For all the noise in the press about modern popular opposition to “homosexuality” as being supposedly foreign to African tradition, I know that this is simply not true. The records of early explorers and ethnographers have shown clearly that same-sex erotic practices and gender fluidity were recognized across all regions of the continent before the advent of the colonial period. It is not homosexuality that was introduced by the European colonists, but homophobia which was imposed by the missionaries - just as modern African homophobia is being stirred up and enflamed by Western evangelists. A review of a book by Marc Epprecht on the history of homosexuality in Southern Africa suggests that the book is not only an excellent analysis, but also timely. I offer here some extracts ( for the full review, go to JMMS):

Hungochani: The History Of A Dissident Sexuality In Southern Africa

For any reader interested in the history of non-normative sexual relationships in southern Africa, it would be difficult to find a more illuminating or well-researched book than Marc Epprecht’s Hungochani: The History of a Dissident Sexuality in Southern Africa.

Epprecht’s (demonstrates) the various ways in which “same-sex sexuality was known in pre-modern southern Africa” (p. 224). While admitting that “contemporary homophobes in the region are substantially correct when they assert that heterosexual reproduction was of paramount importance in pre-modern southern Africa,” the author explains this by noting that “homosexuality as an identity or lifestyle choice did not exist when the pressures to have sex for reproduction were so over-determined by material, political, spiritual and other cultural considerations” (ibid).

Nonetheless, through the marshaling of voluminous evidence, evidence that includes prehistoric cave paintings, court forensics, literary deconstruction and oral interviews, Epprecht demonstrates that southern African peoples have, from the earliest of times to the present, engaged in an active accommodation with all manner of sexual expressions. The book begins with a consideration of how same-sex relations were understood and realized in pre-colonial southern Africa and carries the examination through the colonial experience.

Apart from being a groundbreaking study of a topic that has received a paucity of attention in prior histories of Africa, few books could be timelier than Hungochani. Bombastic statements in recent years by African leaders in both the church and state have denounced same-sex relations as a “Western vice,” suggesting that homosexuality was unknown until white colonialists introduced it with the concomitant HIV/Aids epidemic. First among these was Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, who, in 1995, equated homosexuals with “pigs and dogs.” Though most concerned with Zimbabwe, Epprecht notes that several African presidents have issued similar homophobic diatribes in the years since.

Interestingly, after demonstrating the existence of multiple forms of non-heteronormative sexuality in pre-modern Africa, the author turns many of these contemporary arguments on their head by asserting that “dogmatic revulsion against same-sex behaviors, acts, relationships, and thoughts (that is, homophobia) was introduced into the region by European colonialists and preachers” and that “Africans were encouraged through these discourses to equate homophobic constructions of sexuality with civilization and progress” (p. 225). In short, homophobia is the Western import, not homosexuality.

Epprecht’s book has considerable relevance in light of recent events in the global Anglican Communion. In January 2000, the Anglican Archbishop of Rwanda, Emmanuel Kolini, presided over the creation of the Anglican Mission in America, a missionary province in the United States whose purpose is to provide ecclesiastical oversight to a currently estimated 15,000 American Episcopalians who left the Episcopal Church-USA over its growing acceptance of same-sex relationships, culminating in the 2003 consecration of Gene Robinson as the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church. Actions similar to Kolini’s have followed in recent years from the Anglican bishops of Nigeria, Kenya and Uganda.

As these initiatives have continued to grow and attract American followers, they have opened up debates in both the media and in church congregations over the nature of African sexuality. This reviewer is concerned that many American Christians erroneously conclude from these debates that African culture is inherently heterosexual. As such, and in light of the recent divisive statements issued by African leaders and in consideration of the growing HIV/Aids epidemic in Africa, clear and un-biased analyses of African sexuality are sorely needed. Marc Epprecht has gone far in providing this in Hungochani.

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