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R/€ Sex and sexuality held ransom to cultural prejudice ... always the last refuge of the scoundrel
October 23, 2003 Edition -1
Barney Mthombothi
Sex or sexuality has, throughout human history, so often bamboozled and left perfectly intelligent souls incoherent with embarrassment, if not utterly speechless. It is a subject that's close to our hearts and an activity that's so necessary for man's existence and, dare I say, for our enjoyment.
Research shows that man - man and woman, that is - on any given day thinks more about sex than about any other subject under the sun. And yet, mention the subject in polite company, jaws drop and tongues are tied. It's a conundrum that, it seems, even the best minds have not been able to figure out. It is the great imponderable of our age.
The human discomfort about sex is, for instance, at the core of our inability to get to grips with the HIV epidemic. Initially Aids emerged among the gay communities in San Franscisco in the early '80s.
While the initial reaction was one of horror, heterosexuals relaxed when they realised it was only ravaging the gay community. We have nothing to worry about, they thought. It was a gay plague. Homophobics cheered. Some in the Christian Right believed it was God's way of ridding the world of deviants.
Now Aids, like a tidal wave, is rolling down Africa, decimating everything in sight. Of course, Africa, like the rest of the black world, is always at the end of the queue, its people always surplus to requirement. Sars, which affected so few people, received swift and effective attention in a very short time. The answer is simply that it threatened bigger and wealthier interests.
Among many cultures, sex remains a taboo subject. As a result Aids becomes a silent and very lethal disease. Little ones, for instance, are still told, when they inquire about the new addition to the family, that he or she, like Moses, was picked up in the reeds down by the river.
Rape and incest destroy tender lives in many families, unseen and unspoken. Sexual myths and connotations, especially about Africans, continue to titillate. In some circles, Africans don't give birth; they breed.
Sex and religion make for an explosive cocktail. The Catholic Church, an institution run by celibate men, produces screeds on how women should behave on matters with a sexual connotation - no contraceptives, no abortion.
The Catholic Church, a body that can be a force for so much good in prevailing circumstances, is doing great harm in the war against Aids. By arguing against the use of condoms, it is condemning young people to an early grave. This must be sitting well with their conscience.
In the Catholic Church, of course, if you're a woman you can't minister to the flock. Scriptures are produced to justify such blatant discrimination. In Muslim countries, especially the theocracies of the Middle East, women have almost been regulated out of existence.
The issue of women priests almost split the Anglican Church, especially in Britain. The Anglican Church is the stepchild of the Catholics, having been founded by Henry VIII when he broke with the Holy See because the papacy wouldn't let him divorce to marry Anne Boleyn, the love of his life.
Three years later Boleyn was dead, executed on the king's orders on trumped up charges of incest and adultery.
The product of that union, Queen Elizabeth I, rose to become perhaps Britain's most influential monarch, and it was during her reign that Anglicanism became colonialism's most effective handmaiden.
It is a fact the church itself acknowledges. "The Anglican Church was spread worldwide by English colonialism and then by English-speaking missionaries," it says in one of its leaflets.
One of Archbishop Desmond Tutu's popular gags is that the missionaries came to Africa and asked black people to close their eyes: "When we eventually opened our eyes, we were holding the Bible, but our land was gone." Like all humour, there's truth in it.
The Anglican Church, born of matters of the heart, is a state church in the UK. The Queen is its titular head, and appoints its archbishop the recommendation of a British prime minister.
So Rowan Williams, the current Archbishop of Canterbury, sits at Lambeth Palace and, like a colonial master, lords over all of his 77 million flock in more than 100 countries, which are called provinces of the Church of England. South Africa is a province.
But a much more explosive issue is threatening to tear the Anglican communion asunder. It has to do with sex or sexuality. The consecration of a gay bishop in the US next month has put the cat among the pigeons.
A summit at Lambeth Palace last week, called to paper over the cracks, has simply emphasised the differences and made a split almost inevitable. It was as though a Molotov cocktail has been let loose on the wizened primates. The way bishops on either side of the argument are hurling abuse at one another one would think that rancour is one of the Seven Gifts of the Spirit.
Churches aren't monolithic. There are differences on many issues within churches that go back centuries. None of them has led to splits. But it seems as though sex or sexuality is about to succeed, as it did in splitting the Anglicans from the Catholics.
The ordination of women priests in the Anglican Church came very close, especially in Britain. But the installation of Bishop Gene Robinson in New Hampshire next month is much more of an incendiary. In many ways it's too close to the bone, I suppose.
The most vociferous voices against gay bishops have come from Africa, especially Nigeria and Kenya, and rightwingers in the US and the UK. It is an odd collaboration. Our African brothers argue that they oppose gay bishops on
biblical and cultural grounds.
I'm no authority on the Bible but culture - to paraphrase - is the last resort of all scoundrels. It is odd and sad to see black people - victims of all manner of discrimination through the ages - calling for the discrimination of other people because they are different. What's this brotherhood of all men supposed to mean? Or is it just an empty slogan?
If there's one thing that our painful history has taught us as South Africans, it is that discrimination - in whatever form, under whatever guise - wreaks a heavy toll on all concerned, both victims and perpetrators.
It is a lesson that especially our African brothers should take to heart. The church should be offering succour to the persecuted, not inflicting more pain to the wound.
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