better and more ripe for change than outwith in Liberal societies where the political system is setup for cruelty at a base level and exports that to other countries.
i’m not familiar with precolonial burkina faso, did they have this bigotry? sometimes the homophobia is brought by the christian colonizers and wasn’t present prior.
I can’t speak to Burkinese culture but I read a paper on LGBTQ history in pre-colonial Africa in general a while back and a lot of groups there had long histories of openly queer people being part of the community, gender fluidity being widely accepted, and IIRC many gender based pronouns.
That’s a good point. I’m purely making speculations based of off generalities.