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By Annonciata Byukusenge
This is one of the messages highlighted during the launch of the Black International Movement for African Reconstruction, organized by twenty-five African and African-diasporan faith leaders, theologians, constitutional thinkers, and scholars.
The purpose is for emerging leaders to take care of the African Democratic Covenant as a coordinated Black International response to the growing use of anti-LGBTQ and anti-gender politics to narrow democratic space across Africa.
In his message, Rev. Canon Mpho Tutu van Furth has called LGBTQ+ Africans ‘children of Africa’ and urged people to ‘stop financing fear and calling it a mission. As a member of the African diaspora and a faith leader, they have to think about the responsibility they believe diaspora churches and organizations have to support African LGBTQ+ communities while also respecting the theological and cultural convictions of African Christians who disagree with their position.
“We must remember that apartheid and segregation in the US, South Africa, etc. were backed by legitimate laws and, in the case of the US, passed by the majority of the population. That did not qualify them as just laws! Our minds were (and continue to be) captured by imperialists. We therefore have the solemn duty to shake off this coloniality by educating ourselves in indigenous history and understanding the political economy of heteronormativity (normalizing sexual relations between men and women).”
Emerita Prof. Akosua Adomako Ampofo added that all the issues that politicians use to divert attention from the serious issues confronting our people are given oxygen by journalists, whether it be migrants, women, ethnic and other minorities who are presented as problems when the real issues are ‘developmental.’
According to Prof. Sylvia Tamale, they must remember that apartheid and segregation in the US, South Africa, etc. They’re backed by legitimate laws and, in the case of the US, passed by the majority of the population. That did not qualify them as just laws! Our minds were (and continue to be) captured by imperialists. We therefore have the solemn duty to shake off this coloniality by educating ourselves in indigenous history and understanding the political economy of heteronormativity (normalizing sexual relations between men and women).
A call to African presidents
Pause Anti-Democratic Legislation and Convene a Black Global Freedom Summit. Africa stands at a defining crossroads.
Across the continent, nations are asserting rightful claims for reparatory justice, economic sovereignty, and global dignity. At the same time, legislative efforts emerging in Ghana and elsewhere risk narrowing democratic space and undermining the very foundations upon which that future depends.
These developments, particularly laws that super-criminalize LGBTQ people, are not simply questions of culture or morality. Increasingly, they form part of a coordinated effort to replace Africa’s rights-based constitutional order with a transnational framework of “family sovereignty,” reshaping constitutional governance in ways that extend far beyond questions of sexuality.
We do not claim to have all the answers. But the questions before us are too significant to be resolved through hurried legislation.
This moment calls for pause, not as a retreat, but as a responsibility. That pause should culminate in a historic convening.
