MURDER AND GAY HATE IN SWAZILAND

The following is an extract from the sexgenderbody website about the murder of Swazi woman Pitseng Vilakati who was vilified by the Swaziland press after she announced that she and her lesbian partner Thuli Rudd were to marry each other. Thui Rudd was arrested late December 2009 and charged with the murder of Vilakati.

‘Since August 2009 when Rudd went public with her engagement to the late Pitseng Vilakati, they have been in the spotlight with many people in Swaziland condemning their relationship. They have been under extraordinary pressure and both women demonstrated incredible courage in the face of this pressure.

‘Whilst in South Africa, Thulani had met with activists and discussed the endless violations of her and her partner’s human right to dignity, freedom and equality throughout 2009. There had been major media coverage of their relationship with numerous distortions and misrepresentations as well as a massive public reaction which was largely hostile, insulting and deeply disrespectful.

‘Monica Mbaru of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission in Africa expressed concern that Thulani is being tried and convicted by the media and the public before the investigation has been completed and that a strong possibility of this being a hate crime by homophobic persons may be ignored in the haste to prove Thulani guilty and further feed into the already high levels of homophobia.

‘Fikile Vilakazi of the Coalition of African Lesbians, a pan African network of over 20 member organizations of lesbian women and transgender people in 13 countries across Africa, expressed concern about the levels of homophobia in Swaziland and elsewhere on the continent and appealed to all fair-minded and freedom loving people in Swaziland to continue to resist and challenge all forms of discrimination, including that based on homophobia in this country.

‘The Coalition of African Lesbians also extends its condolences to the family of the late Pitseng Vilakati. We remember Pitseng Vilakati as a powerful activist for human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people as well as of people living with HIV and AIDS. She was a leader and showed enormous courage in a context of the hostility and discrimination against people in same sex relationships in Swaziland.’

To read the full article click here.

SWAZI LESBIANS AND HUMAN RIGHTS

It is a pity that my prediction that there would be more fireworks over the news that two lesbian Swazi women are to marry each other has come true.

The Times Sunday originally broke the news after it said a reporter and photographer had hidden in a restaurant where the two woman made the announcement of their wedding to friends.

Now, the Times Sunday has further invaded the privacy and human rights of the couple by publishing an ugly personal attack on one of them - even by the standards of the Swazi media which delights in making personal attacks on people and on revealing matters about them that are no business of readers and viewers.

The Times Sunday revealed the personal family circumstances of one of the lesbian women and unsurprisingly allowed people to attack the lesbian couple for their supposed sickness and ungodliness.

The Times Sunday did not offer the lesbian couple an opportunity to respond thereby fanning the flames of homophobia in what is already a very delicate situation. The paper also revealed where one of the couple works and the place where she lives – an open invitation for readers to go sort her out.

Martin Dlamini, the Times of Swaziland Managing Editor has also entered the argument, but he was more sympathetic. Writing in his own newspaper yesterday (11 September 2009) he reminded readers that there were probably many gays and lesbians in Swaziland.

‘We can bury our heads in the sand and pretend it is not a social issue that needs to be debated but the truth is, many of us could soon emerge from the closet and the reality will hit us like a tsunami, so we had better be prepared for it.’

I think Dlamini was probably trying to be fair minded over the issue of homosexuality and he questioned whether there is really anything in the Bible ‘that bans gays and lesbians’.

He cited an article he had read on the subject that was sympathetic to gays which read in part, ‘There is nothing in the Bible, in the original languages and context, against being gay, but many people do not want to accept this fact.’

I’m not sure if this is the article he was referring to but for a ‘gay friendly’ reading of the Bible click here.

Although I think Dlamini is probably sympathetic to gays and lesbians, he misses a vital point in his editorial: Christians can discuss what the Bible means as much as they like but unless you are a Christian it doesn’t matter what the Good Book says (about homosexuality or anything else for that matter).

Christians are perfectly entitled to their views but what they believe should not count for more than any other person’s view. No nation should make public policy based only on what one section of the population believes.

Whether gays and lesbians should have equality under the law and be allowed to marry is a human rights issue. The South Africans recognised this when they wrote their post-Apartheid constitution.

They saw that you could not have a society that gave rights to people regardless of the colour of their skin, or the religion they practiced, or their wealth etc. and then say ‘no rights for gays and lesbians’. To discriminate in this way is illogical. In a decent society we all have rights or none of us do.

That’s why the South Africans deliberately introduced rights for people regardless of their ‘sexual orientation’ into the constitution’s Bill of Rights.

Swaziland is a very long way behind its neighbour on this issue. Even as the Swazi media was drooling over the lesbians, the Anglican Church of Southern Africa announced that gays and lesbians will be allowed to become leaders in the church, the first time homosexual clergy have been publicly recognized by an Anglican province in the African continent.

If some of the comments that were left on the Times’ website attacking Dlamini’s editorial are anything to go by he (and we) haven’t heard the last of the lesbians..

If you want to learn more about gays, lesbians and human rights click here to go to the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission website.