How Will the Dominoes Fall?

Human rights activists and the international community as a whole often consider the ultimate goal of their work in a certain area to be the eventual diffusion of rights protections, peace or development to other countries in the region. Knowing this, the situation can quickly become nightmarish when international observers are forced to watch as rights abuses and chaos spread quickly from one country to another.

This is the situation that’s potentially being played out in sub-Saharan Africa with regards to legislating homophobia. While the news of Uganda’s proposed anti-homosexual legislation is more than troublesome on its own, it become even more disconcerting when one is forced to consider the possibility that this scenario could be spreading across the continent.

Homophobia is already widespread throughout much of sub-Saharan Africa for a number of complex reasons (many of which are detailed here), but the current legislation proposed in Uganda may be igniting passions throughout the region and inspiring a rash of anti-LGBT policy creation. Citing evidence from Rwanda, Kate Dailey at Newsweek does an excellent job of evaluating this so-called African Domino Theory. And new reports from Malawi continue to suggest that this theory may have some merit.

What this theory ignores, however, is that the dominoes could essentially fall either way. There has been an opposite (if not equal) reaction to this anti-gay push: African LGBT activists have become bolder, more vocal and more recognized on the international stage. Ugandan activist Val Kalende has become world-renowned for her bravery in speaking out against her government’s treatment of homosexuals, while the possible clampdown in Malawi was spurred by two men putting their freedom and safety at risk to allegedly engage in an illegal same-sex marriage

For concerned members of the international community this phenomenon is potentially good news. While many African governments respond negatively to policy recommendations from the West, human rights activists are often welcomed by determined, but often monetarily and numbers-challenged, LGBT groups in the region.

Only time will tell how the situation in Uganda will play out and whether it will have an effect, in one way or another, on the rest of the continent. Until then, international observers will have to remain especially vigilant when it comes to monitoring the safety of the region’s sexual minorities.

-by John Bavoso