Voices of Protest
on May 31, 2007
Category: Social Movements, South Africa, Africa Politics, LGBTI
Voices of Protest: Social Movements in Post-apartheid South Africa is a collection of essays on the different movements that exist in South Africa today. Two essays in particular caught my eye, one on the Treatment Action Campaign, and the other on the LGBTI movement. This latter is written by Teresa Dirsuweit, and is titled The Problem of Identities. The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex Social Movement in South Africa. In terms of style, this essay falls a little flat in two ways. Firstly, it attempts to do too much, looking at the LGBTI movement from too many different angles: gender, class, race, sexual identity, political ideology. Secondly, it incorporates quotes rather abruptly and so frequently that we sometimes lose the author’s voice. It is still a very interesting piece to read though.
Perhaps the most interesting thing for me was the ways in which social divisions intersect. The struggles of poor lesbians differ from those of middle class gay men, and these in turn differ from those of black lesbians or white gay men. Indeed, by the time I got to the end of the essay one question remained uppermost in my mind. Dirsuweit put it quite nicely at the end:
It often appears that sexuality simply is not enough to weave these sub-cultures of the LGBTI community together. Indeed, should one even speak of an LGBTI community in the singular?
Should we? I don’t think the issue of cross-cutting cleavages is unique to the LGBTI movement alone. Civil rights movements, anti-apartheid movements, indeed almost any revolutionary movement I can think of at the moment has had to deal with polarization within the group. Sure, these groups have presented unified fronts to their opponents, especially at the most crucial times. But within these movements, people tend to coalesce based on class or race or sexual orientation. So back to the LGBTI movement. In much of Africa, the LGBTI movement has its work cut out for it. Are these cross-cutting cleavages a make factor or a break factor? What does a unified LGBTI movement mean? And is there really any way to understand a singular LGBTI movement?
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7 Comments so far
1. Steve Hayes
June 1st, 2007 at 7:46 am
I think people often speak of “communities” when there is no community to speak of.
In South Africa there is a Greek community and a Serbian community, but I think talk of a “black” community or a “white” community pushes the meaning of “community” too far. It takes one characteristic of people and seeks to make that the main characteristic of a person’s identity. Most gay people that i know belong to lots of communities that don’t overlap, and they have less in common with other gay people than they do with people who are not gay.
Can one speak of “the left-handed community”? Just because people share a common characteristic doesn’t make them a commonity, unless the common characteristic is perceived by them as the (or at least a) central feature of their identity.
Does “community” mean anthing at all these days, or it is just a feel-good word that we like to tack on to things to make them sound better. As one bank talked about “lifestyle banking” so Cell C advertises “community chat” (whatever that means).
2. Annie
June 1st, 2007 at 8:28 am
Steve, I agree. I think a community, like a nation, is a very constructed concept, such that people must imagine themselves to be a part of that group for it to be coherent. But you have to admit that there is more likely to be an LGBTI “community” than a left-handed one. There must be incentive for people to imagine themselves as part of a “community.” What then makes some of these incentives more potent driving forces than others? Is it possible to rank race, class, gender, sexuality as impetuses for “community” formation? I realize of course that the socio-political setting will be a large contributing factor. And should we be worried when cross-cutting cleavages make one form of identification insufficient as the basis for forming a “community?”
3. cherynne
June 1st, 2007 at 3:26 pm
Well in spain or at least in Granada the I has not yet been added to LGBT yet (I´m sure it will be soon)but as a group who have achieved a great deal in a few years(since the death of Franco in 1975) in terms of changing laws and gaining equal rights the fact is that LGBTs are still a sexual minority who are discriminated against as individuals in many walks of life, and that in itself is enough incentive for us to come together as a community to challenge the discrimination and misinformation that still prevails in the mainstream society despite all the legal advances. the existence of a community is also vital for young people struggling with their sexuality in a basically still homophobic society and world.
4. Eshuneutics
June 1st, 2007 at 10:47 pm
It is interesting that Steve feels that the word “community” is often used inappropriately, “when there is no community to speak of.” Yet, his own blog views itself as a community and requests that I become part of that. How? In what sense? I think, personally, that “community” still does mean something; though I also agree with Steve that people bastardize words and weaken their meaning. The gay poet Robert Duncan was quite clear when he used “community”: it is about a national commune, a mass speaking together. And yes, he argued also that sexuality was not enough to weave the warp and woof of a community. A community is made from much more complex defintions. Of interest also is the work that modern geographers have done to link community/space to community/social and psychic identities;especially when studying gender, racial and sexual fields. Community isn’t a catch all term. Interesting post and question.
5. Sokari
June 2nd, 2007 at 9:50 pm
My own experience of the LGBTI “community” in South Africa is that it is not singular. Race and to a lesser extent class mean there are multiple communities and in terms of race often with very little meeting point. Nonetheless I do believe that the LGBTIs in Africa (the majority of whom are Black) are singular in their purpose and unity and that includes South Africa. This may appear contradictory but such is the complexity of the intersection of race, class and sexuality in an environment where the latter group face extreme hostility even where they have constitutional rights.
PS Yes I do think we can speak of and understand the African LGBTI movement as a “singular” social movement!
6. Sokari
June 2nd, 2007 at 10:22 pm
Annie@ just one point - you mention “poor lesbians” and “black lesbians” - In SA poor lesbians are black lesbians though not all black lesbians are poor! Follow up thoughts to come sometime one day
7. Voices of Protest « The Blog and the Bullet
June 4th, 2007 at 12:10 am
[…] by Jack Stephens on June 3rd, 2007 Annie, of the blog Black Looks, writes about a new book: Voices of Protest: Social Movements in Post-apartheid South Africa is a collection of essays on […]