For a politics of presupposed equality: The struggle for sexual minority freedom in Africa

Abstract

abstractThis article relies on the thought of Jacques Rancière to plead for an emphasis on what Weeks (1999:36) refers to as a “moment of transgression” in the politics of struggle attendant on the emergence of the queer subject in Africa. As such, it argues that the queer subject's struggle in Africa should in the first place be approached and understood as a political struggle for equality, rather than or in addition to the prevalent emphasis on a legal struggle for the constitutional protection of human rights. Emphasising the political dimension – equality – of the emergence of the queer subject as a legal subject of human rights in Africa can circumvent popular Afro-essentialist objections that claims by sexual minorities for the recognition of sexual freedom (as part and parcel of their human rights) amounts to no more than a Western construct that does not befit Africa. The additional benefit resides in the fact that the focus advanced here allows the articulation of the queer subject's struggle in Africa without having to resort to the strategy of an identity politics (with all the pitfalls attendant on such a strategy). In addition, when the matter is approached from a strictly legal point of view, the equality that comes into view denotes a passive equality, an equality that is to be given or granted by the law. When, however, the matter is approached politically, an active notion of equality – an equality that is to be taken as part of freedom and as presupposed – becomes the focal point of the enquiry. The ultimate aim of this piece is to introduce the politics at stake in the queer subject's emergence in Africa through the lens of Rancière's work and to draw attention to the political significance of his notion of a presupposed or axiomatic equality.