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.
The diaspora will have to be very careful how they approach this. The last thing you want is to come off as trying to push the cultural norms of the imperialist West onto a native population. That risks hardening opposition and increasing the backlash.
What should be done is to emphasize that homophobia and queerphobia are not inherently African, that traditional African culture actually was much more tolerant and matriarchal, and that these hetero-normative and patriarchal gender roles are actually a cultural imposition by colonizers.
In doing so you have to try and avoid using western symbols and terminology, and instead find ways to root your LGBT advocacy in traditional culture, using language which doesn’t come across as alien to the local culture but appeals their deeply rooted history and identity.
It’s quite a delicate dance that requires a deep understanding of the cultural sensibilities, and that is something that only the people who come from that culture can really do. The diaspora needs to partner with local groups that support the overall trajectory of the current government’s reforms but which can also recognize that a serious strategic mistake is being made here in this specific instance.