Miss Colombia

"I am an artist because I design smiles on the faces of other human beings"

We saw Miss Colombia at the entrance to the gay beach last Saturday. She was standing in the narrow path between the beautiful but dilapidated coastal station, and the overgrown baseball diamond. In order to get there, you have to edge past one of those waist-height metal barriers the police put up when they want to control people on the street. The barrier has a no-entry sign on it. One gay, or maybe two, at the beginning of this summer, or maybe during the last, shifted the barrier just enough to let people through, but not enough to make the sign itself seem disused. It still seems to be there on purpose. Miss Colombia introduced herself and gave us a twirl and then introduced us to her bird, perched cheekily in her rainbow hair. She had many things with her, and seemed like she was going somewhere important.

Umtheto ka Sokisi: the original gaymarriage

Gold miners, Johannesburg, South Africa, photo by Margaret Bourke Smith
stolen from here.

Many people think that the idea of gay-marriage or gay relationships is new in my part of the world (Southern Africa). The truth is, though, that there is a long history of same-sex relationships that precedes today's 'modern' (sometimes heavily Western-inspired) gay identities. Not only does this history help to shake the idea that African sexuality is and has always been strictly heterosexual, it also "contribute[s] to our understanding of how cultural change around intimate personal life occurs in relation to the global political economy". In other words, we are reminded that our intimate and sexual lives are not fixed through time. As our economic and political circumstances change, so too does the way we organize our intimacy and sexuality. Mine marriages are a great example of just how quickly and dramatically our intimate lives can adapt to our circumstances.

In the late 1800s gold had just been discovered on the Witwatersrand and Diamonds had been discovered in Kimberley. Big players in diamond mining such as De Beers emerged and implemented the closed-compound system to control their labourers - effectively imprisoning miners for the duration of their contracts and consequently keeping them away from women. Though on the Witwatersrand, men were allowed to move freely in and out of gold mines, police and native administrators kept women and children away from the growing settlements around the mines. (In 1896, for instance, there were 90 known Tsonga women in the Johannesburg area, compared to about 30,000 Tsonga men.) Beyond that, migrant miners on the Witwatersrand were fearful of venereal disease (particularly syphilis) from town women, and violence from gangs of local men. So, having only limited access to women because of their circumstances (and also their fears), miners looked towards other men for intimacy and sex.

"The practice of taking boys or youth as temporary wives quickly became the norm, or at least unremarkable in this context. But people often like to put a name and a face to big changes to help understand them better. And so it is that oral history refers to one man in particular who popularised the practice - Sokisi or Ishe (Lord) Socks. Sokisi was a Tsonga migrant working at a Brakpan mine in the early 1890s. He so preferred izinkotshane [boy-wives] that a new exprssion entered the language in his honour. Umteto ka Sokisi, meaning 'Sokisi rules' or 'the rules of mine marriage', was a code of conduct that defined the precise kinds of behaviour that were allowed between males in a sexual relationship in the mine hostels. They prohibited anal penetration, for example, in favour of between-the-thighs sex. As in male-female hlobonga [thigh-sex], the rules stated that the inkotshane had to remain passive and could not reciprocate the sex act; in other words, only the husband could enjoy and orgasm. The wife, sometimes called nsati (which literally meant woman or wife) or umfaan (young boy), also performed other feminine duties such as cooking and fetching water and firewood. Over time, the males who filled this role even became feminised in appearance, for example, by adopting feminine dress, wearing false breasts made of coconut shells, putting on scent and keeping well shaven."

The mine marriages were similar to 'traditional' marriage in various ways besides the obviously gendered allocation of sexual and domestic roles. A lobola-like payment was often delivered to the wife's family before the marriage. Men would court potential wives and these potential wives would, for the most part, enter willingly into a mine-marriage. "Dances, feasts and wedding processions added to the sense of fun that was otherwise so lacking in the bleak environment of the industrial compounds."

So there it is - gaymarriage began not in Cape Town, but Brakpan, and not with some debonairly Dutch seamen, but our very own tantalizingly Tsonga Sokisi. Sokisi was so bitchin' that when his king, Gungunyana, ordered his return to Mozambique in order to punish him for his infamy, Sokisi decided instead to rename his principal inkotshane Sonile, after Gungunyana's principal wife.


Written from Epprecht, M. 2008. Unspoken Facts: a history of homosexualities in Africa. Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ)

Happiness

Zinzi and Tozama II - Zanele Muholi 2010

This Valentines morning in Uganda, Fr Simon Lokodo, minister of Ethics and Integrity tried to bully a group of activists into silence. The activists were holding a capacity-building workshop at a hotel - likely speaking about kill-the-gays-bill. The Catholic priest accused the activists of "recruiting children into the gay life" (spot the irony). Some articles report that one of the participants was arrested and released, and others say that everyone managed to leave the hotel safely.

I have only deep respect for Kasha and Frank and all those who take great risks to work towards the happiness of people.

I return to my own work towards happiness: one power-point slide at a time, one email, one conversation, one citation... Now you get to yours.

A resolution adopted by the United Nations General Assembly - August 2011
65/309. Happiness: towards a holistic approach to development

The General Assembly,

Bearing in mind the purposes and principles of the United Nations, as set forth in the Charter of the United Nations, which include the promotion of the economic advancement and social progress of all peoples,

Conscious that the pursuit of happiness is a fundamental human goal,

Cognizant that happiness as a universal goal and aspiration embodies the spirit of the Millennium Development Goals,

Recognizing that the gross domestic product indicator by nature was not designed to and does not adequately reflect the happiness and well-being of people in a country,

Conscious that unsustainable patterns of production and consumption can impede sustainable development, and recognizing the need for a more inclusive, equitable and balanced approach to economic growth that promotes sustainable development, poverty eradication, happiness and well-being of all peoples,

Acknowledging the need to promote sustainable development and achieve the Millennium Development Goals,

1. Invites Member States to pursue the elaboration of additional measures that better capture the importance of the pursuit of happiness and well-being in development with a view to guiding their public policies.

2. Invites those Member States that have taken initiatives to develop new indicators, and other initiatives, t o share information thereon with the Secretary-General as a contribution to the United Nations development agenda, including the Millennium Development Goals;

3. Welcomes the offer of Bhutan to convene during the sixty-sixth session of the General Assembly a panel discussion on the theme of happiness and well-being;

4. Invites the Secretary-General to seek the views of Member States and relevant regional and international organizations on the pursuit of happiness and well-being and to communicate such views to the General Assembly at its sixty-seventh session for further consideration

'69

Boys getting down like its 1966 (pic stolen from here)

Immorality Amendment Act of 1969

3. The following section is hereby inserted in the principal Act after section 20:
“Acts committed between men at a party and which are calculated to stimulate sexual passion or to give sexual gratification, prohibited.  

20A. (1) A male person who commits with another male person at a party an act which is calculated to stimulate sexual passion or to give sexual gratification, shall be guilty of an offence.
(2) For the purposes of subsection (1) ‘a party’ means any occasion where more than two persons are present.(3) The provisions of subsection (1) do not derogate from the common law, any other provision of this Act or a provision of any other law.”.

In the same year as the Stonewall Riots in New York City, the South African Immorality Act of 1957 which infamously criminalized sex across colour lines, was amended to curtail gay people's freedom to assemble. This was the result of a moral panic that was sparked by a party in a suburb of  Johannesburg.

The Forest Town raid of January 1966

"Police had heard that a party for gay men was being planned in a quiet suburb of Johannesburg. Undercover agents posing as guests infiltrated the party where they were stunned to find more than 300 mostly white men dancing, kissing and cuddling each other. They called in a raid and made arrests. The scandal made headline news and sparked further undercover operations to find and round up suspected homosexual networks." 

"The Minister of Justice, P.C. Pelser, went so far as to warn parliament that the survival of the nation was at stake. Referring to the ghosts of ancient Rome and Sparta, he thundered: 'Formerly glorious civilizations are lying in the dust and South Africa should beware of a similar fate.  The canker of Sodom has to be sliced out before it ruins the moral fibre of the nation.'

"In 1967, Pelser submitted a proposal to parliament that would give policy sweeping new powers to crack down on homosexuals.  A Select Committee on the Immorality Amendment Bill was then formed to study the issue and make recommendations. For over four months, the Committee heard conflicting evidence from a range of experts about the nature and extent of the homosexual threat. On the basis of these, it finally concluded that the state did indeed need greater ability to repress what it called 'immoral, indecent or unnatural acts'."*

Such is the power of our dancing, kissing and cuddling. 

*Epprecht, M. 2008. Unspoken Facts: a history of homosexualities in Africa. Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ)

(I didn't change Epprecht's wording, but cut some sentences out)

#CapetownIsRacist

I indulged a guilty pleasure last night, by lazily hopping onto the twitter trend #CapeTownIsRacist. It was two guilty pleasures actually - one is talking about race, and the other is getting into an online barney. Doing either of these is almost always a waste of time, doing both together is a always certainly a painful waste of time.

I don't know how it started (I don't know how to go to the beginning of a twitter-trend, can someone young and hip tell me? #25yearsOLDnow). Times Live claims it was Lindiwe Suttle who tweeted "No matter how famous/rich you are, you're still a 2nd class citizen if you're Black in Cape Town. @helenzille when's the change you spoke about happening". Ms. Zille, of course, dismissed this as a baseless assertion, as did her subjects. Enough people tweeted #CapeTownIsRacist, though, to make it the number-one trending hash-tag yesterday - either denying or affirming, or being very conspicuously disinterested in the whole thing.

My plan for this post was to carry out a sort of proof-by-humiliation, where I enumerate the countless small indignities I have encountered in Cape Town. Things like the bill folder going to the white side of the table, or the security guard who follows you if you are brown and in a retail store, or the time I was told that I am not gay enough to be admitted into a gay bar in Greenpoint. I was even going to recount the time I was accused of stealing bubble gum! (truthfully though, this last incident happened in another city). This is not a great strategy though, I risk being labelled a #ProfessionalBlack by my #ProfessionallyRaceBlindLiberal compatriots.

And too much is required of me: Not only do I have to endure indignity, I also have to chew it up into b(wh)ite-sized pieces for you to understand. I understand it just fine.

I remembered a very painful email exchange with a (then) close friend who proudly identifies as an "old-school liberal". It was about his hilarious (to him, and his other friends) impression of the Cape-Coloured. They way it goes, is to say "jou ma se poes" in the most nasal white-boy-sounding-coloured accent you can muster. I spent many precious words and minutes trying to explain the role of his white privilege in this ugly caricature of a diverse group of people, trying to explain that the fact that he's one-eighth coloured does not exonerate him when he is so very apparently white, trying to explain that his view of coloured people was frighteningly narrow. He was proudly non-racist, of course, so you can imagine how long it took for the explanation to take.


But Explaining over, and over, and over is its own kind of torture.

I don't think the #CapeTownIsRacist tag will achieve much. You cannot say anything in 120 characters - you can only shout a little. Clearly, the intended audience of these shouts cannot, or will not hear. (Now trending: #CapeTownIsAwesome).  At least, though, those of us for whom #CapeTownIsRacist resonates with a dull pain we have yet to articulate will know that we are not each imagining things.

Birthday ramble

I am a quarter of a century old. Yesterday I pulled out a lone nose hair poking out my left nostril. My newest preoccupation is my 8-month belly - an inheritance from my otherwise skinny dad, and beer I suppose. His hair only started running away in his 50s - no silver yet.  My mom still has a full head of jet-black hair, dread-locked into a crown. They are both hypertensive, but neither diabetic. My grandma would take insulin shots. Actually, I am not sure that they don't dye their hair. They are sneaky. Both of them wear glasses, and my younger sister does as well now. She is 21.

Are my nipples lower? What is this fold of skin when I bend to the side in the shower? I run now; twice a week. 3 miles, 30 minutes. I tried to cut carbs out last week - had salad for supper two nights in a row. Life seems too short to eat salad. I will switch from beer and to that turpentine-vodka they serve at No Parking. Right now I am having rice and beans because that is what is in my fridge.

My little sister is graduating from UCT today. I am extremely proud of her. I stayed at her apartment when I visited home. Judging by the contents of her fridge, she is more of a grown up than I will be for a while. Fridges dont lie.  She is also my friend. (When did that happen I wonder? Who knows.)

I guess it being christmas and all, I should reflect or whatever. I don't want to too much, I don't want to jinx things. I am on a winning streak that began on 1 Jan 2007 a little after midnight, after some heavy drinking, when I told my friend Iain that I am gay. He listened and bought me lots of chicken. Real friends buy you chicken (or Tofu or whatever) and they listen. And they hang around. Friends have helped me to gain sanity and to grow.

I am going to work tomorrow, in an organization that helps people all over the world to realize their human rights. Particularly, I'm working in the section that helps people who are gay or lesbian or transgendered.  People who may or may not be recognized as worthy of dignity by their own family members. Some who may not be deemed worthy of their own lives.

I have met some people, this year, who work "on the ground" in spaces like that. They do amazing things. Despite. Gay people always seem to do amazing things, Despite.

Anyways, I am excited to go to work tomorrow, and about the next quarter-century. Maybe over the next two months, I will do one thing that will make one person's life a little easier in a small way. Who knows? It is exciting.

Yours,
Tata Keletso

Things that I am thankful for

(in no particular order)

• living in a strange city with strange people
• no parking bar
• a scholarship
• ken "kennedy" nadolski's drunk voice message from last wednesday
• josephine karianjahi's jokes
• pedro "slut" carneiro's sassy sex column-like advice 
• daniel lyons's 'tude
• my family's ability to laugh at anything
• my research supervisor's openness
• facebook
• the ability to go to (almost) any country for $2.25
• the diaspora (you know who you are) for bringing home here
• people who hold the door open or say thanks when you do, help people with strollers, give up seats for elderly people, or in some other small way make this crazy city more livable for other people.
• the 24-hour $3.50 falafel guy on 168th and Fort Washington