The constitution should be used more creatively to ensure the rights of gays and lesbians, according to radical activist Mazibuko Jara. Jara is a political and gender activist, an academic at the University of Cape Town and a former national spokesperson and political strategist of the South African Communist Party (SACP).
The constitution should be used more creatively to ensure the rights of gays and lesbians, according to radical activist Mazibuko Jara. Jara is a political and gender activist, an academic at the University of Cape Town and a former national spokesperson and political strategist of the South African Communist Party (SACP).
His address, “Queer dilemmas in a socially unjust post-apartheid South Africa”, was one of a series of five lectures at Rhodes University last week, organised by the department of politics and international relations. The series was entitled, “Over the Rainbow? The State of LGBTI (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex) Rights in South Africa”.
He argued that the constitution has progressive human rights, including the section that outlaws discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Other post-1996 laws also offer gays and lesbians equal benefits at the workplace, adoption rights and a more appropriate definition of rape.
The reality of equality
Jara emphasised the “crisis of the liberal constitutional democratic framework”, saying that the constitution treated everyone equally at a cosmetic level, yet society is substantively unequal.
In his view, the law is failing to address inequality and injustice because of a conservative judicial culture, growing deference to the executive, and the fact that socio-economic rights are being determined by politicians rather than ordinary people.
He said courts deal with "corrective rape" as ordinary rape cases, instead of considering them as hate crimes against gays and lesbians. Jara contended that the struggle for the recognition of gays and lesbians must not be isolated from other struggles such as: attempts to reduce the backlog in access to anti-retroviral drugs, improve poor service-delivery and fight poverty, underdevelopment and corruption.
He said South Africa’s post-1994 society is characterised by a lack of action against racism, patriarchy, ethnicity, greed and individualism, all of which reduce people to “passive recipients” instead of social agents. As a result, this has prompted the emergence of a “social conservatism” that breeds views that seek to advocate homophobia and entrench inequalities.
Moving forward
Despite his criticism of the constitution, he urged gays and lesbians to make use of the law to exercise their rights: “In a condition of extreme inequalities, extreme homophobia and social conservatism, a legal reform strategy has an important advantage: constitutionalism legitimates the notion of rights, equality and non-discrimination and this legitimisation creates a good advantage, a fair playground for taking the fight forward,” said Jara.
He said that despite all the constitutional gains, he is still not free to address men about “thigh sex” in his home village of Rabula, in the same way author and gay activist Mark Gevisser would address a meeting on the subject in Johannesburg – even though the constitution had legalised homosexual relationships.
He concluded by arguing that the LGBTI community must intensify their campaigns by creating a progressive, women-led and working-class movement that was community-based; educating people about their rights and how to use the law to claim them; cultivating the supporters of equality everywhere and building the political and economic power of the ordinary people.
At the end of the lecture, Sally Matthews, a senior lecturer in politics at Rhodes, invited questions from the floor.
One commentator said it is important that discussions on gay and lesbian rights must not be limited to university campuses; they should also be extended to the townships, where most hate-crimes take place. The LGBTI struggle needs to be deeply rooted in the communities in order for homophobia to be defeated.
