By Dr Alfred B Cudjoe

Professor Edward Kissi’s recent open letter to President Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea published under the above heading will go on record as yet another unsuccessful attempt by gay activists and their sympathisers to convince Africans that the practice is good and therefore needs to be promoted on the continent. Apart from the fact that the USA based professor’s entire argument lacks substance, his attempt to link Africans’ attitude towards homosexual practice to genocide is misplaced, to put it simply. In truth, it is scare mongering.

The use of the words “bashing” and “genocide” is a subtle way of creating the false impression that homosexuals are all of a sudden facing the type of situation which led to the civil war that claimed thousands of lives in Rwanda and Burundi. It is not known if by bashing the professor means to physically attack or to severely criticise. Either way one wonders how that can cause genocide as he is claiming. We all know the specific meaning of the word genocide, coined by the Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin to describe Nazi policies of systematic murder, especially the destruction of the European Jews. What makes the word very specific is that it has been formed through the combination of the Greek word geno-, meaning race or tribe, with the Latin word -cide, meaning to kill. At least homosexuals do not constitute a race or tribe.

It is obvious from the article that the writer’s approach to the gay debate may be different from what has been heard over the years but in the end it amounts to the same thing – unconvincing and twisted. Many of those who unsuccessfully try to implicate Jesus Christ in the debate say if He were around today he would not condemn homosexuals but rather show them compassion and love. What makes such reasoning a fallacy is that Jesus Christ’s teaching has always sought to encourage sinners to repent. “Go and sin no more” has always been the key expression, not “Go and continue to sin”. For his part, Prof Kissi, the genocide expert, makes contemptuous reference to the Christian religion and questions why it is being used to condemn homosexual practice. What he is ignoring is that religion plays an important role in the life of many Africans and in Ghana many people are Christians. Even in the case of Islam, nobody dares talk of gay practice. A similar thing can be said about African traditional religions.

Prof Kissi even goes on to claim that the same Bible was quoted in the past to “demonize black Africans”. The text used for that purpose, according to him, is Genesis 9: 20-27, according to which Noah is said to have cursed Ham for jeering at his father’s nakedness. Readers of the Prof’s open letter find it difficult to associate that curse with skin colour and how it could have been used as a basis for demonizing black Africans. On the other hand, the Bible’s condemnation of the practice of a man having sexual relationship with another man is explicit. Why Prof Kissi tries to link these unrelated scenarios is difficult to understand. It is even more difficult to fathom how historical events like the Holocaust and the professor’s presentations on them fit into the debate he is generating. If anything the same Europeans who provoked those crimes, including colonialism and apartheid, are again the ones who are creating unnecessary panic about homosexual practice.

Professor Edward Kissi, as he presents himself in the open letter, is a Ghanaian who is a professor in the USA and though he is a homosexual, he is a husband and father of two children. He is silent, though, on the questions that this contradiction raises. A surrogate mother or mothers for the children…? Is that what he is recommending for Africans? He claims that being a homosexual is a natural development in a person’s life, explaining that as a person grows up into adulthood he or she develops a natural attraction to people of the same sex as them. The problem with this analysis and the conclusion drawn from it is that it is arbitrary. One of the reasons being that by extension, a person can grow up to have a natural attraction to their sister, brother, mother or father, leading to incest, or naturally not feel like working but develop interest in other people’s properties and becoming a thief, and so on and so forth.

Every society has laws, ethics, cultural norms, taboos, etc. to guide people in their development. These constitute regulations within which a person has to develop and as a person grows, natural feelings that go contrary to the society’s laws and regulations are discouraged before they take root. The family, schools, associations and others play an important role in making sure that citizens of a particular society adhere to these rules and regulations. In the particular case of homosexuality, it has always been discouraged in many African countries, including Ghana, without any resort to violence. If the situation is changing today, it is because of the open promotion of the practice backed by intimidation from some Western countries.

It needs to be explained that in Ghana and other African countries, homosexual practice, just like incest and similar practices, are considered as taboos and unethical and people are discouraged from indulging in them right from their childhood. Prof Kissi’s claim that Africans assume that homosexuality was introduced by Europeans to Africa is one of the ways he is trying to twist facts. The practices, like incest, rape, and unprincipled womanising, have been in every community from time immemorial and they have always been shunned upon. Where they involved criminality, they are dealt with by the law. If two men, for example, decide to have a sexual relationship secretly that is their problem. What Europeans are doing to provoke Africans is that they want the practice to be officially sanctioned just because they have done so.

Perhaps Prof Kissi would be doing himself some service if he could look beyond his area of specialisation – genocide studies. He would then come to realise the important role the family plays in an individual’s development. The ideal situation is that a person is born into a family and by this I mean by a man and a woman, and he or she is brought up by their parents who also operate within the laws, regulations, norms, culture, etc. of the society. All these differ from society to society although some are fundamental to all. This is one of the reasons why Europeans cannot impose on Africans controversial norms and regulations that they have made for their society.

Pioneer African scholars and writers like Chinua Achebe of blessed memory led a cultural revolution that sought to tell Europeans that Africans also have their own culture and tradition which they (Europeans) should respect. Yes, Europeans have colonised us, and we have accepted some good things that colonialism has bequeathed to us, but we are free to reject what we feel is not good for us. Through colonialism Africans have inherited the English language, for example, which is a language of power and international medium of communication. However, Achebe recommends that we use the language in such an innovative way that it can convey our African experience. Similarly, Africans go to Europe and return home with all kinds of things – flashy cars, modern household appliances, sophisticated clothes, etc. – but they would look awkward in the African context if they start kissing each other in public or engage in similar practices that Europeans are found of but which Africans frown upon. These are basic things that one would not have expected the learned professor to ignore under the pretext of not knowing what African cultural practices are.

What Prof Kissi is trying to tell Africans through his open letter to President Mbasogo is that the “civilized world” has accepted gay practice and that those who do not, in Africa, would be considered as uncivilized. He has woefully missed the point. One wonders whether he has forgotten what our former Head of State, the late Prof Atta Mills, said when he was called upon to declare his stand on the issue: as a responsible leader he would ensure that gay marriages were never legalised in Ghana and on the African continent as a whole. Another former Head of State, Mr John Agyekum Kufuor, also made similar remarks about the practice. Indeed African scholars, if they are to be of any use to their land of birth, would need to adapt the Western knowledge they acquire to African needs. The European system is an imperialist one and Africans have to be careful in applying it. The best way to use that system is to remould it into new usages that will fit into the African context.

It is a tragedy for some scholars to become so intoxicated with European values and practices and contradicting those of their countries of origin. As a Malian proverb says, you can put a piece of wood in water as long as you want but it will never turn into a crocodile. No matter how long they live among Europeans they can never be Europeans. This is why they do not have to use their left hands to point to Africa. People like Professor Kissi need to be selective in what they accept from Europeans in order not to alienate themselves from their countries of origin. Prof Kissi does not need to introduce himself to African heads of state that he is a Ghanaian. His actions would rather speak for him. Also African intellectuals would not be doing themselves any good by forming a lobbyist group to pressurise African leaders into promoting controversial lifestyles like homosexuality, using European media and governments as their proxy.

This discussion would not be complete without a word about the problems that Prof Kissi mentioned as the pressing ones facing Africans, namely bad governments, corruption, unemployment, poor sanitation, poor roads, hunger, malaria, etc. It is said that anyone who points his one finger at someone else should know that all the other fingers are pointing at themselves. It is easy to mention those problems and blame other people for them but Africans would have been better off if intellectuals do not condone the practices that cause those problems.