The trip of the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Senegal has paid off: the Senegalese president, Macky Sell, has promised to give his vote to Ottawa, to assign it a chair in the Security Council of the United Nation. During the press conference, there was one of the best atmosphere: handshakes, warm smiles, friendly jokes. Until someone asked about LGBTQIA rights (lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders, queers, intersexuals and asexuals) in a country in which “indecent or unnatural acts with a person of the same sex” are sentenced to 5 years in prison.
However, they both were well prepared. Trudeau reiterated his previous statement: he defends human rights and he briefly talked about the sexual minorities (wow, what a hero: after all, it doesn’t take much to remain the champion of the progressives all over the world). Whereas Sall’s speech was as vague as possible, as they say, run with the hare and hunt with the hounds: “Senegal is a constitutional state which respects human right, but the law prohibits public exhibition of relationships against nature. We cannot ask Senegal to legalize homosexuality or to organize a Gay Pride. This is impossible because our society cannot accept these things. Our society needs to develop itself, and it will, but it takes time”. In this way, both of them were certain of getting away with it.
Read also: Homophobia in Senegal, from Arrests to the “LGBT Qur’an”
Divergent interpretations
Trudeau, indeed, is widely approved and he is considered a hero due to his brave defence of human rights, although he is actually all (pink) hat and no cattle. On the contrary, Sall is accused to have given up on the fight against the “bad habit.” We report, for example, the claim of the Association Sénégalaise pour le Suivi et l’Assistance aux Malades Mentaux (Senegalese Association for the Treatment and the Support of Mentally Patients): “By declaring that these minorities do not need to worry in Senegal, President Macky Sall legalizes homosexuality officially. Only one thing left for him to do: leading our country toward that satanic world which some wants to impose to mankind.”
Other organizations have interpreted Macky Sall’s words to a diametrically opposed sense, by partially sharing the same conspiracy theory. For example, the Cadre Unitaire de l’Islam au Sénégal (Unitary Society of Islam in Senegal) “notices with satisfaction the coherence [of the president – editor’s note] in the claims about this important problem that is one of the basis of the resistance of our society against an uncontrolled globalization that tries to universalize both the Western family models and their world view.”
Press reactions
According to Baba Gallé Diallo, “homosexuals intend to take the political power.” The columnist forewarns “the overthrow of the world, the end of our family system. Worse: the end of our civilization. It is a social Big Bang that will make disappear all the values of the civilization, that humankind has been built for millennia.” He lines up with “the bravery of President Macky Sall” who stands up against the attempt “to bury our religious, cultural and social beliefs into the depth of homosexuality and marriage for everyone.” He concludes: “Our history will remember that Sall hasn’t given up and saved us from the introduction of an upside-down world, where our children will not recognize themselves.”
On the contrary, Gondiel Ka accuses the president of keeping hidden the legalization of homosexuality under the guise of gender equality. His article too is a heap of conspiracy thinking, but it is useful to read it (paying close attention): “Sub-Saharan Africa is a land of homicides, focused homicides, genocides, carnages, managers who are the worst murderers in our free world. Therefore it is a suffering and infernal land. Our managers still obey the orders of some Western people, who are bloodsuckers and vampires. They steal, sack and sequester through force of weapons the resources of Africans, who are poor, sick and terrified of powerful people. Africans are in the hands of cannibals, who drink the blood of their compatriots in misery.”
Read also: Homophobic States VS Gay-Friendly States: the Map
Fight coherence
Behind this, pessimistic and irrational speech arises a dark truth: the fight for the rights of sexual minorities will not have any reliability (on the contrary, it will stoke even more the scepticism of the population) as long as it will be continued by the same governments that accept and often encourage the violation of other human rights. The Western leader, who champions the LGBTQIA community, neglecting the rest of the population, contributing to the environmental devastation and causing problems to those of the LGBTQIA community who seek protection in his country, is just shooting a spot for his voters and contributes to the representation of sexual minorities as a foreign and hostile bodies.
A trustworthy defence policy of the LGBTQIA rights could exist only within a policy that defends the rights of all human beings. The intersectional point of view, in conclusion, allows to consider and respect all the aspects of an individual and it is the only point of view that can guarantee an efficient and reasonable worldwide action. Otherwise, this fight becomes only a poisoned charity used by the luckiest guys to strut about his useless pity for that indistinct mass of unfortunate people.
Pier Cesare Notaro
translated by Alessandra Desiderio
©2020 Il Grande Colibrì
images: elaborations from Steve Jurvetson (CC BY 2.0) / from Yoann Gauthier (CC BY-NC 2.0)
