Just as it is difficult to adequately summarize the vastness and diversity of West Africa as a geographic region, it is equally difficult to summarize the various forms of homophobia found there, which differs from country to country. However, it can be examined in relation to the region’s history and traditions, and how well countries have adapted to the changing mores and sexual practices of contemporary society.
The History of the Region
The history of West Africa includes powerful pre-colonial states such as the Ghanaian Empire (starting in the 4th century), the Yoruba States in Benin and Hausa (10th century), the Malian Empire (11th century), the Sosso Empire (12th century), the Ashanti kingdoms (13th century), the Songhai Empire (14th century), and the Sokoto Empire (19th century). These states that emerged, but in the Niger region and on the Atlantic coast or by Lake Chad, were halted in their succession and destroyed by colonization in the nineteenth century. What followed was a process of re-tribalization which, by administrative will, divided populations into ethnic groups. This explains the broad definition of what, in this region, is considered a tribe or ethnic group. For example, the Fulani are present in nine countries, including Cameroon and Chad; the Mandinka are found not only in Mali, but also in Guinea, Niger, Senegal, and Sierra Leone; the Hausa are in Libya, Chad, Niger, Cameroon and Nigeria; and the Yoruba are in Benin and Nigeria. Members of these ethnic groups number in the millions; they are further made up of subgroups, whose origins are composites of ancient alliances, pacts, or blood relations. Ethnicity in this region is thus often a construct whose origins are difficult to explain, and becomes a sort of convenient catch-all phrase used to justify historical precedence for particular beliefs or behaviors, all the while playing an important role in the construction of identity.
Historically, the creation of great empires in West Africa had the effect of mobilizing great armies, each exclusively male, with the exception of the Kingdom of Dahomey (now Benin) from the fifteenth to nineteenth centuries, where one found the famous Dahomey Amazons, an all-female military regiment. For the most part, these empires projected the image of a strong and dominant masculinity, which resulted in an important social stratification that first appeared among the Mandinka in the Empire of Mali in the form of castes, organized according to myths by the empire’s founder himself, Soundiata Keita. Accordingly, in the great chieftainships, certain powerful men could live with another man, who assumed the status of spouse or wife. To this day, in Yaoundé, Cameroon, there is evidence of homosexual relationships between man-wives and their customary husbands.
In fact, while homosexual relations are generally condemned, old traditions have sometimes created social conditions in which these relations can take place, as in Gagnoa in the Ivory Coast, where one finds the concept of male couple known as
woobi
/
yossi
(female/ male). Ferdinand is a young man, a
woobi
who performs the role of the wife in his relationship with a
yossi
. He states: “In my family, my homosexuality has never been a problem. My grandmother raised me as a little girl. It was no surprise to anyone that I was feminine. At the age of ten, I knew I was a
woobi
.” Moreover, he explains: “On the other side of the country, in the East, there is another tradition, the day of the Abissa. On that day, girls dress as boys and boys dress as girls. But most of all, each has the right to reveal his or her life to their family, who must accept it without reproach. It is the day when young
woobis
talk to their parents.” However, if local traditions allow a certain amount of flexibility in gender and sexuality, on the whole, stigmatization remains the general rule.
Animist Traditions
In West Africa, while religions of Semitic origin value masculinity above all, ancient myths represent divinities who are often twins (male and female) or hermaphrodites; and in agrarian societies, a good number of divinities are female, which makes it easy to find female priests, seers, healers, initiates, and members of secret sects. Traditions inherited from ancestors often include initiation rituals celebrating masculinity or femininity that conform to social group models, which include the act of male circumcision, a procedure which almost every man in the region has undergone to this day, and female circumcision, still present in countries such as Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and Senegal. In these ways, sexuality remains highly controlled by the social group, especially as pro-birth attitudes in the region are quite present, given the fact that child mortality remains high and life expectancy is between forty-seven and fifty-four years of age (and decreasing further since the beginning of the AIDS pandemic). In this context, any dialogue pertaining to sexuality is restricted to the issue of procreation; as a result, the discussion of homosexuality is silenced from the start.
In these ancient cultures, homosexual relationships find their structure, logic, and significance in the idea of duality, which permits the understanding of numerous aspects of sexuality of certain ethnic groups, including their life experience, made easier by the fact that they largely congregate in urban areas such as Yaoundé, Cameroon, or Lagos, Nigeria. The concept of duality also allows us to understand homosexuality on one side, and the stigmatization it causes on the other. It gives it a mythological coherence. Anthropological literature on witchcraft suggests the plurality of the human individual, in which all of us possess a double who is invisible and immaterial. It is this double who participates in encounters between sorcerers, and it is through the double that occult cannibalism occurs (the sorcerers’ doubles eat their victims’ doubles, and then continue to live). As well, what happens to one’s double has repercussions on the person’s material half. Among the Fulani, as in a number of other African ethnic groups, sleep is the moment when the soul, the immaterial double, leaves the body, escaping the laws of space and time. It is at that moment that sorcerers can attack and annihilate it.
This fundamental concept is important when studying the entire field of sexuality in West Africa, even among those many who insist they no longer believe in it. It allows us to understand local representations of sexuality, including homosexuality, erotic dreams and fantasies, and also allows a deeper understanding of the dual notions of sex and gender, and masculinity and femininity. According to this concept, human beings possess two sexes, one that is apparent and another invisible, that falls within the realm of the double; they can be similar to one another, or different; they can be equal in size, or not. One can have power over one’s double and act through it, or not; according to tradition, this is what distinguishes sorcerers from others. When one has this power, one can act against others through their double: they can be attacked, take away someone’s strength, strike someone with illness, or devour someone; they can even force someone into a sexual act. Given that sleep is when one’s double is most vulnerable, these acts occur during a person’s dream state. Sorcery or witchcraft is thus a universe of doubles, where certain individuals are conscious, can see, and have power over others, who have no consciousness and are blind and inert.
Men usually have a masculine double, but it may also be the case that their double is feminine. Moreover, there are women whose double is masculine. This fact is important in determining one’s sexual orientation. According to legend, it is the work of sorcerers who can control one’s double, often taking on the appearance of an individual in order to mislead those who could discover their activities. It is also thought that sorcerers seize the penis of a sleeping man and use it as a whistle or horn in order to send messages to other sorcerers. In the same manner, some women whose double is feminine can take the genital organs of a man in their circle and use them during relations with other women without the man, the husband for example, ever knowing. This form of castration manifests itself in the visible world by the man’s timorous character, especially his timidity before the castrator (the woman). Thus, neither masculinity nor femininity are stable constructs; a woman can hide an invisible male sexual organ or transform her feminine double into a masculine one in a form of fantastical transsexuality.
Under these conditions, the idea of responsibility is, of course, unfounded. On one hand, the double can act while one sleeps. On another, a stranger or spirit can take over another body. This leads to a notion of transferal of responsibility, which can offer an explanation for illness or failure. We may not succeed because of the will of another who has a hold over us. With regard to sexuality, this idea is also used to explained infertility, particularly given a culture that holds both procreation and the worship of its ancestors in such high regard. How can one become an ancestor oneself if one does not procreate? Sterility is considered a woman’s greatest failure: in such cases, the husband is permitted to take another wife, maintain concubines, or even renounce the woman who does not bear him any children. Infertility can also be attributed to erotic dreams with a homosexual theme.
Moreover, according to these beliefs, certain individuals know how to manipulate this energy to their own advantage. Thus, it is believed that homosexual men seeking sexual services characteristically have a certain portliness about them, apparently due to the semen absorbed from their partners. Alternatively, a heterosexual man who engages in sexual relations with a homosexual runs the risk of losing weight, his energy being sucked out by his partners. Homosexuality is thus an activity by which men’s doubles (whether masculine or feminine) attack others’ doubles in order to feed off their vital energy.
This helps us to understand why homosexuality is so feared in these cultures. Going against the norm, the homosexual is therefore stigmatized. It is linked to the world of sorcery or witchcraft, that is to say, violence. In this world, the homosexual possesses a feminine double; he is a woman in one dimension and a man in the other. This is why he manifests a sexual attraction to a gender that is identical to his own in the visible world. Homosexuality is thus “rationalized” as being a heterosexuality of doubles. It is said that during intimacy, homosexuals assume their feminine form and have normal relations. This so-called “rationalization” reveals how difficult it is in this culture to understand how someone can be attracted to one’s own gender. According to this interpretation, there can only be sexual relations between opposite genders. Because of homosexuality’s historical link to sorcery, it is considered an aberration and thus a crime.
In this light, homosexuality is automatically condemned without consideration of other views. Associated with witchcraft, it is considered a great sexual perversion, an act against nature. To this day, many young people in West Africa insist that they are incapable of submitting to such perversions, even for large sums of money.
Islam and Christianity
Islam and Christianity are not truly opposed to traditional cults, from which they borrow and recycle back to them. In West Africa, the invocation of the precepts of Islam or Christianity to denounce homosexuality is constant. According to Christianity, homosexual relations constitute a sin and even an abomination, and according to Islam, in those areas where
sharia
is applied, sodomy can be punishable by death.
Even though it is often fused with animist beliefs, the view expressed by Christians in the region is meant to be highly orthodox; they refer to the church’s most absolute homophobic tradition. In this sense, African Christianity is often harsher, more dogmatic, and more violent than the views ordinarily expressed in, say, Western Europe, where many Christians long ago learned to temper their words and adjust their rhetoric in societies that are not disposed to having a fundamentalist diktat imposed upon them. By comparison, in West Africa, religious views generally resonate better with the populace. Consequently, West African Christians do not hesitate to express more radical views with regard to morality, in general, and homosexuality, in particular. As an example, Father Jean Ndjewel, Catholic priest of St Stephen’s Congregation in Yaoundé, published an online document in which he affirms:
Homosexuality is sodomy, an abomination, an active manifestation of Satan.… The works of Satan are the opposite of all that which is of divine creation. They are tainted with irregularity, cheating, and abomination. The Church in its sanctifying function must, by way of its sacraments, bring perpetual salvation to those lamentable individuals, that is to say the infirm, the sick, and those assaulted by the devil.… The exorcisms that are the powerful prayers of the Church and are appropriate to root out impure spirits from the bodies of human beings are, therefore, fitting solutions for the eradication of the homosexual phenomenon.
As far as Islam is concerned,
imams
(spiritual leaders) sometimes advocate the death penalty for homosexuals, in accordance with
sharia
. The power and influence these leaders hold over the faithful embolden these views. However, while homosexuality is widely condemned, Islamic tradition also demands the separation of the sexes, which leads to the formation of same-sex groups who are always together and who have little access to those of the opposite sex. Paradoxically, homosexual relationships tend to develop under such conditions, even if they remain discreet, including in such deeply Islamic cities as Bamako (Mali), Conakry (Guinea), Freetown (Liberia), and Niamey (Niger).
New Contours of Homophobia Today
Today, homosexuality remains highly stigmatized in all countries of West Africa. The existence of a dual judicial system that in one area is based on tribal custom and in another on law makes legal recourse random at best. In November 2002, the Archbishop of Freetown publicly accused the government of being responsible for the murder of five nuns during the turmoil that swept the country. Reacting angrily to this accusation, the Prime Minister accused the prelate of homosexuality, which according to this logic, was considered a worse crime than the murder of five people. For his part, Mathias Ble, a teacher in the Ivory Coast, suggested in a 2001 document that his country’s government should open “social and moral rehabilitation establishments, [in order] to reform our brothers and sisters … versed or advanced on this road of savage, sexual violence.”