A Message from ZABALAZA Of South Africa

Matt of the IWW, Ct. Jobs With Justice and QWB sent this along to us this evening. Matt is in contact with ZABALAZA, a South African Anarchist group. This is the report. 

* Building a Progressive LGBTI Movement in South Africa Conference - A member of our Gender Working Group attended this conference at the invitation of the Lesbian & Gay Equality Project.

There weren’t many people there because there was a conference on AIDS the same day. I was also surprised that the LGBTI movement in South Africa is not really that progressive. Only a small group considers themselves radicals, the group I have been in more contact since then. The more radical LGBTI people have a strong class analysis. They are very pleased by ZACFs engagement with their issues and have expressed interest in the Anti-Chauvinist network that ZACF is trying (or helping) to build.
In general the mood in the beginning of the conference was quite reformist with the main focus being on legislation and the constitution (being the most progressive constitution in the world when it comes to LGBTI issues). The main aim of the conference, I think, was to make contacts with grassroots movements in South Africa, to facilitate workshops on the issue of homophobia. Since the conference, the Lesbian and Gay Equality project has been in close contact with the Anti-Privatisation Forum.

The difficulties that LGBTI people face in South Africa particularly: they are not only stigmatised as ‘different’ or ‘abnormal’ but they also face being killed or raped as punishment or ‘cure’.

All in all I think it was an interesting conference, even though it was not as radical as I would have thought.

Since the conference the ZACF has released a statement about the murder of drag queen Daisy Dube. This statement was well received in the social movements and in the LGBTI movement. We have been invited to be part of another network and to attend conferences.

The LGBTI movement in South Africa is split, not so much on racial lines, however, but on class lines (which correlates to a certain extent with race). I was told that when there is a protest in the townships people from other classes don’t attend.

However, people at the picket we attended against a chauvinist newspaper seemed to be very diverse.

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