quote:Originally posted by alTakruri: For whatever reason some East African warrior age men practiced it in war time when away from home to keep off the enemy women. There were instances from other African societies where military reasons had nothing to do with the practice. And I don't mean in just North Africa where in Siwa man-boy marriage was outlawed in the last century
quote:Originally posted by xyyman: Look who answered the call. As I said it is un-African. It NEVER got transferred to the new world Africans. So it is not within OUR customs. I am not sure who you are but the bros from the West/South NEVER accepted it.
alTakruri seems to be right. Some African societies might have had taboos against homosexuality but Mugabe is just repeating things slave masters and colonialists have drummed into people's heads.
A quick search on homosexuality in Vodoun before I went to school
quote:Countries with large Voodoo populations may not be as open to homosexuality as one would expect. All of these countries countries have been colonized by European powers, especially France and Spain, who imposed their Roman Catholicism on the people. This had the effect of importing European views on homosexuality to these nations. For instance, in Benin, a former French colony, homosexuality remains a crime. In Haiti, homosexuality remains taboo, especially in extremely poor areas where many people are forced to live in small spaces. ...
quote:The “official stance” of GBL’s involvement in the Mami Wata Vodoun religion has been a constant source of conflict, denial and on-going debate in West Africa for decades. Up until the present, the MWHS has parroted the “official stance ” of the elders in the Vodoun religion, the majority who are against initiating GLBs.
However, after years of careful examination of the West African Vodoun culture, there has been no definitive consensus or evidence that the Mami Wata and Vodoun SPIRITS have rejected the GLB community, the MWHS objective is to follow the dictates of the SPIRITS, and can state without reservation, that all, regardless of gender or sexual orientation are welcome into the Mami Wata Vodoun Religion.
quote:"Some people believe homosexuality is an idea brought [to Africa] by the white man. But it has always been here. What the white man brought was homophobia clothed in religious doctrines that we did not have before." That's the voice of Donna Smith, the head of the Forum for the Empowerment of Women, as quoted in a Mail & Guardian article on gay life in South Africa today, where fear and violence are common. Read Mail & Guardian article...
A GLBTQ encyclopedia article by sociologist Stephen O. Murray on pre-independence sub-Saharan Africa says: "There is now a belief that homosexuality is a decadent, bourgeois Western innovation forced upon colonial Africa by white men, or, alternately, by Islamic slave-traders. The belief of many Africans that homosexuality is exogenous to the history of their people is a belief with real social consequences [but] not, however, based on serious inquiry, historical or otherwise." Read "The Myth of Exclusive Heterosexuality..."
To believe homosexuality was never a part of precolonial Africa is to be in denial as much as many white people don't want to admit the Hellenes had allot of respect for African Civilizations (which include Kemet)
Europeans made homosexuality a taboo after adopting Christianity and the church wanting to make everything a sin, the irony is Africans and African Americans would adopt this idea and believe homosexuality only came from Europeans and turn it around and claim homosexuality is a result of the corrupt European culture and never a part of the pure African culture. Distorting history so it fit your beliefs because the truth is uncomfortable
It's my opinion that if we stop persecuting gay people things like the annoying "we're here we're queer" parades and politicians having sex in bathrooms will die out
Also if anyone wonders gay people were called fagots because they were lit on fire in the middle ages
Posts: 2642 | Registered: Sep 2007
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posted
You are kidding right. Don't know why these fruits like to link their cause with ours.
As I said - It NEVER filtered thru in the West. Not sure what the bros in the East and North were up to. ALL parts of the new world it is outright ostracized within the black community.
quote:Originally posted by markellion:
quote:Originally posted by alTakruri: For whatever reason some East African warrior age men practiced it in war time when away from home to keep off the enemy women. There were instances from other African societies where military reasons had nothing to do with the practice. And I don't mean in just North Africa where in Siwa man-boy marriage was outlawed in the last century
quote:Originally posted by xyyman: Look who answered the call. As I said it is un-African. It NEVER got transferred to the new world Africans. So it is not within OUR customs. I am not sure who you are but the bros from the West/South NEVER accepted it.
alTakruri seems to be right. Some African societies might have had taboos against homosexuality but Mugabe is just repeating things slave masters and colonialists have drummed into people's heads.
A quick search on homosexuality in Vodoun before I went to school
quote:Countries with large Voodoo populations may not be as open to homosexuality as one would expect. All of these countries countries have been colonized by European powers, especially France and Spain, who imposed their Roman Catholicism on the people. This had the effect of importing European views on homosexuality to these nations. For instance, in Benin, a former French colony, homosexuality remains a crime. In Haiti, homosexuality remains taboo, especially in extremely poor areas where many people are forced to live in small spaces. ...
quote:The “official stance” of GBL’s involvement in the Mami Wata Vodoun religion has been a constant source of conflict, denial and on-going debate in West Africa for decades. Up until the present, the MWHS has parroted the “official stance ” of the elders in the Vodoun religion, the majority who are against initiating GLBs.
However, after years of careful examination of the West African Vodoun culture, there has been no definitive consensus or evidence that the Mami Wata and Vodoun SPIRITS have rejected the GLB community, the MWHS objective is to follow the dictates of the SPIRITS, and can state without reservation, that all, regardless of gender or sexual orientation are welcome into the Mami Wata Vodoun Religion.
quote:"Some people believe homosexuality is an idea brought [to Africa] by the white man. But it has always been here. What the white man brought was homophobia clothed in religious doctrines that we did not have before." That's the voice of Donna Smith, the head of the Forum for the Empowerment of Women, as quoted in a Mail & Guardian article on gay life in South Africa today, where fear and violence are common. Read Mail & Guardian article...
A GLBTQ encyclopedia article by sociologist Stephen O. Murray on pre-independence sub-Saharan Africa says: "There is now a belief that homosexuality is a decadent, bourgeois Western innovation forced upon colonial Africa by white men, or, alternately, by Islamic slave-traders. The belief of many Africans that homosexuality is exogenous to the history of their people is a belief with real social consequences [but] not, however, based on serious inquiry, historical or otherwise." Read "The Myth of Exclusive Heterosexuality..."
To believe homosexuality was never a part of precolonial Africa is to be in denial as much as many white people don't want to admit the Hellenes had allot of respect for African Civilizations (which include Kemet)
Europeans made homosexuality a taboo after adopting Christianity and the church wanting to make everything a sin, the irony is Africans and African Americans would adopt this idea and believe homosexuality only came from Europeans and turn it around and claim homosexuality is a result of the corrupt European culture and never a part of the pure African culture. Distorting history so it fit your beliefs because the truth is uncomfortable
It's my opinion that if we stop persecuting gay people things like the annoying "we're here we're queer" parades and politicians having sex in bathrooms will die out
Posts: 12143 | From: When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable | Registered: Jun 2007
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posted
Your just in denial, if it makes you uncomfortable think about what it's like to be persecuted for something you can't control like gay people are everyday... or like being black
We can reverse the scenario. Gay people often marry people of the opposite sex because society won't let them have that kind of relationship with the same sex. Now how would you like it if you were forced to not go out with woman but with other men
Posts: 2642 | Registered: Sep 2007
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posted
Fact is Xyyman never studied the issue and so is only giving his gut reaction about it as dictated by his imagination and chauvinism regarding those he assumes ancestral attachments. It is common for some black Americans to indulge themselves in fantasies about an Africa of their imagination that never existed in reality. They do this to make up for their tragic loss of lineal African identity and ethnic heritage. Other Africans in the Americas strive to educate themselves for accurate knowledge about the home continent and their links to it.
Posts: 8014 | From: the Tekrur in the Western Sahel | Registered: Feb 2006
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posted
One example of homosexuality in West Africa would be the Mossi who kept pageboys attired as and used as if they were women by the rulership.
These pages weren't allowed sex with females and were tested to assure they had not. Upon adulthood a page would be given a wife by the government official he had been attched to.
posted
WTF are you talking about. No disrespect - but some people are born that way ie FEW. These days it is a frigging fad. Disgusting. I have no probelm with people BORN that way. But it is out of control.
As I said it is UN-AFRICAN.
quote:Originally posted by markellion: Your just in denial, if it makes you uncomfortable think about what it's like to be persecuted for something you can't control like gay people are everyday... or like being black
We can reverse the scenario. Gay people often marry people of the opposite sex because society won't let them have that kind of relationship with the same sex. Now how would you like it if you were forced to not go out with woman but with other men
Posts: 12143 | From: When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable | Registered: Jun 2007
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quote:Originally posted by xyyman: No disrespect - but some people are born that way ie FEW. These days it is a frigging fad. Disgusting. I have no probelm with people BORN that way. But it is out of control.
WORD!!!
They're almost forcing us to participate in "gay talk" and "gay jokes" in the UK now. All the TV shows are about gayness or includes a gay person, there can't be that many people who are gay all of a sudden right???
I may be paranoid, but I think there is a cynical agenda behind it all.
Posts: 3423 | From: the jungle - when y'all stop playing games, call me. | Registered: Jul 2006
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posted
Homosexuality as an individual inclination or preference has been found in all nations, tribes and tongues of people under the sun.
From time immemorial, the African people and Diasporan Africans (in recent times) have always viewed homosexuality as abberant and a deviant form of sexual behaviour. Practitioners are regarded as suffering from a mental health disorder; which must be addressed with a view to cure.
However, when such persons threaten the peace or moral fabric of any African community or society; they suffer exile, banishment and, in some instances, the extreme penalty.
This is the African viewpoint on homosexuality; at home (from north to south and east to west in Africa), and in the Diaspora.
Frankly speaking, differing viewpoints remind me of those stll searching for or hoping that someday 'weapons of mass destruction' will be found in Iraq.
Posts: 387 | From: England, UK | Registered: Feb 2008
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posted
Homosexuality as an individual inclination or preference has been found in all nations, tribes and tongues of people under the sun.
From time immemorial, the African people and Diasporan Africans (in recent times) have always viewed homosexuality as abberant and a deviant form of sexual behaviour. Practitioners are regarded as suffering from a mental health disorder; which must be addressed with a view to cure.
However, when such persons threaten the peace or moral fabric of any African community or society; they suffer exile, banishment and, in some instances, the extreme penalty.
This is the African viewpoint on homosexuality; at home (from north to south and east to west in Africa), and in the Diaspora.
Frankly speaking, differing viewpoints remind me of those stll searching for or hoping that someday 'weapons of mass destruction' will be found in Iraq.
Posts: 387 | From: England, UK | Registered: Feb 2008
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posted
There is no monolithic African viewpoint on homosexuality. Blanket homophobic statements will not change the facts about which ethnies not only permitted but actually trained some boys to be sex objects for the military and the aristocracy.
Posts: 8014 | From: the Tekrur in the Western Sahel | Registered: Feb 2006
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Re my point: This is the African viewpoint about homosexuality; pre-invasion/conquest and currently.
Posts: 387 | From: England, UK | Registered: Feb 2008
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posted
There is a 'monolithic African viewpoint on homosexuality'. I've just posted it. Not a single African (indigenous or diasporan) can comment otherwise. Even a Mossi!
Posts: 387 | From: England, UK | Registered: Feb 2008
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posted
All you've posted is one African's unresearched viewpoint on homosexuality in African societies.
Ignoring the evidence doesn't make it go away. There is no monolithic African viewpoint on homosesexuality. Most societies are against it, some societies groomed boys into it for the military and/or the aristocracy, other societies didn't care one way or the other.
No one African can speak for all Africa. One can only speak for ones self and in this instance one is projecting their opinion onto all of Africa as a sort of defense mechanism for an imaginary African high ground.
quote:Originally posted by Jo Nongowa: There is a 'monolithic African viewpoint on homosexuality'. I've just posted it. Not a single African (indigenous or diasporan) can comment otherwise. Even a Mossi!
Posts: 8014 | From: the Tekrur in the Western Sahel | Registered: Feb 2006
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posted
Thank you!!! I believe you are from the continent.
I can speak for the African communities here and the Caribbean. It is UNWELCOMED.. . . at least back in the day.
quote:Originally posted by Jo Nongowa: Homosexuality as an individual inclination or preference has been found in all nations, tribes and tongues of people under the sun.
From time immemorial, the African people and Diasporan Africans (in recent times) have always viewed homosexuality as abberant and a deviant form of sexual behaviour. Practitioners are regarded as suffering from a mental health disorder; which must be addressed with a view to cure.
However, when such persons threaten the peace or moral fabric of any African community or society; they suffer exile, banishment and, in some instances, the extreme penalty.
This is the African viewpoint on homosexuality; at home (from north to south and east to west in Africa), and in the Diaspora.
Frankly speaking, differing viewpoints remind me of those stll searching for or hoping that someday 'weapons of mass destruction' will be found in Iraq.
Posts: 12143 | From: When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable | Registered: Jun 2007
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posted
Yeah!! I wonder what the 10 wives were doing. Guest they weren't enough.
quote:Originally posted by alTakruri: There is no monolithic African viewpoint on homosexuality. Blanket homophobic statements will not change the facts about which ethnies not only permitted but actually trained some boys to be sex objects for the military and the aristocracy.
Posts: 12143 | From: When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable | Registered: Jun 2007
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posted
^I am also from the continent. But then, even in the UK it is still UNWELCOME, I think it's becoming more popular here simply because someone is promoting it.
Growing up, I didn't even know of such a concept. Most people didn't speak of it.
Until in boarding school (Nigeria) when I was 13 or 14, while "skiiving off" evening Prep studies, me and the gang caught 2 guys in bed doing God knows what. I/We taxed them for all their provisions for the whole of the next term. It was a mean thing to do but ****it, we were kids.
I told my mother about it when I go home during hols - it was only then that I understood that some people were "like that".
My point is: Don't say "Africans are homophobic" as a way to single out Africans. *OTHER PEOPLE* are just as homophobic.
Posts: 3423 | From: the jungle - when y'all stop playing games, call me. | Registered: Jul 2006
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posted
Thank you!! There you have it from two from the continent. Case and thread closed.
Keep your orientation to yourselves and stop linking it with the African cause.
Posts: 12143 | From: When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable | Registered: Jun 2007
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posted
Unwelcome doesn't mean non-existant and still doesn't disprove that there were African societies that promoted it between matured men and immatured boys.
Understand the difference between reporting the existance of homosexuality in Africa versus judging the right or wrong of it.
Ignoring the evidence doesn't make it go away. There is no monolithic African viewpoint on homosesexuality. Most societies are against it, some societies groomed boys into it for the military and/or the aristocracy, other societies didn't care one way or the other.
Posts: 8014 | From: the Tekrur in the Western Sahel | Registered: Feb 2006
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Why would you take issue with an African on this matter? From your posts and the manner in which lexicon and syntax are utilised, one can safely presume that you are of West African origin. Now, name me one nation, tribe or tongue in West Africa or anywhere in Africa that celebrates homosexuality or views it as a norm; and I will debate the matter with you.
Having said this, no inference can be drawn from my posts that I do not acknowledge individuals engaging in homosexuality. Moreover, I have stated no personal viewpoint on the matter.
Propaganda, young man, is what has underpinned Asiatic and subsequent European scholarship on African people for almost 2000 years. I will not subscribe unwittingly to their agenda of supremacy by being 'objective' in my dealings with them. If they were objective in their dealings with African people we would not be having this discussion.
I trust you are aware of CHINWEIZU.
Posts: 387 | From: England, UK | Registered: Feb 2008
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posted
Celebrating is far from practicing. The fact remains that the Mossi trained a class of boys as pages to the aristocracy for uses of homosexuality. Not stopping there, but ensuring there would be an ongoing supply of such youth the aristocracy after giving grown up former pages a wife would take the first child resultant from the marriage away from the parents if it was a boy and raise that boy up to be in turn a page (soroné).
Posts: 8014 | From: the Tekrur in the Western Sahel | Registered: Feb 2006
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posted
Moreover, with respect. its somewhat superfluous and bordering on the ridiculous to suggest that I need to research from foreigners details and facts about my history and culture.
I live it.
Posts: 387 | From: England, UK | Registered: Feb 2008
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posted
Just because Africans adobted a certain view from Europeans doesn't change what pre-Colonial attitudes were or pre Christian attitudes in Europe. And yes Africa and Europe are both diverse
Also there is no conspiracy in the media they show whatever keeps the public watching so they can keep making money. I have never met anyone who acted the queer stereotype we see on tv even though I know some gay people
If it seems like there are more gay people today that might be because they don't have to be afraid of being tied to the back of a truck and drug to death.
Posts: 2642 | Registered: Sep 2007
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quote:Originally posted by Wolofi: Yeah stop making Africa gay and European that is disrespectful
I find it insulting that you think homosexuality is somehow "European" or uniquely European. I'm simply saying in some societies, including in Africa, it is not taboo.
there are Nazi groups that try to distort or make stuff up about old European cultures just to fit the reality they want to believe in. Views and attitudes change and people try to create a history around modern ideas
Posts: 2642 | Registered: Sep 2007
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posted
Yes you need to research. You were no more born with all knowledge of all Africa than I was. The difference is I don't claim to represent anyone except myself.
posted
No I think not. Millions of Africans are not on this forum. If all the Africans on this forum were to agree with you it doesn't make the evidence dissipate to the wind.
quote:Originally posted by Jo Nongowa: alTakrui:
Well, yes.
Their silence, on this forum, as it relates to repudiating my posts is deafening and speakes volumes.
Don't you think?
Posts: 8014 | From: the Tekrur in the Western Sahel | Registered: Feb 2006
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quote:Originally posted by markellion: Just because Africans adobted a certain view from Europeans doesn't change what pre-Colonial attitudes were or pre Christian attitudes in Europe. And yes Africa and Europe are both diverse
If it seems like there are more gay people today that might be because they don't have to be afraid of being tied to the back of a truck and drug to death.
Gays are not killed or maimed in Nigeria where I grew up. They are treated in the exact same manner as those who smoke pot: with scorn.
I never said there was a "conspiracy in the media", I said someone is "promoting" it which is exactly what you've confirmed here:
quote:Originally posted by markellion:
Also there is no conspiracy in the media they show whatever keeps the public watching so they can keep making money. I have never met anyone who acted the queer stereotype we see on tv even though I know some gay people
^although I beg to differ that the "promotion" of homosexuality isn't "confusing" kids who don't yet know what their sexual-orientation is.
Posts: 3423 | From: the jungle - when y'all stop playing games, call me. | Registered: Jul 2006
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Well, of course, it is prudent to ensure that one has verified the facts and details on any matter before speaking or publishing. No issue with that.
That I was born an indigenous continental African is incidental. However, that I am informed and educated about the origins, traditions and culture of the African collective is by intent and design. Nothing happenstance about this.
To conclude, I AM obligated to speak for 'others' (i.e. Africans) on this matter until it is proved I speak falsehoods and am an ignorant man.
Sincerely.
Posts: 387 | From: England, UK | Registered: Feb 2008
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quote:Originally posted by Jo Nongowa: The stench of subliminal racism:
"Just because Africans adobted a certain view from Europeans".
I give up.
This is BULLSHIT, this guy is trying to cause a schism between markellion and the "Black" posters on this forum. You're going to have to come up with better tricks mate.
Posts: 3423 | From: the jungle - when y'all stop playing games, call me. | Registered: Jul 2006
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posted
Again, you are no more "informed and educated about the origins, traditions and culture of the African collective ... by intent and design" than I am. You are less willing to present evidence without judgement than I am.
I have a history of intelligent posts on Africana here on EgyptSearch that stretches back to 2004. Not that that means anything other than to show my dedication and commitment to the forwarding of knowledge on things African not a bunch of cultural uber allis in the name of Africa in inventing myths just as dangerous or really more dangerous than the ones bandied about by the anti-African intelligentsia.
This is a task my life has been devoted to since a tender childhood age. I will not stand by and see one set of myths about Africa replaced with another set of myths just because an African is the dreamweaver.
I will not allow a generation of youth to be turned off from Africa's history and heritage when they find that those like you have fed them a line of crock so they won't believe anything they hear positive about Africa because of spun out of wool positives about Africa that turned out to be falsehoods under minimum independent examination.
I'm not here to win a debate. I'm here to share what I have learned. If you think this matter is one to be settled by who's-on-my-side then continue with your demagoguery it's nothing more in debate terms than the logical fallacy of grandstanding.
quote:Originally posted by Jo Nongowa: alT,
Well, of course, it is prudent to ensure that one has verified the facts and details on any matter before speaking or publishing. No issue with that.
That I was born an indigenous continental African is incidental. However, that I am informed and educated about the origins, traditions and culture of the African collective is by intent and design. Nothing happenstance about this.
To conclude, I AM obligated to speak for 'others' (i.e. Africans) on this matter until it is proved I speak falsehoods and am an ignorant man.
Sincerely.
Posts: 8014 | From: the Tekrur in the Western Sahel | Registered: Feb 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Jo Nongowa: He's here, there, everywhere and ultimately nowhere. Remember Neely Fuller?
What point are you trying to make that relates to Neely Fuller and/or counter-racism?
Posts: 3423 | From: the jungle - when y'all stop playing games, call me. | Registered: Jul 2006
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quote: In fact, observing the spirit of egotism which incessantly divided mankind, the ambitious man fomented it with dexterity, flattered the vanity of one, excited the jealousy of another, favoured the avarice of this, inflamed the resentment of that, and irritated the passions of all; then, placing in opposition their interests and prejudices, he sowed divisions and hatred, and promised to the poor spoils of the rich, to the rich the subjection of the poor; threatened one man by another, this class by that; and insulating all by distrust, created strength out of their weakness, and imposed the yoke of opinion, which they mutually riveted on each other.
Posts: 3423 | From: the jungle - when y'all stop playing games, call me. | Registered: Jul 2006
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Of course there is homosexuality in post-colonial Sub-Saharan Africa. There is no **history** of homosexuality in pre-colonial sub-saharan African. There is a history of homosexuality in classic Greece however. For those that claim a precolonial history of homosexuality in sub-saharan Africa I would ask that you please provide the textual evidence from literate socities in pre-colonial Africa.
Posts: 2007 | From: Washington State | Registered: Oct 2006
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posted
The issue isn't whether it happens or had happened. The issue is, is it acceptable. The few people may have a mental/genetic disorder. The many others are just F---up in this fad.
-------------------- Without data you are just another person with an opinion - Deming Posts: 12143 | From: When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable | Registered: Jun 2007
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they show whatever keeps the public watching so they can keep making money. I have never met anyone who acted the queer stereotype we see on tv even though I know some gay people
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