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NOTE: This article is currently being corrected, as it contains several factual errors. Please do not contribute to its spread. The afrol News redaction apologises for any inconveniences. afrol News, 15 June - Veteran gay rights activist Peter Tatchell in a recent interview with GayToday has given new and interesting information on how strong lobbying assured that the governing ANC party, as it still was fighting the racist apartheid government, abandoned its homophobic stance and embraced gay and lesbian rights. President Mbeki plaid a leading role. In the late 1980s, when all signs were pointing at a democratic revolution where the underground ANC finally would represent the majority governing in South Africa, gay and lesbian's organisations were getting concerned over their future right. Would the coming majority government abandon one of the few positive aspects of apartheid South Africa, the liberty of living by one's birth given sexual orientation? Homophobic statements by the ANC leadership nurtured frights the future situation in South Africa would be as in neighbouring countries, where homosexuality is outlawed. Of course the ANC had "party list lesbian and gay candidates - one is Cullinan," a spokesman told the queer South African Journal "Q" before the 2000 municipal elections. "Our approach as said earlier has not been to question the physiological makeup, cultural life nor social upbringing of any of our members, this prejudicing against others," the governing party official continued, answering why there were no quotas set aside for gay/lesbian politicians. He was not even bothering to mention the fact everyone knew, that his ANC government had been the first in the world assuring gay rights in its Constitution. In 1987, gay activists feared South Africa would end up in a situation parallel to today's Namibia and Zimbabwe. "After nearly 20 years involvement in the anti-apartheid struggle, I was deeply disturbed by the unchallenged homophobia of leading figures in the African National Congress (ANC)," gay activist Peter Tatchell told GayToday. It was however not without a fight. Tatchell mentions himself and incumbent President Thabo Mbeki, then the ANC Director of Information in the exiled ANC leadership in Lusaka (Zambia), as lead figures in the political battle. Fearing that "a post-apartheid, ANC-ruled South Africa would pursue the same kind of anti-gay policies that were common to most revolutionary states, such as Cuba, the Soviet Union and China," Tatchell got an article published in the London gay newspaper, Capital Gay, on 18 September 1987, denouncing ANC executive member Ruth Mompati's homophobic statements. Mrs. Mompati had been quoted saying that homosexuality was "not an African issue." The article then was sent to organisations supporting the ANC's anti-apartheid fight abroad, anti-apartheid press worldwide and to gay organisations. He was hoping "that the subsequent uproar and controversy would sufficiently embarrass the ANC leadership to precipitate a change of policy." - My Capital Gay article led to the ANC and the official anti-apartheid movements worldwide being deluged with letters of condemnation, Tatchell tells GayToday. "People were appalled that a 'liberation movement' like the ANC could be so ignorant, bigoted and intolerant. The ANC leadership was hugely embarrassed." Thus, he could contact the exiled ANC leadership on the issue. Tatchell contacted Thabo Mbeki, reported to be liberal-minded. "My letter was challenging, but friendly and constructive. I argued that support for lesbian and gay liberation was consistent with the principles of the ANC's Freedom Charter," Tatchell describes the first contact. Mbeki, understanding the damage already made on an issue that was of minor interest to the ANC, acted quickly. Within short time, the ANC had debated re-evaluated its stance on the issue. A few weeks after receiving Tatchell's letter, the ANC renounced homophobia and officially and gave its support to the fight for gay rights. Mbeki himself communicated the change of mind to Tatchell, asking him to contribute to the spread of the news. - Securing the ANC's official opposition to homophobia gave the struggle for lesbian and gay emancipation inside South Africa added legitimacy and kudos, Tatchell concludes. "It was instrumental in helping persuade many organisations fighting the white minority regime - both within South Africa and world-wide - to switch to a pro-gay rights position for the first time. This led, ultimately, to the inclusion of a ban on discrimination based on sexual orientation in the ANC's draft post-apartheid constitution." South African gay organisations confirm the ANC's change of heart around 1987. The ANC had been consulting with the Gay and Lesbian Organisation of the Witwatersrand (GLOW) since that year. "In 1987, the first statement came through Thabo Mbeki in London. His statement was quite positive of lesbian and gay people," GLOW leader Simon Nkoli has said. Also national hero Nelson Mandela was 'converted' to endorse gay rights. When Nelson Mandela was released from prison in 1990, Nkoli wrote an open letter to ask the ANC leader his attitude to gay and lesbian rights. "He gave an assurance that gay and lesbian people are part of the oppressed in South Africa, and therefore there was no way he would reject them," Nkoli said in an interview with the 'Green Left Weekly'. Other sources even attribute pro-gay stances to Thabo Mbeki at an earlier stage. Mbeki is supposed to have stated as early as in 1986 "the ANC is very firmly committed to removing all forms of discrimination and oppression in a liberated South Africa. That commitment must surely extend to the protection of gay rights," as the South African Internet journal 'Behind the Mask' quotes him. Mbeki indeed was honest in his change of mind - if he ever had to change it at all. The ANC totally embraced gay/lesbian rights within its policy of no-discrimination, and has stuck to this ever after. The pro-gay South African Constitution has not been an issue of debate for the ANC. As the leader of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), Stanley Mogoba, in 1999 attacked these constitutional rights, Ronnie Mamoepa, Thabo Mbeki's spokesperson clearly stated that Mbeki's office remained "committed to these principles". Peter Tatchell, the activist influencing Mbeki in 1987, has campaigned for gay rights since 1969. Born in Melbourne (Australia) in 1952, he moved to London, where he still lives, in 1971. He is a co-founder and leading activist in the queer rights direct action group OutRage and was also working clandestinely with gay and anti-apartheid groups inside South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s. Tatchell has been noted for many "less diplomatic" stunts promoting gay right, such as trying to arrest Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe for his many documented human rights abuses when in London. Sources: Based on GayToday, Tatchell's web site, Q, Behind the Mask and afrol archives
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