During the days of apartheid, Botswana provided a sanctuary for interracial couples from South Africa. These days, traffic goes in the opposite direction, because here in Botswana jail beckons if you are caught in a same-sex relationship. But South Africa is no haven. Although gay rights are enshrined in the South African constitution, on some streets, corrective rape is still believed to be a cure for lesbians – and some of those who have ‘come out’ have been savagely killed.
The debate that I am watching is on a South African television channel. The question to be answered is: ‘Is homosexuality unAfrican?’ Former President of Botswana Festus Mogae is on. It is recounted how the movement for LGBT rights was gaining momentum during the run-up to an election – although not as high on the agenda as poverty, education, health and security. The president’s concession was to instruct the police to desist from arresting people who were believed to be in a same-sex relationship: ‘I was not willing to lose the elections because of gays.’ He was lauded by some, castigated by others. But what it meant to the LGBT community was that staying out of jail rested on the whims and goodwill of whoever happened to be in power. Five years into the tenure of his successor, Ian Khama, it would seem that the status quo is being maintained. The police have not yet been unleashed on the LGBT community.
It is unlikely that a debate on homosexuality will take place on our state-run TV station soon. Botswana Television (BTv) is a pot from which stories about our citizens’ altruism are served: a philanthropist donated a brick house to someone who used to live in a falling-down shack; the president handed out 100,000 t-shirts and blankets. The recipients smile so widely we see missing wisdom teeth. And the crowd cheers. The government entourage puts up in luxury accommodation; it breaks at a small village to hear a woman attest to the success of the government’s backyard gardening project. She can now feed her family by growing cabbages, she says. Questions about water shortages are drowned out by the chorus of more cheers. The backyard gardening project is the stuff to win the 2014 elections. Clearly no-one will be willing to lose the elections because of gays.
For more politically incorrect news updates, I travel by kombi (mini-van) around Gaborone. This public transport network criss-crosses the capital and also reaches villages that lie on its borders.
At a stop, a young man in shorts, high-heels and a flouncy blouse boards the kombi. When he disembarks, those who remain make their disapproval known.
‘God will strike them down.’
‘This is unAfrican. It is against our culture.’
‘These are the things that stop it from raining.’
The conversation in the kombi heats up. An older man describes what men who love men do to each other – in colourful Setswana. It becomes a little warmer inside the kombi, a little uncomfortable. The man next to me fights to suppress laughter. A young woman says, so quietly that not everyone hears: ‘And you call yourself Christian?’ The discussion moves to the Bible and Christianity. Someone says they know a pastor who cures this disease that is homosexuality.
But there are also stories of men who have opted out of marriages to search for love with other men; there are women who have left their homes because they could no longer deny who they really were; and there are those who have simply chosen not to accept that they do not fit into our society’s rules. They have come out of the places to which we wish to confine them. There are places in Botswana where same-sex relationships thrive – unbound by the restrictions of ‘morality’. An MP wags his finger and says these people are today’s Sodom and Gomorrah.
On the pages of a privately owned newspaper, a young man tells the pain of being beaten up for being openly gay; a young woman speaks of her love for a woman and how they plan to go to South Africa to get married. The comments on the web pages where the stories appeared are venomous.
I wonder how long the conflict between gay and straight will be slugged out in words. It is not uncommon to hear: ‘Those people are better dead.’ No matter, it seems, that lesbians and gays are African. They are people of Botswana. Not likely to win anyone an election – yet.
