Larry Tom, 2021 to deal, we have press Peter Scherrer, emeritus professor of anthropology at the University of Amsterdam,
who is perhaps most famous for the modernity of witchcraft. His book, Politics and Andy, are caught in post-colonial Africa.
Now, we were just talking about the possibility of mobilising,
which which is seen to have been making it possible for him to see everyone should leave before we started the second presenter.
Is that Dr. Rojas Baraquio, which is, you know, lecturer India Anthropology Department at the Mercy of Beats in global Johannesburg, South Africa.
We'll be speaking to the theme of unloose. So crafty. Three mainstream sexual transgressions, an illicit reckoning in post-colonial Africa.
So please join me as well. I mean, this us, the sheriff and all of you.
Well, thank you very much.
Uh, well, uh, we would like to start by thanking Wilin and Peter Brook for inviting us to speak in the series for this town.
We should say that this paper is part of our collaborative project on Freemasonry,
post-colonial homophobia and illicit enrichment in Cameroon and Gabon.
And Brenda, I don't know whether your screen is shared so that everyone sees this light.
If you could load those, please. I am on it.
Thank you so. Although we begun work on this project in 2017,
we arrive at these shared interests from our various experiences while living on or working in the field in Cameroon.
As Peter tells it in his 2016 address to the African Studies Association,
he had long been familiar with some rumours from Freemasonry and the links to homosexuality that
people often make in Cameroon during the time he was doing fieldwork in the 70s and the 80s there.
In my case, in the 1990s and early 2000s, I grew up in Dwolla, Cameroon's largest urban centre.
Rumours about Freemasonry and other Western esoteric societies like are more lopera.
No one to support. Those rumours were common during this time.
I also often heard gossip about the elite and all people considered to be wealthy being associated with these esoteric societies.
But it was especially while conducting fieldwork on elites and political mobilisation in Cameroon for my doctorate dissertation between
2010 and 2012 that I became struck by the frequent conversations and suspicions that link elites in Cameroon to these esoteric circles,
as well as the neuro explosive accusations levelled against so-called homosexuals from the late 2005 onwards.
We will talk about these explosive accusations in a moment.
Indeed, much of the context for the ongoing discussions on post-colonial homophobia
in Cameroon can be traced to that explosive moment in the mid 2000s overall.
Our effort is to make sense of the public representations and popular assumptions that are held about the power,
influence and actions of Freemasonry and similar secret societies in contemporary society in Cameroon,
redrawing historical and anthropological approaches to study these rumours that link Freemasonry and homosexuality.
And our demographic data is drawn from observations, interviews and a variety of documentary resources in terms of observations.
This is grounded primarily in our long familiarity with the context in which these rumours thrive.
In addition, we will draw on a medley of conversations and observations on these developments and analyse this in relation
to some of the archival material that we have managed to gather during the time of our visit in Paris,
London and in Peter's case, Belgium, as well as conversations with some Matson's in in these places.
An important aspect for us is also the wide variety of material or documentary material that exist within the public domain,
but particularly within the public sphere in relation to these questions,
notably autobiographical material, especially news reporting,
press and audiovisual and interviews that are freely available on YouTube or other Internet social media sites like Facebook.
And I know that's an important aspect of all of these, therefore,
for us is also how to relate these African realities to some of the discussions and create theory about the power of the illness, as we shall see.
The questions and problems posed by the issues we raised and discourse in this country and contexts in relation
to the link between Freemasonry and homophobia could be traced in some way or another elsewhere in Africa,
mainly through the focus on court in marginal rates. Hence, we try to contribute to two strands of analysis in African studies.
The first is related to debates on the current struggles over homosexuality and its meanings in Africa and notably in this regard.
We were particularly inspired by the work of Stephen Pier's,
who's I think a risk paper is a 2016 paper on a similar theme in the context of Nigeria opens up very interesting avenues for discussions.
These struggles are part of the broader struggles for sexual sexual citizenship in Africa,
notably the claims for sexual rights in the face of state repression.
Our study, therefore, shows the usefulness of taking a wider and more historic side view by focussing on these rumours.
Although this will not be part of the talk today.
The second dimension of our efforts in using this material is to underline how the struggles of our sexual citizenship are also commentaries
on the broader post-colonial anxieties and debates about colonialism and decolonisation that define the contemporary moment in Africa.
Indeed, part of our effort in this project is also about building on earlier debates about French African relations,
notably the criticisms of its Nebulas and D'Agata in the framework of France free.
We use these to examine homosexuality, how homosexuality is generated fully connected to Freemasonry as a colonial and
post-colonial institution for the sexual subjection of African elites by their Western,
particularly French counterpart. In the Korean and Japanese context, that interest was here in the context of the project.
This, of course, imaginary evokes illicit enrichment by elites through same sex practises that
in some way also imply a magical interpretation of elite power and wealth.
So up to this point, what I have been trying to say is, you know, provide some kind of background to how we came about,
this subject on how we have gone about doing the work on the ground and the slides that Brenda has been showing so far relate to that.
Now, I would like to then try to see treat what I know.
So cracy the term itself means for us and how how we come to eat.
So, Brenda, please, the next slide after this one.
The next one. Next one.
Yes. So in many ways, one should think of no secrecy as an image.
Eluding image of the Alps as a side of pop power. Cameroonians began using this term excuse me, shortly after the live televised,
one of most senior Victor Ternium Barcott, they Albi Shovel vielen day on Christmas Day of December 20, 2005.
Also nearby court denounced what he described as a global conspiracy by Western governments to
destroy the social value of a heterosexual family through the promotion of same sex rights.
Even more on right in front of the country's elite with President Beer and several ministers of his
government in attendance backward now the country's elites for their role in satanic esoteric associations,
as well as in imposing simsek practises as a condition for access to social mobility, particularly for the youth.
The public response to these someone was dramatic, both in terms of the ways that someone was amplified by the media, particularly the press,
on several elite political actors and the consequences of these responses for people in the same sex communities in the country.
So. Perhaps I just go quickly to listing some of those and the elements in these public responses that we are talking about.
So it's a very notable element of that. Very soon after the sermon, someone was December.
By February, the first list was published. Brenda, you're going too fast.
So someone was published. Sorry, I'm getting mixed up.
So so the public response came very quickly.
In February, the press picked up on the someone and one of the things that became a common theme was that
various newspapers of dubious renown would publish so-called list of homosexuals in Cameroon.
They called them the top 50, the top saying count homosexuals, the top 50 homosexuals.
And all of these would usually be major political figures, all notable figures in the domain of sports or the cultural industry.
And in in turn, what is scandalous news is so-called press outings deed was to compel the elites to respond in various ways.
One of the ways they responded was for many of the leads to, you know, file lawsuits in court and threaten these newspapers.
Another way they responded for some of them was to go on to explain to some of these newspapers that they are not Freemasons by writing,
writing either right of response or going on to radio and TV shows to give interviews, you know,
explaining themselves and trying to declare themselves innocent or these accusations and suspicions.
And I think this team is one of the things that one of our colleagues, Sibylle NIAC, has drawn out attention to the particularity of these.
And Shannah have started talking about doing something in relation to that.
At some point, the what she called the confessional model that came out of that from from the standpoint of the elites.
But another reaction that that these someone triggered was also that government authorities became very anxious to distance
themselves from any appearance that they would be there would be passive in relation to same sex claims regarding same sex rights.
And therefore, there was a serious crackdown on same sex people in Cameroon, particularly in the urban centres.
And, of course, that opened the door to all kinds of abuses and repression.
And one of the things that is here on the on this slide that you see is that the repression became so intense that it was even murderous.
So people started killing people they think are guilty of same sex acts, all that affirm that same sex people.
So in notable case was Rogier Claughton, Betty and Lim, BMB also, and they were killed in their houses in terrible conditions.
And France Venkat, the French International TV Station, made a detailed documentary on the subject.
And in response, the government was very haymond in denying that it's leading a campaign of repression against same sex people.
And of course, that's that whole episode. I think we tried to describe in a paper there has just been published last week with African affairs.
And so perhaps then one should then say that parallel to these or in the wake of these various responses,
what also happened was that it triggered an explosive public discussion of the role of Western interests,
Terek associations, especially Freemasonry and more, and their connexions to these threat or evil of homosexuality.
A notable character in this regard is activating it. Next slide, please.
ATABAY And it was a young a young teacher in the university in Yaoundé.
Yandi, too, I think. And he he was a Catholic.
So it's perhaps important to say that a very prominent Catholic.
But he was also a notable figure in condemning what he saw as the hold of the evil stronghold of Masonic or esoteric lodges in Cameroon.
And notably the desire or project to impose homosexuality on the society.
And he he wrote this pamphlet, which a very long title, Logic Datcher, the Lorsch.
They can see that is very long, but in the end, he ends with the notion.
No magico are now, which is basically the combination of magic and the inner.
And so this in itself became a new element in the whole the whole episode.
It became quite a it provided fodder for even more discussions,
even more suspicions on elites and on Freemasonry and other esoteric associations in Cameroon.
And perhaps a last element to add to that tableau that that I'm trying to to describe is they
that all of this is taking place and unfolding in a context of spectacular alyda enrichment.
I mean, stunning levels of elite corruption and general material dictate that that one witness is in Cameroon.
The roads are terrible. There are there's no social service provision that is can be considered acceptable water.
The public provision of water is almost absent. Electricity is constantly subjected to cuts.
And so for many people, disaffected Cameroonians, people like a net.
And the archbishop condemned by court became somewhat populist figures who spoke to the concerns of the common man against the elite.
And I think that is it's a very important point to emphasise here that the the enrichment of the elite in incourt,
in a in a context of generalised misery made the context very propitious to these kinds of populist responses to to that
someone and perhaps their last lasting to say then that this focus on the image of secrecy has not faded or receded.
Rather, we find it reinvigorated and reproduce in new ways.
The most recent example was that the bishops of Cameroon wrote a pastoral letter on Freemasonry Morosi Christianism on witchcraft in May 2019.
And these caused even lost more stare into this conversation.
So they are not we are not talking here about something that happened in 2005 and has gone away.
It has actually stayed on and become amplified and is therefore for us at least very important to and to unpack.
So we could spend time trying to unpack these materials associated with each of
the materials associated with each of these elements that I have just listed.
We will not do this here, partly because some of our discussions of these materials have been the subject of our recent publications on the theme,
as well as those of all Communion colleagues.
And most recent case is Patrica Windows book No Sex is On Rublev Post-colonial, which was published last year.
And we think it is therefore more interesting to share with you how we tried to mobilise this material
to discuss some of the issues around the idea of the anos as a source of power and enrichment.
But it is also useful to say quickly that although our primary side of discussion for these people has come Roon,
the use of unloose autocracy as a playful form of denunciation of the elite in relation to same sex issues is not limited
to Cameroon after the Gabonese Senate voted in favour of the decriminalisation of same sex in in in Gabon in last year,
June of last year. Popular commentary in Gabon was also about how the government by and used to proceed had triumphed over south to the Western Power,
Western esoteric associations and gay lobbies.
So, so. So it is important to to say that the notion and also cracy has its variant in neighbouring Gabon, where they talk about unused to cracy.
And Peter, you know, can say perhaps more about what it means,
what it means in terms of these that attempt to play around with the idea of democracy or plutocracy, I think.
And most aggressive goes closer to the ideal plutocracy,
whereas unuseful crises is an attempt to make jest of claims by these governments to be democratic, particularly Biette in the case of beer.
So there is no doubt that the acquisition of colonialism is implied in the denunciation of Freemasonry and homosexuality and claims for same sex.
Right. As one African cultural anthropologist, Buzz Bazian, you has described the struggles.
Brenda, please, the slides. I think we are behind now by three or four.
You have described how these struggles over homosexuality in Cameroon as the
questionable effort to define questionable efforts to define a homosexual patriotism.
Similarly, between 2009 and 2010, sexuality policy was a global forum for research and activism on on sexuality and political change around the world.
Supported by major organisations like the Ford Foundation,
organised a series of regional dialogues on sexuality and geopolitics in Asia, Latin America and Africa.
And one of the volumes that then emerged from these meetings titled Sexuality and Politics Regional Dialogue from the Global South.
The editors Sonia Correa and her colleagues remarked that at the African Regional Dialogue,
the question of colonial legacies received the most attention. Yes.
I'm back in. Well, there's some that some.
So what is this image of. And also cracy or almost to cracy that we talk about?
And if only to clarify it. How do we engage? It's fogginess as it appears in a variety of forms and discourse.
It is that link struggles for symbols, for sexual rights in Cameroon to magical or invisible power.
So far, that has been very liberal interest in Freemasonry and anthropology often studies.
Two notable examples of anthropological discussions include Eibner Cohan's 1981 book on the Dramaturgy of Power,
in which he talks about Freemasonry in the context of Syria, Leone as a court of elite alertness, as he wrote.
Then in late in 1970,
one would hear gossip in Freetown to the effect that all appointments and promotions in certain establishments were cooked in the lodges.
Sonic lodges, and these should hardly be surprising because this was a society where patronage, rank, patronage and rank count for a great deal,
and Cameroon and Gabon had similar societies where patronage and drank are all about our very important aspect of everyday reality.
And as Peter would often remind us of what Cameroonians say and ground,
Nikpai Amputee's is a very common popular saying in Cameroon for Leelee Mahmood,
whose book was published in 2014 examining the female lodges Masonic lodges in the context of Italy.
It is it. It is. She was expressing a very strong disappointment at the fact that anthropologists have not been attentive to Freemasonry,
if only because it would have been important to see how Freemasonry, a colonial form and even ontime Masonic sentiments that were common in Europe,
how it is that these have played out in post-colonial in other settings around the world,
particularly in post-colonial settings, where these forms could be easily subject to all kinds of suspicions.
And so for us,
we we we thought it's important to say that that these are basically the few things that anthropologists have been saying about Freemasonry.
And for us, it was kind of interesting to say, well, what what could we add to this?
So this is particularly relevant in the context of post-colonial settings,
because it particularly in the context of Francophone Africa, these networks are very important.
They're sizeable and they determine at least they would like people to believe that a determined a lot of what happens in those contexts.
I think it's much more the case that historians have done or been doing more work in relation to Freemasonry and basically trying
to do so by mapping the history of of the emergence of Masonic lodges in on the continent and to the extent that that is the case.
Often they try to show how these were crucial to the project of empire.
We have electorate to approach these images through the idiom of magical or court politics.
And this is partly because this is how people in Cameroon and other settings make.
In between Freemasonry, homosexuality and elite power and enrichment.
But we also do so properly in relation to similar terms by several of our African colleagues, notably a human being based on Joseph Tonda.
To understand what may initially appear like a sudden interest in or anxieties over these images of the años as a side of power,
as Dundar writes in his last book, Imperialism of Post-colonial.
We live in a time of proliferation of images that could simultaneously fascinate, seduce, astonish.
For this obsess or press, suppress, hunt.
And in the end, even colonise the imaginary sense subconscious of individuals and groups, not only in Africa, but also in Europe, America.
He may be the next slide, may be the next slide. Brenda.
Yes, Brenda. Thank you. The next slide. Yes, Dad.
Yes. Yeah, we we we juxtapose even complicate the two images of four proposed by A human being B and Tundra.
On the one hand, whether the animals as a side of power is a side of depletion into in a test case on in in the case of a human being,
B, that the animals as a side of pi is a side of empowerment.
And so we we wondered what it might mean to think about the struggles of other animals, rather, in relation to the idea of enrichment by doing.
And we try to do so initially, first by going back to to the work of a German colonial ethnographer assessment.
And then I think here Peter will take take over and drive the presentation to the end.
Okay. Is that OK? Brenda, maybe you switch off to slide dispatch.
I don't that important, Marcheline so little that it bought Branda.
Can you take away the PowerPoint and just have me on the screen?
Yes, they are healthy. OK, thanks a lot. OK.
Well, I can be very brief because Ranch's said it all, but I want to thank also one in Oxford for allowing us to present our article here.
And let me emphasise that for me, the whole project is about the need to understand this sentence,
which is sort of an intensification of homophobia in Cameroon around 2005.
I'm working on it since seventy one.
And this sudden wave of homophobia, homosexuality becoming a public issue with true moral panic came for me as a complete surprise.
So now project for me is especially to understand how this is possible and what I
should have known and not to be surprised then that issue in more specifically,
it's a follow up to two articles published earlier in 2012.
I published an article which this a Wando from Roger mentioned to Reddy and Graham read on Homophobia, Our Homophobic Africa very much.
Which question marks a leap of say much to show that you can't say the whole continent is homophobic,
that it's nonsense, and that the politicisation of homosexuality at a major public.
It's a hot public issue. I follow plenty different trajectories of very different countries and Cameroon.
I tried to follow that up by an article in 2017 to point out to the creeky role if
Freemasonry in to an intensification of moral panic about homosexual couple today.
I want to follow up on what Roger said on this. Try it.
Of Freemasonry. Homosexuality and illicit enrichment.
That's the key terms in our project. I want to follow up what Richard said by emphasising that this entanglement of these three
issues as much longer geneology of both Freemasonry was a colonial imposition in Cameroon,
and that is a colonial background to all deaths.
But the special interest of Cameroon is that the link of transgressive sexuality
with illicit enrichment children has a much longer history in Cameroon,
in the heart of the recent debates on the whole issue.
Remember what you said about his newspapers publishing a list of prominent homosexuals and the moral panic about all that?
There were two Cameroonian anthropologists who were very courageous. Charles Bhogle and Particular Window and Rochus quoted a particular one already.
Continued working on the issue, was very courageous and both pointed to the work of God to testify on that.
Russia, too. But she was just mentioning in German anthropologist who worked with the fund.
He spoke of the fun way. But these were fun. Does he speak a fundraiser?
He wrote it just after nineteen hundred, before the establishment of Colonial Rule.
So he stopped of before colour realism and relevant people go and wander the dug up
Tashman because they internationally talked a lot about mental illness in young.
I could make altogether too much fun. Charles Ajanta Witchcraft of Wealth and who is surprised it was related to same sex.
Hope for sexual about that. It seems there is no homosexuality amongst the fun, but it is hidden under.
He speaks of a stack of Clag and the Eagles cover movement, but in every case of a prickly cover, let's call it like that.
And that's this Bionicle map which got about Tessman that reproduced also a few fun stories about men who lived together and difficult Trey Rich.
And then to add that they both had both stories.
They die of a terrible disease or have a mix of stories and become a locust classic,
as in gay studies on Africa, because they were reprinted in their mores.
The collection on hold traces of ode to all traces of homosexuality.
Man And that's why it's so interesting for us was the first two.
This association of aggressive health gas effects,
which reaches I think that's a very important that's a topic we're really struggling with this link of transgressive sex,
notably homosexuality, is rich with ethically established.
To talk a lot more about testimony is a fascinating figure, but very little side.
So let me just say it's interesting. Anthropology is that he more or less invented field to have before money, not one years before.
Malinovsky was already willing to live for months on end in fund villages in very modest circumstances.
The strange thing is that he Komba combined us with a kind of military style of fieldworker.
The days at his research station, which started at the beginning with Amirli kind of military parade,
where all his assistants had to stand in line and salute the flag, that he did not hesitate to beat him up if they didn't do what he wanted.
The amazing thing is also that apparently his assistance minded when equals calls them.
My boys were very attached to him, that they saved his life several times.
Any places they could get some medicine? Many would say that it is a fascinating thing.
What is the interest? But I want to talk today about his specialities.
Obsession. This dualism is fang fungus mcguffey, which is very lively and very, very useful.
For the truth is the piling up of binary oppas. Titian's man vs. woman soldiers body good forces bad and builds are very complicated
schemes of all these very vigorously scheming ties to binary opposites,
which are in stark contrast to with ethnography, because in ethnography there's a lot more of fluidity, a lot more ambiguity.
But he he condenses that in the overall scheme, that issue, which is very, very happy.
Had there been any coma is for this witchcraft of medicine of witches is does fit in in these binary oppositions, if he sees it correctly from.
And what is interesting for us is that his doubleness has been taken up by successes.
A lot of frantic, logical studies on the fungo are kind of divided between group in central Cameroon fighting Kaposi.
There were many people after him who wrote about him and they all faced his doubleness.
Most of them could not read. That's why. Because it into German.
But what is striking is that on the point of being a cool, my having to do the same sex at his success is completely disagree.
That Bill Sohi lobby of Toha may be known by some of the people present to hear East.
But he's the big ethnographer of that group, wrote thousands of pages.
He left Detmer. He was the only one who could read Tessman because he read German and the Love what he did.
But he says on the point of same sex, he was completely fooled by his only four.
And that's why it's so interesting that in the heat of these recent discussions
about the least these prominent these newspaper articles on prominent homosexual.
A young Cameroonian anthropologist to shake the hand, Cecil, are big guy.
Maybe Brandy, you can show his slides. Because it's I.
I think he should be shown to the people. What it is about a fish slide into PowerPoint.
Is that possible, Granda to find it? Yeah, sorry, which which side is it?
There you go. If you go added a PowerPoint after Tessman, there's a dash bigeye thing after these German.
Oh I'm sorry. It's complicated. I'm sorry to make it such a mess of the.
OK. Leave it, leave it. It's not that important. Erica, I think it's really very important.
I big guy, I must have met him in 2005 often, but it won't need that.
I don't even remember he died in 2008. Very, very sad because his work is really interesting.
And he reacts to this whole debate on the list of these newspapers on prominent sexual.
And he makes the following points and he's suddenly much more in agreement with vestments.
He emphasised that for the big key that is this large group of which the fans are also part of, every human has a double systems.
And he lay in shadow people call a view. And a view is nowadays always say just socially.
So it is a witchcraft, basically a term all over south.
Which club? The problem the relation to this debate on homosexuality is that for some people to double, it's of the opposite sex.
And that's the explanation of men who have a female double. Women who have a male double.
An easy explanation why some are homosexual. He speaks also of a homosexual homosexuality.
So share in witchcraft, homosexuality of luxury.
He relates very directly to this idea.
The Grand Liikanen did it people, the Freemasons, who are dabbling in these kinds of transgressive sexuality that leads to illicit Richmond.
So he's right in the traces of Tashman with Tetch Publishers Association of Same Sex with enrichment of special interest.
These other guys quite for teaching this overview of all the possible combinations of these expecta.
So if he moves to double can be it can lead to a combination,
all sorts of combinations that they call can impose a no penetration younger partners to strengthen their own life force.
And he's very close to. But as you, Ben, the called cracy, the kind of homosexual anal intercourse as a supreme form of follow Crecy.
But it's also the inverse. It's also possible the Pacific Party can draw strength from such a cause.
And anything that close on that theme, which is what you just mentioned, the sex as depletion,
the active parties depleted is losing his life force to pacify the striking in all this.
That's what I like about that's where it is, the great fluidity. While with Tessman binary poll opposition, a frozen mantic with abaca,
the world of double doubles allows for all sorts of possible of all sorts of supposed to be lattes and.
In this sense, his work relates very well to the work of another Cameroonian into politics.
The branch of the arminio, he had wanted to be here today, but he had to go to Stella.
Both young boys also come running from a very different part of Verona's abaca, and he works now in Cape Town.
He's recently writing a lot about the Africanness fortyish man in that department.
It's personal. So, of course, with the African and African societies from societies, one could think of paedo but young.
You'll give some complete to a very different twist to the notion of frontier,
not a frontier in the American sense, the frontier of a bulldozer which rose from one thing to the other.
CNN destroys everything in its path but frontier as porous as the place of hybridisation.
Maybe an African conception of the frontier. And in that sense, he speaks a lot about the incompleteness of the person.
I think Debbie is very close to. Abigail's insistence on this doubleness of the person, these all these kind of combinations of very different.
Very different elements. Hobby Guy is also this very important phrase.
I think he talks about sexuality as if he she do more. They do.
Witchcraft is for him. And a vision of the world. The world of the devil.
And I think that's a lot better than. Terms like witchcraft.
Jocelyn. Okay. And I have to stop by soon.
Well, can you give me five more minutes? Yes. It.
Thank you, guys. There's a lot more to do to be said on all this.
And it will be the last chapter of my book. But I want to finish by raising two points that stand out from the above and notably from because
two nations entered that I think are very important for present day debates about homosexuality,
LGB, BBT rights and all that, and maybe also for queer Syria.
Creecy in relation to African Vienna. First of all, I think the link between transgressive sexuality and enrichment,
provenance of their physical enrichment and the Parliament, on the other hand, differs more.
It deserves more attention. Of course, that link is not special to Africa.
In our book, we have, for instance, all session on the French novelist Onoe Hate about Zach.
I was very surprised that he came in here so badly that he had to be there or hated by Zacher writes about looming in the 19th century Paris.
What is striking that you see exactly the same mixture of transgressive sexuality and gender people,
homosexual people, same sex intercourse and only increased access to higher circles?
You is the kind of balancing point between these two.
So, I mean, here is where they usually treat people.
And I think the that is more general evidence.
The idea that homosexuality creates networks that give access to power, access to riches, access to whatever that actions is very widespread.
But in Africa, the link with enrichment within reach within a great material sense is also very important.
Certainly not only in Cameroon and Testament's Cameroon or in present day Cameroon.
It's all over Africa. Also, it goes back a long time.
Reinfection temples are from Senegal, from the 18th century on this idea of health conscious sexuality,
his material access to riches, to PowerMan and.
Of course, that is it. It is a confusing point because faith is to come in all the psyche of the homosexual who is general rifle.
The ugly anal intercourse is very far from the everyday reality of the homosexuals are locked up in prisons.
They are certainly not these rich people. So did the image.
So do the homosexual is very ambiguous. They confusing with even in the case of victims of police harassment.
That is the ideas is to people how often of homosexuality as provided special access, providing special material advantages.
I think in. So I think it's necessary to to to dissect that link between that effect and the serial empowerment, which every.
On the other hand, I think it may be necessary to have facial so the powerful association of same sex intercourse with witchcraft.
In many African context, this association is so powerful that which is used to anemically to talk about supposed homosexual people.
He says. This guy is a witch. And when I asked why, it turned out it was about his inclination to same sex.
Arrangements. Is quite clear why this suspect is absent in debates on decriminalisation.
And he writes this to confirm a negative image of the home of the homosexual.
Yet again, I think it's better to face to face that link to try to disentangle.
The problem is, of course, the meaning of terms like witchcraft. So sort of he said she said here in Western terms that have a very negative,
very pejorative implication, but it would have been appropriated on a large scale by Africans.
The problem is that are bad translation of local no notions that have much more ambiguous meaning.
For instance, the fun notion of a fool, which I quoted to Ready to Shoot.
That's when an Abbott character is a who is evil and dangerous.
But it is it can also help for healing riches and power.
And then so it's very ambiguous. What a fool really implies.
Does the association of same sex, the intercourse with this medicine of veils with witchcraft in general has many implications.
I can only touch on broader theoretical implications of all this.
But what we try to further develop is that a testable Fujitsu's convergence is ubiquitous theory has developed in the past.
For instance, I was particularly struck by the book by Mario Maylee, a forerunner.
The forerunner of Green Theory will rise very much in the same sense of homosexuality.
As dangerous as fouth sexuality is capable of both affirming that transforming the capitalist world and all that.
So I think that a very interesting. Convergence is dead, but I'm afraid my time is up, so I leave it at that.
Thanks a lot. Thank you very much.
He turned religious law. Fascinating talk with that.
Now open it up for questions and comments.
Maybe I should start by posing a question that you have in the context of the experience in Nigeria, I think in most parts of the continent.
One of the strongest arguments against, you know, a sexual transgression, but wildermuth sexuality as it's been defined, that is for.
I mean, and oftentimes people are not ready to listen to any contrary evidence is always the fact that it for it.
I think perhaps the next theme is about the fact that it has caused spiritual pollution of sort in the continent.
But you I'm wondering how you see that in the context of the Najran experience, where the dominant discourse is really in relation to political power.
How is the fact that fact in court that homosexuality has caused political pollution?
The forced coup in Nigeria in 1966, one of the most important accusations against the civilian government was that it was,
you know, homosexuals, homosexual inclined.
And then in 1990, almost four decades later, there was another coup that also described the military government as almost sexual, as intact.
So in this experience, the question as to how it's always about political pollution that you treat sexual transgression constitute in in Nigeria.
Beyond the question of the fact that these foreign or debt causes spiritual pollution,
some I'm wondering whether the Najran experience is peculiar in that sense in terms of how that as we are DeSanto the struggle for power.
Surely we add that up there being that occurred twice in the struggle to iJet power by the military.
Roger, do you want to come in? Rochus, are you there?
Ranchers. I think really you have to amuse yourself.
I don't see any. Is she alive? Is she dead? Yes.
Do you want to enter? Shall I answer you? You start. Yes, I can.
I can stop you. Thank you. Well, thank you very much.
I think the in the in the article, there's a place where we we mentioned briefly.
Indeed. The fact that the coup against Babangida in the 90s was once described in those terms as a bunch of a reaction against a bunch of homosexuals.
And one of the things that we traders Babangida in Popular Remonstrances, these that he led a group of homosexuals.
While he was in power. And it's an interesting parallel that you draw the parallel between that,
the idea that sexual transgression generates spiritual polluted pollution and the contemporary idea or experience in Nigeria,
that every moment when there's been a coup, there is porn of the popular response from below against those who seise power.
Is that there are a group of homosexuals. Now,
what is interesting for me in those terms is that we have to take into account the the repressive environment
that people leave and how easy it is for them to use the language of homophobia as a tool of denunciation.
So I think for me, that will be the first.
The first thing is that in a context of repression, people in in I'm speaking here specifically to Nigeria, but of course,
not only that repressive context are constantly in search of the the what you call the soft targets
of victims and constantly the Figo of homosexuality is deemed to be that kind of soft target.
You can you can easily attack.
So there's a kind of moral or mostly moral morality and that the people inhabit when they are dealing with with with the Figo, the homosexual.
So that's one of the things. But in the context of Cameroon, also,
the notion of of sexual transgression as pollution is is interesting and is interesting precisely because of what Peter was saying,
that transgression is not necessarily leaved, it's its record.
Neither it is polluting, but it is also recognised as a pollution that is generated.
And I think perhaps if we what would happen if we move that argument close to a Nigerian in the Nigerian context,
we transported what is what is generated when people say that the military,
whatever military group of military people are homosexuals, what are the kinds of generative things people are talking about?
I think for me, that is one way one should should do it.
But I'm also very curious to hear more about what do you call political pollution.
It will be interesting to flesh out the idea a little bit on and Tizard and see what
what what it produces for the kinds of minorities that we we tried to do here.
Can I come in? I want to ask. Yes. Do I have to?
I think it is Nigeria. The rental, the exceptional Vistage argument to which sexuality is important is a colonial import.
We have an other article that will be Chapter four in the book on the Maroondah.
Nowadays, the figure of Oju You You Lovers, was a French doctor who played an important role in decolonisation in the 50s.
In the bill after 2002 suddenly comes back. There's a whole rumour mongering about him that was, you know, I really wasn't homosexual.
It was a free nation. And he has corrupted the whole movie lately.
So he'd kill a, B, o, the leaders of the two presidents.
He was suspended for a second, but they were all the lover boys of LA.
And that's that's how homosexuality entered Cameroon.
That make. And now, Callie. And yet the judge is quoted to already.
He has this funny face. It does. It is one penis sufficient to corrupt to hold a leech.
So dazzling in Nigeria. I argue with you. I'd like to trade and edge dead.
But the idea, it's all imported from outside. Well, it's interesting in Cameroon.
And that's why testimony is so interesting that there's this young man outside the US.
Other ideas, but his homosexuality. Homosexual to the same sex.
That's what it's like that's all low for. And that's Arbogast Trenkle.
So he seems kind of open. So it is that it's all sorts of different ideas and different combinations.
And as for Nigeria, I mean. Well, I think maybe, you know, the argument, Randi, matri head is the euro by feminist on his book on the Africa religion.
But Randi was Fannie and I can be courageous.
He did a book on Africa, Rage in between your two blind condom blay in Brazil.
And he says that the role of homosexuality in Brazilian from Dunblane, many priests have to be possessed by spirit.
And so it's like a horse. They are ridden, but they are to say that they mounted by by the spirit.
And all they do is create in the same sense that really kind of the God that that was not a Brazilian invention.
It's a feminist or with a bird. And it was dead already in your body.
And he produces all these images of Sophie and their priest in Europe by religion and many of his Uraba French were furious about that.
But I think his point is. Right. And he was very courageous in raising that.
So for Nigeria, there's also a lot of details that as a much older history, a much older geneology young Doudou in the north,
but also in the south of same sex arrangements are holding it included homosexuality.
The point is the same in Morocco. In Morocco, it's so old.
Nowadays, people say homosexuality is a French imposition. Wow.
It goes back for centuries and centuries. So I think that it's it's very interesting what you raise and his face.
Interesting that his insistence on colonial corruption, that's much, much more the emphasis quite lately after 2000,
that is after Internet produced images of gay identity that was global.
That's the turning point. And then the backlash is dead.
So could you. Thank you, David. Thank you very much.