Accra Goes Gay
on Anthony Lovat in Bolgatanga (Ghana), Unknown, 34 days ago
The front page of the Daily Graphic screams...ACCRA GOES GAY!It says much about Ghanaian attitudes to homosexuality that this was the headline after Ghana beat Serbia in the first round of the World Cup last June.‘Gay’ can still mean ‘happy’ in Ghana - just like in 1950s Britain.Like 1950s Britain, the gender roles in Ghana are rigid and clearly defined. Culture and I went round to Donatus’ house the other night for banku (fermented, steamed and pounded millet) and groundnut soup with stewed mutton. We went drinking beforehand in a pito spot and arrived at the house relatively late. Donatus lives with his sister, her husband and extended family - an unpredictable number given thatbrothers, aunties and uncles drop in and out on a whim with their children in tow. They all stay in one large compound house in a less developed area outside Bolga - an area that is proud of having been connected to the electricity network. Donatus’ sister must feed the entire tribe. She enlists all the women in the house and can order them around like a sergeant major. In fact, her job is that of a catering manager. So efficient is her operation that she can also brew pito to sell in the neighbourhood and make some income independent of the men. Despite the lateness of our arrival, Donatus’sister greeted us all warmly and ordered one of the small girls to arrange our table - a beautiful hand-made low coffee table creation of Donatus’ with, unusually, a glass top. Another girl fetched us yet another calabash of pito whilst a third served us our food. We ate and drank under the stars. When we finished, Donatus’ sister ordered the table to be cleared away. I was gushing with my thanks but Culture and Donatus appeared unfazed. It is, after all, her job to serve the food - her duty.The lack of freedom for Ghanaian women is obvious and is something we can easily relate to. It reflects the domestic shackles that British women have so recently escaped from. Donatus’ sister, in different circumstances, may have been a doctor, a lawyer or a veterinary surgeon. Like some women in Britain, perhaps she wants nothing more than to stay in the home but the lack of choice is what makes her situation difficult to stomach.Spare a thought for the men as well. Their role is just as rigidly defined and, like the women, there is little freedom to choose a different lifestyle. Men must earn money and, in Ghana, this is not an easy task. Ghanaians rarely enjoy what we might call a‘career’. A career can grow and mature with age - can fulfil and even define you. A career can be chosen and different career paths can be selected. This is what British women fought for - not the right to work but the right to a career. The subsistence farmers and casual labourers that make upthe majority of Ghana’s male workforce are not enjoying a career. They are working for less than $2 per day. Why must men slave in this manner? To serve their women, of course.The pito house is not an exclusively male institution but is where men go to drink on their thoughts, frustrations and tragedies. Being a man, I sit in pito houses with my friends quite a lot. Many of these blogs are the products of conversations conducted in pito houses. The pito house is a safe and reassuringly masculine environment where men can share their thoughts and feelings about their relationships. Alcohol helps loosen tongues and lower inhibitions. It can be a relief to let off steam and have a good moan to a sympathetic ear. I admit to having the odd moan about my own domestics. From what I have observed, life for a man in Ghana is not the picnic it appears to be. The gender roles dictate that a man must be the provider and Ghanaian women, at least according to their men, have expensive tastes.I know a woman in London who once spent£500 on a handbag. Women have expensive tastes all over the world but my friend in London was earning about £80,000pa as a marketing director for a type of shampoo. She was working to fund her expensive tastes and, I can assure you, she was working hard. (Being follically challenged, I never realised there was so much to selling shampoo). Ghanaian women expect men to buy life’s luxuries for them. That is their role as a man. Ghanaian men earn the money and their women spend it.“My woman is asking for money again,” Culture confided in me the other day. “She wants to travel to Kumasi to buy these brassieres and knickers to sell here in the lorry park. She’ll take the boy with her. She’s asking for three million (300GHc / £130).”What will happen if Culture doesn’t pay up? His first wife demonstrated how Ghanaian women will behave if not kept in the manner they desire. She left him broken hearted to become the second wife of a big man in the area. She’ll be serving him banku whilst happily wearing the shiny trinkets he buys for her.Henry VIII would be the ultimate Ghanaian definition of masculinity. Powerful, rich, virile, brave, sporting, noble and with a huge appetite.Ghanaian men, like their women, are imprisoned within their gender role. This is, I have been told, one of the main appeals of European women to the Ghanaian man. European women won’t hassle you for money. European women are educated and powerful. If a European woman likes you, you know it’s because of who you are and not how much you earn. To be in a relationship with a European woman is to escape the Henry-VIII-esque role that Ghanaian society dictates a man should be. It allows you to explore an area of your personality that is traditionally considered feminine. This is as liberating for a Ghanaian man as a career is for a Ghanaian woman.As women in Britain have become richer, more educated and powerful over the past sixty years, men have also been free to throw off the shackles of their stiff and starched 1950s image. David Beckham, with his tastes in jewellery, sarongs, hair-dos and Spice Girls, was a red-blooded-male role model when I was growing up. The average British woman of my generation, including my own dear wife unfortunately, now want to be in a relationship with someone she can go clothes shopping with. I have been dragged around New Look more times than I care to remember and my own observations of my fellow men reveal many of them to be unfathomably engrossed in whether blue or pink is this season’s colour. My friends shamelessly pluck and moisturise. One or two of them even admit to having tried waxing. To be a man and to be a good cook is to be sexy. Even Wayne Rooney is getting hair replacement therapy.Despite my inability to fit into this new and modern definition of manhood, it is undeniably liberating. If I choose to develop an interest in frilly trousers and flowery shirts, then I’m free to shop ‘till I drop and no one will call me less of a man for doing so. If I choose to cook every meal in the house for Laura, I am no less of a man. If Laura and I choose that she can continue with her career and I should stay at home and look after the kids, no one will question my masculinity. If they do, I’ll nut them! Our society has battled hard to win the liberations we, both men and women, now enjoy and the ability to choose our own lifestyle free from the repressions of a conservative and narrow-minded society is perhaps the most intimate and fragile of all our human rights.Homosexuality is a common trait amongst all higher animals. Chimps, elephants, dolphins and an ever-expanding list of other mammals have all been observed displaying homosexual behaviour. Homosexuality has played a major role in our history. Ancient Roman boys in their late teens were expected to engage in some exploration of their homosexual side. Emperor Hadrian fell deeply in love with a lad called Antinious - taking him on tour, founding a city in his name after his death and even proclaiming him a god. For a while, the cult of Antinious, the gay lover of the Emperor, competed with the cult of Jesus Christ for prominence.Homosexuality, like philosophy, art and mathematics, is an intimate part of human nature. To be able to explore this side of our personality freely is a human right we enjoy in Britain but one that most parts of the world do not recognise.David Kato, a gay rights activist from Uganda, was murdered in January after a newspaper published the names of many openly gay individuals under the title:“Hang them”. Mr. Kato was an outspoken critic of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill - something that proposed the death penalty for certain homosexual acts. If, even for the sake of argument, you imagine anal sex to be a crime, the punishment of death is way out of proportion - and yet this is considered mainstream opinion amongst Ugandan bloggers and policy makers.Africa is a big place. Spain, where gay marriage is now perfectly legal, is closer geographically to Ghana than Uganda. Ghana is reputedly one of the most free and liberal societies in Africa. Nonetheless, to be gay in Ghana is not easy.The front page of the Daily Graphic last week displayed the headline -“Lesbian Lecturer Dismissed”. The language used in the article displays the attitude of most Ghanaians to homosexuality. The polytechnic lecturer used an assignment as a “ploy to lure the female students”. Many of the students had been “converted to lesbianism”. She forced them to “kow-tow to her demands for sex”. Having been ratted on by a student, the lecturer was then found guilty by a disciplinary committee and summarily dismissed.In September 2006, a conference for gay men and women in Ghana was to be held in the International Conference Centre in Accra and in the capital of the Eastern Region, Koforidua. The government banned it. The Minister of Information at the time, Mr. Kwamena Bartels, explained that“homosexuality, lesbianism and bestiality are offences under the law”. Quite how bestiality got lumped into the issue is anyone’s guess - the conference had nothing to do with it.Mr. Bartels is acting like a typical Ghanaian big man. His definition of a‘real man’ does not include anyone who is not like Henry VIII. A real man cannot be seen in the kitchen. A real man likes sport, cars, politics and business. A real man sleeps with women - preferably more than one at a time. A gay man is not, therefore, a real man.What constitutes the behaviour of a‘real man’ or a ‘real woman’ can change over time - as has been demonstrated in the past sixty years in Britain. Ghanaian gender roles are also in a state of flux. The Upper East Region recently passed its first female state bus transport driver. The big orange ‘Metromass’ buses are themost affordable means of transport and bus driving is a traditionally male role. The woman was given a special interview on the radio for the entire morning. It was the subject of a phone in. I think the radio producers hoped for the issue to be controversial but every person phoning in unanimouslyagreed - if she can drive the bus, she’s qualified. An old man, for example, rang in to report how the lady bus driver had delivered him safely from Bolga to Bongo. He was very happy being driven by a lady, he reported.“But...” stammered the DJ, desperate for controversy, “what do you do when something goes wrong with the bus?”“I fix it,” the woman curtly replied. Several listeners then phoned in to testify to her abilities to change one of the giant bus tyres. “She changed the tyre quicker than I’ve seen any man do it,” one woman proudly proclaimed.“I don’t think a woman can be President of Ghana,” Culture announced to Donatus and I whilst we sat eating the banku prepared by Donatus’ sister the other night, discussing the nomination of Jerry Rawlings’ wife to become leader of the ruling NDC party.“What about Kwame Nkrumah’s granddaughter?” I asked. “The MP from the CPP party? The young one?”Culture thought for a moment.“Yes, maybe her,” he conceded.In all the conversations I’ve had in all the pito spots in Bolga, homosexuality has never been talked about. It is off the radar for most Ghanaians. To be a female bus driver or a male chef is still seen as an act of rebellion against traditional gender roles. The freedom, liberty and right to choose your sexual orientation is beyond the imagination. To be able to use the word ‘gay’ in its traditional sense in a national newspaper demonstrates how little people think about homosexuality. In the evolution of culture, it may be considered too much of a revolution at this stage. Many Ghanaians treasure certain aspects of family values even as they try to liberate themselves from others. Fear of the future and fear of the unknown are universal traits. British people have the luxury of living and working alongside openly gay people. We are exposed to a media that is sensitive to gay rights. Homosexuality is a great unknown in Ghana in a way that it isn’t in the UK and Ghanaian people naturally fear it.Listening to the radio yesterday evening, I heard a pastor preach about what it means to be a‘real man’. Taking Christ as his inspiration, he said that a real man should respect women and even help them with their chores. A real man should be tolerant and peaceful, should take an interest in the environment and should think of others before himself. A real man does not use violence to solve his problems. We are so used to seeing religion as a force for conservatism that sometimes we miss how radical it can be. To redefine masculinity is to take the first step away from idolising Henry VIII.The big man is dead - long live the new, more sensitive and perhaps, if he is so inclined, gay Ghanaian man.