Dear Editor,
With regard to the letter by Antoine Craigwell (‘No one is advocating turning the society lawless’ SN, March 9), half the response wades in the pathos of someone called “Mark,” who perishes at the hands of homophobes, and, in the recital, assumes a sort of martyrdom on his way home from a fete in 1995. There is a purpose to the story about Mark and the importance that the life and eventual beatification will assume. It is to remind us that extra-judicial violence is not the way. But that is not the problem at the heart of this exchange. No one is advocating a phantom-squad approach.
Mark first appears, or manifests, to Mr Craigwell, in the all-male ambience of the boys scouts where he “fitted right in” and does well in the kitchen. Mr Craigwell is his godfather. Mark then reappears in the tale some years later to tell Mr Craigwell a heart-wrenching story of stepfather putting him out because he is gay. The stepfather then becomes, in the letter, the essential homophobe. How does Mr Craigwell, who had by that time entered the novitiate and was perhaps planning to become a priest, react to the realisation that Mark was gay? Does he say sternly to the young man: ‘Boy get down on your knees right now (to pray) and seek the mercy of the Almighty’? No; Mr Craigwell apparently gives full comfort, support, and encouragement to Mark’s homosexual tendencies. So he himself says.
I quote the above to illustrate what we are dealing with. A total inversion of values. Here was a young man who, had he been given the guidance he needed, may have been alive and normal today. He fell, unfortunately, into Mr Craigwell’s hands. He ends up, recognisably gay and perishes to be recycled in tales of how ignorant and unfeeling homophobes are taking lives here. There is, in the account we receive, almost a halo around him.
Mr Craigwell takes us over old ground. The people in the Dominican Republic he cites as examples of naturally occurring homosexuality are found in the literature on hermaphroditism. A condition that has nothing at all to do with the existence of an ‘intersex’ of homosexuals. Mr Craigwell further confuses himself by associating male homosexuality almost exclusively with the effeminates. There are, as the literature now states “homosexualities.” The male-role partner who has nothing womanish about him has no claim to an inverted or feminised sexuality, but is still essential to any discussion of the syndrome. As I stated in my last letter, it is a multiform disorder, affecting men and women in different ways and requiring distinct roles that may each have a distinct psychogenesis and expression.
Which homosexuality then, is to be taken as ‘essential,’ as Mr Craigwell would have us believe. And essential to what? Saving us the fate of certain animals in the kingdom who may appear to change sex at some stage of their development. If this is the example from nature that Mr Craigwell wishes us to follow he needs to explain why we should follow only this one and not other much more entertaining or deleterious practices.
Females murdering and devouring the male after copulation for example, or serial and apparently indiscriminate coitus by dogs in season. The argument he offers, we conclude, departs from the mere parade of what are curiosities, and fixes itself in the ridiculous.
There are two points that Mr Craigwell raised however that insist upon response. The first is the question of the treatment of homosexuals in African or Indian societies. His letter pressed me to do some research. I learn that twenty-nine African countries hold homosexuality to be illegal.
A few francophone states have followed the French and permit the practice in law in the certainty that traditional sanctions would take care of deviants. The Presidents of several African nations have spoken out – Uganda, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Gambia – have said that homosexuality is alien to African societies. The ethnographic evidence contradicts their assertion. The thousands of S African “cultures” or civilisations and societies included many that had feminised ‘berdache’ figures of the sort found in American Indian cultures in some locations.
In India, particularly the Bihar or Uttar Pradesh area there is a popular transvestite who holds high elected office. He belongs to what is not a caste but a sort of special interest group that has a role usually as entertainers, temple workers, etc, in traditional society. The article on this when it occurred was posted on the ‘guyana friends’ discussion board, so many were aware of the development and the presence of these people in that part of the world.
What does all of this prove? Is it that we should adopt all the practices of our ancestors, irrespective of their virtue or value, as substitutes for ways of living we have since acquired? The contention that such a thing was practised in Africa, India or Greece is, as a former candidate for the priesthood would know, insufficient as a justification before the Merciful.
The other point that Mr Craigwell raises that merits consideration is the treatment of homosexuals. Is anyone suggesting that they be beaten in the streets? I do not think this is being advocated here. We have two choices. We may consider it a sickness and therefore exempt them from personal responsibility. Or treat it as a perversion and leave it within the ambit of the law. Let us do the latter.
Our responsibility has to extend to the weak and misguided among us. Our obligation is to assist them to overcome and to reform.
Yours faithfully,
Abu Bakr
