Queer as Africa: Representations of Queer Lives in Selected Nigerian, Kenyan, and South

African Literature and Film

A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the

requirements for the degree of

Master of Arts

at

Rhodes University

by

Jon Wilson
ORCID ID
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7310-102X

March 2021
Supervisor: Dr Deborah Seddon ([email protected])
Acknowledgements

This project would not have been made possible without the gracious support of the Andrew
W. Mellon Urban Connections in African Popular Imaginaries (UCAPI) research project. I
would also like to acknowledge the National Research Foundation (NRF). Any opinion
expressed in this body of work is mine, and the NRF does not accept liability in regard thereto.
I would like to extend a special thank you to Dr. Lynda Gichanda Spencer, our leader in UCAPI,
for your commitment to ensuring that I had support throughout my time under this wonderful
research project. I will be forever grateful for the opportunities and experiences you have
provided.

I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Deborah Seddon. This thesis
would not be possible without your unrelenting supervision, support, and friendship. Thank
you for the many hours of conversation, insight, and moments shared, expressing the joys of
queer arts. In 2018 you gave me the push and the confidence I needed to continue this research,
and helped me believe that it was worthwhile. I am forever indebted to you.

To my parents, John and Karen Wilson, thank you for all your support and comfort throughout
this process. There were many days I wanted to give up and you ensured that I did not – thank
you. It would be very remiss of me not to thank the rest of my family and friends, including
my siblings Ryan, Bronwyn, and Kristen, for their care and check-ins.

To my friends Lindsay Purdon, Rachel West, Lauren van Noort, Laurryn Ah Yui, and Ashton
Kirsten. Thank you for always being there for me. A special thank you to Andrew Marais and
Kayleigh Perumal too – you all ensured, through your friendship, that I never felt alone. I would
like to extend a special thank you to my friend, Tahzeeb Akram. Without your support,
conversations, and many hours laughing together, I would not have come close to finishing
this.

I want to thank my partner in life, David Sammon. I will never be able to express my gratitude
to you adequately. Meeting you made me a better person, and I thank you for always believing
in me, especially when I did not. Thank you for always listening to me tell you about the work
– your critiques, comments, and thoughts were always welcomed.

ii
Abstract

This thesis contests the notion that nonnormative sexualities are ‘un-African’ by examining a
range of representations of queer African lives on film and in literature, produced by Africans
for Africans, as a means to interrogate the role played by the interconnected histories of
colonialism, religion, and the policing of queer intimacy, specifically in Kenya, Nigeria, and
South Africa. Through a close reading of a selection of texts from these three countries, this
thesis takes a cultural-historical approach to exploring the complex struggles engaged in by
queer people in Africa to protections under the law, and to represent themselves in literary and
cinematic narratives. The first chapter is focused on the Kenyan film Rafiki (2018), directed by
Wanuri Kahiu, which tells the story of queer love between two young Kenyan women who
face the vehement condemnation of their relationship from their homophobic community. The
film was banned in Kenya, but the director was granted a temporary injunction by Kenya’s
high court in order for it to be screened in Nairobi. This made Rafiki the first queer film ever
to be screened in Kenya, and viable for an Academy Award nomination. The second chapter
focuses on the bold assertion of a queer African identity through the short story collections
Queer Africa: New and Collected Fiction (2013) and Queer Africa 2: New Stories (2017).
Written by various authors from the African continent, and compiled and edited by Karen
Martin and Makhosazana Xaba, both collections offer a wide variety of fictional narratives
focused on queer experiences in Africa. The second chapter has a focus on stories from Kenyan
and Nigerian authors and explores notions of home, queer belonging, and visibility. The third
chapter presents a close reading of the South African film Inxeba (2017), also known as The
Wound, directed by John Trengove and adapted by Trengove and Thando Mgqolozana from
Mgqolozana’s novel, A Man Who Is Not A Man (2009). The film depicts the traditional Xhosa
initiation ritual, ulwaluko, and is set in the rural Eastern Cape. Inxeba is an important case
study in the history of queer representation in Africa, as the film hit a nerve with many,
interrogating what South Africans believe about culture, traditions, masculinity, and the right
of artists to represent sacred ritual in art. This thesis pays attention to the historical
entanglements between homophobia, imperialism, and Christianity – relationships that
continue to affect the experiences of queer people in Africa and attitudes towards them and
interrogates why queer individuals are still being left out of efforts towards creating a new
normal in postcolonial Africa. This thesis suggests that increased visibility is a key aspect of
queer activism in Africa – through the act of representation, sharing lived experiences, and
telling queer stories.

iii
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................. ii
Abstract............................................................................................................................... iii

Introduction: Africa is Queer ............................................................................................. 1

Definitions and Language Used ......................................................................................... 4
The History of Nonnormative Sexualities in Africa ........................................................ 11
“Cultural Labor” and the Visibility of Black Queer Africans ......................................... 18

Chapter One – Queering Kenya: The Politicisation and Policing of Love in Wanuri
Kahiu’s Rafiki ..................................................................................................................... 24
Introduction: Becoming “Something Real” in Conservative Kenya ............................... 24
Not Your Typical Kenyan Film ....................................................................................... 26
“Stand tall like the jambula tree”: A Comparison of Rafiki and “Jambula Tree” ............ 28
The Repurposing of Colonial Laws after Independence.................................................. 32
The Hybridity of Rafiki .................................................................................................... 37
The Purpose of Pacing and Violence in Rafiki ................................................................ 50
The Politicisation and Public Policing of Private Love ................................................... 56
The Reality of “Real” Love ............................................................................................. 62
A “Real” Future For Queer Kenya................................................................................... 64
Conclusion: A Qualitative Critique of Rafiki................................................................... 65

Chapter Two – How Queer is Africa? Representations of Queer Lives in Queer

Africa: New and Collected Fiction and Queer Africa 2: New Stories .............................. 67
Introduction: Why Queer Africa? .................................................................................... 67
Asserting a Queer African Identity .................................................................................. 70
Problematizing the Queer Africa Anthologies ................................................................. 72
Contextualising Queerness in Nigeria ............................................................................. 77
Queer Intimacy and Longing in “Iyawo”......................................................................... 82
Accepting Desire in “Àwúre Ìfęràn”................................................................................ 88
The Faces of Homophobia in “Pub 360” ......................................................................... 92
Conclusion: Making Africa More Queer ......................................................................... 95

Chapter Three – ‘Ndiyindoda! or ‘I Am a Man!’: Exploring the Nexus Between

Queerness and Masculinity in South Africa in John Trengove’s Inxeba ..................... 97
Introduction: Fractured Queer Identities .......................................................................... 97
Contextualising the Wound: The Birth of Manhood ..................................................... 104
Maintaining the Secrets: Homosexuality and Traditions ............................................... 108
Unmasking Traditions: A Generational Divide ............................................................. 111
The Confrontation of Gay Xhosa Love ......................................................................... 116
If the Shoe Fits: Depictions of Classism in Inxeba ........................................................ 117
Catalytic Change: Confrontations of Queerness in Inxeba ............................................ 121
The Wounds of Xhosa Masculinity ............................................................................... 123
Wounded Debates: The Reception of Inxeba in South Africa ....................................... 129
Conclusion: Healing Masculinities ................................................................................ 139

Conclusion – The New Normal for Queer Africa ......................................................... 141

Bibliography ..................................................................................................................... 143

iv
Introduction: Africa is Queer
Homosexuality is not un-African; what is un-African is homophobia.
Wanuri Kahiu.

Representation is an essential tool used to enact change, increase visibility, and validate
identities. In Black Looks: Race and Representation, bell hooks notes that due to the dominance
of whiteness in the history of representation: “we are most likely to see images of black people
that reinforce and reinscribe white supremacy” (1). When we queer this view, we can recognise
how patriarchal, heteronormative society perpetuates the same hegemonic norms in terms of
queerness and nonnormative sexualities. The images and representations of queer people,
throughout history, have been used to reinscribe heteronormativity and perpetuate an idea of
queerness as an identity that is both second-class and immoral. As Sanya Osha notes,
“homophobia and the oppression caused by the entrenchment of heteropatriarchy continue to
be a serious impediment towards sexual decolonisation” (96). Although queerness has always
existed in all societies, the category of that identity has not. According to Zethu Matebeni,
Surya Monro, and Vasu Reddy in their introduction to Queer in Africa: LGBTQI Identities,
Citizenship, and Activism:

African non-heterosexual sexualities and gender diversities are . . . neither static

nor uniform; rather, they are dynamic, multifarious, and resilient. While identity
seems to be an ongoing component of self-definition, African queer identities
are fundamentally under construction, changing, discursive representations that
reflect the tensions between the personal and the oppressive power of social
structures. (1-2)

As Matebeni et al. observe, the ongoing construction African queer identities and self-
definitions are closely linked to the burgeoning forms of representing queer lives on the
continent. Queer people can fight the systems that oppress them by sharing stories and
experiences, which calls attention to the expanding desire to create a new normal. As Marc
Epprecht notes, “Queer politics and the struggle for sexual rights are a very new development
in most of Africa, dating generally from the 1990s. Africans, however, have known for a very
long time about people who somehow do not fit the heterosexual ideal” (Unspoken 2-3).
Historically, representations that depict queerness as something destructive, damaging, and
shameful mar the development of acceptance. Furthermore, in African countries, queerness has
been compelled into a state of invisibility and when that invisibility is challenged, efforts at
more accurate representations of queer lives are met with antagonism and attempts at
suppression and erasure. Queerness in Africa is still largely considered a social taboo because

1
of its perceived ties to whiteness and colonialism. Therefore, the representations of queer lives
in film, television, and literature in Africa broadly are still unsubstantial. As this thesis will
explore, however, African filmmakers and writers are making efforts to change this situation.
The relationship between many African countries and their queer citizens is a
contentious one. According to Abadir M. Ibrahim, “36 African countries criminalise sodomy
and the list includes those that impose life imprisonment and the death sentence” (265). The
toxic legacy of colonisation in Africa, which involved the imposition of both imperial laws and
Christianity on indigenous cultures, resulted in the erasure of indigenous ways of being,
cultural norms and laws, and the widespread policing and thus politicisation of queer intimacy.
Nonnormative sexualities and same-sex relationships have existed for centuries in Africa,
whether or not the people involved identified as queer or homosexual but, as Ibrahim notes, in
many postcolonial African countries, “one of the major arguments that are being voiced against
the protection of LGBTI rights is that homosexuality is ‘un-African’” (266). Cheryl Stobie
observes:

Non-normative sexualities are subject to legal and social censure worldwide.

Out of some 196 countries (Rosenberg 2014), at least 76, or possibly up to 81,
criminalise homosexual acts (‘79 Countries’ 2015). Out of a total of 54 African
countries, homosexuality has been declared illegal in 38, and the death penalty
can be applied in four of these (‘Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual’ 2014). Despite this
rampant homophobia and abuse of human rights, however, sociological and
anthropological accounts, life writing, literature, and film from many of these
countries testify to the presence of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and
intersex individuals. (“She Who Creates” 63)

As Epprecht, Stobie, and many other researchers drawn on in this thesis have demonstrated,
queer Africans have always existed, despite the negative connotations attached to this identity.
Taiwo Adetunji Osinubi observes, “African politicians and cultural purists have repeatedly
asserted the foreignness or un-African nature of nonnormative sexualities by placing same-sex
desires outside of African customs and traditions” (xvi).
Two of the countries focussed on in this thesis, Kenya and Nigeria, both have strict
laws against LGBTIQ+ people and behaviours, whereas, in the third, South Africa,
nonnormative sexualities are not criminalised. The situation faced by LGBTIQ+ citizens,
however, is vexed. South Africa was “the first in the world to ban discrimination on the ground
of sexual orientation,” but public discourse around queer people and behaviours is still fraught
with complexity (Munro South Africa vii). Attitudes towards queer people are often
condemnatory, with queerness viewed as a capitulation to corrupt Western lifestyles. As anti-

2
imperialist rhetoric combines with patriarchal norms and deep-set religious ideologies, these
condemnations often result in the violent policing of nonnormative sexualities. The policing of
LGBTIQ+ people in Africa impedes adequate representation in, as well as the production and
dissemination of, and access to, queer African literature and film.
This thesis seeks to examine representations of queer African lives on film and in
literature, produced by Africans for Africans, as a means to interrogate the role played by the
interconnected histories of colonialism, religion, and the policing of queer intimacy,
specifically in Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa. By examining a range of African fiction and
films, I hope to articulate a clearer understanding of the complex struggle for the right of queer
people in Africa to protections under the law and to represent themselves in literary and
cinematic narratives. In their paper “The Struggle over Representation,” Ella Shohat and
Robert Stam explain that “filmic fictions inevitably bring into play real-life assumptions not
only about space and time but also about social and cultural relationships. Films which
represent marginalised cultures in a realistic mode, even when they do not claim to represent
specific historical incidents, still implicitly make factual claims” (206). Filmic and literary
representations help depict lived lives and experiences which can help change and shape
societies.
As a queer white man from South Africa, I recognise the complexity in my own
contribution to this research. As Makhosazana Xaba states, regarding positionality and writing:
“if you want to write about what you don’t know, something outside of your ‘positionality’,
then research it first, live in it, with it, listen to it, ask it questions, ask questions about it, learn
to speak its language, understand it well enough before you start writing” (qtd. in Xaba and du
Preez 136). Haley Hulan, noting the importance of incorporating a historical study in one’s
analysis, explains:

New Historicism is an area of critical theory which focuses not only on the texts
that one is examining but the social and historical context in which those texts
were created and viewed. New Historicism connects the fictional with real
history and real people, which is the most important aspect of any project that
examines the usage of literary tropes by virtue of the nature of tropes themselves;
tropes are patterns in fiction which arise from various circumstances. (18)

Thus, the analytical approach taken in this thesis is intersectional, historical, and cultural, rather
than a strictly theoretical one, as drawing solely on Western queer theory will not in itself

3
illuminate adequately the veracity nor the complexity of queer representations in differently
situated African countries and cultures. 1

Definitions and Language Used

Throughout this research, I have discovered many different definitions of the various ideas and
concepts that inform this work. The following section examines the contemporary usage of
these key terms and definitions as these steer my understanding and analysis throughout. The
section also seeks to create a sense of uniformity and cohesion regarding the key terms used
throughout this research.

Representation

bell hooks notes the vital importance of accurate forms of representation and the qualities for
liberation they possess:

Without a way to name our pain, we are also without the words to articulate our
pleasure. Indeed, a fundamental task of black critical thinkers has been the
struggle to break with the hegemonic modes of seeing, thinking, and being that
block our capacity to see ourselves oppositionally, to imagine, describe, and
invent ourselves in ways that are liberatory. (2)

Representation matters because when it is done positively, it helps dismantle problematic

stereotypes. hooks coined the phrase “imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy” to
describe what she called “the interlocking political systems that are the foundation” of society
in the United States (Understanding par. 2). Such a foundation also exists in many African
countries, where one of the most urgent tasks is the reconstitution of societies impacted by
centuries of imperialism. As Osinubi points out, “emergent representations” of queer Africans
in literature and film have “been framed as interventions in cultural politics or expressions of
dissent due to the politicization of queer intimacies” (viii). hooks’s work on race and
representation is thus useful to examining queer representation in Africa and the efforts of
queer African filmmakers and writers to liberate queerness from the combined effects of neo-
imperialism, patriarchy, and heteronormative hegemony.

1
Kimberlé Crenshaw, who coined the term ‘intersectionality,’ in 1989 has drawn attention to the
multidimensionality of experiences of oppression, especially among those who are marginalised or silenced in
their societies due to their race, class, gender, and sexuality (139).

4
 According to Stuart Hall, representation is “the production of the meaning of the
concepts in our minds through language. It is the link between concepts and language which
enables us to refer to either the ‘real’ world of objects, people or events, or indeed to imaginary
worlds of fictional objects, people and events” (172). Noting that, as humans, we may interpret
the world differently from each other, Hall states, “we are able to communicate because we
share broadly the same conceptual maps and thus make sense of or interpret the world roughly
in similar ways” and, “because we interpret the world in roughly similar ways, we are able
build up a shared culture of meanings and thus construct a social world which we inhabit
together” (173). Hall states that “the relation between ‘things’, concepts and sign lies at the
heart of production of meaning in language” and “the process which link these three elements
together is what we call ‘representation’” (174).
Hall’s explanation of representation, and his notion of “conceptual maps” as a “system
of concepts” (173), are useful when considering that queerness has always existed, but the
language attached to the concept to give it meaning and understanding has, historically, been
negative. When queer people attempt to share their stories and their lived experiences they are
required to challenge these negative “conceptual maps” particularly when engaging in acts of
representation. This may be linked to Xavier Livermon’s important notion of the “cultural labor”
required to shift embedded notions of queer identity, as will be discussed later in this
introduction (“Queer” 300). For instance, in the Netflix documentary Disclosure (2020), Jen
Richards recalls that when dealing with her own transgender identity she had no positive media
representations on which to draw. She explains that when she revealed her transgender identity
to a friend, their “only point of reference was this disgusting, psychotic serial killer” named
Buffalo Bill from The Silence of the Lambs (1991) (19:15). Having no positive point of
reference highlights the damaging ways nonnormative sexualities and gender identities have
been misrepresented throughout history. In Africa, these negative conceptual maps are further
complicated by the impact of the history of racism and colonialism on the continent, as will be
explored in detail later.
Sanya Osha explains how “a series of erasures and misrepresentations have been visited
on black sexuality since the advent of coloniality,” which “amounts to sexual stigmatisation”
(92). Although African individuals, communities, and countries must dissect and interrogate
their attitudes towards homosexuality and queerness, it is also necessary to obtain increased
visibility of nonnormative sexualities. This can happen in a number of ways. As discussed by
Cheryl Stobie, international publicity has helped curb prosecution and discrimination in
countries like Senegal, where same-sex relationships are illegal. She notes that there is

5
“potential significance of an analysis of queer activism from the outside of specific African
countries in solidarity with sexual minorities within these contexts, both working in tandem to
effect progressive shifts in law, popular opinion, and attitudes towards queer individuals and
behaviour” (63). Therefore, this thesis takes as its starting point the idea that the representation
of queer African lives in Africa, by Africans themselves, is a vital aspect of queer activism on
the continent towards social change. As Susan Stryker notes, in the documentary Disclosure
(2020), “having positive representation can only succeed in changing the condition of life”
when such representations are “part of a much broader movement for social change. Changing
representation is not the goal. It’s just the means to an end” (1:42:23). Stryker’s focus here is
on the lives of transgender people, but her inference about the work of representation can be
applied to other members of the LGBTIQ+ community too. Although positive representation
in Africa is pertinent to progressive change in public opinions, queer representation is also far
more complicated on the African continent than in many Western countries, because of the
historical entanglement of queerness with its policing under colonial rule, as will be explored
in detail throughout this thesis. As the situation in South Africa makes clear, there can be
legislative protections in place for queer individuals, but negative public opinion often has a
far more pervasive effect on the lived precarity of queer lives.
When public opinion outweighs the reach of the legislature, positive representation can
help towards systemic change, as will be explored throughout this thesis through an
examination of Kenyan, Nigerian, and South African legislation as regards the rights of queer
citizens. Although public opinion in countries like Kenya and Nigeria affects legislation –
homophobic public opinion supports the constitutional oppression of homosexuality – in South
Africa, it is the opposite. Despite widespread anti-homosexual public opinion, the South
African constitution affords protection for queer people. In Nigeria, it is illegal for men to be
homosexual, while the legality as pertains to women is uncertain. 2 There are no protections for
LGBTIQ+ people regarding discrimination, and homosexual activity can result in a prison
sentence of up to three years. In Kenya, it is also illegal to be homosexual. 3 There are no
protections in terms of discrimination, and punishment involves prison sentences of five to
fourteen years. Although there are harsh laws in Kenya, “the measures have not been widely
enforced” (Ingber par. 7).4 In both countries, the public discourse is extremely anti-homosexual,

2
See “LGBT Rights in Nigeria” at https://www.equaldex.com/region/nigeria.
3
See “LGBT Rights in Kenya” at https://www.equaldex.com/region/kenya.
4
According to Sasha Ingber, “Human Rights Watch said it was aware of just two prosecutions against four people
in the last decade. Instead, the organization says, the laws have served as a pretense to mistreat LGBTQ people,

6
with over ninety percent of people surveyed of the opinion that Nigerians and Kenyans should
not accept homosexuality. 5 Homosexuality is legal in South Africa, and same-sex marriage and
protections against discrimination are afforded to South Africans. The public discourse over
the rights afforded to LGBTIQ+ citizens is fraught with difficulty, however, with public
opinion and attitudes leaning towards anti-LGBTIQ+ sentiments. Therefore, when we see
queer representation in film and literature from Africa, we need to acknowledge such efforts
to liberate queerness from the combined effects of neo-imperialism, patriarchy, and
heteronormative hegemony. Representations of queerness in some African countries, such as
Nigeria, have also been marred by depictions that associate nonnormative sexualities with
evilness, witchcraft, and immorality. 6 As Julius Kaggwa notes: “if we are relentless in our
educational work, to change hearts and minds, we will make incremental and lasting attitudinal
changes concerning differences in sexual development” (Matebeni et al. 7).
Grant Andrews draws attention to the crucial political component to representation:

Representation, particularly the type of representation that challenges concepts

of the assumed incompatibility of same-sex sexualities and an essentialised
‘Africanness,’ are in many ways still viewed as politically important in the
South African context. By asserting the black, queer subject and their place in
South Africa, these texts offer vital counternarratives to widespread
homophobia. (3)

Therefore, various forms of representation are needed to ensure stereotypical views of queer
Africans are not perpetuated and reinforced. The belief that nonnormative sexualities are un-
African has been debunked through a historicisation of sexuality in Africa, as will be explored
throughout this thesis. Sylvia Tamale notes, “the mistaken claim that anything is un-African is
based on the essentialist assumption that Africa is a homogeneous entity. In reality, however,
Africa is made up of thousands of ethnic groups with rich and diverse cultures and sexualities”
(par. 7). Beyond the African continent, we have seen increasingly accurate queer representation
throughout contemporary history in groundbreaking Western television shows such as Ellen
(1994-1998), Will and Grace (1998-2006, 2017-2020), and Queer as Folk (2000-2005). These
shows have helped gradually shift the conversation around the acceptance and visibility of gay

who report harrowing accounts of being forced into sex, discriminated against at work, suspended from schools,
pressured into paying off authorities and other abuses” (par. 7).
5
See the survey “Should Society Accept Homosexuality?” <https://www.equaldex.com/surveys/pew-global-
attitudes-on-homosexuality-2013>
6
The Nigerian Nollywood film Emotional Crack (2003) is an example of this type of depiction. See Lindsey
Green-Simms and Unoma Azuah’s “The Video Closet,” to explore the condemnation of films depicting same-sex
attraction and sexuality in Nigeria.

7
and lesbian communities and projected queer narratives into mainstream spaces. We have also
seen the discussion around the precarious lives of people in the transgender community and
their gradual access to acceptance, visibility, and autonomy through shows like Transparent
(2014-2019) and Pose (2018-2021). Using the model of Western media and how more nuanced
representations can make queerness visible and change possible, queer African filmmakers and
writers are now making space for their own new normal.

The New Normal

In this thesis, I use the definition of heteronormativity articulated by Lauren Berlant and
Michael Warner in their essay “Sex in Public.” According to Berlant and Warner,
heteronormativity is “privileged” through interlocking “structures of understanding” which
enshrine heterosexuality as the invisible norm. Berlant and Warner do not equate
heteronormativity with heterosexuality but instead explain how, because heterosexuality is
privileged throughout society, any sexuality other than heterosexuality “can never have the
invisible, tacit, society-founding rightness that heterosexuality has” (312). 7 As Lauren Berlant
and Michael Warner suggest:

Queer social practices like sex and theory try to unsettle the garbled but
powerful norms supporting that privilege – including the project of
normalization that has made heterosexuality hegemonic – as well as those
material practices that, though not explicitly sexual, are implicated in the
hierarchies of property and propriety that we will describe as heteronormative.
(Intimacy 312)

As this thesis will explore, there is a desire to create a new normal by resituating African queer
narratives within the postcolonial cultural work of African film and literature made by Africans
for Africans. The new normal is complex, however, and often involves developing queer
African identities representing themselves against the many historical entanglements and
powerful social structures that oppress them. The new normal includes depicting fully-formed
and realised identities in film, television, literature, and life. In terms of queer African sexuality,
this also consists of defining queer African people as sexualised beings.
Creating a new normal is complex because it seeks to subvert the privileging of
heteronormativity that has previously disenfranchised queerness. It is further complicated

7
See Berlant’s Intimacy (2000) for the full definition Berlant and Warner use.

8
because some queer people model their own lives on what has historically been considered
normative, whereas other queer people seek to dismantle social norms completely. The use of
the term ‘new normal’ within this research pertains to the use of representations that seek to
make queer Africans visible, legitimate, and fully realised as both queer and African, which
includes the privilege of deciding for one’s self what that realisation means within a particular
culture while cognisant of the continent’s historical entanglements.

Entanglement

The use of the term historical ‘entanglements’ in this research draws on the work of
Cameroonian philosopher, political theorist, and public intellectual Achille Mbembe. In his
seminal work, On the Postcolony (2001), Mbembe notes that:

what Africa as a concept calls fundamentally into question is the manner in

which social theory has hitherto reflected on the problem (observable also
elsewhere) of the collapse of worlds, their fluctuations and tremblings, their
about-turns and disguises, their silences and murmurings. Social theory has
failed also to account for time as lived, not synchronically or diachronically, but
in its multiplicity and simultaneities, its presence and absences, beyond the lazy
categories of permanence and change beloved of so many historians. (8)

Mbembe calls attention to how we look at history in Africa as a phenomenon that has happened
rather than an enfolding of past and present that is continuously happening. The complexities
of African colonial history continue to shape, inform, and affect contemporary African
societies. Mbembe observes how “all human societies participate in a complex order, rich in
unexpected turns, meanders, and changes of course, without this implying their necessary
abolition in an absence of center” (8). He suggests that Africa as a concept has a history of
being viewed as a place of chaos but as he also observes:

the torment of nonfulfillment and incompleteness, the labyrinthine

entanglement, are in no way specifically African features. Fluctuations and
indeterminacy do not necessarily amount to lack of order. Every representation
of an unstable world cannot automatically be subsumed under the heading
‘chaos.’ (8)

Mbembe explains: “while we feel we know nearly everything that African states, societies, and
economies are not, we still know absolutely nothing about what they actually are” (9).
According to Mbembe, “an entanglement” is what constitutes what he describes as the
“postcolony,” a period that “encloses multiple durées made up of discontinuities, reversals,

9
inertias, and swings that overlay one another, interpenetrate one another, and envelope one
another” (14).8 Regarding his notion of the postcolony, he notes that his “central concern was
to rethink the theme of the African subject emerging, focusing on him/herself, withdrawing, in
the act and context of displacement and entanglement” (15).9 He observes how:

this time of African existence is neither a linear time nor a simple sequence in
which each moment effaces, annuls, and replaces those that preceded it, to the
point where a single age exists within society. This time is not a series but an
interlocking of presents, pasts, and futures that retain their depths of other
presents, pasts, and futures, each age bearing, altering, and maintaining the
previous ones. (16)

Through his exploration of power and subjectivity in Africa, Mbembe points out that
“everything remains to be learned about this continent” (18). Drawing on Mbembe’s work is
crucial in understanding how queer African self-representation is instrumental in defining a
clearer understanding of Africa because queerness has not always been visible but rather
hidden within the entanglements of African and European history.

Queerness

Queerness, as a means of naming, developed from the use and reclamation of an old slur. Some
scholars, activists, and individuals use ‘queer’ as an umbrella term to signify various
communities that fall under the moniker of non-heterosexual. But there has been much debate
around this usage. Although the term ‘queer’ aims to be inclusive in its definition and intention,
some people feel that it is a capitulation to heteronormative binarisms. As Xavier Livermon
observes:

Ossified identities, created and imposed by colonialism and apartheid, and

variously contested and given meaning and significance by various different
communities themselves, are under increasing pressures as people seek to
(re)define themselves according to new sociopolitical realities. A significant
part of this redefinition involves the appropriation and use of Western-origin
identifications such as “straight” and “gay” and their relationship with local
vernacular terms describing nonnormative sexual practices. (“Queer” 305)

8
The French word, ‘durées’ translates to the English word ‘durations’.
9
According to Mbembe, “Displacement is not simply intended to signify dislocation, transit, or ‘the impossibility
of any centrality other than the one that is provisional, ad hoc, and permanently being redefined’” (15).

10
The single-use word groups together various communities that strive for individualism in their
own right. It also situates heterosexuality as the default sexuality by way of individualising it
and, as mentioned above, combining various communities while ignoring their particularity. In
South Africa and the Dream of Love To Come: Queer Sexuality and the Struggle for Freedom
(2012), which analyses the complexities of queerness in South Africa comprehensively,
including a thorough historicisation of South Africa’s relationship to nonnormative sexualities,
Brenna M. Munro explains her understanding of using the word ‘queer,’ with which I
ideologically align, and which I will draw on in my own use of the term. Munro states that the
word ‘queer’ is:

marked by its Euro-American cultural point of origin, and some critics argue
that it is impossible to use it without engaging in a form of academic
neoimperialism. I rely on it, however, to enable discussions of identities,
practices, intimacies, or affects that do not fit into ‘regimes of the normal’ –
whether local, national, or global – and to bring our attention to forms of stigma
that are produced at the intersection of race, sexuality, and imperialism. (xix)

I will use queer, queerness, nonnormative, and the acronym LGBTIQ+ throughout this thesis
to represent the various sexualities and identities that exist within Africa and its history while
acknowledging the complexities around these labels as described by Munro. According to
Marc Epprecht, queerness is “often perceived as a threat to the morals of black African society,”
as will be explored in detail in the next section (Unspoken 3).

The History of Nonnormative Sexualities in Africa

According to Munro, “homosexuality in Africa is bound up with a contradictory modernity

that has been produced both within and against imperialism, and this is what makes the question
of gay rights in Africa so politically fraught” (South Africa xiii). In Unspoken Facts: A History
of Homosexualities in Africa, Marc Epprecht explains how “same-sex behaviour is a universal
phenomenon that takes place regardless of how conservative a culture may appear or its leaders
may claim it to be” (218). Throughout history, not only has homophobia and homophobic
rhetoric been used to maintain power in African societies, but both also offer insight to the
entangled histories of sexuality in Africa. The maintenance of power through the policing of
African sexuality began with colonialism but continues to this day. According to Epprecht,
“the first people to claim that same-sex sexual relations are ‘unAfrican’ were not Africans
themselves, nor even in some cases had they ever been to Africa. They were European men”

11
who saw homosexuality, and African sexuality itself, as something of an immoral abomination
(Unspoken 12). As Eno Blankson Ikpe notes:

There have existed stereotypes regarding the sexuality of black people which
have settled in Euro-American minds. Black people are supposed to be carnal,
passionate, lustful, lewd, rapacious, wanton, lascivious and sensual. . . . [An]
image has been created that the Black man is sexually out of control. This image
developed in the early days of European adventure in Africa when they found
the freedom of sexual expressions in Africa diametrically opposed to the sexual
repression which was fostered by Christianity in Europe. (Ikpe 26-27)

According to Epprecht, “In colonial times, Africans’ supposed stunted or brutish sexuality was
thought to oppress and degrade women, engender laziness and stultify intellectual growth in
men, threaten public health and safety, and impoverish culture and the arts (no love or higher
emotions, just lust and steely transactions)” (“The Making” 768). Therefore, the history of
colonisation coincides with the history of the policing of African sexuality. Through
colonisation, Christianity arrived, and brought with it the idea of eliminating homosexuality
and cleansing African cultures. Christianity, however, is not seen as something that needs to
be rooted out as a foreign import. In contemporary Africa, “African sexualities experience
slightly different forms of violence from the imperial/colonial kind, which are often mediated
by factors of history, culture (and sometimes religion) and also positioning within the current
wave of globalisation” (Osha 96).
Epprecht notes that “homosexuality in some form or another is part of human nature”
and, as such, has always existed in Africa because “humans come from Africa” (Epprecht and
Egya 372). His extensive historical research reveals rich evidence of nonnormative sexualities
existing throughout the cultures of the African continent. 10 Sylvia Tamale’s research also

10
In Unspoken Facts, Epprecht explains that same-sex activity was noted, enacted, and accepted for a myriad of
reasons, including, as a means of “population control due to the risk of famine (24). He suggests that in some
cultures “women’s lesbian-like sex play may have also reflected their relative freedom from male authority” (24-
25); that sexual play between boys and girls, as a means to “prepare for marriage,” was known in Zulu, Xhosa,
and Shangaan cultures (27), often understood as “mere accidents stemming from physical closeness” (30); and
that the phenomena of mine wives, boy wives, and other forms of homosexualities were encouraged as a means
to stop unwanted pregnancies and the spread of diseases (58). Other examples of queerness throughout African
history include the notion of female spirits occupying male bodies, which would be linked closely to what we
would understand as a transgender identity today (35); and the “ritual gender inversions” amongst the Venda
people, where women in charge at initiation schools were “called ‘masters’ (nematei) while senior men who
instructed boys were known as ‘mistresses’ (nyamungozwa)” and where these women had young brides (36).
Epprecht notes here that we can “reasonably speculate that some of the people who fulfilled these unusual gender
roles did so in part because they offered a respectable cover for unusual sexual tastes” (36-37). Other examples
include “intentional male-male sexual acts could take place as a form of muti” where it was “used to cure
impotence, to improve soil fertility, or to advance political ambitions” (37) and “battle preparations could also
entail sex with males, not just amongst the warriors going into the fray but right up to the highest level of command”

12
demonstrates evidence of nonnormative sexualities throughout the continent’s history:

African history is replete with examples of both erotic and nonerotic same-sex
relationships. For example, the ancient cave paintings of the San people near
Guruve in Zimbabwe depict two men engaged in some form of ritual sex.
During precolonial times, the “mudoko dako,” or effeminate males among the
Langi of northern Uganda were treated as women and could marry men. In
Buganda, one of the largest traditional kingdoms in Uganda, it was an open
secret that Kabaka (king) Mwanga II, who ruled in the latter half of the 19th
century, was gay.
The vocabulary used to describe same-sex relations in traditional
languages, predating colonialism, is further proof of the existence of such
relations in precolonial Africa. To name but a few, the Shangaan of southern
Africa referred to same-sex relations as “inkotshane” (male-wife); Basotho
women in present-day Lesotho engage in socially sanctioned erotic
relationships called “motsoalle” (special friend) and in the Wolof language,
spoken in Senegal, homosexual men are known as “gor-digen” (men-women).
But to be sure, the context and experiences of such relationships did not
necessarily mirror homosexual relations as understood in the West, nor were
they necessarily consistent with what we now describe as a gay or queer identity.
(Tamale par. 8-9)

Although, as Tamale suggests, nonnormative sexual relationships in precolonial Africa are not
the same as the contemporary understandings of queer relationships, these examples are
nevertheless proof of the existence of sexualities in Africa different from historically
heteronormative hegemonic sexuality.
As Epprecht points out, the history of sexuality in Africa “was clearly more complicated
than the idealised heterosexuality that contemporary African leaders now claim as African
tradition” (Unspoken 41). He notes a “striking irony” behind the idea that homosexuality in
Africa is a Western import when “many of the first Europeans to observe African cultures
closely were shocked by African willingness to bend the supposed natural laws of sexuality”
(Unspoken 41). Therefore, as Epprecht observes, it is, in fact, homophobia that was imported
to Africa, rather than homosexuality itself. Attitudes shaped by homophobic beliefs have
influenced the representations of queerness throughout history. 11 According to Epprecht:

the word homophobia was coined in 1969 at the time of the emergence in the
United States of the modern gay rights movement and sharp political reactions
against it. To apply the word to the historical past therefore is, strictly speaking,

as was seen amidst the Ndebele and Ngoni warriors (39). In Hungochani, Epprecht notes the evidence of male-
male sex in Bushmen and Khoi cave paintings “confirm that same-sexual practices not only existed in pre-modern
milieux but were common enough to be socially acceptable” (26).
11
As Epprecht explains, “external factors such as colonial institutions like prisons and migrant labour camps
played a role in giving rise to new forms of same-sex relationships.” (Epprecht and Egya 372).

13
 anachronistic. The attitudes and behaviour it describes, however, clearly existed
long before they had an explicit name. (Hungochani 134)
Epprecht notes that, “dating from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries,” many European
countries persecuted homosexual acts that were deemed sinful and unnatural by the law of
religion (Hungochani 134). Epprecht explains that this “hostility towards same-sex sexuality,
or indeed, any kind of intimacy that might call into question sharply dichotomous gender roles
for males and females” was brought over to Africa in the laws and attitudes disseminated during
colonisation (Hungochani 135). As I will show, this can clearly be seen in the British penal
codes enforced in African territories where Britain took control. As Munro observes, “In
various postcolonial locations, imperial-era laws about sexuality are still on the books, and are
being both contested and defended, while new, extreme antigay laws are also being written”
(South Africa xvi-xvii). The reality, where some former colonies have changed their laws
regarding nonnormative sexualities, while others still retain colonial laws, will be explored
throughout this thesis by comparing the legislation policing queer lives in South Africa with
laws in Kenya and Nigeria.
South Africa has one of the most inclusive constitutions regarding protection for
LGBTIQ+ people, but so far that has not changed public attitudes informed by the historical
entanglements of colonially-imported homophobia. Makhosazana Xaba succinctly explains the
complexities of queerness in contemporary South Africa:

We live in a country whose period we call ‘post-apartheid’ but the majority of

what is ‘post’ about apartheid are its laws and policies, which is different from
saying nothing has changed. What I am referring to are the values and mind-
sets of many South Africans who are racist, sexist, classist and homophobic to
name a few, as if we do not have the best constitution in the world. Reality is
lagging behind our new laws and policies. (qtd. in Xaba and du Preez 145)

As Gibson Ncube notes:

South Africa is an exception in Africa in that its constitution offers

comprehensive protection to individuals who identify as LGBTIQ. This
exceptionalism has unwittingly reinforced the narrative of the rest of the
continent as being backward and homophobic, while South Africa is liberal and
progressive. However, the freedoms and protections enshrined in South Africa’s
constitution remain substantially de jure paper freedoms, largely inaccessible to
LGBTIQ communities and individuals who are not in privileged economic
classes and racial locations. (“Film” 61)

Despite the differences in legislative protections, public attitudes in the three countries that are
the focus of this thesis are still unwaveringly homophobic. Ncube suggests that the “waves of

14
anti-queer animus have swept across the African continent, especially in the last decade or so,”
make it important to analyse why “countries like Nigeria and Uganda have enacted stringent
laws that criminalise queer sexualities” (“Film” 59).
Through the legislative and social power of colonialism and then apartheid, all cultures
in South Africa became homophobic but now express homophobia in different ways.
Homophobia across all cultures in the world exists mainly because of longstanding attachments
to religion and patriarchy. As religion and patriarchy are inherently linked, the connection that
contemporary homophobia has to South Africa’s colonial past is evident in the longstanding
beliefs and attitudes. Munro draws on Grant Farred’s observation of queer politics in post-1994
independent South Africa to observe “that the present, which is supposed to be severed from
the apartheid past, is inhabited and structured by that past” (South Africa xxxiii). Therefore,
despite current South African legislation outlawing homophobia, the deep-set attitudes against
homosexuality have been embedded into the social fabric of all South African cultures.
Since 1994, South Africa has embarked on a steady but uneven programme of
decolonisation and transformation due to multiple factors. One of the significant factors in this
unevenness is that Christian religious belief is so thoroughly grounded in most communities in
South Africa. As Gibson Ncube observes “several scholars have argued, colonial laws and
imported religions, Christianity especially, are, in essence, the basis for the current homophobic
legislation in force in many African countries” (“Film” 60). According to Munro:

After apartheid, South Africa established a celebrated new political order that
imagined the postcolonial nation as belonging equally to the descendants of
indigenous people, colonizing settlers, transported slaves, indentured laborers,
and immigrants – and it also specifically included gays and lesbians as citizens.
(vii)

Thabo Msibi observes that, “the collapse of apartheid has provided many freedoms to
many groups that were previously marginalised. However, theses freedoms have been (and
continue to be) limited by various factors, including sexual orientation” (50). Munro notes that:

Gay identity, is, however, an inherently ambivalent symbol for nationalism,

because it is so deeply associated with cosmopolitan modernity, or, to borrow
Bruce Robbins’s phrase, ‘feeling global.’ While ‘being gay’ or ‘being lesbian’
was reimagined in the 1990s as distinctly South African, the very ‘newness’ that
made these sexualities apt symbols for a transformed nation is also easily
understood as ‘foreign’ – and, in this context, as ‘un-African.’ (South Africa ix)

The LGBTIQ+ community in South Africa continues to experience horrific violence, often
inflicted, as Msibi points out, by men who are fearful of the historical pressures of masculinity:

15
“this violence, whether verbal, physical, implied or potential, is largely caught up in notions of
masculinity, and is highly gendered” (50). Msibi explains that although there has been much
progress with the constitution in South Africa and its rights-based approach, there is still the
presence of danger and fear that looms in both the queer communities and the communities
which uphold patriarchal, heteronormative ideals. By merely existing, queer people in South
Africa challenge a system seeped in power and privilege. Msibi explains that:

South Africa is still very much a patriarchal society, with ideas around manhood
still deeply entrenched. This may therefore shed some light onto the rising
homophobic violence, particularly targeted at lesbian women through ‘curative’
rape, since homophobic violence is largely based on the notion that ‘effeminate
gay men betray the superiority of masculinity, and masculine lesbian women
challenge and try to usurp male superiority, and therefore these individuals need
to be punished for being a threat to the ‘natural’ social order.’ (51)

Internalised homophobia might even be seen as a by-product of this misogynistic thinking. For
example, the notion in the gay community of not seeking out or dating effeminate men because
they are not seen as masculine enough. This alleged infringement on the norms of society is
often met with horrible violence as a way to change queer people or prove one’s masculinity.
The violent crimes committed against queer people directly breach the protections afforded to
queer South Africans by the constitution. As Ariana Puzzo notes:

Rates of rape are extremely high in South Africa and LGBTQ women are
sometimes targeted for what is known as ‘corrective’ rape, where men allegedly
believe forced sex can change a woman’s sexuality. Women who identify as
lesbians are considered primary targets, but non-traditional gender expression
broadens the number of individuals within the LGBTQ community who may
experience ‘corrective’ rape. (par. 4)

Although the South African constitution protects queer people, “homophobia and homophobic
violence continue to be publicly sanctioned,” and queer people still live precarious lives in
South Africa (Msibi 52). As Ingrid Lynch and Matthew Clayton point out, “legal equality is
far-removed from the lived experiences of those South Africans who do not conform to
heteronormative and masculine ideals, with homophobia often manifesting itself in violence”
(280). Therefore, while the constitution legally protects queer people, the public opinions and
attitudes render their environments unpleasant and, in some cases, unsafe. As Nonhlanhla
Dlamini points out, this was illustrated in 2006 by former President Jacob Zuma’s public
remarks about gay men: “In his address he told his supporters that ‘When I was growing up,
unqingili (homosexuals) could not stand in front of me’ because he would knock them off.

16
Zuma’s ‘manly’ speech made at his Zulu cultural fan-base legitimizes a brand of Zulu ethnicity
intricately linked to dominant masculinities” (Dlamini 3). As Abisola Balogun and Paul Bissell
point out, “hegemonic masculinity is patriarchal heterosexual masculinity. Masculinity and
sexuality are not easily separated; this is because once a man does not conform to the
hegemonic form of masculinity, the first thing to be questioned is his sexuality. (114)
Consequently, despite the changes that occurred in 1994, it is still difficult for queer people to
exist openly in South Africa, especially since Zuma, as the former the leader of the country,
openly asserted a homophobic attitude oppositional to the constitution he had sworn to uphold.
The leadership of a country has power and influence over its constituents and therefore
influences public opinion. As Taylor Mitchell points out, “the problem, rather, is rooted
personal beliefs of those who have the power to choose whether they want to protect LGBTQ
rights under the constitution, or employ censorship laws to infringe upon them” (par. 11). Like
Jacob Zuma, the former leaders of Kenya and Nigeria, Daniel arap Moi and Olusegun Obasanjo
respectively, have also made harmful remarks. They “have both described homosexuality as
unnatural, ungodly, and un-African, and the anathema to the morals of the ‘African culture’”
(Balogun and Bissell 114). Balogun and Bissell note: “given that Africa is not homogenous
and there exists a multitude and variety of cultural expressions and practices, it is problematic
to make the assumption that there is a singular way in which African masculinity or sexuality
is and can be enacted” (119). But, because homophobia, as a viable means of maintaining
power over African societies, proliferated through the spread of Christianity, homophobic
attitudes and rhetoric are still inflected in articulations of power, due to what Mbembe would
call the entanglements of time in the postcolony. As Sylvia Tamale suggests:

[t]he ‘homosexuality is un-African’ myth is anchored on an old practice of

selectively invoking African culture by those in power. African women are
familiar with the mantra. ‘It is un-African’ whenever they assert their rights,
particularly those rights that involve reproductive autonomy and sexual
sovereignty. (par. 6).

Tamale also suggests that “the current wave of anti-homosexuality laws sweeping across the
continent is therefore part of a thinly veiled and wider political attempt to entrench repressive
and undemocratic regimes” (par. 13).
There is fear present in heteronormative patriarchal communities, which are often
guided by the belief that the improving the rights of queer people challenges or threatens power
and privilege. Ingrid Lynch and Matthew Clayton observe how:

17
 Patriarchal power is intertwined with a heteronormative social order that
privileges heterosexuality and rigidly defines normative gender identities,
gender roles, sexualities and sexual relations. Heteronormative assumptions, for
example, inform the privileging of reproductive sex and heterosexual
relationships, perpetuating the marginalization of those who do not conform to
these requirements. (280)

The increased visibility of queer people, and the cultural conversations engendered by such
visibility, can help to dismantle negative attitudes towards queer people in South Africa and
beyond. As Xavier Livermon notes, “black queerness destabilizes the heteronormativity of
blackness by presenting black queer relationships as equivalent to heterosexual ones” (“Queer”
309). For the purpose of this study, I have chosen two films and two collections of short stories
to analyse the variety of ways in which queer Africans are attempting to make their lives and
experiences more visible. According to Zaharah Devji, “establishing the African queer is
critical to the movement” of acceptance. Devji notes that “the fundamental step towards
acceptance” is obtained through visibility (358). The “cultural labor” involved in increasing
this visibility is explored in the next section (Livermon “Queer” 300).

“Cultural Labor” and the Visibility of Black Queer Africans

In the first chapter of this thesis, I explore the complicated relationship between queerness and
Kenyan culture, specifically the desire for authenticity and visibility in a society that frowns
upon people who differ from cultural traditions and expectations. I do this through a close
reading of the Kenyan film Rafiki (2018). Directed by Wanuri Kahiu, Rafiki tells the story of
two young women who fall in love with each other and face the violent censure of their union
from their homophobic community. The film was banned by the Kenyan Film Classification
Board, but the ruling was contested by Kahiu, and the film was granted a temporary injunction
by Kenya’s high court in order for it to be screened in Nairobi for the minimum seven days
required for it to be considered for an Academy Award nomination. This made Rafiki the first
queer film ever to be screened in Kenya. Through a detailed discussion of both the content of
the film, and the filmmaker’s struggle to allow it to be screened in its country of origin, I
explore Rafiki as an important attempt towards making Kenyan queerness visible, both in
Kenya and on the world stage.
In the second chapter I explore queer literary formations in two anthologies of short
stories – Queer Africa: New and Collected Fiction (2013) and Queer Africa 2: New Stories
(2017), edited by South African writers Makhosazana Xaba and Karen Martin. Many of the

18
stories in the Queer Africa collections express a desire for the wider acceptance of queer people
and queer narratives within Africa. The anthologies assert a queer African identity. Although
born from the first collection, this idea for acceptance serves as an impetus for the concept of
the anthologies as a whole:

Queer Africa brings together historical and contemporary stories, affirming and
disquieting stories, urban and rural stories. It features characters who are rooted
firmly in their countries and cultures, and others who could live anywhere in
the world. At its heart, the collection celebrates the diversity and fluidity of
queer and African identities, offering a sometimes radical reimagining of life
on the continent. (GALA “Queer Africa”)

Through a close reading of three short stories from the second collection, I seek to determine
the efficacy of the collections’ progressive representations of queerness towards creating a new
normal for queer African storytelling. In this chapter, I also explore the notions of home, queer
belonging, and visibility, namely in Nigeria and Kenya.
In the third and final chapter, I look at the complex ways in which queerness and
masculinity intersect and clash through a close reading of the South African film Inxeba (2017)
also known as The Wound. The film depicts the traditional Xhosa initiation ritual, ulwaluko,
and is set in the rural Eastern Cape. Ulwaluko is an ancient and sacred ceremony, personal to
the initiates (abakwetha), and their families, who honour the secrecy that surrounds a practice
centred on the journey toward full adult masculinity for AmaXhosa men. Inxeba is focused on
a closeted relationship between two men, Xolani and Vija, whose role it is to help the initiates
through this passage from boyhood to manhood. Their secret relationship is disrupted by a
young gay initiate, Kwanda. From Johannesburg and openly queer, Kwanda’s character
illustrates the impact of class and modernity on indigenous South African cultures. Inxeba
posits the simple, yet provocative, suggestion that queer people have always existed in South
Africa, and have participated in sacred traditional ceremonies for centuries. As the vexed lives
of Xolani and Vija demonstrate, queer Xhosa men have had to navigate their own passage to
adult manhood, and the behaviours it requires of them, carefully, for fear of discovery or
persecution. There has been much debate about Inxeba in South Africa. It drew the ire of many
cultural leaders, but also met with praise from other sectors of society. The film illustrates how
queer intimacy is often met with the threat of exposure and punitive violence. Inxeba is an
important case study in the history of queer representation in Africa, as the film hit a nerve
with many, raising questions about what South Africans believe about culture, traditions,
masculinity, and the right of artists to represent sacred ritual in art.

19
 As Gibson Ncube points out, both Rafiki and Inxeba “gesture towards the need for open
discussion of non-normative sexualities and genders in Africa. They demand that viewers
rethink not what it means to be queer in Africa, but what it means to be human, to be different
and to embrace freely that difference” (“Film 71). As the controversy over the Rafiki’s
distribution and screening in Kenya is similar, in many respects, to that experienced by the
creators of Inxeba, it will be very fruitful to compare these two recent queer African films.
To fully understand the complexities of the films and texts chosen for discussion and
how these make visible the lives of queer Kenyans, Nigerians, and South Africans, this section
draws on the work of Xavier Livermon, who studies the intersections of blackness and
queerness, specifically in South Africa. Livermon’s notions of “cultural labor” and “discursive
visibility” will inform the thesis as a whole (“Queer” 300, 315). As Livermon observes,
currently “black queer South Africans are not able to enjoy fully the privileges encoded in the
South African constitution as black and queer” (314). This loss of privilege, he continues “is
because cultural politics consistently mark the black queer body as the constitutive outside of
blackness and the queer body is subsequently racialized as white,” leaving black queer South
Africans “outside both the representational and the material realities of queerness” (314-315).
Livermon highlights what needs to be done towards obtaining freedoms as a queer, black,
South African. He notes that:

To experience freedom in postapartheid South Africa, the black queer body

must enter either a deracinated queerness or a blackness divorced from sexuality.
Realizing this, black queers struggle against definitions of blackness that are
inherently exclusionary and heteronormative. These exclusive definitions of
blackness mean that freedom for most black queers remains elusive. To create
possibilities for freedom, black queer South Africans enter the discursive realm
and enact forms of cultural labor, even forms of belonging, to destabilize the
heteronormative construction of blackness. By claiming discursive visibility in
the public sphere, black queers work to create the possibilities for freedom.
This possibility for freedom as an explicitly queer subject has
implications for black queers worldwide. Black queer South Africans are not
estranged from the state by their blackness, nor are they estranged from the state
by their queerness. They are, however, estranged from realizing the freedoms
enabled by the postapartheid South African constitution by their black
queerness. (“Queer” 315).

Black queer people in South Africa should be able to exist without the worry of
persecution, oppression, and discrimination, but “homophobia is fuelled by both a lack of
awareness and a lack of the promotion of Constitutional values and rights” (van Vollenhoven

20
and Els 283). Livermon’s work is valuable because he explores exactly what is entailed in
obtaining the freedoms that should be ensured under the constitution:

Freedom must be understood not as a set of political, economic, and legal rights
that exist a priori waiting to be conferred on an abject population but as a
sociocultural construct that is given meaning and contested in communities
through citizens’ actions. Freedom in this context refers to the ability of black
queer individuals to create forms of visibility that work to enable what Judith
Butler calls ‘livable lives.’ These livable lives are constructed through public
naming and performance of gender and sexuality dissidence with the
understanding that such public disclosures will not result in the curtailment of
or loss of life. (“Queer” 300)

Livermon highlights how black queer individuals can also obtain these freedoms through
visibility, which “is about recognition, since ‘it is only through the experience of recognition
that any of us becomes constituted as socially viable beings’” (“Queer” 300). Livermon
suggests that that “Queer visibility, then, is not only about finding acceptance for difference
within black communities but also about a defiance and a subversion of blackness in ways that
are potentially transformative, thus creating the very liberation promised by the constitution
and giving freedom its substantive meaning” (“Queer” 301). Furthermore, Livermon notes that,
in South Africa and elsewhere, “Black queers create freedom through forms of what I term
cultural labor. The cultural labor of visibility occurs when black queers bring dissident
sexualities and gender nonconformity into the public arena” (“Queer” 300). As noted
throughout this thesis, representations of queer African lives and realities are vital to creating
visibility which Livermon notes “refers not only to the act of seeing and being seen but also to
the process through which individuals make themselves known in the communities as queer
subjects” (“Queer” 300).
All three texts chosen for close examination in this thesis enact some form of cultural
labour. Rafiki enacts its cultural labour through its depiction of a same-sex relationship in
Kenya. It is unclear whether any of the actors involved are queer themselves, and whether they
had any input in how the story is told, but the film itself, which adapts the short story, “Jambula
Tree” (2006) by Uganda writer Monica Arac de Nyeko, is born from another form of cultural
labour: short stories. The editors of the Queer Africa anthologies explored in the second chapter
enact cultural labour to make queerness visible through an assertive African identity. The
anthologies include stories from various authors, some of whom openly identify as queer –
cementing the work of cultural labour throughout the production of the anthologies (Livermon
“Queer” 300). Inxeba exemplifies Livermon’s notion of “cultural labor” on the screen and off

21
the screen (“Queer” 300). The film itself extends the visibility of black queer South African
men into one of the most protected and sacred areas of South African masculinity – the
initiation of men. Furthermore, off-screen, the film’s production involved many queer people,
including the director John Trengove, producers Batana Vundla and Elias Ribeiro,
screenwriters Thando Mgqolozana and Malusi Bengu, as well as two of the main actors,
Nakhane Touré and Niza Jay Ncoyini, who have all contributed in their own ways to the film’s
success. According to the website South African History Online, “Extensive research was
undertaken by the film crew, including interviews over 6 months of Xhosa men, varying in
sexual and class identity” (par. 9). Therefore, all the queer people involved in creating the film
have a hand in telling their own stories through “cultural labor” (Livermon “Queer” 300). As
suggested by the nature of the relationships depicted in the film, which will be explored in
detail in the third chapter, Inxeba positions the complexities of being black and being queer in
South Africa front and centre.
Both the films and the anthologies recognise what Livermon and Butler suggest is key
to becoming viable beings: visibility – which flourishes through “cultural labor” (Livermon
“Queer” 300). Furthermore, Candace Volger notes how:

paradigmatically, self-expressive intimacy is a private affair of selves, although

models of ethics or politics that stress storytelling, emotions, identification, and
empathy suggest that the very patterns of self-expression and self-enhancement
that make intimate life a haven can be used to draw us – at least by an act of
imagination or feeling – into the public world as well. (48)

Volger’s assertion shows the importance of representing the private lives of queer Africans on
screen and in print due to the work done by such texts in realm of identification and imagination.
Furthermore, through the “cultural labor” of all three chosen texts, queer black people are
visible in spaces where they have always been rendered invisible – and queer black Kenyans,
Nigerians, and South Africans are telling their own stories (Livermon “Queer” 300). Andy
Carolin notes that the documentary about leading gay rights and anti-apartheid activist Simon
Nkoli, Simon & I (2002), which explores the history of postapartheid sexual rights and
struggles, “reinforces not only the interconnectedness of political struggles, but also Nkoli’s
significance as a historical figure through which this interconnectedness could be made visible”
(5). 12 This idea of interconnected political struggles is vital to all forms of queer activism
including the collection and dissemination of queer literature such as the Queer Africa

12
Simon & I is directed by Beverly Palesa Ditsie and Nicky Newman.

22
anthologies and the creation of queer films such as Rafiki and Inxeba, which make the historical
struggles in Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa visible.
Despite the potential for Inxeba and Rafiki to create visibility and a sociocultural
context for queerness in South Africa and Kenya, however, the films have raised a furore in
their respective countries. As Livermon suggests, “the possibility of humanizing and
destigmatizing queer relationships, of course, does not completely overturn preexisting [sic]
homophobia that casts queer bodies as outside blackness” (“Queer” 306). As Gibson Ncube
points out, Inxeba and Rafiki “are part of a growing body of cinematic products grappling with
various facets of what it means to be in Africa and what it means to be both African and queer”
(“Film” 56). Ncube also notes how “watching films such as Inxeba and Rafiki thus becomes a
self-reflexive exercise in which viewers are perpetually questioning not only what they are
viewing but more importantly their own ways of thinking, especially in relation to non-
normative gender and sexual identities” (“Film” 75). The reception and debates surrounding
the films and the anthologies, which help with understanding the way forward, will be explored
in a detailed discussion in the subsequent chapters. By looking at these selected queer texts, I
hope to explore the various foundations being built around queer African studies in Kenya,
Nigeria, and South Africa, and to demonstrate the importance of representation in the struggle
towards creating liveable lives for queer Africans.

23
Chapter One – Queering Kenya: The Politicisation and Policing
of Love in Wanuri Kahiu’s Rafiki

Introduction: Becoming “Something Real” in Conservative Kenya

Wanuri Kahiu’s 2018 film Rafiki tells the coming-of-age story of two Kenyan teenage girls
who fall in love with each other in a historically conservative and anti-LGBTQ+ society. At a
key moment in the film, two girls, Kena and Ziki find themselves on a rooftop where they are
admiring the vastness of Nairobi. They sit down at their makeshift picnic spot and begin to sift
through their thoughts while they get to know each other better. They operate with an air of
ease and comfort between them as if they have known each other longer than this meaningful
encounter. There is also no denying their mutual attraction. Their conversation turns to sharing
their hopes for the future. Kena tells Ziki of her dreams to go to school to become be a nurse,
while Ziki, who comes across as a free spirit, shares her ideological desires rather than her
practical plans: “I don’t know, I want to travel. I want to see the world. I want to go to all those
places where they’ve probably never seen an African and just show up there and be like, ‘Yo,
I’m here and I’m a Kenyan from Africa!’” (20:17). Kena, without hesitation, responds: “but
you’re not the typical Kenyan girl that they’d be looking for” (20:35). Ziki’s hyper-feminized
and colourful appearance is stereotypical of what is classed as the behaviour and demeanour
of a ‘normal girl’ in a heteronormative patriarchal society. Kena, however, reads between the
lines and realises that Ziki is in fact not a typical Kenyan girl while simultaneously
acknowledging that she too is the same. Kena’s tomboyish appearance situates her in this space
of atypicality. By being attracted to each other, both girls operate and live beyond the
boundaries and expectations of Kenya women, as will be explored in detail later in this chapter.
Emily Yoshida notes that the moments on the roof are “some of the film’s strongest moments,
as the two talk about what they want from their futures” and “both agree with certainty that
they don’t want to be ‘ordinary Kenyan girls,’ as their hand-holding and enchanted gazes into
each other’s eyes become furtive kisses and embraces” (par. 4). The rooftop scene is also
symbolic of the more pressing desire for young queer Kenyans to be free and authentic in their
own country. As Akash Deshpande observes:

their romance starts to blossom only after their direct interactions with another.
Both of them, [sic] want an escape from the reality they’re in, especially the
lives that the women of their society were assigned to. The mutual quest for

24
 freedom from the societal prejudices forms a stronger bond between these two
souls. They bond and confess to one another with a complete realization of their
identity. Still, what starts out as a breezy, chatty romance doesn’t take long to
get testified [sic] in the world around them. (par. 3)

There is a stark difference between the two girls and the way that they operate in their
community, which, I think, stems from their respective upbringings. Ziki, raised in an affluent
household where her parents are still married, lives a very privileged life. On the other hand,
Kena’s parents are divorced – her father has remarried and there is less privilege afforded to
her. Although there are restrictions placed on the girls, there is also difference as to how they
approach these social rules. As Leigh Monson observes:

Kena is resistant to breaking social norms while Ziki exhibits a much freer,
devil-may-care attitude. Their chemistry is awkward but palpable, and their
relationship only becomes more interesting the more their class differences –
notably Ziki’s unexamined social privileges – shape who they are and who
they will become. This is contrasted with a community dynamic that is
predominated by gossip and suspicion, outwardly professing love in a tight-
knit church congregation but more strongly characterized by ostracism and
violence toward those who threaten cultural norms. What’s particularly
fascinating is that not only does this community come bearing sticks, but it
also at times expresses heterosexual courtship as a complimentary carrot, as a
way for Kena to escape poverty and elevate her station. (par. 3)

When comparing Ziki and Kena’s families, the noticeable difference between the two is their
adherence to traditions and norms. Where Ziki’s family is strict, conventional and comprised
of what is considered a normal nuclear family, Kena’s family has veered away from normalcy
with its blended makeup. Ziki’s upbringing is guided by her family’s societal expectations of
her, but she is indifferent to her parents. As she says to Kena: “My parents don’t think the same
way. I don’t want to be like them. Just staying at home and doing typical Kenyan stuff. Doing
the laundry. Having babies” (20:43). Both Kena and Ziki understand that they share the
knowledge that they are different and that much of their identities will be given up if they
subscribe to Kenyan heteronormative patriarchal ideals. As they talk together on the roof, Ziki
initiates a pact for just the two of them: “We will never be like any of them down there. Instead,
we’re gonna be…” to which Kena asks, “Something?” Ziki continues her pact, but is stuck in
thought when Kena suggests, “Something real?” (21:08 – 21:31). They understand that they
are different from other people “down there,” in their identities and solidarity and this pact
originates from their awareness that they are no longer alone. Their mutually affirmed pact,
just like their meeting, is almost dance-like and only complete with both of their input, interest
and belief in being authentic as the only means possible to live a happy life. Throughout the

25
film this idea of being or becoming “something real,” meaning being openly queer in Kenya
or at least not afraid to explore this desire, is sewn into the core of the narrative. This desire for
authenticity in the two young women mirrors the struggle everyday queer Kenyans face when
battling at the intersections of authenticity and the oppressive hegemonies.
In this chapter, I make use Brenna M. Munro’s approach to the analysis of queer African
texts as stories framed within larger politics. Munro explains that her examination of a number
of queer African texts is “in dialogue with contemporary African anti-homophobic writing
from a range of locations,” while also partaking in another discourse, namely feminism (“States”
192). She observes that “this literary formation is nonetheless shaped by feminist politics: the
desire for women to be able to make sexual choices freely, to exist outside the institution of
marriage, and to have worth without being mothers” (“States” 192). Munro’s focalization of
the intersectional politics of feminism and queer literary formation, allows attention to the ways
in which Rafiki is replete with, and in dialogue with, other social discourses which are framed
within the politics of gay rights in Kenya namely feminism, heteronormativity, classism, and
sexism. This observation not only helps us understand the meaning and intent of the film, but
also helps distinguish what the film means to the development of queer rights in Kenyan society.
This chapter explores the ways in which the depiction of two queer Kenyan girls who seek to
be accepted as their true selves in their homeland, which constantly opposes this desire by
means of patriarchal, heteronormative, and religious oppression, is symbolic of the larger fight
queer Kenyans face for acceptance. It also seeks to situate the film within the context of
Kenya’s entangled history of homosexuality, religion, and colonialism. Therefore, this chapter
will provide a close reading of the film’s depictions of the difficulties of being queer in Kenya
while acknowledging its interconnected social themes that allow for it to be used as mechanism
to propel Kenya (and on a larger scale, Africa) towards a progressive new normal that affords
legitimacy to homosexual rights, love, and belonging.

Not Your Typical Kenyan Film

The word ‘rafiki’ is Swahili for ‘friend,’ but as the film progresses it deals not only with
friendship but also with the personal, familial and societal ramifications for two young women
who go beyond a friendship and form an intimate same-sex relationship. This relationship is
not only viewed as immoral and repugnant but is also illegal in Kenyan society. What is clear
is that the film acts like a showcase – depicting ordinary Kenyan life but from a definite queer
angle. The film, directed by one of Kenya’s leading filmmakers, Wanuri Kahiu, has garnered

26
both a positive and a negative reception. Rafiki was selected to be screened at the Cannes Film
Festival in 2018, but it was banned in its country of origin days later after its release at the
festival. This censorship derives from Africa’s complex colonial history where non-normative
sexualities within the African continent are still viewed as un-African, as well as a capitulation
to the values of Western society. Ironically, Rafiki also became the first Kenyan film to be
screened at the Cannes Film Festival. The Kenyan Film Classification Board (KFCB) banned
the film in Kenya, however, on the grounds that, according to the head of the KFCB, Ezekiel
Mutua, it goes “against the law, the culture and moral values of the Kenyan people,” by
promoting lesbianism (Mutua qtd. in Peralta par. 9). The ban originated after Kahiu refused to
edit the ending of the film in the ways the KFCB suggested. She explained in an interview that
the KFCB regarded the film’s original ending as presenting the protagonist as too hopeful and
not remorseful: “They felt it was too hopeful. They said if I changed the ending to show her
[the main character Kena] looking remorseful, they would give me an 18 rating” (qtd. in Clarke
par. 7). An 18 rating, according to the KFCB, ensures that the minimum age of viewers is 18
years old. 13 As Guy Lodge points out, “it’s a film that would be most aptly and valuably
targeted to the generation about which it has been made,” (par. 2) but the controversies
surrounding the film’s banning and the 18 rating makes it difficult for teenagers to access. An
air of shame surrounding the efforts to watch the film without judgement, or the risk of being
labelled gay or lesbian for their support or association of the film, most likely will cloud in any
teenagers who attempt to watch the film. On the other hand, a film about the love between two
queer Kenyan teenagers would be a source of hope for many closeted queer people in Kenya
as it is representative of change.
Kahiu argues that the hopefulness in the film, and others like it, is crucial: “those kind
of stories are incredibly important to tell not only because we need to see images of ourselves
so that we know we are worthy of hopeful existences, but so that other people can start to see
us as that” (qtd. in Pfeifer par. 10). Kahiu therefore refused to edit the film, which prompted
its ban. Kahiu then sued the KFCB as “the ban was not only an affront to her constitutional
rights but would also keep the movie from being considered for the Oscars” (Peralta par. 10).
The ban meant the film was ineligible for consideration as Kenya’s submission for the Best
International Feature Film at the Academy Awards, because it could not be screened in theatres

13
It is pertinent to note that it would be beneficial, both in terms of financial gain and the efforts to spread the
film’s message, for the film to receive an 18 rating rather than be outright banned. The 18 rating, however, still
impacts the film negatively. The fact that the KFCB suggested that the director of the film, which is not sexually
explicit, should change its ending in order to settle for an 18 rating highlights their pervasive anti-LGBT attitude.

27
in its country of origin for the minimum requirement of seven days. Kahiu did gain a small win
in her fight against the KFCB, however, when “Kenya’s high court issued a temporary
injunction, allowing Rafiki to be screened for seven days, from September 23 to 29” 2018
(Peralta par. 10). The seven-day screening then permitted in Nairobi made Rafiki not only the
first queer film ever to be screened in Kenya but, as Odie Henderson notes, it is “the first film
with a positive message about homosexuality to play in Kenyan theaters” (par. 1).
Despite the negative criticism from the KFCB, the film was a success when it was
allowed to be shown to Kenyans in Kenya. The first screening was sold out about half an hour
before it was due to start which resulted in another cinema being opened for the continuous
influx of people at the screening (Thiam 02:30). Although the film made history, subsequently
it has remained banned in Kenya after the temporary injunction was lifted. Since the film’s
initial release and the reiteration of the ban, Kahiu is still fighting to allow the film to be
screened in Kenya. Corinne Ahrens points out that

Kahiu has been resilient in her fight to show her films and has decided to
continue challenging the ban in Kenyan courts. Kahiu argues that the
government’s ruling encompasses broader freedom of expression implications,
and Rafiki should not be banned in its country of origin – nor any country, for
that matter. (par. 6)

The film was dealt another blow because, as of May 2020, Kahiu has lost her efforts for her
fight for Freedom of Expression. The Kenyan High Court ruling resulted in the continuous ban
of the film two years after its initial release. Kahiu intends to appeal the ruling and to continue
her fight for the film to be screened in its country of origin. Despite these setbacks, as Leigh
Monson notes, “Rafiki’s release was a huge win for the Kenyan LGBT community, marking
a precedent in LGBT rights that can now be used as a foothold for further gains” (par. 1). As
Justin Chang observes, “the familiarity of this story, of course, is also a sign of its ongoing
relevance” (par. 3). This fight can sometimes be difficult with many obstacles in the way,
including laws from the country’s colonial past that continue to police the lives of all queer
Kenyans.

“Stand tall like the jambula tree”: A Comparison of Rafiki and “Jambula Tree”

The film itself is based on the short story, “Jambula Tree” by Monica Arac de Nyeko, which
takes place in Uganda, and tells a similar story to Rafiki. The short story garnered praise and
acclaim, namely when it went on to win the 2007 Caine Prize for African Writing. Although it

28
is published in Queer Africa: New and Collected Fiction (2013), this well-known short story
has also previously been published outside the anthologies – it was first published in African
Love Stories (2006). The editors of the Queer Africa anthologies, however, included it in the
first anthology to allow for the story to be “re-read in a context that foregrounds [its] queerness,”
as explored in the next chapter (Martin and Xaba Queer Africa viii). I will discuss the Queer
Africa anthologies in more detail in the next chapter. What is important to note here is that
there are notable differences between Kahiu’s film Rafiki and its source material. The latter,
set in the 1960s in Nakawa, Kampala portrays a far more developed and intimate understanding
of the love that evolves between two queer Ugandan girls than its film adaptation does for two
young queer women in contemporary Kenya. The storyline of two girls involved in a same-sex
relationship in a community that reacts negatively to that relationship, however, shines through
both the short story and the film. The short story is written in an epistolatory style with the
protagonist Anyango writing to her childhood love interest, Sanyu, with heartfelt emotion and
care. She writes with an intimate recollection of the interconnectedness of their queer love,
class differences, and feminism. Arac de Nyeko explains that the short story’s central idea is
about community outrage. The reaction to the two girls engaging in a same-sex relationship in
Uganda is over the top but also clear as to why it occurred – due to the historical complexities
of same-sex sexuality. Speaking in an interview with the Mail & Guardian, Arac de Nyeko
explains that “if you look at the reality, not only in Uganda, but in many African countries, I
think the reality that “Jambula Tree” represents is very real. It’s a difficult subject and there is
a lot of hypocrisy around the subject; hypocrisy in the way that we look at this subject of
morality [sic]” (par.7).
“Jambula Tree” ranges over the entire childhood of two girls and illustrates their mutual
fondness, friendship, and deeply felt connection. Both the film and the short story use the
character of the local gossip, Mama Atim, as a malevolent, watchful presence – ready to police
what she deems as immoral. Throughout the short story, Anyango recounts the desires the two
girls have where they promise to stay true to themselves. They have a collective disdain for the
way their community operates in terms of class and gender. In a pivotal moment in the short
story, similar to the rooftop scene featured in Rafiki with Kena and Ziki, Anyango reminds
Sanyu about how their community “Nakawa is still over one thousand families on an acre of
land they call an estate. Most of the women don’t work. Like Mama Atim they sit and talk,
talk, talk and wait for their husbands to bring home a kilo of offal. Those are the kind of women
we did not want to become” (92). Anyango continues, reminding Sanyu of all the patriarchal
rules they are encouraged to follow such as beauty standards, competing with other women,

29
and showing unwavering duty to men. She remembers how the two of them agreed to fight
against the rules enforced on them: “You said it yourself, we could be anything” (Arac de
Nyeko Queer Africa 92). Anyango also remembers when the two girls were younger, an
incident occurred where a bully, Juma, hurt Anyango, and Sanyu came to her defence. This
defence of Anyango results in Sanyu’s suspension and the two girls’ mothers questioning
Sanyu’s actions. The two mothers are also friends and infer that the incident involved both of
their daughters. They decide to separate the two girls, but their persistent connection keeps
them coming back to each other even as the years pass and they end up attending different
secondary schools.
The short story is replete with the desire for queer Africans to be themselves in
communities that refute and disapprove of this authenticity. The story also touches on the idea
of public shaming and how something private, such as the two girls engaging in sex, becomes
shame attached to them everywhere they go because their community has been led to believe
same-sex attraction, desire, and intimacy is wrong and immoral. Anyango often recollects
moments that occurred before Sanyu was forced to leave the community and move to London.
This departure was for their collective safety after their relationship was made known to the
community by Mama Atim. There is an air of shame that their families feel after the night the
two girls are discovered together as their “names became forever associated with the forbidden”
(Arac de Nyeko Queer Africa 91). The scandal does not deter Anyango from reminding Sanyu
of their shared history. Writing to Sanyu is a way to reconnect and rediscover the beauty of
their union before Sanyu returns to the community from London. Anyango reminds her of the
shame that still follows them to this day while also defiantly recounting the moment they first
explored their attraction:

Mama Atim says this word ‘immoral’ to me – slowly and emphatically in

Jhapadhola, so it can sink into my head. She wants me to hear the word in every
breath, sniff it in every scent so it can haunt me like that day I first touched you.
Like the day you first touched me. Mine was a cold unsure hand placed over
your right breast. Yours was a cold scared hand, which held my waist and
pressed it closer to you, under the jambula tree in front of her house. (Arac de
Nyeko Queer Africa 96)

It is worth noting that the condemnation of the young women’s relationship by the law and the
community is the same in both the short story, set in the 1960s in Uganda, and the film, set in
contemporary Kenya, illustrating the expansive longevity of homophobia and the continued
precarity of being queer in Africa.

30
 Although there are many similarities between the short story and the film, there are,
however, a few differences between them. Unlike the film, where Kena and Ziki are portrayed
initially as pseudo-rivals, the short story presents the two girls as growing up together with an
extensive friendship and history. This allows for the short story to pay particular attention to
the emotional weight of the attraction between the two girls, unlike the film’s depiction of the
intimacy between the two girls, which will be explored in detail later in this chapter. As
Anyango and Sanyu grow up, their connection to each other is expressed through attraction
and infatuation. Anyango remembers how she noticed that Sanyu’s breasts got bigger, and
compared them to jambula fruits:

You were not shocked. Not repelled. It did not occur to either of us, to you or
me, that these were boundaries we should not cross nor should think of crossing.
Your jambulas and mine. Two plus two jambulas equals four jambulas – even
numbers should stand for luck. Was this luck pulling us together? You pulled
me to yourself and we rolled on the brown earth that stuck to our hair in all its
redness and dustiness. There in front of Mama Atim’s house. She shone a torch
at us. She had been watching. Steadily like a dog waiting for a bone it knew it
would get; it was just a matter of time. (Arac de Nyeko Queer Africa 104)

Although Mama Atim catches the two girls and Sanyu’s parents force her to leave Uganda,
their connection never falters. This unbreakable connection is shown when Anyango describes
how she received a letter from Sanyu who tells Anyango that she misses her – validating
Anyango’s longing and making her believe it is not one-sided. This moment with the letter is
also threaded into the film – leaving the ending for both the film and short story open for
interpretation. In both, the open ending is used to suggest a strong connection between the two
women, despite the societal pressures and restrictions.
There is also a clear class difference portrayed and examined in “Jambula Tree” that is
extremely subtle in Rafiki. Like Ziki, Sanyu is from a wealthy family but more attention is
given to this fact in the short story. After Sanyu and Anyango are caught having sex by Mama
Atim, she can leave the community and go to London whereas Anyango cannot. Sanyu’s family
life is also different from Anyango’s – Sanyu’s parents are still married and are wealthier than
Anyango’s divorced mother who gets no support from her ex-husband. Although the make-up
of the families is similar in both the film and the short story, there is a difference between the
protagonist’s father in “Jambula Tree” as compared to Rafiki. He is not as present nor as
empathetic in his daughter’s life as Kena’s father John Mwaura is in the film.
Although Rafiki takes a different approach to its source material, it still stands as a
remarkable feat in the landscape of contemporary African filmmaking by showing a queer love

31
story set in a country (and a continent) that has historically struggled to accept and celebrate
its queer individuals. Despite the pressures of control, erasure, and self-policing enforced by
oppressive structures in Kenya, Rafiki illustrates the movement towards a progressive and
accepting Kenya where LGBTQ+ individuals refuse to tolerate such mistreatment. Rafiki takes
up cultural and political space for queer Kenyans in a society that has none to give and thus
forms part of the ever-growing canon of contemporary African film and literature that seeks to
be seen in the African continent and on the global stage. As Kari notes:

For many in Kenya’s creative and LGBT community, the film represents an
important turning point in the recognition not only of Kenya’s booming creative
scene but also its LGBT community that has been growing more vocal; both
within the arts and in the fight for equal rights. Rafiki joins a growing canon of
queer stories being told in the country, with or without permission. It also
follows in the footsteps of films such as South African [Inxeba] (The Wound) a
gay coming of age story that was also banned for public viewing in that country
despite receiving international acclaim [sic]. Africa, it seems, is ready to tell its
queer stories [sic]. (par. 2)

Rafiki, because of both its success and the pushback against such success, is tantamount to the
new normal in post-colonial queer Africa cinema. Rafiki strives to push beyond the limitations
of how queerness has historically been portrayed on African screens and strives to reinvent the
way we tell queer African stories. There is beauty in how Arac de Nyeko tells this story of the
ability for queer love to withstand oppressive forces over many years. It speaks to the bravery
and endurance that queer Africans have to obtain to achieve an authentic life in their countries
that often do not understand or accept their natural ways of being. “Jambula Tree” epitomises
the way ordinary queer love becomes extraordinary when expressed in places that oppose it.
Just as Arac de Nyeko seeks to show how the reaction to a same-sex relationship in Uganda is
outdated and connected to the larger narrative of Africa’s vexed relationship with
homosexuality, so too does Kahiu’s Rafiki seek to illustrate the same in Kenya and more
broadly, Africa. The love story in both narratives is nuanced and tender, but the reaction is not
– it is simple, reductive, violent and harmful to both of the young women involved.

The Repurposing of Colonial Laws after Independence

Just as the film’s director is challenging the Kenyan government on its treatment of LGBTQ+
freedom of expression, so too are Kenyans challenging their government on its treatment of
LGBTQ+ people. The laws addressing homosexuality in Kenya remain severe in their anti-

32
queer sentiments and still contain varying degrees of criminalisation. Eric Gitari is a well-
known Kenyan LGBTQ+ activist who has led the effort towards the decriminalisation of the
penal codes against homosexuality. He states in “The Gay Debate: Decriminalising
Homosexuality in Kenya” that Kenya’s criminalizing of its queer citizens has a much longer
history. This criminalisation of queer citizens did not develop with Kenya’s independence but,
like homophobia itself, was introduced by Western imperialism. British colonial rule not only
came with the subjugation and rule over Kenyan people, but it introduced the concept of
criminalising non-normative sexualities under the guise of moral purity. Before this colonial
imposition, non-normative sexual practices were either largely ignored or quietly encouraged
to remain hidden rather than criminalised:

According to legal historians, what is today known as Kenya started off as the
British East Africa Protectorate in 1896. The protectorate was ruled under
British law; prior to that period, no formal legal structure existed. Further, the
name Kenya did not exist until it was named so as a colony in 1920 and as a
country in 1963 (upon independence). Criminalisation of same sex relations in
Kenya dates back to between 1897 and 1902, when the British colonial
authorities applied the Indian Penal Code that had been drafted by the British
and which criminalised same sex relations. The Indian Penal Code was a novel
colonisation project aimed at using legislation to model British values and
common law to govern British protectorates and colonies abroad. (Gitari “The
Gay Debate” par. 2)

British values were imposed on Kenyans as a means to control and change their behaviours to
fit the colonisers’ rule of law towards homosexuality. In the United Kingdom, The Buggery
Act of 1533 was the first instance of a law against male homosexuality. It was a law that made
sodomy illegal in Britain “and by extension what would become the entire British Empire”
(Dryden par. 1). From the history of these laws that we can discern a lineage of colonial
oppression that migrated to Kenya and which is still present to this day. According to the British
Library website which has an expansive archive of LGBTQ History in the United Kingdom,
“it was not until 1861 with the passing of the Offences Against the Person Act, that the death
penalty was abolished for acts of sodomy – instead being made punishable by a minimum of
10 years imprisonment” (Dryden par. 2). The law was further amended to add The Criminal
Law Amendment Act 1885, a mere 11 years before the formation of the British East Africa
Protectorate. This law “went a step further once again, making any male homosexual act
illegal – whether or not a witness was present – meaning that even acts committed in private
could be prosecuted” (Dryden par. 3). Moreover, the parameters of these laws, such as the
punishment of private acts, filtered down from British colonial rule into the legal and social

33
frameworks of independent post-colonial nations. This can be seen during Rafiki when Kena
and Ziki are harassed in a private setting. As will be discussed in detail later in the chapter, this
pivotal scene in the film is symbolic of the ways in which historical laws have remained an
invasive part of contemporary Kenyan law. Jacob Kushner highlights that although the British
have moved on from their problematic past, replete with damaging laws, some of their former
colonies have not yet made that change:

Britain’s own laws against homosexual acts were revoked more than 50 years
ago, and in 2013, the country passed legislation allowing for same-sex marriage.
But around the world, its tradition of criminalizing homosexuality lives on, with
versions of British penal codes still on the books in former colonies such as
Egypt, Zimbabwe, Ghana, and Tanzania. Sudan prescribes the death penalty for
homosexuality. So does Mauritius and parts of southern Somalia and Nigeria.
(par. 5)

As Sasha Ingber points out, “the anti-gay laws were imposed by British colonists and they
remained a part of Kenyan law after independence in 1963” (par. 6). With the imposition of
colonial laws LGBTQ+ Kenyans are still not safe from public persecution and ridicule.
There was some hope for LGBTQ+ individuals in 2010 when the Kenyan government
held a referendum and enacted “an elaborate Bills of Rights that affords constitutional
protection from discrimination” (Gitari “The Gay Debate” par. 8). Although the referendum
resulted in a mostly inclusive change to the constitution, Gitari also highlights the hypocrisy
of the Bill of Rights, namely in its exclusions of queer people. For instance, Gitari focuses on
the absence of any mention of either sexual orientation or gender identity in Article 27:

‘The State shall not discriminate directly or indirectly against any person on any
ground, including race, sex, pregnancy, marital status, health status, ethnic or
social origin, colour, age, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, dress,
language or birth.’ While being inclusive, Article 27 does not explicitly list
sexual orientation or gender identity. On the contrary, the Constitution
recognises only heterosexual unions in Article 45, which states that ‘every adult
has the right to marry a person of the opposite sex, based on the free consent of
the parties.’ (“The Gay Debate” par. 8)

Although, as Ingber points out, the colonial laws are not widely enforced throughout Kenya,
they “have served as a pretense [sic] to mistreat LGBTQ+ people, who report harrowing
accounts of being forced into sex, discriminated against at work, suspended from schools,
pressured into paying off authorities and other abuses” (par. 7). This mistreatment is a direct
result of the exclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity in Kenya’s Bills of Rights,
namely Article 27. As Monica Mbaru et al. have pointed out, “sexuality and gender have

34
become a cultural and religious battleground in Africa, being fought at the national, regional
and international level” (178). Due to the reality of this risk hanging over the lives of LGBTQ+
Kenyans, there has been continuous efforts from activists in Kenya to decriminalise particular
laws and penal codes in Kenya’s constitution which violate human rights. A petition, “Petition
150 of 2016,” was brought to the Kenyan High Court by Eric Gitari because of “his own interest
but also the interests of the LGBTIQ community more broadly” (“EG v. Attorney General”
par. 2). 14 Moreover, additional petitions were submitted by other people and organisations
concerned with amending the laws. Adriaan van Klinken notes that Gitari’s petition labelled
the existing penal codes as unconstitutional and called for “the decriminalisation of
homosexuality in the country” (“Homosexuality” par. 1). The various petitions resulted in the
court case, Eric Gitari v Attorney General & another [2016] eKLR, which was brought forward
by activist Gitari and various activist groups to the Kenyan High Court:

The case stems from a petition filed in 2016 by activist Eric Gitari, with the
support of organizations serving LGBTQ Kenyans. They argued that two
sections of Kenya’s penal code violated people’s rights: Article 162 penalizes
‘carnal knowledge ... against the order of nature’ with up to 14 years in prison,
and Article 165 castigates ‘indecent practices between males’ with the
possibility of five years’ [sic] imprisonment. (Ingber par. 4)

Unfortunately, the court case ended in a ruling which did not go in the favour of the activists
as the laws are still upheld in Kenya.
As the court case illustrates, there are three main Penal Codes in Kenyan law which are
still upheld from the colonial era, namely Penal Code 1930, Section 162 Unnatural Offences;
Penal Code 1930, Section 163 Attempt to Commit Unnatural Offences, and Penal Code 1930,
Section 165 Indecent Practices Between Males. According to the website Human Dignity Trust,
“Section 162 criminalises ‘carnal knowledge… against the order of nature’, with a penalty of
14 years imprisonment. This provision is applicable to sexual intercourse between men” while
“Section 163 prohibits attempts to commit the offences criminalised under Section 162, with a
penalty of seven years imprisonment,” and “Section 165 prohibits acts of ‘gross indecency’
between men, or the procurement or attempted procurement thereof, with a penalty of five
years imprisonment” (Human Dignity Trust, “Kenya”). Gitari notes that, “government data
shows 595 such prosecutions between 2010 and 2014” (“Kenya Leads” par. 5).

14
According to “EG v. Attorney General,” “On November 2, 2016 the High Court certified another Petition
challenging the same provisions filed by four individuals and three civil society organizations (par.3).

35
 Interestingly, the law only states that sex between men is criminalised whereas there is
no mention of sex between women. 15 Therefore, when taking into account Kenyan law in terms
of Rafiki, there is nothing actually illegal about Kena and Ziki’s relationship. Their actions,
however, are still punishable by Kenyan society and opinion. As Gitari notes: “Homophobic
and transphobic human rights violations still occur with disturbing frequency” (“Kenya Leads”
par. 6). He also observes that the political and religious elite are the entities stirring up
homophobia within Kenya (“Kenya Leads” par. 6). This situation is addressed in the film, as
will be discussed in more detail later. The homophobia stemming from these influential elites
and their sectors results in direct repercussions for queer people in Kenya including
discrimination, ridicule, violence, and, in some cases, death.
LGBTQ+ activism in Kenya has not been restricted to only the decriminalisation of
necessary laws and penal codes, but also includes challenging the negative attitude of the
majority of Kenyan society towards LGBTQ+ people inside and outside the country. As Gitari
notes: “Consensual private same-sex intimacy is still a criminal offence in Kenya, a law which
is used by perpetrators to justify human rights violations and informs public policy and attitudes
towards suspected LGBTIQ people” but there have also been progressive changes made within
the country regarding various laws (“Kenya Leads” par. 2). Surprisingly, “Kenya stands out as
a leader on LGBTIQ equality within sub-Saharan Africa” (“Kenya Leads” par. 4). As van
Klinken points out:

In the past few years, the courts have delivered a number of legal successes. In
2014, the High Court ruled that a transgender organisation should be allowed to
register as an NGO. The organisation had been denied to register three times by
the relevant government agency, on the basis that it would be “furthering
criminality and immoral affairs”. The following year, a similar ruling was made
for a gay and lesbian organisation … Thus the right to freedom of association
was effectively applied to LGBT groups. Also, the right to protection against
discrimination was applied to sexual orientation and gender identity…And last
year the court of appeal in Kenya’s second largest city, Mombasa, ruled
that forced anal examination of people accused of same-sex activity is
unconstitutional as it violates the right to privacy. (“Homosexuality” par. 14-26)

Although there has been some significant change, and progressive amendments have been
made to the constitution, the reality is that Kenya still has anti-gay laws and this instils a set of

15
The erasure of women with regards to the laws pertaining to homosexuality affords a form of legal privilege to
queer women in Kenya, but also highlights the way in which they are largely ignored when it comes to the scope
of advocating and validating the existence of queer women in male-dominated patriarchal society.

36
disadvantages against many people in the country while violating the rights afforded to them
as stated in the Kenyan Bill of Rights.

The Hybridity of Rafiki

Separated into three distinct parts, the film begins with the sounds of a slow, quiet rustle
depicting the city waking up to a new day. We are immediately introduced to the bustling
neighbourhood in Nairobi where much of the film is based. The opening credits of the film are
replete with shots of cityscapes interchanged with animations, art, and photographs of the
characters. The opening credits are bright and colourful and are accompanied by the song,
“Suzie Noma” by Muthoni Drummer Queen who has said that her song is “a celebration of
female friendship and empowerment of women all over Africa. It’s about building something
with your girls for yourselves and for future generations. It’s about us women building our
financial security together and manifesting big dreams!” (qtd. in “Muthoni” par. 3) There is a
significance to the opening sequence and Emily Yoshida notes that:

Title cards splash the screen, depicting its two leads in icon-like artistic
renderings, mythologizing them and their romance before we’ve even met them.
Far from a spoiler, it sets the tone, like initials scrawled on the cover of a
notebook or photos taped in a locker, of the kind of vision-board love the two
young protagonists aspire to, no matter how impossible it may seem. (par. 1)

From the start, this opening credits sequence illustrates Kahiu’s desire for Rafiki to depict
contemporary every day Kenyan life through an Afrobubblegum lens with its mixture of
colours. According to the mission statement on their website, the Afrobubblegum collective
believes in:

a fun, fierce and frivolous representation of Africa. To that end, we work to

curate, commission and create fun work that celebrates joy. We are storytellers,
clothes makers, graphic designers, musicians, lovers of life, joy harbingers,
beauty mongers, hope sayers. With links to existing online presence, we
celebrate the breadth of curators, collectors and creators already celebrating the
joy, love and happiness of Africa through their work. (par. 1-3)

Rafiki is a part of the contemporary African film canon in the way that it is deliberately different
from the tired old expectations of how Africa has been portrayed on the screen. Kahiu herself
has noted that Rafiki is a departure from the dreary narratives of “poverty, famine, war, disease
and those very incomplete single stories that are prevalent about the continent,” and often
depicted in films set in Africa (Kahiu qtd. in Obenson par. 6). Although the tone is bright and

37
vibrant, the film’s subject matter is what distinguishes it as a hybrid retelling of everyday life
for queer Kenyan individuals filled with love and happiness as well as the reality of oppressive
forces.
The film’s protagonist, Kena, who is played by Samantha Mugatsia, rides the streets of
her neighbourhood on her skateboard – in sneakers, jeans and a t-shirt. Throughout the film,
Kena displays a sense of contemporary fashion – her attire does not adhere to the traditional
patriarchal expectations of what a woman in Kenya should wear. This is not without its
problems for Kena, as will be explored in detail later in the chapter, with attention to the
moment in the film when Kena wears a dress to church explicitly to please her mother. As
Lodge observes, Kena is “an academically gifted tomboy with no female friends [and] spends
her free time playing soccer and shooting the breeze with the raffish Blacksta (Neville Masati)
and his gang – who blithely refer to her as ‘one of the guys,’ yet never for a moment consider
that heterosexual romance might not be on her mind” (par. 4). Although Kena is considered
‘one of the guys’ amongst her friends, she has one particular friend, Blacksta, who has an
unclear view with regards to the boundaries of their friendship. Blacksta desires more than a
friendship with Kena, but his display of playful flirtatious desire belies a real sense of
entitlement to, and ownership of, Kena. As Akash Deshpande notes “Blacksta who [Kena]
spends most of her time with can’t understand why the feelings from his side don’t reciprocate
from the other. She can’t find a reason either. After all, both of them have been a part of a
society where they’re not exposed to any other type of relationship” (par. 2). Their friendship
is tested when Kena’s life unravels and Blacksta must decide whether he stands with Kena or
against her.
In an early scene in the film, Kena meets up with Blacksta at his apartment before they
make their way to the local café where they regularly socialize with other friends. The camera
focuses on a poster she passes, of John Mwaura who is running for political office. John is
Kena’s father who owns a local convenience store and is also campaigning for local elections.
It is at Blacksta’s apartment where we meet Nduta who, in this moment, and throughout the
film, is noticeably annoyed by Kena and Blacksta’s relationship as she sees Kena as a threat to
her own interest in Blacksta. Unaware of Kena’s queerness, Nduta maintains a watchful eye
over Kena while Kena is unaware of both Blacksta and Nduta’s feelings towards her.
Kena and Blacksta meet up at the local café with their friend Waireri, with whom they
regularly play card games. The café is also a site of importance in the film as it is where the
first occurrence of homophobia as well as misogynistic rhetoric happens. While playing cards
during the first scene shot at the café, Blacksta spots a young man named Tom who is presumed

38
to be gay. Blacksta refers to Tom as Waireri’s girlfriend in an effort to tease him about being
single. Waireri is clearly offended by this ‘joke’ in so far that he does not confront Blacksta,
but rather goes on the attack against Tom and begins to berate him: “What are you looking at,
faggot?” (05:16). Sitting comfortably in his ignorance, Blacksta laughs at Waireri while an
uncomfortable Kena defends Tom, but in a way that does not draw too much attention to herself.
She begins by asking quietly but clearly, “How is he hurting you?” (05:18). Waireri’s outburst
then develops into a tirade about his discomfort with gay people and makes an early connection
for the viewer in terms of the intersections between religious convictions, traditional notions
of masculinity, and homophobic attitudes. He asks Kena, “Do you think God is just watching
men fuck each other?” (05:20). Uncomfortable with the situation, he promptly leaves the table.
He is visibly bothered and does not want to carry on playing, but not before he purposefully
shoulders Tom as he walks past him, illustrating not only his bigotry, but his fragile ego too.
In an effort to avoid any more talk about sexuality, Kena leaves Blacksta and Waireri at the
café to go to work at her father’s convenience store. As she leaves the café she sees three girls
talking amongst themselves and one of them catches her eye. Kena locks eyes with her,
unaware the impact she will have on her life. Her name is Ziki, played by Sheila Munyiva, and
she is vibrant in her appearance – with her colourful clothes and bright pink and blue braids in
her hair. Akash Deshpande notes that “the instant attraction towards each other is apparent yet
isn’t contextualized from either side” (par. 3). As Leigh Monson notes, the film often says “so
much through visual cues, symbolism, and nonverbal actions” (par. 5).
Much of the intricate, delicate moments of the film are made up of Kena trying to
navigate the complexities of her identity and her family. Kena and her father John have a fragile
relationship. They do not talk easily and this is due to the fact that Kena’s parents are divorced.
Kahiu demonstrates the strain in Kena’s relationship with her father during a scene where John
asks Kena at work how her mother, Mercy, is doing. Kena lives with Mercy in their apartment,
which is decorated extensively with religious paraphernalia. Mary is a gentle, soft woman who
still longs romantically for her ex-husband and continues to believe, naively, in the possibility
of rekindling their relationship. There is no communication between John and Mercy, however,
indicating that their separation was not amicable. Kena is uncomfortable with her father’s
questioning and avoids divulging too much of her mother’s state of being. Her honest answers
will only lead to conversations that she does not want to have with him.
Before Kena goes home she collects dinner from the local café, owned by the pompous
Mama Atim. Nduta is Mama Atim’s daughter and both mother and daughter have a reputation
for watching, observing and gossiping over many of the locals who move through the

39
neighbourhood and patronise the café. In a community where “salacious scuttlebutt is a
valuable currency in a locale this local and nothing is more likely to provoke scandal than
rumours around someone’s sexuality,” Mama Atim holds a vast amount of social power
(Mumford par. 4). As will be shown, in her interference in the relationship that develops
between Kena and Ziki, this social power negatively impacts a person’s life. In her first
interaction with Kena, Mama Atim is shown to know more about her father than Kena herself
when she informs an unaware Kena that her father’s new wife is pregnant. Visibly shocked,
Kena hurriedly collects the food and rushes home, leaving a gleeful Mama Atim at the café.
The uncomfortable conversations, mentioned before, are not only reserved for her father, as
when she arrives at the front door of her house, she is shown as apprehensive about going
inside. She has a closed off demeanour when she is at home which highlights a fraught
relationship with her other parent. Looking enthusiastically at Kena, Mercy asks, “Did you
father ask about me today?” (09:26) to which Kena lies and states he never did. Kena does not
want her mother to hold onto the idea of reconciliation. Kena, in an effort to spare her the pain
of finding out that John has definitely moved on, does not tell Mercy about his pregnant wife.
Later in the film, however, Kena and Mercy attend a church service when they bump into John
and his new wife. Kena’s fears come true when Mercy finds out about the pregnancy. She is
distressed and runs home, followed by Kena not too far behind in an effort to comfort her.
Kena is caught between the complexities of her parents and their relationship. Therefore, she
decides to distance herself emotionally from both her parents. When Kena confronts her father
about why he never told her about his pregnant wife he explains to her that he tried to the day
before, but she left before he could. John wants to rebuild his relationship with his daughter so
that she can have a relationship with his other child. There are indications throughout the film
that John cares deeply for Kena, but her own sense of uncertainty about herself has inhibited
the growth of this important relationship. She avoids being too personal in an effort to avoid
attention to her inner struggles.
Kena also avoids this attention when hanging out with her friends, never delving
beyond a superficial level of friendship. It is Blacksta who informs Kena that Ziki is the
daughter of John’s political opponent, Peter Okemi. As is shown repeatedly, Kena and Ziki are
thus expected to be rivals themselves, but when they come face-to-face with each other it is the
complete opposite. As Emily Yoshida observes: “When Kena and Ziki get together, time gets
a little unstuck, the world gets softer, more impressionistic” (par. 4). The young women first
meet when one of Ziki’s friends tears a poster for John’s campaign off a wall. Kena witnesses
this, becomes territorial, and begins to shout and chase after them. As they run from Kena,

40
Ziki’s friends escape but Ziki decides to stop and confront Kena. They stare at each other in
silence as Kena is uncertain of what to say. Ziki laughs then runs off after she is called by her
friends.
After this initial meeting Ziki attempts a truce. She waits for Kena with her friends
outside John’s convenience store hoping to apologise for her friends’ actions in tearing down
John’s campaign posters. They exchange pleasantries all the while exuding an obvious
fascination with each other: “Kena watches her with glamorized shyness. Ziki is more a
hothead and a flirt, the first to break through the two girls’ silent, smiling glances from across
the street and suggest they go hang out” (Yoshida par. 3). Ann Hornaday observes that
“Mugatsia and Munyiva have an endearing, unforced chemistry (the scene where they get to
know one another is particularly delicate), and Kahiu films them against a glorious backdrop
of Nairobi’s streetscape, club life and domestic interiors – a vibrant, multilayered collage of
light, color, texture and motion” (par. 4). They go to the café to talk and to get to know each
other better over a soda, but they are, of course, under the watchful eyes of Mama Atim and
Nduta. Not one to hold her tongue, Mama Atim voices her bewilderment at the two girls
together: “Both politicians’ daughters? Here at Mama Atim’s? Today, the sun will rain!
Wonders of the world” (17:50). Kena and Ziki, made uncomfortable by Mama Atim’s invasion
of their private moment, leave for somewhere else where they can be alone together. Although
Mama Atim’s invasive commentary on the two makes them uncomfortable, it is this
uncomfortableness that leads them to the sublime rooftop picnic, discussed earlier, where they
make their pact with one another.
After their rooftop encounter, Kena goes home to be confronted by her mother about
the time she is spending with Ziki. (21:42). Kena admits to doing so and then tries not to seem
too excited when Mercy suggests she should bring Ziki over as she would like to meet her.
Mercy also notes, “something is different about you, Kena” (22:09) while Kena, maintaining
her need for privacy, tells her that nothing is different. Unrelenting in her inquiry about her
daughter’s changed attitude, Mercy does not believe her and asks, “is it a boy?” (22:21). Kena,
embarrassed, assures her that it is not a boy. Class differences, however, shift Mercy’s attention
from Kena’s love life to her social life. Mercy informs Kena of her high regard for Ziki’s family,
the Okemis. She tells Kena that she should choose her friends wisely as people like Blacksta
will only bring her down compared to the Okemis who could lift her up. Mercy’s sentiments
towards characters like Blacksta and the Okemi family highlight the power and class dynamics
which exist between the two girls. Here also lies the contrast and difference between the two
girls – it is not just in their appearances and personalities, but in their social standing too.

41
 Kena seems to ignore the importance placed on the class differences by her mother and
continues to exist outside the boundaries of what is expected of Kenyan girls by playing soccer
with Blacksta and other men. After their rooftop moment, Kena and Ziki are drawn to each
other and always find themselves in close proximity. This magnetic pull has Ziki noticing the
soccer game happening. Unafraid, she walks up to them and asks if she and her friends can join
the game: “Can we play?” (23:22). Blacksta denies Ziki’s request which ignites her defiant
nature. She asks why it is not possible for them to play with the men while Kena is allowed to
play. Blacksta responds, unaware of the patriarchal talking points he enforces, by saying “Who
Kena? She plays like a guy! [and] you girls will distract us” (23:30). Blacksta nevertheless
proceeds to agree to let Ziki play after Kena persuades him. Kena’s persuasion can be read in
two ways. Firstly, Blacksta’s agreement for the girls to play with them could be a way for him
to seem reasonable to Kena for whom he has latent feelings. Secondly, Kena’s insistence on
allowing Ziki and her friends to play provides a way for her to spend more time with Ziki. They
are all playing together, but the game is brought to a standstill as it begins to rain resulting in
the group scattering. Seeking shelter from the rain, Kena runs off to an abandoned minivan
overgrown with greenery and flowers with Ziki following not far behind.
Throughout the film, Kena moves between the same spaces: her home, the convenience
store, the local café, the streets of Nairobi, and the soccer field. The presence of public opinion
in all these spaces never allows her to be herself. After meeting Ziki, however, the film begins
to attend to spaces within the city where Kena finds she can be herself – on the roof overlooking
the city and then in the abandoned minivan. The minivan has a cosy feel to it, indicating that it
is where Kena frequently spends her time. It is clear that the minivan is a place of safety for
Kena where she can detach herself from her everyday life and issues like her parents’ separation
and her indifference to societal expectations. She allows Ziki, who is desperate for shelter from
the rain, to join her in her place of safety. Their rooftop encounter has afforded Kena trust, as
well as longing, for Ziki. In this moment, the minivan is not only a source of shelter from the
rain for Kena and Ziki, but it also serves as the birth of a shared space that seems to offer the
two young women some protection from reality and the harsh criticism that their blossoming
relationship would face. After the excitement of getting out of the rain and into shelter is over,
the two of them begin to settle down, and their sudden realisation of their proximity is palpable.
There are longing glances between the two and Kena is confronted with the prospect of
intimacy with Ziki which shakes her a bit. She abruptly leaves the van, but not before Ziki asks
if they will see each other again. Kena smiles, confirming their next meet up, and leaves her
private space to go back home where she would normally struggle to be happy, but this time

42
she arrives home elated. The impact that Ziki has on Kena becomes more visible. As Odie
Henderson observes:

Several times, lens flares from the sun invade the frame containing Ziki,
presenting her as the center of Kena’s galaxy. Ziki’s astonishingly festive coif
becomes a complementary personality symbol, the yin to the grungy yang of
Kena’s skateboard and backwards baseball cap; Kahiu often introduces these
characters into scenes by their trademarks. (par. 2)

Kena’s elation is thwarted, however, when she is confronted with the reality of how broken her
family is. On her return home, she finds her sleeping mother on the couch with an open suitcase
in front of her. The suitcase is filled with memorabilia of her parents’ marriage: a palpable
demonstration of Mercy’s nostalgia for a life that no longer exists. Kena quietly packs the
suitcase away before she gets into her own bed. Alone in bed, Kena is shown bursting with
happiness from all that happened in the minivan as her feelings for Ziki are not only confirmed
as real, but as mutual too.
As their relationship develops, Kena and Ziki begin spending more time with each other.
Gwilym Mumford notes that their initial friendship “soon progresses into something more,
carefully disguised as matiness” (par. 5). This includes regularly visiting each other’s houses
under the safe guise of friendship. Not only do Kena and Ziki get to know each other more as
their secret relationship develops, but they get to meet and know each other’s family. Kena
meets Ziki’s mother, Rose Okemi, who is warm to her, but clearly judges her appearance,
which further highlights the class differences between the two families. When Kena and Ziki
are together, they try not to draw attention to the fact that they are attracted to one another.
There are moments, for example, when Kena brushes Ziki’s arm in the tuk-tuk on the way to
the fair, which leave them both flustered. Their reactions to each other and the way that they
operate in public are particular to the experience of courting as queer. Kena and Ziki attempt
to be as free and open as possible, but their conservative environment make them and the
viewer cognizant of looming judgement. This fact is proven when Nduta and Mama Atim are
shown watching the pair as they drive off in the tuk-tuk, thus enforcing the precarity of their
relationship, which carries such potential for attracting both shame and violence. At the fair,
the pair flirt with and touch each other constantly, a scene which is presented as an intimate
montage replete with moments of interchanges of looks and glances. Ziki then reignites the
notion of wanting to be real and authentic, as the pair sit down to relax and talk. Ziki asserts:
“I want us to go on a real date. Like real! I’ve seen how you look at me,” (27:51) which cements
the pair as a new couple. Kena and Ziki are sitting on the promenade near the fair where they

43
take their emotional intimacy towards the physical as Ziki dances for Kena. There is a covertly
sexual and thus private nature to Ziki’s dance. Although the two are on the promenade they are
secluded enough behind big pillars not to attract attention. Kena is fixated on Ziki who is
wearing a t-shirt bearing the words ‘bad news’ which is a suggestive foreshadowing for Kena.
In the next scene, the camera follows Kena and Ziki as they walk into a makeshift
nightclub where they continue their date. The nightclub is colourful and vibrant and it is filled
with people painting neon colours onto each other’s faces. The colours during this scene are
energetic and alive almost as if to show how the pairs’ feelings towards each other are enhanced
in this setting. The nightclub is another space where the two girls openly express themselves
and where queer viewers can feel a sense of visibility and a sense of joy by viewing queer
happiness on screen. Kena and Ziki are, in this moment, the “something real” that they strive
for throughout their relationship. As Guy Lodge notes: “One lovely nightclub scene bathes
Kena and Ziki in blacklight, casting them as wild neon-pink entities in the darkness, and finding
an outward expression for the hot, briefly iridescent euphoria that first love – particularly one
daring to speak its name in a still-hostile environment – makes us feel inside” (par. 8).
Recognizing the use of colour, Justin Chang observes multiple instances, beyond the nightclub
scene, where the use of colour is important to the depiction of the relationship. He notes that
“there are the lovely pastel-hued braids” worn by Ziki “and also the flowers growing over an
abandoned van that becomes a refuge for her and her girlfriend, Kena,” which illustrate the soft
delicate nature of their love. Colour in the film represents not only the freedom of love between
the two young women, but it is also symbolic of oppressive structures: “even the pastor at Ziki
and Kena’s church wears a purple shirt as he preaches to a community that will show its own
truer, uglier colors before the movie ends” (par. 2). Leigh Monson’s description of the use of
colour in the film is also tethered to the idea of religion:

Royal purples invade the background as a pervading symbol of religious

authority, but hot pinks and yellows dominate the landscape and Kena’s and
Ziki’s outfits, demonstrating how they belong even as the imperialism of
Christianity wants them out. Close-ups on Kena’s and Ziki’s faces are
comparable to Barry Jenkins’ work, opening windows of extreme empathy
into characters who only seem to find it in one another. (par. 4)

After they take a break from dancing, Kena and Ziki find a more private area of the nightclub
and decide to talk more about their future together. Their chemistry is tangible, as they get
physically and emotionally closer to each other. The build-up of longing, attraction and
intimacy the two feel for each other ends in them kissing. This is one of the few scenes in the

44
film where physical intimacy between the two is shown. Guy Lodge notes that their intimacy
is normally “expressed only in innocent kisses and close but clothed contact” and that “their
sweet sexual naivete feels fully character-informed rather than censor-compliant” (par. 5).
Therefore, the display of same-sex intimacy in the film is far from corrupt or explicit, as the
KFCB has argued in giving their reasons for banning Rafiki.
The pair end their rendezvous, but as they are saying their goodbyes, involving an
intimate embrace, they let their guards down. John appears, in the background of this shot,
glaring at them. He does not immediately react to their embrace, but rather walks away. John
is a calm, level-headed man who is not reactionary towards his daughter’s relationship. When
he confronts Kena the following day about spending time with Ziki, he does not appear to be
bothered by the fact that they are both girls. He is more concerned about Kena’s safety and the
fact that Ziki is his opponent’s daughter, which he knows will have a negative effect on for his
election campaign. Kena starts to realise that her father is more open and understanding than
she thought.
There are noticeable differences between John and Ziki’s father, Peter Okemi. This is
shown when Kena goes to Ziki’s apartment so that they can find out their exam results together.
They stand outside the apartment and Ziki, who has already seen their marks, tells Kena that
she received very good marks and that she can become a doctor. In the background of their
joyous moment, Peter Okemi shouts for Ziki to come back inside while expressing his
dissatisfaction with her spending time with Kena. John is thus juxtaposed against Peter Okemi
who is not only his political rival, but also holds the space as his moral rival – he is unsupportive
of their daughters’ relationship and is abusive to Ziki whereas John on the other hand is
supportive and comforting to Kena. Their attitudes towards their daughters are expressed
differently. Peter is belligerent and cold whereas John is comforting and helpful.
Later that evening the pair meet at the café, where they join Blacksta and Waireri, to
celebrate their results. The alcohol is flowing and Waireri makes offhand remarks about Ziki
being his future ex-wife, highlighting the ownership over women to which Waireri, like
Blacksta, thinks he is entitled. As Blacksta and Waireri become more intoxicated they continue
with their crude remarks thus creating an uncomfortable environment for Ziki and Kena. Their
celebration comes to a standstill when Tom, who has clearly been beaten up as he has bruises
and lacerations on his face, walks by the group. Waireri, unable to ignore his opportunity to
humiliate and berate him, says, “Now he walks even more like a fag,” followed by shouting,
“Homo!” at an unresponsive Tom (38:27). Ziki becomes visibly more uncomfortable, turning
to Kena with a concerned look. Kena then abruptly gets up and leaves the table. She leaves

45
Ziki behind and makes her way to the abandoned minivan. In a moment of déjà vu, Ziki follows
Kena, which she was clearly expecting as, to Ziki’s delight and surprise, Kena has organised
“a real date” for the two of them in the minivan. She has decorated their hideout with lights
creating a romantic ambience and another opportunity for them to share some unrestricted time
together in a secluded private space. This minivan date is one of the few moments of physical
intimacy in the film. Kena and Ziki begin kissing and exploring each other’s bodies and, while
there are no explicit depictions of sexual activity, the film suggests that the pair make love and
fall asleep in each other’s arms. As Monson observes “cautious too is the coy manner in which
Kahiu, likely fearing a smackdown from the classification board, illustrates their eventual
lovemaking (not that such circumspection made any difference to the censors)” (par. 5). The
screen fades to black, signifying the end of part one of the film.
As they wake up the next morning Kena, in a rush to leave, is asked by Ziki to stay.
The sun is shining brightly through the windows of the minivan and Ziki in this moment says,
“I wish this was real” to which Kena replies, “It is” (42:55). Ziki appears to be concerned and
notes that it will not be the same, “when we go out there” to which Kena responds “Don’t
worry. We’ll do this again” (43:05). The notion of being more than their reality and living
authentically is threaded into these rare and precious moments in the film when the two girls
are left alone to enjoy each other in seclusion. These moments are a comfort for them as they
are not living their realities.
As she walks home after her night with Ziki, Kena bumps in to Blacksta, who notices
that she is wearing the same clothes as the night before and asks her if she’s been out all night.
She tells him that it is, “something like that” (44:12). This leads a curious, and jealous, Blacksta
to ask Kena about the man he presumes she is seeing. Kena is confused by his question, and
his jealousy prompts Blacksta to reveal that he is, in fact, interested in her romantically. He
insists that “one day you will see for yourself” (42:26) which further instantiates his feelings
of ownership. Kena is still confused when Blacksta states he can provide her with everything
he thinks she wants and needs, including “money in your account, mortgage, title deed” (42:35).
Kena challenges him and asks, “You think that’s all I want in life?” Blacksta, reinforcing
patriarchal stereotypes, declares: “That’s what everybody wants” (42:40). His statement is
representative of the entitlement to which men, embedded in patriarchal societies, feel that they
have to women’s bodies when they offer to provide a perceived value to their lives. Blacksta
thinks that if he provides Kena with money and capital he can take ownership of her and that
she has to be his wife regardless of her feelings towards him. Kena is not only disinterested in
Blacksta, but she has an already established relationship that she is working towards

46
maintaining. Blacksta, however, certain of his social power, cannot grasp that Kena is
uninterested. When she tries to leave, Nduta approaches the two friends asking why Blacksta
has not responded to her. He ignores her and continues to plead with Kena to answer to his
desires. Nduta persists in her efforts to gain Blacksta’s attention but he is dismissive and rude
to her, which clearly indicates that he never had any serious intentions with her. Kena, caught
in the middle of something in which she does not want to be involved, promptly leaves the two.
Nduta, who clearly holds a grudge against Kena, whom she sees as her romantic rival, also
leaves, but not before she tells Blacksta: “You don’t have to be mean to me” (45:09). Blacksta
is left alone filled with regret.
In the next scene, Kena and Ziki build on their growing closeness developed after their
initial sexual encounter. They are outside Kena’s apartment building – Ziki sits on a couch and
Kena sits between her legs on the ground – while Ziki braids Kena’s hair. There is a growing
public display of their closeness and comfort with each other. This moment is striking in that
it allows them to be openly intimate under the guise of girls braiding each other’s hair which
is something that is normally seen as platonic and non-sexual. Ziki’s friends, however, like
Mama Atim and Nduta also act as another source of watchful eyes scrutinising the actions of
the pair as Kena notices them watching her with Ziki. One of Ziki’s friends, Elizabeth,
complains to the other about Ziki and Kena’s relationship and wonders when Ziki will come
back to them. Throughout the film, Kahiu draws attention to the fact that wherever the two
young woman are there are many people, friends, family members, acquaintances and the
general public, who act as reminders for the two to be wary of expressing their relationship
openly. This illustrates the precarity of Kena and Ziki’s relationship. They live with the
constant risk of being exposed – in public or even at home.
Kena fulfils her mother’s request, and takes Ziki home to meet Mercy. Kena’s house
has a more relaxed feel compared to Ziki’s – the two of them are much livelier and talkative
with Mercy than they would be in the Okemi household. It is important to note that Kena has
not actually been inside Ziki’s home – highlighting how Ziki’s home is closed off to Kena.
Inside Kena’s house Ziki flirtatiously convinces Kena to try on a dress – the specific item of
clothing she never wears – for the church service they are to attend later in the day. It is a sweet
scene – the suggestion is that Kena does this for Ziki, stepping outside of her comfort zone
because she cares about her enough to take risks, and feels safe enough with Ziki to do so.
After trying on the dress, she goes to show her mother who is elated at this sight. Mercy
exclaims, “Doesn’t she just look like a proper woman? All we need is a nice rich doctor and
all my prayers will have been answered today” (46:07).

47
 The irony in Mercy’s statement is apparent – Kena wishes to become a nurse or a doctor
herself, not marry one. Mercy sees Ziki only as a positive influence on her wayward daughter
in helping her to conform closer to the conservative, patriarchal aspirations she has for Kena.
The notion of Ziki being a “positive influence” on Kena allows the young women to hide their
romantic relationship under the guise of friendship, especially with Kena’s mother. Mercy,
blinded by her religiosity, remains unaware of her daughter’s feelings for Ziki. Her hopes for
Kena to find a husband and establish a family of her own both symbolise and enforces the dual
forces of religion and patriarchy in her home and in Kenyan society more generally. Mercy’s
conservative views demonstrate how Christianity and patriarchy work hand in hand, and are
entrenched in families and society not only by men, but women too. As Kahiu’s film shows, in
Kenyan society any person who does not follow or adhere to these beliefs is disregarded and
labelled an outcast. The rhetoric that entangles religion and patriarchy resurfaces when Mercy,
Kena, and Ziki attend the church service, with Kena still in the dress – which itself is a symbol
of the presence of oppression for dissenting queer people.
During the scene in the church, the camera moves from face to face, focussing on the
reactions of various characters during key moments of the pastor’s sermon which is about
marriage, family, and the sin of homosexuality. The statements he makes coincide with visual
attention to specific characters and who they represent in the film. Kahiu’s approach to this
scene is a clever and thoughtful way to bring attention to the fact that LGBTQ+ individuals
exist in Kenyan society, and how they occupy the most religious and conservative of cultural
spaces by remaining hidden in plain sight. When the pastor praises God for giving him a wife
who is “beautiful, clever, courageous, and wise” (44:38) the camera shifts its focus, from Rose
Okemi, to Mercy, and then to John’s new wife. As the pastor continues by saying that, “there
are Kenyans who are challenging the government because of their stand on same-sex marriage”
(44:46), the camera shifts its focus to Kena and Ziki who are sitting next to each other, before
ending on Tom in the closing of the statement. The presence of Tom, Ziki, and Kena in church,
and the film’s attention to how they are both shamed and frightened by the pastor’s words,
illustrates the harmful effect and power of words, particularly religious preaching, in the
policing and condemnation of homosexuality. The pastor continues his sermon by asserting the
power of God’s laws over the laws of human society, noting that even if the law in Kenya were
to change that God’s condemnation of homosexuality is eternal: “They say it is a human right.
What is a human right? Are we going to ignore God? Don’t choose to be lost! Because God’s
laws don’t change like human laws or your country’s” (47:00).

48
 Despite the impact of the pastor’s words, or perhaps in defiance of them, Ziki tries to
be affectionate with Kena during the sermon but before she attracts unwanted attention, Kena
stops her. Kena, always more aware than Ziki of how their actions will be scrutinized, knows
that the church is the least private space for them. Ziki appears not to understand this and
becomes visibly upset by Kena’s rejection. Meanwhile the pastor tells the congregation to turn
to the word of God. He reads: “God left them to follow their shameful desires. Even women
changed their natural ways to unnatural ways and men did the same thing. They left women
for unnatural ways and desired other men. They did shameful things with other men and as a
result of their sin, they suffered” (47:31). The tension between the young women increases.
Kena becomes more uncomfortable after Ziki’s further attempts to be affectionate, including
the very visible act of trying to hold her hand during the sermon. Unable to talk to Ziki to tell
her to stop, Kena gets up and leaves the church service mid-sermon and the motif of the image
of Ziki following Kena is reiterated. This time, it results in the pair garnering attention from
several members of the congregation, including Mama Atim and Nduta, with the latter going
so far as to follow the pair outside to spy on them. Outside and away from the confines of the
church, Kena confronts Ziki about her actions. As Leigh Monson notes, there lies a difference
between the two: “Ziki, the extrovert, wants them to be more open about their relationship;
Kena, wary of the likes of Mama Atim, preaches caution” (par. 5). Ziki questions Kena’s
rejection asking, “Is it wrong for me to show you how I feel?” Kena replies, “No, it’s not, but
you can’t do it here,” where both their families are (48:17). Ziki is obviously frustrated about
their circumstances and takes it out on Kena: “When are you ever going to do stuff without
thinking of who will see or what they’ll say or what’s going to happen after? Just be you”
(48:35). This is a key question in a film that returns, again and again, to the question of societal
condemnation and individual freedom. The pair discover there are not only external forces
which make up the complexities surrounding their union, but internal beliefs too. Kena, who
does not hold as much social power in terms of her class status, is far more aware of the
precarity of their situation. She explains to Ziki that it is irresponsible to display affection in
public, but the pair do not seem to agree with each other. Ziki leaves Kena alone, but staying
true to the themes of the film, their outburst is witnessed by Nduta.
Alone with her frustration and sadness, and left without Ziki, Kena only has her friend
Blacksta who sees her alone and offers to help cheer her up with a bike ride, but his motives
are clear. He takes advantage of her loneliness and takes her to watch the sunset at the top of a
hill. The sunset is beautiful and prompts Kena to relive the precious moments she shared with
Ziki. Wound up in her own desires, she thinks about the future she envisioned where she would

49
leave behind the life she does not want to live. Kena daydreams about Ziki and imagines that
they are enjoying the sunset together when she confesses the recurring notion of wanting to
live an authentic life, out loud: “I wish we could go somewhere where we could be real” (50:49).
Unaware of the layered meaning in Kena’s words, Blacksta responds asking, “What do you
mean, ‘real’?” (50:55). His confusion jolts Kena back to her senses and back to her unwanted
reality where she brushes off Blacksta’s question. Kena returns to her neighbourhood where
she spots Ziki, who has reunited with her friends, signalling that their “something real” is now
even further away than it was before. In addition, their public lovers’ quarrel, as witnessed by
Nduta, will have dire consequences for them both.

The Purpose of Pacing and Violence in Rafiki

Rafiki contains a particular use of swift pacing and violence, which go hand in hand, to portray
the complicated attitudes towards queerness in Kenyan society. As mentioned earlier in this
chapter, Kahiu is a member of the Afrobubblegum movement, and as such has stated that she
“rejects the idea that all art on the continent needs to be issue-led,” and “what is needed are
new visions of Africa” (Clarke, par. 17). She has, however, as will be discussed in detail in this
section, made use of both violence and an issue-led narrative in Rafiki, and for important
reasons. The fast pacing of Rafiki and its attendant lack of emotional build-up, however,
highlights the sense of what is missing from the film: the notion that pleasure and joy needs to
be reached for and not forced nor rushed. Considering how difficult it is to enunciate one’s
queer love in Africa, there is little attention to the delicate complexities and tensions
experienced by the characters while falling in love, beyond the details already discussed, and
a failure overall to dive deep into the process of the two girls’ courting. The rooftop scene is
an example of a moment of honest vulnerability, but it is a singular scene that, ironically,
highlights the film’s lack of emotive depth as a whole. Kahiu is not herself queer, and this may
account for the lack of emotional complexity in the depiction of the love affair between the
characters throughout the film. Her deft use of violence, however, which will be discussed
below, is indicative of her attempt at an authentic portrayal of the precarity of queer Kenyan
lives.
The film’s pacing is extremely fast. The editing and transitions from scene to scene
often seem scattered. Although it sets in motion the intersection of characters and their
relationships to reach the climactic violent scene towards the end of the second part of the
film,I would argue that the film’s swift, disruptive pacing also inhibits complexity and

50
emotional weight. Rafiki in its entirety appears to be made up of moments composed as
vignettes rather than a nuanced, cohesive storyline with scenes that naturally build upon each
other. The scenes cut and change often, and the passage of time is mainly shown by a change
of setting. It can appear disorientating which, again, could be construed as a stylistic choice by
Kahiu. Emily Yoshida notes that Rafiki’s:

story line doesn’t stray too far from what’s become a familiar LGBT romance
template: love blossoms but is beset by external forces that conspire to snuff it
out. The cultural particulars of growing up gay in Kenya (which trends
extremely conservative when it comes to gay rights, and where same-sex sexual
activity is illegal) give it dimension. (par. 2)

Despite the “dimension” afforded to the film by its use of a queer narrative in Kenya, the pacing
hinders the emotional weight of the narrative. There is little space for the viewer’s knowledge
of the characters to develop, as seen in other contemporary queer African films. 16 Recent films
such as Carol (2015), Moonlight (2016), and Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019), which met
with both popular and critical acclaim globally, illustrate an important cornerstone of
contemporary queer filmmaking – where the attraction between the characters, and the
emotional tension it creates, is crucial to the long-term impact of the film. In contrast, there is
a disjuncture with Rafiki’s emotional impact primarily due to how quickly the two girls become
a couple.
The film was received in the rest of the world to wide acclaim because of its origin and
the progressiveness of its queer narrativisation. The host of the podcast, AfroQueer, Selly
Thiam, suggests that the film allows both queer and non-queer Kenyans to see an “honest and
relatable depiction of what it would be like to discover queer love in Nairobi (Thiam, 05:52).
For many queer viewers from Africa, however, who are familiar with negotiating queer love
in contemporary urban African spaces fraught with homophobia, the film’s use of a swift
montage of scenes to illustrate a developing love affair may be insufficient in terms of what is
left out – distinctive character development, individual detail, emotional intensity and thus
viewer involvement. For example, when the two are labelled as a couple in love with each
other, they are granted only so much as a montage to show the development of their relationship.
There is no full exploration of their growing attraction to each other nor their personal feelings
about the situation. It is just thrust upon us a matter of fact. Their union, albeit filled with sexual
chemistry from the skill of the actors involved, feels rushed and disingenuous at times because,

16
The film, Inxeba (2017), which will be explored in the third chapter is an example of an African contemporary
queer film that holds a lot more emotional weight, which is developed throughout the film.

51
as a viewer, you are offered no time to become fully immersed in how this powerful bond came
to be. There may also be the element of trepidation, which Kahiu may have felt when dealing
with portraying some aspects of the narrative, such as queer intimacy. As Emily Yoshida points
out:

these sequences also possibly belie Kahiu’s working with in her country’s strict
content standards, the intimacy sometimes feels as though it’s straining against
its own elliptical depiction. This forces a more poetic, suggestive treatment of
Kena and Ziki’s love, but for an audience used to far more explicit onscreen
treatments of gay sex (or sex in general), it may come off as a little nervous.
(par. 5)

Despite what Yoshida suggests about the lack of explicit sex as the reason why the film may
come off as nervous, I would suggest that the film’s lack of emotional complexity is hindered
by its pacing. The source material is rich with the exploration of the slow evolution of queer
intimacy and Kahiu makes use of some of this but as a whole it is not enough. The pacing of
the film affects the quality of the narrative in terms of resonating with queer viewers’ emotions.
One element of queer filmmaking, especially contemporary queer African cinema, that
I think is paradoxically beneficial to the development of the new normal is this inclusion of
and focus on violence against queer people. While Kahiu’s depiction of Africa partakes of the
Afrobubblegum collective’s contemporary vision for altering the nature of story-telling on the
continent, she also includes a notably violent scene involving Kena and Ziki, as well as various
other depictions of violence. These scenes depict the everyday psychic and physical violence
faced by queer Kenyans, all of which contradict the turn against violence and death in queer
narrativesbeing voiced increasingly by queer Western audiences. Contemporary Western queer
scholarship often articulates the need to move away from queer narratives where the focus is
on violence, strife, or even death. 17 For instance, Ralph J. Poole suggests that queer films with
explicit violence towards queer characters “continue to propagandize the conflation of sex,
violence, and queerness,” and he asks “whether they opt to work with, against, or beyond
common stereotypes” (2-3).18 Because there is a longer tradition of making queer film in the
West, the argument against the inclusion of violence with a demand that different stories now

17
Like the Bechdel Test, a new form examining queer characters has developed called, The Vito Russo Test,
which examines how LGBTQ characters are portrayed and represented on screen. See GLAAD’s “The Vito Russo
Test” for an explanation of the criteria in order for a film to pass the test. There is also a representation test called
The Deggans’ Rule, which examines the representation of race in a television show. See Nick Douglas, “The
Bechdel Test, and Other Media Representation Tests, Explained” for a list of other representation tests and criteria.
18
The turn against the use of violence or death in queer media is a reaction to the powerful history of the “Bury
the Gays” trope which goes all the way back to the Hollywood censorship codes of the 1930s.

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need to be told, has resulted in positive stories with happy endings becoming more prominent.
As Haley Hulan, in her paper “Bury Your Gays: History, Usage, and Context,” suggests, the
Bury Your Gays literary trope is a Western tradition where the violent or unhappy endings of
queer films were often a way of punishing queer characters for being homosexual. It was used
throughout the history of Western filmmaking to assert the heteronormative status quo where
gay characters in films would either die, commit suicide or return to heterosexual life. Hulan
also suggests that the trope “originated as a tool for queer authors to write queer narratives
without facing negative consequences associated with the ‘endorsement’ of homosexuality”
(Hulan 24). Hulan suggests that over time, the Bury Your Gays trope has evolved. She notes
that it has “gone from something queer creators can use to skirt oppressive societal standards
and laws to something that is used to exploit queer characters and storylines for a straight
audience. (Hulan 19). Although the opposition to the trope and thus to depictions of violence
against queer people in Western media can be valid, it also belies the different realities faced
by queer people in different parts of the world. When considering the use of violence in
contemporary queer media, such as Channel 4’s It’s a Sin (2021), or the French film BPM
(Beats Per Minute) (2017), both of which depict the failures of Western governments to
adequately respond to the HIV/AIDS crisis in the 1980s, the violent scenes shown in these
narratives are accurate representations of historical events and illustrate the importance of
attending to the realities of violence (be it psychic or actual) in narratives that focus on the
history of the queer community. The development of progressive changes in contemporary
queer politics and queer representation relies on the attention and focus of queer historical
analysis. Considering the entanglements of religion, sexuality, and patriarchy in Africa, I would
suggest that the widespread turn against the inclusion of violence in discussions of Western
queer media is a very privileged and ethnocentric response, coming from Western viewers, and
cannot be a blanket response to queer media everywhere.
In Africa, queer film is still very much in its inception, given the colonial history of the
continent. Although the inclusion of violence in fictional media depicting queer characters is
now viewed by many Western audiences as reductive, stereotypical, and even triggering, I
would argue that, in the context of African queer filmmaking, the inclusion of the threat to
queer lives from verbal, psychic, and physical violence better helps paint a picture of the
realities faced by queer Africans.19 As Odie Henderson notes:

19
Gibson Ncube suggests in “Are We Bound to Violence?: Looking at Depictions of Toxic Queer Masculinities
in South African Films” that “we need to ask why violence is a viable avenue to channel shame and homophobia”
(par. 14).

53
 Kahiu never shies away from the inherent danger the lovers face. When violence
befalls Ziki and Kena, Kahiu’s tight framing is as harrowing as the act itself.
The canvas of the screen is often used as a representation of feeling rather than
narrative, with scenes cropped so we can only see pieces of the action. It makes
the most intimate moments seem larger-than-life, which is exactly how they
must feel to our heroes. (par. 3)

Despite Henderson’s assertion that the intimate moments are larger than life, I would have to
disagree. The montage of their dates together, and their moments in the minivan, short change
the development of the girls’ relationship overall, which seems rather rushed and glossed over.
This is why the moment on the rooftop stands out, as a scene which exudes poignancy in its
gentle attention to their nascent connection. The emotional impact of the film could have been
improved by including more scenes of such steady attention.
In contrast, violence, in the film, slowly escalates: from the verbal abuse that Tom faces
at the café, to the psychic violence of the sermon, to Elizabeth’s confrontation of Kena, to the
physical violence at the minivan. This violence is not condemned by either the police, nor the
church, nor the families, with the notable exception of John. Moreover, whether it be overt like
the attack on Kena and Ziki, or barely visible, as in the case of Tom who walks by Kena at the
café – his face covered in bruises and lacerations – without so much as an acknowledgement
that someone has attacked him, it is representative of the precariousness of being queer in
Kenya and of the continent’s fraught relationship with queerness.
There are two particular scenes of violence which require attention, as they are
interlinked and also highlight the spectrum of violence to which queer characters in the film
are exposed to: the scene of Elizabeth’s confrontation and the attack on the two young women
in the minivan. When Kena is outside her apartment building, she is confronted by Ziki’s friend,
Elizabeth. As Kena is drinking water from a tap, Elizabeth attacks Kena and hits her head. She
warns Kena: “Stay away from Ziki. Are you a fucking lesbian or something? I see the way you
look at her and it’s sick! Whatever it is that you’re trying, you’ll not get away with it. Look at
you. You’re nothing” (52:30). Kena fights back and the two begin to tussle. Ziki and her other
friend hear the commotion and step in and try to separate the two. Ziki defends Kena and
lambasts Elizabeth, which prompts her to scream, “How can you choose her over me? (53:04).
This outburst, which verges on sexual jealousy, suggests that there might be more at play in
Ziki and Elizabeth’s relationship than simply friendship. Elizabeth’s friend pulls her away,
leaving Ziki and Kena alone. To show that she still cares, despite their previous disagreement
outside the church where Kena was angered at Ziki’s attempt at a public display of intimacy,

54
Ziki takes Kena to her apartment to treat her lip that split during the fight. Overcome by Ziki’s
care, Kena confesses to Ziki that she loves her. They kiss, but this intimate reunion is
interrupted by Ziki’s mother, Rose, signalling the omnipresent danger of exposure. They are
embarrassed to have been caught and begin stammering when Rose orders Kena to leave their
home. Just like John, Rose is not surprised by the intimacy between their daughters, but she
does, however, take a different approach to handling the situation. She blames Kena and
threatens to call someone, but before she can Ziki and Kena run away, leaving Rose locked
inside. They make their way to the only place of safety that they know: the abandoned minivan.
Elizabeth, Ziki’s friend, and Nduta, who are at the café, notice the two fleeing girls. Nduta
begins to talk to them about Kena and Ziki, once again illustrating the recurring risk of being
exposed and how often threats to their psychological and physical safety come from people in
their very own neighbourhood.
When Kena and Ziki are in the minivan, they are able to relax, except this time they
realise how they have exposed themselves to Rose. Kena asks Ziki what she is going to do now
after this confrontation with her mother. Ziki, full of adrenaline and panic, suggests “We could
have our own place. Just me and you. You got really good grades on your exams so you’re
going to be a doctor and I can get a job” (56:01). They are basking in their excitement and
optimism for the future and begin embracing one another, which in turn leads to them kissing.
This rare moment of security, however, is interrupted violently when Mama Atim,
accompanied by Nduta and a mob of homophobic supporters, confront the two girls in the
minivan where Mama Atim knows they will be, as throughout the film she also polices their
movements. She utters one of the worst insults in a film that depicts the frequent verbal abuse
of queer Kenyans by their community: “The politicians’ daughters stuck together like dogs!”
(56:55). The mob is then provoked into violence by Mama Atim’s words, and while the girls
are still in the minivan, they begin hitting the outside and pounding against the windows. Kena
and Ziki are then pulled from the minivan. The scene is distressing in enacting how the young
women’s lives and relationship are placed at severe risk from the moment they are discovered
together. The external reality of Kenyan’s society enters into and destroys their cherished
private space. Their efforts to avoid their subjugation have been destroyed by the politicisation
that Mama Atim has thrust on their very innocent relationship. Violence erupts at the minivan
as the mob, composed mainly of men and a few women, subject Kena and Ziki to public
punishment and humiliation: throwing the two girls around and hitting them until they both
drop to the ground, culminating in a violent hate crime.

55
 Although I think that the attack should be classed as a hate crime, the film shows that
what happens to the young women is not afforded any care or concern from the law. When
asked about why she included this scene in the film, Kahiu noted that it is essential “to
remember that 1 in 5 LGBT people in Kenya are violently attacked because of how they
identify” (qtd. in Pfeiffer, par. 20). She explains that although she would have like to have left
violence out of her film, it is a reality that people need to be cognizant of: “it was important to
also tell the story of the harm that is caused as a result of the way you choose to love” (qtd. in
Pfeiffer, par. 20). Despite Kahiu’s assertion that “the film in and of itself […] is just a love
story,” it is led inside and outside the content on screen by its direct engagement in the
discourses around the complexities of being queer in Kenya (Kahiu qtd in Pfeiffer, par. 7).
Taking note of Kahiu’s intentions, I think that this is what secures the film as a hybrid: it is
both a love story and a story about the fight for personal freedom.

The Politicisation and Public Policing of Private Love

This section draws on the work of Lauren Berlant notably her exploration of intimacy within
the history of how the private, such as identity and love, was made public. This shift from
private to public led to the policing of private acts and, in turn, to the politicisation of queer
identities.20 Throughout the film, as noted in this chapter, there is the recurring notion of the
two girls striving for “something real” in their journey together often culminating in rare
moments alone in private settings which, as Berlant notes, are extremely important: “Domestic
privacy can feel like a controllable space, a world of potential unconflictedness (even for five
minutes a day): a world built for you. It may seem of a manageable scale and pacing; at best,
it makes visible the effects of one’s agency, consciousness, and intention” (6). Because Berlant
emphasises the importance of domestic privacy here, it is clear how the pacing of the film could
have been improved. More attention to those private moments the two girls share would give
their union more emotional weight and complexity – while cementing the film’s long-term
impact in contemporary Kenyan society. The society the young women live in, however, has
its own interpretation of what is real. Nonnormative sexualities, relationships and identities are
viewed as a disruption to the real world which causes direct conflict, discrimination, and queer
intimacy is often met with the threat of exposure and punishing violence. As Lauren Berlant

20
Politicisation in this instance is used with the acknowledgement that everything in the naturalised world is
politicised and therefore the personal is political too. Politicisation is used to describe that which exists beyond
the norm and thus becomes overtly political.

56
notes of the rise of queer identity politics: “there is a history to the advent of intimacy as a
public mode of identification and self-development” (3). In terms of queer narratives and lives,
all over the world, there is a long history of the nation state being empowered to police,
condemn, erase, and punish the behavior of consenting adults whose private intimacy is
deemed to be counter to religious beliefs and the public good. Berlant takes note of Jürgen
Habermas’s argument that “the bourgeois idea of a public sphere relied on the emergence of a
mode of critical public discourse that formulated and represented public interests within civil
society against the state” (3). Furthermore, Berlant notes that:

The development of critical publicness depended on the expansion of class-

mixed semiformal institutions like the salon and the café, circulating print media,
and industrial capitalism; the notion of the democratic public sphere thus made
collective intimacy a public and social ideal, one of fundamental political
interest. Without it the public’s role as a critic could not be established. (3)

As Berlant notes, this tendency in capitalist bourgeois society towards making the private
public, means that those spaces, and the people who occupy them, face scrutiny when they do
not adhere to specific hegemonies, namely queer people in private spaces in heteronormative
patriarchal societies. This can be seen clearly in Rafiki. Berlant makes note of the development
of political geographies where certain spaces are allocated for queer individuals and that these
spaces produce:

systematic effects of violence. Queers are forced to find each other in

untrafficked areas because of the combined pressures of propriety, stigma, the
closet, and state regulation such as laws against public lewdness. The same areas
are known to gay-bashers and other criminals. And they are disregarded by
police. The effect is to make both violence and police neglect seem like natural
hazards, voluntarily courted by queers. (315)

These “untrafficked areas” (315) are what allow sexual preference and sexuality to be rendered
both invisible and locatable, and it is this that poses a threat to those who occupy such spaces
because of potential violence and harm – demonstrated clearly in Rafiki. The violence,
humiliation and ridicule that Kena and Ziki face is a perfect illustration of how the private
space of queer love is policed, made public, and thus politicised by the people in a
heteronormative patriarchal society who feel entitled to act in this manner. The film, as I will
discuss below, also provides an example of the “police neglect” (315) of violence done to queer
people. The failure, and the success, of the heteronormative patriarchal hegemony is wrapped
up with the dogmatic beliefs of those who purport it. As Berlant observes:

57
 When states, populations, or persons sense that their definition of the real is
under threat; when the normative relays between personal and collective ethics
become frayed and exposed; and when traditional sites of pleasure and profit
seem to get “taken away” by the political actions of subordinated groups, a sense
of anxiety will be pervasively felt about how to determine responsibility for the
disruption of hegemonic comfort. (7)

Both during and after the attack on them, Kena and Ziki’s lives are drastically altered as their
private matters are made public without their permission, which is recognizable in both queer
narratives and queer lives.
Kena and Ziki call out for each other during the attack and, while on the ground, a
defenceless Kena looks up and sees a familiar face: Waireri. She calls out for him to help them,
but he ignores her cries and flees. Waireri symbolises the ignorance surrounding nonnormative
sexualities, in that he is wrapped up in his heterosexism which makes him unaware of Kena’s
queerness.21 When faced with the violent publicization of his friend’s private life, a sense of
panic ensues and the fear of association derived from his own bigotry results in Waireri leaving
Kena to fend for herself. After the assault is over, the scene cuts to shots of the two young
women at the local police station where they are both treated as if they are in fact the criminals.
The public outing and attack on their relationship is an example of the frequent psychic and
physical violence that polices queer love and the pain to which many queer African people are
subjected. Furthermore, for queer viewers all over the world, this scrutiny and degradation of
Kena and Ziki’s humanity is immediately recognizable. In the police station, the two girls sit
far apart from each other so as to avoid any more unwanted attention which could provoke
further attacks. A pair of police officers watch the two as they wait for their parents to arrive.
The policeman goads: “Between the two of you which one of you is the man?” (59:03),
prompting shared laughter between himself and the policewoman. The scene is distressing,
depicting a society united in condemnation of two innocent girls, and illustrating the patriarchal
binarism with which queer people are faced constantly in many homophobic societies. The
girls are subjected not only to physical violence and to humiliation, by having been assaulted,
but they are also subjected to psychic violence and humiliation by the people who are supposed
to protect them. Kena tries to reach out to Ziki to console her, but Ziki is still in shock and
rejects Kena. This image of Kena reaching out to Ziki is a direct juxtaposition of the scene of
the two of them in church when Ziki reached out for Kena. This attack not only shows the

21
According to Epprecht, heterosexism is “blindness to or ignorance about homosexuality, bisexuality and
transgender issues. It describes culture where people assume that 100% heterosexuality is normal, natural and
good (Unspoken
215).

58
attitudes that the local people hold towards anyone going against societal rules and expectations,
but it reiterates the stark difference between the girls’ parents, as mentioned earlier in the
chapter.
John arrives at the police station to pick up Kena. As he walks in, he stares at her bruised
and battered face and then immediately requests to know the whereabouts of the office of the
chief of police. This surprises the police officers. It is clear that John sees the attack on his
daughter and Ziki as an injustice whatever his own feelings may be about her sexuality and its
likely effect on his campaign. Unlike John’s immediate concern for his child, Peter and Rose
Okemi walk in soon after and treat their daughter horribly. Peter walks straight up to Ziki and
slaps her across her face, with Rose looking on. He then turns to Kena and warns her to stay
away from his family. Peter and Rose usher Ziki out of the police station without another word.
Defying the orders of the police officers and Peter Okemi, Kena chases after the Okemi family.
She runs to their car and pleads with Ziki to speak to her. Rose, who clearly still blames Kena
for the shame brought on her family, asks Kena, “Haven’t you had enough already?” (57:40)
Kena continues to plead with Ziki, who is still hurt and embarrassed. She turns away and
ignores Kena. Ziki’s optimism is destroyed and Kena’s worst fears have come true. The
reversal of the image of Ziki chasing after Kena is symbolic of this unfortunate change between
the two of them. As the car drives away Kena still holds on to hope for her relationship with
Ziki and walks after the car, but she is left alone in the middle of the street. John appears and
consoles her in the only way he knows how. Gwilym Mumford points out that John is “forced
to weigh up his acceptance of his daughter against his wider desire to effect change in his
community” which not only grants his character more complexity, but again highlights his
difference from Peter Okemi (par. 6). He holds Kena, takes off his jacket, and puts it over her,
surrounding her with his comfort, all the while telling her that, “It’s okay. It’s okay” (58:08).
In this moment, John exceeds viewer expectations in terms of what one would think a
man entrenched in the system of heteronormative patriarchy, whereas Peter Okemi is symbolic
of the patriarchal hegemony in Kenya. John warns Kena that “any problem arising from Kena
and Ziki’s friendship would be more harmful to him than to his opponent,” (Monson par. 2)
signalling to the power dynamics and social capital disparities between the two men running
for office. This suggests that, due to the grassroots style of John’s campaign, that the scandal
of the Kena and Ziki’s same-sex relationship could destroy his chances of political leadership.

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Peter Okemi on the other hand, possesses enough wealth and social status to rectify the issue
of the girls’ relationship.22
After the ordeal at the police station, John takes Kena home to her mother and tells her
that Mercy is already aware of the situation. This clearly frightens Kena and she begs him to
come inside the house with her. Seeing the pain in her face, he agrees to go in with her, albeit
reluctantly. As the two step inside, John tells Kena to go and clean herself up to which her
mother responds, “How will it help? She will never be clean” (58:56). John vehemently defends
his daughter to his ex-wife asking, “Why don’t you save that anger for those guys who almost
beat her to death? They should be at the police station, not our daughter” (59:03). As Guy
Lodge observes, “John’s tender, non-judgmental relationship to his daughter stands out for its
unspoken currents of concern and understanding” and there is “tension between his obligations
to family and politics” (par. 6). Mercy, entrenched her religiosity, does not back down. She
expresses her disappointment in the entire situation: “They will probably blame me for this just
like they blamed me when you left me” (59:27). Her statement reveals that she not only longs
for her past life where she appeared to have the picturesque family which followed all the rules
of tradition (and patriarchy), but that she believes that John is the blame for her family’s
destruction. She concludes: “She is full of demons and it’s because of you” (1:00:02). Unable
to handle her parents’ arguing, and once again distancing herself from them, Kena leaves the
apartment. She finds refuge at Blacksta’s apartment where he welcomes her. He sees that she
is badly beaten up and comforts her. She has found comfort in a place where she least expected
it, but considering his history, his motives are clear. It is another opportunity for Blacksta to
try prove his “worth” to Kena while still ignoring not only her already established wishes, but
also now her identity.
A few days after the violent attack Mercy actualises her idea of her daughter being “full
of demons” when she forces Kena to partake in a prayer ceremony in an effort to cure her. The
scene pictures Kena surrounded by many emotional churchgoers praying over her while she is
on her knees. She seems unbothered and almost defiant, but the inclusion of this scene, despite
its short length, is important as it illustrates the hold religion has over the identity and the
actions taken by the religious community to police queer identities and relationships. It is a
community where homosexuality is reduced to something unnatural and fixable which results
in Kena’s private struggles with her sexuality becoming even more publicised. The scene is a

22
This is explored later in the film after the violent attack the girls face. Rather than take a comforting approach
to his daughter’s bad experience like John does for Kena, Peter Okemi uses his wealth to send Ziki away from
Kenya to go to live London. He exiles his daughter to keep her away from Kena.

60
reference to the idea, prevalent in many Christian communities, of ‘praying away the gay.’ The
notion of curative prayer for the sin of homosexuality highlights the denial and disrespect
directed at queer individuals due to religious efforts at purity. The effort to fix someone, who
is not broken, through religion is a form of both policing and politicisation as it seeks control
over a person who does not follow heteronormative ideals. Moreover, the film’s inclusion of
the conversion prayer scene affords it the same level of serious critique as other instances of
homophobia directed towards queer people in the film. Although it is not as visceral or reactive
as the verbal abuse or the mob violence directed at queer Kenyans in the film, the violence
contained behind the façade of religious purity is clear. The performance of the act of cleansing
is shown to be just as psychically damaging and can, in fact, lead to instances of physical
violence. When “curative” practices such as conversion prayer and therapy do not succeed in
cleansing, reforming, and converting a queer person into a confirmed heterosexual, other forms
of conversion methods may be introduced such as exorcisms, violent beatings, corrective rape,
and death.
As time passes the bruises on Kena’s face are slightly faded but there is clearly still hurt
and pain – not just in her body, but her ego seems to be somewhat crushed. Kena is not cleansed
as her mother hoped – but she is, however, more authentic, accepting, and honest with herself.
This is illustrated when Kena tries to talk to her mother, but Mercy ignores her. This
unresponsiveness is hurtful to Kena prompting her to leave. As Kena leaves the house, however,
her mother is conflicted. She wants to comfort and be there for her daughter who is hurting,
but doing that goes against her faith which she holds tightly to her existence. Kena makes her
way to her father’s shop to see that his campaign posters outside have been defaced. Kena
points out that he is losing the political race and therefore offers to take the blame so that he
does not lose votes. He points out to Kena that although he wants the position there are some
things that he could never do (1:07:55). He is inferring that blaming Kena for his loss would
compromise her safety and bring more ridicule and pain to her. They embrace each other and
both cry. John is visibly more confident and comfortable with his relationship with Kena. His
comfort and care for his child has obviously repaired and improved their relationship as she
too is comfortable with him.
The acceptance and approval which Kena receives from her father after being exposed
and punished publicly enables her to be open in public – she refuses to hide her feelings,
including those she has for Ziki. Her new-found openness and freedom affords her the ability
to be more assertive and certain with her intentions. When Blacksta once again tries to convince
Kena to be with him, she rejects him – not because she is unable to be truthful with him about

61
her sexuality out of fear of persecution, but because she is no longer afraid of hiding from that
persecution. He is defensive in his retort to Kena’s rejection, which highlights his expectations
for Kena:

Blacksta: Hi, Kena. Let’s go for a ride. Just a short ride.

Kena: Maybe later.
Blacksta: Why?
Kena: I love that girl.
Blacksta: Why do you like hurting the people that care about you? I’m the one
who’s here. Me! It’s okay. Don’t worry. (1:08:33)

Blacksta views the act of providing comfort and a place for Kena to take refuge from society
as enough of a reason for Kena to be with him. He becomes visibly upset that Kena will not
accept his advances. Like her mother, but this time in terms of his patriarchal masculinity,
Blacksta believes that he can ‘cure’ Kena. He serves to remind the viewer that his way of
thinking is ingrained in the fabric of the heteronormative patriarchal society. Kena is clearly in
need of a friend, but she has just lost the only one she thought she had. Blacksta’s rejection is
another form of how Kena’s love is incessantly policed. When Kena tells Blacksta of her love
for Ziki, she no longer cares about that which used to affect her negatively. This echoes
Berlant’s suggestion that “To live as if threatening contexts are merely elsewhere might well
neutralize the ghostly image of one’s own social negativity; and the constant energy of public
self-protectiveness can be sublimated into personal relations of passion, care, and good
intention” (5-6). Because Kena has been publicly exposed and violently punished, she no
longer has the ability to neutralize her public image. Therefore, as a result of this public
policing, Kena is only left with the choice of being.

The Reality of “Real” Love

In her efforts to salvage the closest thing to real she has experienced, Kena goes to visit Ziki to
try reconcile their relationship. When she arrives at the door, Rose Okemi greets her and
reluctantly lets her into the apartment to see Ziki. The clear parallels between both girls’ parents
are shown as John Mwaura and Rose Okemi are more aligned in that they seem to understand
their daughters. They are both less reactive and volatile to the incident that occurred compared
to how Peter Okemi and Mercy react, albeit that Rose initially took to blaming Kena. There
are hints that Rose understands Ziki but, due to the obvious power dynamics in her relationship
with Peter and the societal expectations it seems she feels she has to be against the relationship

62
between Kena and Ziki. Kena walks into Ziki’s room where Ziki is packing her clothes into a
suitcase. When Kena walks in, Ziki is unable to look at Kena, but they begin to talk:

Kena: Are you going?

Ziki: They’re sending me to London.
Kena: But you can stay here.
Ziki: I get to travel like I always wanted. It’s exactly what I wanted.
Kena: That’s what you always wanted?
Ziki: Yeah. (01:07:30; my emphasis)

Kena immediately questions Ziki who in turn is immediately defensive: “Kena, stop being
naïve. What did you expect was going to happen either way? Are you planning to marry me?
Are we going to have this beautiful family? (1:08:10). Kena, with her new-found openness,
wholeheartedly believes in their future together and responds with a simple, “Yes.” This
exacerbates Ziki’s turmoil and internal conflict prompting her to plead with Kena saying, “I
want my normal life back” (1:08:36). Kena is in disbelief at Ziki’s surrender of their shared
dream to be free, authentic, and real together. The core thread of their future narrative is being
packed away into a suitcase and shipped overseas to London by Ziki’s father and societal
opinion. As they have both seen what happens when they are in private, Ziki pleads with Kena
to stop her insistence on them being open and authentic. She is understandably scared of what
could happen if they attempted to be out and open. Kena becomes increasingly defeated
resulting in her lashing out at Ziki: “How am I stopping you? Of course, you’re just a typical
Kenyan girl” (1:11:46) inferring that Ziki is succumbing to what her parents want and not
fulfilling her own desires that she expressed on the rooftop. Reaching her breaking point, Ziki
screams for Kena to get out and leave. A reluctant Kena leaves her room and the apartment,
thus ending their relationship and their hopes for something real. As Kena is leaving, she passes
Rose in the lounge without saying anything to her. Rose then goes into Ziki’s room after
overhearing the end of their relationship and, perhaps surprisingly, comforts her. Ziki pleads
with Rose not to make her go to London, but Rose insists that she cannot allow her to stay.
Rose cries with her daughter as she tries to comfort her through this pain that she realises is not
only hers to bear, but her daughter’s too.
In the next scene, Kena makes her way back to the minivan. She is sitting alone but not
for long, as she is joined by Tom. He says nothing to Kena, but there is a sense of solidarity as
he sits there with her. Kena is no longer able to hold in her pain, hurt, and anger and begins to
cry. Odie Henderson observes the meaning of Tom’s presence at the minivan:

63
 the film never reveals whether he is gay or just perceived as such – [he] becomes
a rather blatant symbol of the country’s homophobia. He never gets a line of
dialogue, which bothered me initially because I saw his existence as an empty
gesture. But, late in the film, Kahiu upended my expectations in a scene where
he quietly sits next to a battered, heartbroken Kena. As the two share the frame,
neither making eye contact with the other, I hoped for some exchanged words.
Instead, the scene ends in silence and I realized that the visual of a shared
solidarity was more powerful than anything that could have been said in that
moment. (par. 5)

Throughout the film, there is the presence of the oppressors policing queer people, but Tom in
this moment is symbolic of how queer people, and queer solidarity, exist regardless of the
efforts to say otherwise. Tom and Kena symbolise the way queer Kenyans are there to stay –
as the screen fades to black signalling the end of the second part of the film.

A “Real” Future For Queer Kenya

The third and final part of the film begins in a hospital a few years later where Kena can be
seen walking down the corridor, dressed in full hospital scrubs. She has successfully become a
nurse attending to patients, fulfilling one of her dreams expressed earlier in the film. She checks
in on a new patient at the hospital who is revealed to be Mama Atim. Both Kena and her
tormentor are shocked to see one another, but Kena maintains her professionalism. On the other
hand, Mama Atim immediately goes on the attack and asks, “Is this where you came to hide?”
suggesting that Kena left their neighbourhood for a larger, more cosmopolitan area (1:12:10).
Even at her weakest moment, Mama Atim tries to inflict shame in Kena. Her homophobia rules
her thoughts and all rationality is expunged as she refuses to be treated by Kena. Treating Kena
as the sick one, she states that Kena will not touch her (1:12:14). Kena respects her wishes and
leaves, but not before Mama Atim, unrelenting in her need for gossip, informs Kena that Ziki
is back in town. This information rattles Kena and at the end of her shift she is pictured at her
locker where it is revealed to the viewer that she has kept a postcard with a message that says,
“I miss you. Z” (1:13:05). This indicates that the pair’s connection to one another has not
faltered over the years, despite their relationship coming to its abrupt and tumultuous end.
Kena goes back to her old neighbourhood, arriving there on the back of a motorbike
taxi. She sees Blacksta and they acknowledge each other, but it is nothing more than a greeting,
which is a stark difference to their former friendship. When visiting her old home, it is clear
that nothing much has changed but Kena has visibly changed. She has longer hair and a more
mature style, but she also carries herself with a sense of ease and confidence that was not

64
present in her younger self. As she walks through the house Kena, looks about her, reminded
everywhere of her past and therefore, to relive another part of her past, makes her way to Ziki’s
old apartment. She just walks by, but does not go in.
Kena then makes her way to a lookout spot on top of a hill where she can still see Ziki’s
old apartment from a distance. The sun is setting and she is still focused on remaining far from
the apartment indicating a sense of trepidation in that going in will surely open old wounds. As
she stares on, a voice is heard calling out her name, “Kena,” (1:15:18) and the unknown
person’s hand appears on Kena’s shoulder. She turns and smiles showing a sense of familiarity
with this person, who remains unseen to the viewer, leading us to believe that it is Ziki reuniting
with her. As Kena’s smile disappears from the screen, the song “Stay” by Njoki Karu which
speaks of a profound love, plays as the film fades to black and ends with the lyrics: “Run with
me, we can turn the wind golden. Dance with me, with the clouds beneath our feet. Love me
still, love me leave me breathless. Stay with me, stay and let us weep” (1:16:30). The brief
third part of the film suggests that Kena has found a way to live comfortably and, presumably,
openly, by the way she carries herself. The ending sequence also suggests not only that has she
maintained contact with Ziki, but they reunite. Kena is happy and it is clear that she is finally
“something real.”

Conclusion: A Qualitative Critique of Rafiki

Rafiki and its success speaks to the larger question of whether a film is successful because it is
critically a good film or because of the politicisation and/ or label attached to it. In terms of
global contemporary queer cinema, I would suggest that Rafiki is not as revolutionary, striking
or provocative as its counterparts. It is, however, revolutionary and striking in terms of African
queer cinema due to the fact that it is a queer story set in a predominantly anti-queer country.
As Guy Lodge notes “along comes Rafiki to remind us that LGBT narratives in the mainstream
are not to be taken for granted” (par. 1) which highlights why the film is so special. Although
it is presented as a love story, it is also a queer film featuring queer characters set in Kenya,
starring Kenyan actors and directed by a Kenyan woman. That fact alone makes it a remarkable
film in the African cinema landscape. It acknowledges the existence of queer people in Kenya
which is what so many of the religious and political elite have tried to prevent. Its subsequent
banning, un-banning and then the reiteration of its banning has in itself pointed the spotlight
on the larger conversation about the freedom of expression in Kenya.

65
 Rafiki has polarised both its supporters and adversaries, sparking debates around
appropriateness of the depictions of sexuality in Kenya. Kahiu has described the film as a love
story, but acknowledges that there are political aspects attached to her film. As she states, “if
it’s black or queer…more levels of politicization are assigned to it” (qtd in Pfeiffer par. 10).
Although Kahiu prefers not to label her film as a political one, it is important to note that the
history of the screening and reception of Rafiki was highly politicised due to the polarising
effect the release of the film had on Kenyan society. In most societies, when films like Rafiki
are labelled queer and seek to take up social and cultural space, they are by definition political:
whether they intend to be political or not. As long as societies are structured by patriarchal
heteronormativity – anything outside of that realm is inherently political.
The film does, however, succeed subtly in the ways that it challenges certain
stereotypes of non-queer Africans response to queer Africans. It seeks not only to show
elements of the various opposing factors of queer people in Kenya, but it also shows the
progressive support that they have. The progressive elements posit the film as one that helps
create a new normal in postcolonial Africa. As Odie Henderson notes: “To feel seen is a potent,
potentially life-changing emotion, and only those who were never in the dark would have a
moral problem with it. Rafiki makes this serious point quite effectively, never losing its
ebullience” (par. 7). Although, as Leigh Monson points out, “Rafiki will probably always be
better known for the story of its release than for the contents of its runtime” (par. 1), I believe
that in terms of its content Rafiki also has the ability to put queer Kenyans and the issues that
they face, on the map. It allows queer Kenyans to see themselves expressed on a global stage
and, in the words of Ziki, to say “Yo, I’m here and I’m a Kenyan from Africa!” Rafiki grants
queer Kenyans the knowledge to know that they are real.

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Chapter Two – How Queer is Africa? Representations of Queer
Lives in Queer Africa: New and Collected Fiction and Queer Africa
2: New Stories

Introduction: Why Queer Africa?

One of my main questions, while engaged in this research, concerned the varied impact of
different forms of media on queer representation. Brenna M. Munro notes, “given that gay
sexuality has become a deeply contested symbol of political change and social transformation,
the coming-out novel offers a rich template for writing the ‘new’ nation” (xxiii). If the coming-
out novel offers a rich template, what are we to make of the impact other forms of queer
narratives have on queer representation? Do they also provide a rich template for writing this
“new” nation – or do they offer something more substantial? It is also essential to consider the
rapid change in the consumption of art and media when interrogating a literary form’s ability
to offer something new. Furthermore, it is essential to question whether queer narratives in
other mediums, outside of the novel, offer an alternative, nuanced template to the postcolonial
nation. A short story holds power in its brevity to portray meaning, thought, and value.
According to Makhosazana Xaba, “the short story makes me see and touch within a limited
space of time and a few characters” (qtd. in Xaba and du Preez 140). This chapter explores
how two anthologies of short stories, namely Queer Africa: New and Collected Fiction (2013)
and Queer Africa 2: New Stories (2017), both edited by Makhosazana Xaba and Karen Martin,
reflect various forms and approaches to narrativising queer experience on the continent and
what these add to writing new attitudes to queerness in Africa more broadly.
The title of the anthologies is a bold and assertive one – an ambitious proclamation of
a queer African identity. The anthologies are a valid attempt at representation and signify a
way for queer African people to say: “we’re here, we’re queer, and we have always existed.”
Therefore, in this chapter, the concept of the anthologies will be referred to as the “QA
anthology.” There are three iterations of anthologies which fall under this moniker, namely the
first anthology, which will be referred to as Queer Africa, the second anthology, referred to as
Queer Africa 2, and the third book Queer Africa: Selected Stories (2018). The third iteration
of the QA anthology is a compilation with no new stories but borrows nine stories from Queer
Africa and thirteen stories from Queer Africa 2. Because there is a difference in the composition

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of the three books, the term “QA anthology” will be used to distinguish between the intention
of the anthologies as a concept and each specific anthology in discussion.
With the release of three books, the QA anthology has a three-pronged approach to the
publication of its short stories. Firstly, in their introduction to Queer Africa the editors explain
their decision to include a range of previously published prose, including K. Sello Duiker’s
“Chapter Thirteen,” (an extract from his novel Thirteen Cents), Richard de Nooy’s “The Big
Stick,” (an extract from his novel of the same name), Wame Molefhe’s “Sethunya Likes Girls
Better,” (a short story from Molefhe’s collection Go Tell the Sun), Monica Arac de Nyeko’s
“Jambula Tree,” Natasha Distiller’s “Asking For It,” Martin Hatchuel’s “Pinch,” and Lindiwe
Nkutha’s “Rock” as well as new stories (Martin and Xaba Queer Africa viii; 214). Furthermore,
they suggest that the inclusion of work previously published elsewhere “gave our anthology a
broader range of content and country coverage. But is also gave individual stories a different
home in which to live” (Xaba qtd. in Salafranca par. 16). The inclusion of previously published
work, however, also highlights that there are still a limited range of queer stories in Africa,
which will be explored later in this chapter. This limitedness calls attention to the precarious
state of queerness across the continent, but the QA anthology is nevertheless an ambitious
starting point. Secondly, Queer Africa 2 hopes to stretch the parameters of queer storytelling
in Africa by including all brand new stories. Lastly, Queer Africa: Selected Stories hopes to
make the anthology as a whole, more visible and more available globally compared to the first
two anthologies. The first two anthologies are published in South Africa whereas the third is
published in the United Kingdom, thus offering the QA anthology more exposure. All three
iterations of the anthology are representative and point to a sense of how more visibility is
needed but also highlight major setbacks in some African countries such as restrictive and
oppressive laws and disapproving public opinion with regards to queer African rights and
freedoms.
According to Sally Ann Murray, Queer Africa is “possibly the best known and most
widely reviewed anthology of queer short fiction in South Africa” (5). The first anthology
which consists of “18 historical and contemporary stories by writers from six African countries,”
has an author make-up of 10 South Africans, three Ugandans, two Zimbabweans, and one
writer from Zambia, Botswana, and Nigeria respectively (Igual 3). The second anthology
comprises 26 stories from seven countries, namely Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Sierra Leone,
Rwanda, Somalia, and Uganda. The collections demonstrate no homogeneity in queer
experiences in Africa, thus providing an opportunity to explore the diversity and specificities
of queer lives as represented in the work of differently situated African writers. The stories

68
seek to subvert Africa’s monolithic identity by showing the differences between specific
countries’ queer experiences. According to Barbara Boswell, from the introduction of Queer
Africa 2, “the stories collected in this volume give a kaleidoscope peek into the many ways in
which Africans inhabit ‘queerness’, giving fine grained texture to the lives and experiences of
those whose humanity is routinely denied” (1). In many African countries, attitudes towards
queer people are bound up by both African tradition and a lived conviction that queerness is an
invasion resulting from the long history of colonialism – not only in the physical sense but also
in the mental sense.
Through a focus on three short stories from Queer Africa 2, this chapter seeks to
foreground the queer experience in countries where queerness has to remain invisible. The
stories “Iyawo” and “Àwúre Ìfęràn” depict queer lives in arguably the most dangerous African
country to be queer – Nigeria. By exploring how these stories call attention to the specificities
of queer lives in Nigeria, this chapter will also seek to investigate why, and in what ways, queer
Nigerian identities have been left out of the scope of possibilities for freedom enjoyed by other
independent African states. The story, “Pub 360” adds another dimension to my examination
of queer lives in Kenya, as explored in the first chapter, while discussing how the story itself
enacts the stark shift from the invisibility to visibility of queerness. Through a close reading of
these three short stories, this chapter also seeks to explore and explain the complexities
surrounding the representations of queer Africans in a way that does not feed into old tropes
and stereotypes of writing about Africa.
According to Gabeba Baderoon, “Queer Africa is a collection of charged, tangled,
tender, unapologetic, funny, bruising and brilliant stories about the many ways in which we
love on another on the continent” (qtd. in Martin and Xaba Queer Africa vi). The stories I have
chosen to read closely are not overtly political stories but stories of everyday life and migration
issues, covert love affairs, patriarchy and the need for love and intimacy despite the constant
threat of violence. As Bibi Burger observes about Queer Africa 2: “Most stories, however, are
gentler, subtly transporting readers to the everyday lives of queer people in Africa. This in itself
is radical considering the violent and bureaucratic suppression they are often faced with” (172).
The two stories from Nigeria explore the relationship Africans have with the diaspora. These
stories are closely linked to the assertion that the QA anthology makes – to celebrate queer
African stories in Africa. As the bold title of the anthologies suggests, there is a growing
assertiveness towards being openly queer in Africa and to regarding Africa as a queer place. I
hope to interrogate whether these stories answer the questions I have raised above – and to

69
discover whether they aid in the overall effort of establishing a new normal in terms of queer
inclusion and normalisation in African literature.

Asserting a Queer African Identity

The birth of the idea for the anthologies came from Martin and Xaba. Martin is a “fiction writer,
collage artist and professional editor” while Xaba is an author and a “former writing fellow at
the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research” (Martin and Xaba Queer Africa 208;
211). Both editors are acclaimed writers from South Africa who invited writers across the
African continent and African writers living abroad to share their queer truths and experiences.
Queer Africa, which took “three years to collect and assemble,” represents the many lived
queer experiences replete with historical entanglements and personal conflicts about being
queer in Africa (Martin and Xaba Queer Africa viii). The anthologies have been well received
at home and abroad. The first anthology is critically acclaimed and won the “LGBT Anthology
Fiction prize at the annual Lambda Literary Awards, making it the first African-produced book
to win [this award]” (Igual par.1). Moreover, according to the website GALA, Queer Africa
“was translated into Spanish in the same year [and] is now used to teach literature and queer
theory at prestigious universities in South Africa.” Following its success, Queer Africa 2 was
published in 2017, consisting of more stories. It is also critically acclaimed and according to
Otosirieze Obi-Young, “the second installment in Makhosazana Xaba and Karen Martin’s
efforts to highlight new African writing about queerness” was also shortlisted for the 2018
Anthology Fiction prize at the Lambda Literary awards (par. 4). For the editors, the first
collection “celebrates the diversity and fluidity of queer and African identifications and
expressions” and contains stories which “renew overrepresented aspects of African life by
looking at them through a queer lens (Queer Africa viii).
By looking at aspects of African life through a queer lens, the editors strive to assert a
queer African identity through the QA anthology. During a discussion with Derrick
Higgenbotham and Zethu Matebeni in September 2013, Xaba stated: “in our societies, we go
through waves of social and political consciousness [where] past struggles inform the present
– although, of course, the present often splits from this heritage in radical and intriguing ways”
(qtd. in Chetty par. 2). To understand why the naming of the anthology is ambitious, bold and
assertive, it is important to call attention to the intention behind the usage of the word ‘queer’
to describe this additional kind of African identity:

70
 Matebeni asks Xaba, ‘What does queer mean?’ Her response is that ‘being queer
is a political term’. She invokes the idea of ‘blackness’, and the continuity
between blackness and queerness, saying both have been historically – in the
South African context – ‘outside apartheid’, and suggests a unity here: cast to
the marginalia of society as an ‘other’ to an established centre, or as some form
of deviant excess from a white heterosexual normality. ‘Our understanding of
sexuality keeps enlarging,’ she says, noting the inclusive incorporation of
contemporary gay cultures (homosexual, bisexual, transgender, cisgender,
intersexed). She marks ‘queer’ as a ‘political category that comes from social
movements’, which leaves a great deal to the speculation of the viewer; namely,
the texture and specificity of this category and its co-existence and tension with
other political signifiers. [sic] (Chetty par. 3)

The naming of the anthology is, therefore, ambitious and assertive as the editors wish to keep
enlarging the idea of African identity and sexuality as they attempt to illustrate a reality for
many queer African people. On the other hand, the intent of the anthologies is also indicative
of what is holding queer African literature back and signalling what is needed: more stories
about queer Africans produced through “cultural labor” (Livermon “Queer 300). As Xaba
suggests, Queer Africa, and as a result the QA anthology, is a way for readers in Africa and
around the world to see realities through various viewpoints: “Queer Africa invites us as
readers to see our continent through different eyes, to experience the world through different
bodies. The stories help to surface our shared humanity and to rethink what it means to be
African and to be queer” (qtd. in Chetty par. 8). Furthermore, Matebeni suggests an “idea of
‘queerness’ representing a disturbance in the order of things, a defamiliarisation of the kinds
of bodies and performances that are legitimated by our discourses” as explored in the following
subsection (qtd. in Chetty par. 4). Both Xaba and Matebeni suggest that Queer Africa plays a
role in the disruption of the heteronormative patriarchal hegemony of what African stories and
narratives are supposed to be and how they are supposed to be told. As Xaba observes: “fiction
offers an imaginative space that allows for a range of possibilities and ways of seeing and being.
It bridges a gap” (qtd. in Salafranca par. 21). Ugandan writer, and winner of the Caine Prize,
Monica Arac de Nyeko, author of “Jambula Tree,” which is one of the previously published
stories collected for the first anthology, also notes: “Queer Africa is an essential addition to the
conversation currently taking place on the continent,” highlighting how “we cannot draw fault
lines that are too strong and stand on opposite sides of the fence and call that a conversation.
We need to talk, see and hear each other” (Arac de Nyeko qtd. in Igual 10). Arac de Nyeko
observes how contemporary literature can create the social space needed to have these
conversations – queer Africans cannot and will not be silenced nor rendered imaginary and
invisible on their continent anymore.

71
 From these interviews with Xaba and Martin, it is clear they wish to alter the
conversations around queerness in Africa by using the anthologies to tell every day stories
about queer people living on the continent. They do this by including “the widest range of
stories – female and male, cis- and trans-gender, urban and rural, contemporary and historical,
joyful and troubled – without compromising literary values” (Queer Africa vii). The stories
alter conversations around queerness in Africa as they try to move beyond a singular narrative
for queer people in Africa – one of strife and violence – but rather towards a history where
queer Africans live a life beyond their struggles. In the introduction to the first anthology,
Martin and Xaba assert their wish to “productively disrupt, through the art of literature, the
potent discourses currently circulating on what it means to be African, to be queer” (Queer
Africa vii). In Queer Africa 2, the editors state that “the second anthology affirms our intention
as expressed in the Preface to the first book” and they reiterate the quotation highlighted in the
previous sentence (312). This confirms what I would describe as the aim of the QA anthology
as a whole. The editors hope the anthologies will “confront the noisy political rhetoric that
positions queerness as unnatural, amoral and un-African with intimate stories about individual
lives, deeply embedded in the complexities of their contexts” (Queer Africa viii-xi).

Problematizing the Queer Africa Anthologies

It is clear the editors wanted the QA anthology to be as representative as possible as well as

read by as many people around the world but there are realities that would prevent such good
intentions. In his poem, “The Hollow Men,” T.S. Eliot states, “Between the idea/ And the
reality/ Between the motion/ And the act/ Falls the Shadow” (72-76). This notion of intention
and reality, and how they do not always match up, can be seen throughout the various problems
surrounding the two anthologies, which will be explored further in this section. The first issue
surrounding the anthologies is the complexities of equal representation for the fifty four
African countries. As Xaba notes for Queer Africa, they “sent out a call for submissions and
chose stories that met literary criteria” (qtd. in Salafranca par. 16). Because any anthology is
going to be selective and, thus not entirely representative, it is clear to see why the QA
anthology does not feature every single country on the African continent. As Martin notes,
regarding the obvious omission of many African countries: “We had to accept that a lot of
countries aren’t represented in the anthology. This is a pity, but it was never our intention, only
our hope, to cover as many different national contexts as we could” (Martin qtd. in Salafranca
par. 17). The omission of countries calls attention to two interlinked issues which hinder the

72
anthology being read, published, and distributed all over the continent: the illegality of
nonnormative sexualities in various countries and thus the restrictions on who might be willing
to contribute to such an anthology. Nmachika Nwokeabia explains that there are complexities
surrounding the “attention to representations of same-sex desire outside of its usual locus of
study – in Southern Africa generally, and South Africa specifically, where anti-homophobic
laws make discussions of homosexuality in Africa vary in content and tone that may not be
permissible in other countries with stricter laws” (366-367). Therefore, as Nwokeabia suggests,
as some countries do not even allow for the discussion of nonnormative sexualities, full and
equal representation in the anthologies is not imaginable yet. As the editors explain, “In parts
of Africa, stronger and stronger queer voices are making themselves heard – the voices of
activists and artists, of communities and politicians. In other parts, terrifying violence, often
sanctioned by the state, plagues queer people” (Martin and Xaba Queer Africa viii). It is
difficult to know whether the imbalance of representation could also be due to the presumed
focus on writing in English, which would prevent writing from Francophone countries being
included. The editors do state that “writers must identify as African, and we allowed them to
decide from themselves what this means,” but the predominance of English stories indicates
that language may have been an inhibitor (Martin and Xaba Queer Africa vii). In Queer Africa
2, however, the editors explain their “intention was to include stories from Francophone and
Lusophone countries, as well as in other indigenous languages of the continent,” and how they
“invited writers to submit their ‘literary translations into English’ of previously published
stories” (Xaba and Martin Queer Africa 2 311). The editors explain that they did not receive
any submissions in translation, despite their call for language inclusion.
The naming of the QA anthology also has the potential for further issues, as it can easily
be interpreted as a singular take on queerness in Africa as well as a monolithic view of the
continent. This, however, as discussed above, is not the case nor the intent of the QA anthology.
During Xaba’s interview with Higgenbotham and Matebeni about Queer Africa, which was the
birth of the concept of the QA anthology, Matebeni wonders “What was left behind in terms of
content?” Kavish Chetty notes how Matebeni “considers the lacunae and disparities of
representation with regard to the urban/rural divide, protagonal genders, and the focus on South
Africa at the expense of other parts of the continent.” Chetty observes that “the question,
perhaps, is aimed at troubling the authoritative-ness of a volume which announces itself as
‘Queer Africa’” (Chetty par. 6). Matebeni, however, finds the writing of Queer Africa
refreshing with its use of storytelling focused less on the stereotypical ways of writing about
queerness in Africa through the lens of violence and victimhood. As Chetty suggests, these

73
remarks call attention to how the QA anthology deals with “taking ownership of its identities
and possibilities, triumphing in the everyday glories of its experience, rather than depicting
homosexuality as a fragile life under endless threat of abuse, an alienated and melancholic
literature” (Chetty par. 6). This idea of authors taking ownership is linked closely to the
representation of how queer Africans are portrayed.
Binyavanga Wainaina, in his seminal essay “How to Write About Africa,” highlights
how Africa is often problematically portrayed by non-African writers in ways that tend to “treat
Africa as if it were one country” (par. 3). He explains that writers often use stereotypes,
outdated tropes, and misrepresentations which perpetuate the misconception of the continent
as being singular and monolithic – removing any sense of agency. As explored in the previous
chapter, there is a growing desire for a new normal in regards to portraying Africa and its
specificities. Wainaina also calls attention to this by noting there are “taboo subjects” which
writers do not use that would negate the common depictions of Africa. To write about the
uncommon would show the rich autonomy and diversity of the people of various African
nations and erase the essentialist view of Africa as a war-torn wasteland. To Wainaina, the
taboo subjects are “ordinary domestic scenes, love between Africans (unless a death is
involved), references to African writers or intellectuals, mention of school-going children who
are not suffering from yaws or Ebola fever or female genital mutilation” (par. 5). Wainaina
shows that when Africa has been written about negatively and stereotypically – authentic
African lives and experiences are rendered invisible. Invisibility in these communities does not
enable any individuals to gain any sense of autonomy over their self-expression nor does it
allow them to acquire representation which, as mentioned before, is instrumental in shifting
the discourse of queerness in Africa. It is also imperative to navigate queer African discourse
with an intersectional lens to avoid further marginalisation within a marginalised group. The
complexities of being queer and African are vast and nuanced which is what the QA anthology
strives to exemplify. By using Wainaina’s words about how to write about Africa, it is clear
the anthologies have the same idea of how to represent the continent by telling authentic stories
about Africa and queer Africans by Africans. They are poignant stories that are not seeped in
violence and heartache that would be considered the stereotypical ways Africa is written about,
as explained by Wainaina. The stories I have chosen to focus on, like the QA anthology as a
whole, represent a distinctive collective theme of belonging and searching for one’s place as a
queer person in Africa.
Another issue that may concern the anthologies is their centralisation in South Africa
as people other African countries are not afforded the same opportunities to read them. The

74
first two collections were published MaThoko’s Books in South Africa, which is an imprint of
the organisation, Gay and Lesbian Memory in Action (GALA).23 The centralisation, however,
highlights the vexed relationship the country has with the rest of the continent and calls
attention to the general readership on the continent. It may also be due to the probable
complications surrounding LGBTQ+ laws in many other African countries, such as Nigeria,
Kenya and Uganda, to name a few. Whereas some African leaders have taken to the world
stage to demonize the queer people of their countries, South Africa is at the forefront of sharing
queer stories. Furthermore, print books are a lot more difficult to obtain in certain countries
which excludes many queer Africans from reading the anthologies. Although the anthologies
are easier to produce and publish in South Africa, they are also considered to be politically
defiant in South Africa because, despite the protections and freedoms afforded to queer
individuals after the change in legislation, public attitudes towards queer people have not
changed. Public opinion still sees queerness as threatening, transgressive and anti-African. The
centralisation in South Africa also calls attention to the progressiveness of the country, or its
attempt at being the progressive leader, on the continent.
While the Queer Africa anthologies have won awards, are used in university syllabi,
translated into other languages and centralised in South Africa – they do not appear to have
much prevalence throughout the rest of the continent nor world. In an email correspondence,
GALA’s information officer, Karin Tan, explained that the anthologies are available outside of
South Africa through the website African Books Collective. The anthologies are also available
in South Africa but “unfortunately due to our capacity and resources, we are even unable to
maintain reliable distribution to outlet stores within South Africa, but Queer Africa 2 is still
available for purchase directly [through GALA]” (Tan).24 Whereas the films Rafiki and Inxeba
are easily downloadable, albeit illegally, from the internet, despite problems with screenings at
cinemas in their countries of origin, the difficulty of obtaining the anthologies speaks to how
the accessibility of African literature on the continent remains minimal.25 Tan also explained
that sometimes GALA recommends the third anthology, Queer Africa: Selected Stories, “to
people outside of the country who are struggling to get a hold of the originals.” Therefore,
compared to the films, the anthologies are not widely accessible on the African continent –

23
This organisation was formerly known as Gay and Lesbian Archive (GALA). Now known as the Gay and
Lesbian Memory in Action, the organisation still retains the acronym GALA. According to the website, GALA,
the organisation’s name is, as of 2018, being re-evaluated “in order to address the exclusion of other queer
identities and orientations in the name.”
24
Email correspondence from 23 February 2021.
25
Both films are also legally available to stream online: Rafiki (Showmax; Amazon; Kanopy) and Inxeba
(Showmax; Netflix).

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which is because demand is directly linked to the lack of readership. The anthologies
availability and prevalence abroad would also help deter the idea that Africa is a war-torn place
unable to facilitate liveable lives for queer people.
The limited scale of distribution and publication of the anthologies also speaks to the
minimal scholarship surrounding the anthologies. The available scholarship mainly concerns
the first anthology as the second was published relatively recently. As Matebeni et al. point
out, “the marginalization of African-centred scholarship on LGBTQ and non-heterosexual
subjectivities points to a pressing need for scholarship in this field” (4). Regardless of how
little scholarship there is, the QA anthology is pertinent to the discourse surrounding queer
Africans.
The majority of the short stories in both anthologies are from South African writers,
however, Queer Africa 2 has noticeably more Nigerian writers compared to the first anthology.
Therefore, I chose three stories that concern countries that do not recognise nonnormative
sexualities because by writing from and about those places circumvents the idea that queerness
does not exist in such countries. As explained in the short story, “Poisoned Grief” by
Zimbabwean author Emil Rorke, “the art of telling my stories lies in saying the right things the
right way, but sometimes, and sometimes, more importantly, it lies in finding ways to say the
things that are never said” (Queer Africa 29). I also chose the stories as they do not “rely on
figures of victimhood that assume that those who are vulnerable are therefore without agency”
as there is power in confronting one’s struggle in real, personal ways (Butler et al. ).26 This
confrontation is an important part of the formation of “cultural labor” for which queer Africans
strive towards (Livermon “Queer” 300). Therefore, using close readings of three short stories,
the following sections aim to discuss how these selected short stories interrogate the various
entanglements that many queer Africans face with their experiences as queer Africans. The
stories highlight the desire for queer Africans to live authentically within their identities. As
the website GALA explains about Queer Africa 2:

The stories are representative of the range of human emotions and experiences
that abound in the lives of Africans and those of the diaspora, who identify
variously along the long and fluid line of the sexuality, gender and sexual
orientation spectrum in the African continent. Centred in these stories and in
their attendant relationships is humanity. (GALA “Queer Africa 2”)

26
See Vulnerability in Resistance (2016) for a more thorough look into “the role of vulnerability in strategies of
resistance” where the authors hope “to develop a different conception of embodiment and sociality within fields
of contemporary power, one that engages object worlds, including both built and destroyed environments, as well
as social forms of interdependency and individual or collective agency” (6).

76
I am mindful that close readings of the stories selected do not represent the entire queer
experience in Africa but I hope it will allow a glimpse into specific experiences and interrogate
the complex queer histories and realities of countries such as Kenya and Nigeria.

Contextualising Queerness in Nigeria

Because it is the most dangerous place to be queer in Africa, the writing from and about queer
Nigeria is important. 27 Furthermore, a contextualisation of queerness in Nigeria is helpful in
situating my close reading of “Iyawo” and “Àwúre Ìfęràn.” The similarities between Nigerian
law and Kenyan law, which will become clearer in this section, helps with formulating an
understanding of “Pub 360” and how all three stories call attention to the way queerness is
rendered invisible in these two countries. This section will explore contemporary attitudes
towards homosexuality and queerness and also present a historicization of homosexuality in
Nigeria. This historicization of queerness is important as it reveals truths about pre-colonial
Nigeria that allows for the intent of the stories to hold much more weight in debunking the
belief that homosexuality is un-African. As one of the powerhouse countries in Africa, Dr C.
Otutubikey Izugbara notes that:

Nigeria, which easily qualifies as Africa’s demographic giant, is a colonial

invention. European colonialists, who paid little or no attention to ancient tribal
cultural differences and similarities, produced the boundaries. Several different
peoples were thus pooled together to form Nigeria. About 300 distinct ethnic
groups make up the country. The Hausa/Fulani constitute 29%, the Yoruba 20%,
and the Igbo 17% of the country. The remaining one-third belongs to other
ethnic groups. The country’s religious profile shows that Muslims comprise half
the population. The Christian population is put at 40%. Indigenous worshippers,
adherents of other religious groups, atheists, and agnostics form 10% of the
population. (4)

Although it is one of Africa’s leading economies, contemporary Nigeria still has a fraught
relationship with homosexuality. Sexuality altogether is not openly discussed and considered
to be private. The discussions surrounding sexuality are entangled with religious restrictions
for Nigerians to adhere to the norms. Ebenezer Obadare, in his paper “Sex, Citizenship and the
State in Nigeria: Islam, Christianity and Emergent Struggles Over Intimacy,” observes the

27
See Asher and Lyric Fergusson “150 Worst (& Safest) Countries for LGBTQ+ Travel” for an extensive study,
reliant on specific criteria such a legalized same-sex marriage, worker protections, protections against
discrimination, criminalisation of violence, propaganda and morality laws, and LGBTQ+ protections, which ranks
Nigeria as the worst on their LGBTQ+ Danger Index.

77
complex nature of the history of sexuality in Nigeria. He suggests that it is embedded with a
doctrine opposed to the acceptance of homosexuality. Obadare notes that “religious leaders
construe a narrative in which moral decadence in the country, ostensibly epitomised by
homosexuality and other forms of ‘sexual deviancy’, and use homosexuality as a scapegoat for
the country’s economic and social problems” (64). He also highlights how “sexual struggles
(or struggles over sexuality) of the type currently being witnessed in Nigeria (and across Africa)
are nearly always a foil for other forms of contestations – social, economic, political” (63).
The link between religion and patriarchy is well-established and results in the
proliferation of anti-queerness. Nigerians who go against the norms enshrined by patriarchal
rules are subjected to ridicule and questioning of their personal lives. Abisola Balogun and
Paul Bissell observe patriarchy’s dominance within Nigerian society and note that the country
is:

still highly patriarchal in the sense that male agency is privileged over the
female. More so, the hegemonic male who is the dominant male in the Nigerian
context is placed on a higher hierarchy than other males who do not quite meet
the standard. This standard, dictated partly by social, cultural, and religious
systems posits male dominance, where the man makes the majority and the most
important decisions in society and holds power and authority. (116)

Therefore, the dominance of these ideas establishes an interconnectedness of sexuality,

masculinity, patriarchy, and religion in Nigeria. According to Balogun and Bissell,
“Masculinity and sexuality are inextricably linked, and are not easily separated” for which they
explain that “much of what it means to be masculine is entrenched in a man’s ability to prove
his sexual prowess and, most times, in the heteronormative sense” (119). Balogun and Bissell
also point out the complex struggle some Nigerian men face, and note that “men who express
non-heterosexual masculinities in Nigeria must negotiate their sexuality in the midst of
traditional and received cultural expectations of manhood. Therefore, they have to manage their
identities in their largely heteronormative, homophobic, and criminal context” (114-115). The
heteronormative hegemony in Nigeria is the oppressive force throughout the lives of many
queer Nigerians, and is the cause of conflict in the characters of the stories explored later in
this chapter.
In Nigeria, “religious and cultural forces heavily shape and influence the legal
framework of the country” (Balogun and Bissell 115). According to Daniel Asue, “the primary
argument that the country’s two major religions put forth against homosexuality is that it is
against nature and reason, and against the revealed divine truths as enshrined in their sacred

78
scriptures” (398). The link between religious text interpretation to oppress homosexuality
becomes prominent when considering the ethos of religion and marriage, namely, procreation
and upholding cultural mores. Eno Blankson Ikpe further observes this sense of
interconnectedness regarding the conflict against homosexuality and notes that:

Existing discussions on sexuality in Nigeria are centred around respectable

themes such as marriage, which is the accepted and respected space of
expression of sexuality. Apart from this, human sexuality in Nigeria is
problematized in relation to demography, unemployment, urban decadence,
prostitution and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Yet sexuality has
more to it than reproduction, immorality and disease. (4)

As marriage in contemporary Nigeria is considered the only respectable place to speak about
sexuality, this further invalidates and renders nonnormative sexualities invisible. This erasure
of nonnormative sexualities or even the normalisation of their discussion is due primarily to
same-sex marriage being illegal, as instated by religious authority. Izugbara notes that “in many
cases, homosexual practices, while not always explicitly discussed or identified as such in the
larger public imaginary were often treated with more tolerance in pre-colonial Nigeria than
during and after the colonial period” (6). As Ikpe observes:

In most pre-colonial societies, sexuality was consigned to the realms of

marriage. It was only under marital condition that sexuality was to be
experienced. Outside this, it was culturally taboo to discuss sex and sexual
matters. Sexuality was full of silence and discretions, for instance, between
parents and children. Sexual discussions were clothed in languages, which were
not explicit to the uninitiated. (6)

The significant difference between the contemporary understanding of marriage and sexuality
and pre-colonial knowledge is that same-sex marriage and relationships openly existed and
were culturally accepted. From pre-colonial Nigeria to contemporary Nigeria there has been a
shift in the attitudes and perceptions towards homosexuality and queerness closely linked to
the enhanced dominance and immersion of religious hegemony in public life. Rudolf Gaudio
questions the rise of anti-queer rhetoric and legislation and attributes it to a concentration of
Islamism in politics:

What happened between 1994 and 2007 that made homosexuality, and the
specific issue of same-sex weddings, the object of such intense public debate?
The most obvious historical development was the rise of Islamist politics in
Northern Nigeria following the sudden death in 1998 of the country’s military
dictator, Sani Abacha, and the election of Olusegun Obasanjo as the country’s
first civilian president since 1983. Like most of Nigeria’s previous heads of state,

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 Abacha was a Hausa-speaking Muslim, while Obasanjo was a Yoruba Christian.
Less than five months after President Obasanjo’s inauguration in May 1999, the
Northern state of Zamfara adopted Shari’a, the Islamic legal code, and within a
year and a half, 11 other Northern states, including Kano and Bauchi, had
followed suit. Although a number of political leaders and commentators insisted
that the adoption of [Sharia law] violated constitutional provisions against the
establishment of a state religion, the Obasanjo administration did not formally
challenge it. (276-277)

From the growing presence of religious sentiment in the legal code of the government, it is
clear to see how homophobia is instilled and growing in communities throughout Nigeria. This
rise is due to interconnectedness of the heteronormative religious hegemony. Regarding other
churches or religions in Nigeria, such as Catholicism, “as it stands now, the church’s position
does not condemn homosexual orientation but homosexual activity. The position of the
Catholic Church in Nigeria does not contradict the view of the universal Catholic teaching”
(Asue 400).
The church’s views on homosexuality are a direct link to the formation and preservation
of homophobic laws. Nigeria is replete with anti-homosexual rhetoric and even stricter laws
that seek to prohibit and outlaw any homosexual acts. Balogun and Bissell note that:

In 2014, under the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan, the Same-

Sex Marriage Prohibition Act (SSMPA) was passed into law. The title SSMPA1
is particularly problematic and deceptive for a number of reasons. First, even
though its implication is that same-sex marriage is prohibited and illegal, it goes
beyond this and extends to prohibiting and criminalising established or
suspected same-sex relationships with a jail sentence of 14 years. Second, it
penalises witnesses to same-sex marriages or individuals who are aware of
same-sex relationships, including those who run gay clubs and organisations,
with ten years’ imprisonment. This law fundamentally infringes on the human
rights of Nigerian citizens as guaranteed by the constitution. After the signing
of the same-sex marriage prohibition by President Jonathan Goodluck, the
environment of homophobia, discrimination and oppression in Nigeria was not
only revived but also intensified. (116)

In terms of the laws and regulations regarding sexuality in Nigeria, Asue notes that: “Nigerian
civil law objects [to] same-sex marriage and criminalizes all homosexual acts including aiding
and abetting those involved such as gay rights advocacy group.” Asue continues, and points
out that “under the Muslim [Sharia] law in the northern parts of Nigeria, the expression of
homosexual behavior could lead to death by stoning” [sic] (397).
Despite the presence of homophobia and harsh laws prohibiting nonnormative
sexualities in Nigeria, queer people still exist within its borders. In their paper “Teaching About

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Homosexualities to Nigerian University Students: A Report from the Field,” Marc Epprecht
and Sule E. Egya observe that:

while urbanisation and globalisation have likely increased awareness and

opportunities for same-sex relationships compared to the past, there is
effectively one gay rights association in the country (Alliance Rights Nigeria)
and one gay-friendly church (House of Rainbow Metropolitan [Community]
Church). House of Rainbow MCC has a regular congregation of about 20, not
a lot in a country with an estimated total population of 140–150 million.
(Epprecht and Egya 368)

There is a small minority of queer people in Nigeria and, when looking at the current state of
research on homosexuality and nonnormative sexualities, “virtually no research has been done
on teaching about homosexuality in Africa” (Epprecht and Egya 370). If there is no research
present in the various African countries, then there is no way for these nonnormative sexualities
to be recognised, shared, and normalised. The lack of awareness of the history of
homosexuality and queer people today in Nigeria is directly linked to the rise of violence
towards queer people. As Balogun and Bissell point out, the violence in Nigeria towards queer
people “is a reflection of not only repressive laws but also a homophobic society that disregards
the prevailing laws and takes matters into their own hands” (128). The production of narratives
which chronicle the varied experiences of queer people in Nigeria allows for a greater
awareness of these existences and this histories of queer Nigerians.
The history of sexuality in Nigeria has evidence to attest to the presence of
homosexuality, long before it was considered a Western import. Epprecht and Egya describe
how they spoke about the “history of homosexualities in southern Africa to several
undergraduate classes and to a group of faculty at a small state university in central Nigeria”
(370) where they observed that “Several examples of words from African languages, however,
including Hausa spoken by some of the students, demonstrated a recognition of sexual diversity
and gender non-conformity among African cultures that pre-dated and contextualised the
scientific or Western terminology” (371). The idea of terminology predating Western
terminology is important in understanding the nuances of the stories and their historical
complexities. Epprecht and Egya note that during Epprecht’s lecture to the small state
university, he explained:

research about specific same-sex practices in the past brings us to re-assess

commonplace views about sexuality (and African culture or identity) in the
present. Primarily, he argued, the history unseats the stereotype that same-sex
sexuality is an exotic or recent import to Africa. The history also indicates that

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 assumptions and stereotypes around a 100% pure heterosexual (‘closer to
nature’) African sexuality imbue much of the scientific literature on psychology,
health and even HIV in Africa, and can be linked to once prevalent racist
ideologies. In other words, some oppressive ‘traditions’ around gender and
sexuality in Africa were invented over time with the help of European as well
as African modernisers. (371)

Eno Blankson Ikpe also points out that “different societies in Nigeria had in the pre-colonial
past developed ideas about sexuality which were culturally accepted as appropriate or
inappropriate, moral or immoral, abominable or not abominable, healthy or unhealthy” (6).
Continuing from Epprecht and Egya’s explanation of the evidence of pre-colonial same-sex
sexuality, Ikpe also observes that:

The general claim is that this did not take place in Nigerian communities in pre-
colonial times. Yet, research has shown that though not an accepted norm, it
was practiced by some rare minority in some parts of the country such as in
Yoruba and Hausaland and is still being practiced till date. It is believed that
this practice enhances the powers of success of those engaged in it; that is, it
gives those who practice it powers to triumph against all challenges and gives
them long life. Nevertheless, the men engaged in it are often married; sometimes
to multiple women. So in modern parlance, they are actually bisexuals. [sic] (24)

During the pre-colonial era, the presence and tolerance of homosexuality support the notion
that nonnormative sexuality in Nigeria has existed for many years. Ikpe also observes
“marriage between two women was prevalent in Ibibioland, Igbo land, Ishan, Edo, Urhorobo
and Yorubaland but not in the present sense of lesbian marriages” (9). Therefore, as Ikpe points
out, “the traditional marriage between women is now a rarity because modern Nigerian law
does not recognise marriage between women” (10). The presence and the practice of same-sex
marriages and activity in the history of Nigeria is what makes contemporary stories like “Iyawo”
so important. When reading them through the context of a history where these kinds of
relationships did, in fact, exist, the stories become more powerful and valid. The two Nigerian
stories in Queer Africa 2 serve as a call to Nigerian queer history and the acknowledgement of
longing to be openly queer in your homeland. As I suggested earlier, all three of the stories I
have selected for discussion, from Queer Africa 2, also call attention to the shift from the
invisible to the visible.

Queer Intimacy and Longing in “Iyawo”

In a story entitled “Iyawo,” Nigerian writer Yvonne Fly Onakeme Etaghene examines, to use
Judith Butler’s politicised deployment of the term, the fragile “precarity” of a queer

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relationship between two Igbo women, in order to detail the complex cultural and traditional
entanglements queer Nigerian women experience (“Performativity” ii). The story is replete
with beautiful images of intimacy, which are juxtaposed with raw depictions of homophobia,
violence, and brutality towards queer Nigerians. During a powerful moment in the story, the
unnamed protagonist meditates on the complex risks involved in acknowledging and
expressing her most intimate desires in such an environment: “We don’t want to die for those
kisses. But those kisses. We would die without” (38).
This short story moves between the past and present of the life of the unnamed
protagonist. In the present day, she is grappling with a potential relationship with her friend,
Jojo. This friendship occurs in New York City and there is a clear attraction between the two
women as well as an already formed friendship, but the protagonist is apprehensive about this
potential union due to past struggles she has had with intimate relationships. She has been
deeply hurt by her former lover, Ronke. As she discusses the possibility of love and a new
relationship, the protagonist points out to Jojo that she has lost hope in believing in pure and
free love: “I gave up on loving women. I don’t know when I gave up. But I definitely have”
(34). Jojo, who is hopeful and adamant the protagonist can and will find love (potentially with
her), tries to convince her otherwise by suggesting: “I’m not every other person who ever
fucked you over.” The protagonist’s pessimism and loss of hope, however, is shown in her
rebuttal of Jojo’s pleas: “‘The last one said the same shit’” (34). As the protagonist’s history is
uncovered, it is clear her former lover, Ronke, wanted to live openly with her and they had
many plans for their future together, but it did not work out. Ronke and the protagonist could
not be with each other as the former lived a life bound up in heteronormative customs and
traditions – an open lesbian relationship in Nigeria was not viable for them. Throughout the
story, the protagonist is shown as fighting an internal battle of past versus present and being
home versus being abroad. She moves to New York City, but often returns home to the place
she loves and to the people whom she cares about most.
The protagonist recounts the love she had for Ronke who has a strong association with
home. It is bittersweet as she loves her country and feels the happiest when she is there, but it
is also the source of much pain and hurt. Ronke and the protagonist were deeply in love, but
their love was very much hidden. During an intimate moment between the two when the
protagonist tells Ronke, “I love it when you call me iyawo, your wife” (36), there is a sense of
deep love and admiration between them. This moment is crucial to the understanding of how
important this relationship is to the protagonist – the title of ‘wife’ holds the meaning of an
unbreakable union between her and Ronke. This moment is strikingly important because same-

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sex marriage is no longer existent in Nigeria as it was in precolonial Nigeria where women had
wives. This moment of declaration is, however, thwarted earlier in the story by the fact that
Ronke is legally married to a man. The details are vague, which belies the seriousness the
protagonist feels towards Ronke’s attitude to her union with her husband: “You live here. You
ain’t oppressed by him as much as oppressed by how much he bores you” (36). It appears
throughout this short story that the protagonist’s life is a paradoxical one. She is oppressed at
home, but she feels a deep connection to it. She wants to live an open life but she is only able
to do this in New York City and not in Nigeria. Brenna M. Munro notes how “diasporan queer
cultures can challenge national and ethnic identities imagined through the patriarchal family,
both in the ‘homeland’ and beyond, and can forge entirely new narratives of belonging” (South
Africa xx). But the protagonist of “Iyawo” does not wish to do this. She is caught between
Nigeria and the United States and feels New York City can never be home to her, not fully.
Her home country keeps on drawing her back – it is where she feels she can most authentically
express herself and the love she has for the woman back home in Nigeria.
In this short story, the diaspora is presented as a place of acceptance and safety for the
queer African characters – highlighting that their homeland where they feel they belong does
not grant them the same feeling of recognition nor safety. The story itself points to a truth wider
than the experience of the protagonist in “Iyawo” where queer Nigerians living in the diaspora
are torn between home and exile, do not feel they are not living authentic queer lives at home,
or are fully accepted as Nigerians abroad. The choice to live in a foreign country is complex,
and amounts to choosing a place where they can merely survive. The story calls attention to
the question of whether Africans living in the diaspora obtain a source of happiness from these
places of safety or whether there is just an acceptance of circumstance – with no authentic
happiness. In the short story, New York City is a place where the queer protagonist could be
open and free, whether that be talking about dating possibilities or not hiding one’s desires. For
instance, there is a moment when the protagonist’s relationship with Jojo is compared to a train.
Jojo speaks with a familiarity of the protagonist. Their conversation is sensual and filled with
sexual tension, but the protagonist seems to always be cognisant that she is not home and
therefore, she is not complete in her sense of self:

“You want to talk and build and get to know me right?” “No!” Jojo exclaimed
immediately. “What?” “I already know you, that’s how I know you’re talkin’
shit right now. I see the way you look at me.” “How I look at you.” We
exchanged looks hotter than a summertime subway platform with no air
conditioner. “Like that. Like you want me to eat your pussy.” The C train

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 screeched with ear-splitting loudness across the tracks like a pissed-off freight
train. Like it would never stop. Like it ain’t got no home training and acts a fool
in public. She moved close to my ear to say, ‘Tell me you don’t feel this between
us.’ Her challenge was soft, but solid. Silence in the middle of a tornado of noise.
I lowered my eyes. “Of course I feel it.” It’s not that I don’t feel it … I just don’t
want to. (35)

This moment demonstrate precisely how the stories in the anthologies break taboos in African
fiction in the way the editors wished. This simple display of closeness and intimacy is also
proof of the freedoms and possibilities the diaspora provides. There is, however, a sacrifice the
protagonist makes and that is her home.
The protagonist explains why New York City will never be enough for her. Although
it offers her freedom, sex, and possibility, it does not offer her love. Nigeria is the place she
loves the most, despite its lack of freedom and possibilities for a queer Nigerian woman. She
misses the woman she loves and knows the fulfilment that she seeks lies within the borders of
her own country: “The love I always looked for in women was in my country all along. That
comforting home that I searched for in the arms and beds of women, lay on my land, waiting
on my return. Home” (34). According to Boswell:

‘Home’ here is not only a geographic space or nation, but the pleasure and
sustenance same-sex desire provides; a set of relations intricately bound up with
place and desire. In naturalising queer love as a type of home within the national
space of Nigeria, Etaghene makes a lie of the controlling and damaging
ideology of homosexuality as ‘un-African.’ (Queer Africa 2 3)

This story highlights the intrinsic need for belonging for all people, especially those queer
Africans living abroad away from their homes because of their queerness: “In Brooklyn again
and I want the woman an ocean away from me. Longing is my best friend, is very familiar to
me, has always been a way of life – missing home, missing family, missing how my name
sounds when it’s pronounced correctly” (35). As the passage suggests, the protagonist’s
happiness does not derive purely from sexual or physical intimacy, but from many elements
that make her homeland what it is. She knows she will only be happy and fulfilled if she could
both be her authentic self, with the woman she loves, in her own country but they are not able
to be together as the looming reality of “government-sanctioned hatred of and violence against
lesbians” (38) is prevalent when the protagonist thinks about the possibility of them being
together. The protagonist reiterates the desire to have the same existential sexual freedom she
has in exile in her own homeland. She yearns to be able to live authentically as herself in
Nigeria, to live out in the open: “If we made this world with our bare hands instead of by the

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accidental destiny of birth, our love, this love between us women, would be sanctified in public
space, temples, in the market, on the dirt roads we were raised on” (35).
What makes this story so powerful is how it extends beyond the desires of one woman
for her beloved, to highlight a shared desire to make queerness something that is considered
normal and ordinary, part of the fabric of everyday existence in Nigeria, in Africa, in the world
more broadly. The story demonstrates, however, there are many obstructions to this type of
normativization of queerness in Nigeria. The main obstacle that faces queer women in Nigeria
society is the entrenchment of a patriarchal hegemony in all sectors of their lives. The
protagonist notes this and suggests the patriarchal standards are comical and anything that goes
against the patriarchy is a source of freedom: “There are men in the other room who expect us
to bear them babies, bare our bodies to them, keep the house, shut up and laugh at their jokes.
We laugh when it’s funny, roll our eyes when it’s not, fuck our best friends in the middle of
the night with hard, rough tenderness then go back to fathers, lovers, husbands, brothers” (36).
This story, like so many others in the anthologies, is important because it is a story of a country
that has eschewed its own precolonial traditions in criminalising queer relationships. The
protagonist also articulates powerfully the desire to create a new normal in Nigeria, instead of
opting for the empty freedoms of other countries where queerness may be accepted but living
as an African may not, which highlights what Livermon suggests regarding how black bodies
have to divorce themselves from either their race or sexuality, as explored in the introduction.
There are several ways the protagonist expresses the idea and wish for a new kind of
Nigeria, namely when she recounts memories and moments spent with her former lover and
states: “Part of me does want my gay fairytale to spring to life. Fuck it: all of me wants it. For
Ronke and I to live in Nigeria together, make love in the heat, sweating and sweating and
fucking and fucking. Holding hands in the market” (39). The protagonist in this moment wants
her story to become her life. Therefore, not only is this moment important as it calls attention
to the desire for representing queer characters in literature but a desire to be fully queer in real
life. The idea of a “gay fairytale” is also suggestive of the longing for queer Africans to move
towards a life that is attainable, worthwhile, and not hidden. The protagonist wants to know
she is safe to love the person she loves in her country. Her yearning, however, is juxtaposed
with the memories of her intimate moments with Ronke and the violent reality they both would
face as out and open lesbians in not only Nigeria, but in South Africa and in New York City
itself:

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 Between our kisses I think of Sizakele Sigasa and Salome Masooa found shot
to death in Soweto. Seven bullets lodged in their bodies. They were South
African lesbian activits. That moment before my lips reach her neck, I think of
Sakia Gunn stabbed in the heart age 15, 15 days before her 16 th birthday in
Newark, New Jersey. Before I get lost in her curves, I remember Rashawn
Brazell, his dismembered body parts found on subway tracks in Brooklyn, New
York. For being gay. (38)

This powerful moment depicts how the severity of her country’s as well as the world’s
homophobia is embedded within the protagonist’s psyche and distorts her most intimate
moments – something that is recognisable to many queer people. The fact the protagonist is
thinking about the implications of her natural love and how precarious the situation is
highlights the courage it takes for a queer person in Africa to live an authentic life – one free
of judgement and persecution.
This narrative, and many others in the anthologies, not only offer a form of
representation for queer Africans, but also allows for queer Africans to know their experiences
are not just their own. They enable queer Africans to feel less alone in spaces like their families,
communities, and even countries that often invalidate their existence. These narratives propel
those who often feel invisible to a space and environment where they are seen and accepted.
The characters, as the protagonist notes, are characterised by their longing, for each other, and
for their homelands, but for a sense of belonging too. Grant Andrews, drawing on the work of
Brenna M. Munro, suggests that “asserting belonging in fiction was a form of ‘writing back’ . . .
against systems which sought to oppress queer people” (3). The characters and narratives such
as those in “Iyawo” are a defiant way for not only the authors to fight back against the systems
of oppression, but also for queer readers to see themselves and their experiences written about
and published in tangible books from which they can obtain a sense of belonging. This
representation may encourage a sense of hope that they too are able to fight back against the
systems that oppress them. As shown in these anthologies, there are many systems that oppress
queer people. There are what I would call ‘smaller systems of oppression’ which are hidden in
the laws and policies of various countries, the opinions of people, and the attitude of society
towards queer people. One could suggest these ‘smaller systems of oppression’ stem from and
are influenced by the much ‘larger systems of oppression’ such as patriarchy, religious
institutions, and the heteronormative hegemony. 28 As evident in the anthologies, there are short
stories that are used against these oppressive systems patriarchy in order to fight back.

28
This idea is closely linked to the work of Berlant explored in the previous chapter.

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Accepting Desire in “Àwúre Ìfęràn”

“Àwúre Ìfęràn,” by Nigerian writer Rafeeat Aliyu, explores patriarchy and sexuality within the
intersection of traditional and contemporary Yoruba culture. The short story interrogates the
complexities of intertwining a modern lifestyle with Yoruba traditions. It also explores how
Nigerian migrants can experience a freedom of expression outside Nigeria that is impossible
at home. “Àwúre Ìfęràn,” which translates to “the love of love” is told from the perspective of
the protagonist, Nouratu. The story explores her loveless relationship with her boyfriend Taofiq
and her desire for something other than it. Throughout the text, it is clear she is not happy, but
also that she has made no effort to changer her situation. Nourata (who also goes by Noura)
has ambivalent feelings about her relationship with someone she thinks is “seeing someone
else” (229).
The short story beings with Noura’s friend Gigi taking her to an unknown place as
Noura lost a bet and has to accept whatever Gigi says she must do. Gigi, who is aware of
Noura’s unhappy relationship, takes her friend to the office of a Babalawo: in Yoruba
traditional society, “a Babalawo is a ‘doctor’, a ‘pharmacist’, a herbalist and the most popular
diviner who the people’ consult for advice, guidance and medical treatment” (Ifáyemí par. 1).
Gigi takes Noura to the Babalawo to “get her love charm” (219). Noura is apprehensive, which
may be from her complacency within her relationship or her inability to accept her true feelings.
She notes she “had no intention of seeking any love charm” (219). Still, she later warms up to
the idea. Once Noura gets to the Babalawo’s place, she feels uneasy and wants to leave, but is
halted by “an interesting piece of art” and “the more she looked at the mural the calmer [she]
felt” (220). Noura eventually meets with the Babalawo, Fatoki, who questions her about her
intentions. They engage in small talk when the art mural comes into the conversation, and
Noura discovers Fatoki’s daughter painted the mural. After the two become more acquainted
with one another and there is a sense of comfort between them, Noura admits why she is there,
stating “I am in a relationship with a man that I do not love” (222). There is a sense of trust
Noura feels towards Fatoki as she is honest with her feelings from the start and yells “‘I want
to fall in love’.” Noura is shocked by her own admission and the narrator notes “As soon as the
words left her mouth she raised her hand up to her lips” (222).
Fatoki gives Noura her love charm, which consists of black soap she must wash with
and a Yoruba incantation to recite for it to work. Noura leaves Fatoki’s office with her love
charm and incantation, but she is still somewhat sceptical about the entire process. She does,
however, have nothing to lose from using the love charm – she only has the love she so

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desperately seeks, to gain. Noura washes with the black soap and struggles to say the
incantation as “she had always considered incantations to be deeper parts of Yoruba language
that she would never need” (223). Her lack of knowledge about the traditional Yoruba language
suggests her scepticism of the Yoruba cultural beliefs and her attachment or lack thereof to her
traditions. Noura nevertheless completes the incantation to the best of her ability and, to see if
it works, she messages Taofiq to come over. She waits patiently for him, but hours pass and he
still does not arrive at her door. Eventually, there is a knock at the door and Noura answers but
is shocked when she realises the person behind the door is not Taofiq. It is a stranger who
makes her lose her ability to act like her usual self:

Noura was rooted to the spot, but within her it was as if a circus had launched a
grand performance. Her pulse raced and her breath quickened, her heart danced
to a furious beat while her stomach performed backflips. Further down between
her legs a forest fire raged and all of a sudden her legs could not support her.
(Queer Africa 2 226)

She is taken aback by the person’s beauty but Noura eventually composes herself and asks
what she can do for her. The stranger at the door is Fatoki’s daughter, Bewaji, who is there to
return a scarf left at her father’s place and which she assumes to belong to Noura. Bewaji has
a significant impact on Noura who finds herself unable to concentrate, which even leads Bewaji
to ask her “‘Are you alright?’” (227). They eventually exchange names, the scarf, and then
Bewaji leaves Noura. After their brief but emotionally charged meeting, Noura realizes that
the scarf is not even hers.
Later, Noura is convinced the love charm did not work. This doubt is because the
following day when Taofiq eventually arrives, she notes “there was still the same indifference;
the spark just was not there” (228). Noura has an internal fight between how she has
continuously been upholding a heteronormative way of living her life and going against it. She
does this by being a free and independent woman as shown when she “decided to move out of
her father’s house” which “had been a huge uproar” (223-224) but also demonstrated by her
independence and strong will. This independence is, however, undermined by the reality that
she maintains a loveless and unromantic relationship as it is what is expected of her. There is
a clear conflict between upholding cultural beliefs, by living a heteronormative lifestyle, and
maintaining a sense of independence, for Noura. She considers taking another bath in order to
try and conform to her cultural norms but dismisses the idea because her disbelief in this
cultural practice. This could also suggest, however, her reluctance to improve her relationship
with the love charm. She also notes “her relationship felt more like a contract than anything

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else” (229), further suggesting she is forcing herself into a specific mould she does not fit into,
namely, a heteronormative mould. Noura and her sister Aida later discuss the love charm and
its inability to make Noura fall in love with Taofiq. Noura finally admits she is with the wrong
person as “she felt relieved” (230) when the love charm did not work as she hoped it would.
Aida suggests Noura go out and see if it would “work on someone else” (230). This notion is
halted when the thought of Bewaji immediately dominates Noura’s mind when she thinks of
the possibility: “Someone else … Unheeded, Noura’s mind went to Fatoki’s daughter. She had
thought of Bewaji often since their awkward introduction” (230).
To distract herself from the love potion events, Noura decides she should return the
scarf to Fatoki, but is evident this is just a ploy to see Bewaji again and confront her
inexplicable attraction. Noura returns to Fatoki’s place with the scarf where she is happily
greeted by Bewaji and a “warmth flooded through her as she recognized Bewaji” which
suggests what she meant earlier in the story about a ‘spark’ (231). This is a daring move the
author makes in the short story – by using a traditional love charm to precipitate a sexual
attraction between two Yoruba women subverts the idea that culture only holds space for
heterosexuality. Fatoki is not home, but this fact does not deter Noura as she does not mind
waiting. Noura and Bewaji engage in pleasantries and become more comfortable with one
another. Their conversation moves towards art, specifically Bewaji’s piece of art that
hypnotises Noura. Explaining her art, Bewaji shares that the painting was “supposed to
symbolize patience” (233) which Noura suggests is what calmed her down before. This
explanation of the artwork also relates to the overall narrative of progression maintained
throughout the short story. Bewaji tells Noura she has more work to show to which Noura
gladly agrees to see. They observe Bewaji’s other painting of “a pile of pots tilting precariously
on the far right of the painting” which “brought to [Noura’s] mind the figure of a well-endowed
woman” (233). When Noura asks Bewaji what the meaning of the work is, she hopes to delve
deeper into the feelings, attraction, and desire she feels for her. Throughout the story, art takes
on a symbolic meaning for Noura’s confrontation of her sexuality. Art can be very personal,
so by asking, Noura wants to own up to her desires – she is learning more about her attraction
to women. By exploring Bewaji’s art Noura allows herself to confront her feelings and explore
her sense of Bewaji’s magnetism. Their emotionally charged moment of viewing art Bewaji’s
together is interrupted by the doorbell and the arrival of Bewaji’s friend, Ubeyi.
Bewaji and Ubeyi are too close and intimate for Noura to pass them off as just friends.
She thinks they are potential lovers. “Noura [is] filled with a sudden urge to leave,” (234) and
makes her way out of Fatoki’s place, but not before Bewaji asks her “is it OK if I have your

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number?” (234). At this moment, Noura realises there is a mutual attraction and that Bewaji is
lesbian. After Noura leaves, Ubeyi and Bewaji, speak and the reader discovers that Ubeyi, who
also happens to be lesbian, is not with Bewaji. They are best friends: “‘So is that your new
catch?’ Ubeyi asked, arms crossed under breasts and eyebrows raised” (234). From Ubeyi’s
introduction, it is clear there is a closeness between Bewaji and her. They have a long-lasting
friendship and a history of intimacy:

They had come a long way from cuddling each other on the top bunk. She had
been a few months shy of her 13th birthday when Bewaji realized that what she
felt for her best friend Ubeyi was more than just ‘like.’ But even after their
shared kisses and curious explorations, Bewaji had convinced herself that it was
a phase and nothing serious. (235)

It is clear Bewaji struggled with her sexuality while growing up, but once she realized she still
found women attractive after school and it was not a phase, she became more open to the idea
of living an authentic life. Towards the end of the story, both Bewaji and Noura are conflicted
about their sexualities. Noura is at the beginning of realising her queerness. She appears to be
apprehensive about the idea of her queerness but her independence has also been established.
Throughout the short story, Noura’s mother inspires her. Her mother resisted against
patriarchal norms and traditions. Noura’s decision to leave her family home is seen as a direct
result of her mother’s defiance: “When all attempts had failed [to dissuade Noura from leaving
her father’s house], her father and his relatives had gone primal, using her mother as the bad
example. ‘That woman was too independent.’ ‘That woman never submitted to her husband
the way she should have and now her daughters are following her lead’ (224). There is also a
juxtaposition in the way Noura subscribes to the Nigerian society. She is fiercely independent,
just like her mother, but she also attempts to satisfy the patriarchal requirements of finding a
husband and becoming subservient to him. This subservience is all changed when she discovers
there are nuances to her personhood. Bewaji, on the other hand, has a fully formed grasp on
her sexuality and accepts she is lesbian, but she is conflicted about her sexuality within Nigeria.
Outside of the country, she “fully accepted her sexuality” (235), but she struggles to be hopeful
about living as an authentic lesbian Nigerian woman within Nigeria. This fear is, however,
changed when she sees how Ubeyi, who has a wife with whom she is raising a child in Nigeria,
is happy and comfortable. It is not clear how Ubeyi can have a wife and child in Nigeria. Still,
this fact makes Bewaji hopeful for her future as well as leads her to think about Noura: “Bewaji
would never have pictured the possibility of that future, especially in Nigeria” (235). The story
ends with Bewaji accepting her sexuality and imagining “what the queer dating scene in Lagos

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was like” but all she can think of is Noura (235). Noura’s unconsciousness of her sexuality
until it is provoked by a Yoruba love charm and the story’s open-ended ending highlights, to
return to the work of Berlant discussed in the previous chapter, how private sexual preferences
become politicised. National and cultural borders also create personal borders by excluding
queerness and confining all sexual identities to a single heteronormative national identity. The
way society operates within Nigeria enforces a type of restriction on Noura and Bewaji. They
both struggle to be happy and find true love. As they both come to realise, their queer love and
attraction does not make them any less Nigerian.

The Faces of Homophobia in “Pub 360”

“Pub 360,” by Kenyan author H. W. Mukami, deals with the varying realities of three lesbians
in Kenya. Set in a not so “classy pub” (238) this short story explores an encounter between two
women and their initial meeting, which is being observed by a fellow bar patron who narrates
the story. She is an unnamed woman who witnesses the overt homophobia and discrimination
that later transpire during the women meeting.
The two women are meeting at the bar for their first date. There is an initial discomfort
that is shortly replaced with laughter and longing. The two women, Ashuri (who also goes by
Ashu) and Oluchi (who also goes by Chi) meet up in Pub 360 which before “had proven safe
and welcoming to a woman drinking alone” (238). This description of the bar’s safety for
women suggests cisgender straight men are generally not patrons at this bar, thus rendering it
a place of safety for queer people. There is a clear difference between the two women. They
are different in the way they dress and in their body language, which suggests a difference in
how they exist in a public space. From her introduction, it is clear Ashu is confident and
comfortable in her skin. Her confidence suggests she lives as authentically as public opinion
and the law allows her. As the narrator recounts, “she looked comfortable” and “she looked
my way and sent me a little wink” (237) when she walked into the bar. Comparatively, Chi is
a lot more reserved than Ashu. Not only in their initial meeting but also throughout the story,
it is clear Chi is new to those types of experiences or does not usually do things like this. As
the narrator states, Chi “sighed and stared at the outdated calendar on the wall ahead of her”
(238) – a subtle suggestion of a society stuck in its past. As a reader, it appears Chi’s disposition
is that of a woman bored and unsatisfied with her everyday day-to-day life. This normalcy,
however, is changed when she meets Ashu. The narrator observes an entire shift in Chi’s body
language after their first encounter where “something happened; [Chi] dropped her tense

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shoulder like a coat falling from its hanger, her whole back straightened and her neck turned
as if by remote control to confront the intruder. She looked more relaxed, her face looked
smoother, as if she removed a mask” (238). Their date is flirtatious but the stark reality of the
barman’s overt homophobia towards them thwarts their discovery of each other and possible
happiness. This demonstrates the larger issue of how homophobia can be found everywhere,
even into those generally classified as places of safety.
The barman represents patriarchal, heteronormative society, but in terms of Kenya’s
setting, also the hegemonic belief that queerness is a Western imperialist import. The
progression of homophobia in the story aligns closely with the advancement of intimacy the
two women have during their interaction, but they are vastly different in intensity. The barman
reacts badly to the slightest hint of intimacy between the two women. “She took the offered
hand and held it in a firm grip without shaking it, then took her left hand and covered the grip
intimately” (239). This innocent and non-sexual gesture of intimacy proves enough of a
disturbance to rouse a reaction out of the barman who, “muttered inaudibly under his breath
and his brow creased. He look disturbed” (239). Later, as the two women become more
comfortable and closer to each other, they embrace one another, further disturbing the barman.
This results in an outburst:

‘Ahem, hey!’ the barman said in a voice that suggested he couldn’t take it any
more. As if being pulled out of an enchanting fantasy, the two women froze and
turned towards the angry growl of a barman. His face was puffed in pent-up
rage and disgust and his eyes hard and cold like a pair of black marbles.
‘Whatever it is you pair of black whores are thinking of doing in my bar, you
better think twice. You can go perform your free pornography to other clubs but
not here – you are starting to make my other customers uncomfortable. You are
watching too many foreign videos, you shameless copycats. This is Africa; so
clear your bills and get your dirty demonic selves out of here.’ (240)

The barman’s homophobic outburst is not only layered with misogyny, but also with the
pervasive idea of queerness as immoral, sinful, foreign, and thus as un-African. His outburst is
also indicative of the often unnecessary sexualization of queer bodies. After berating the two
women for innocently showing affection in a way that would not elicit the same reaction if a
straight couple had behaved thus in public , he throws the two women out of the pub which
leaves them shocked and embarrassed.
According to Joey Soloway in their memoir, She Wants It: Desire, Power, and Toppling
the Patriarchy (2018), there is a term they adopt called a ‘beat change’ which “occurs in the
moment when a character attempts a new playable action in the process of trying to get what

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they want” (95). 29 The barman’s outburst, which is an example of what Soloway would
consider a beat change, is also a moment where the reader learns that the narrator, who
witnesses the preceding events unfold, is not a patron, but the bar owner and also a lesbian. I
see this as a beat change for the barman because his homophobia forces him to change from a
passive viewer of the two women to an active opponent of their intimacy to satisfy his desires
for heteronormativity. The barman wants the women to know they are not welcome in the bar
and in Africa, too. Later, after the two women have left, the bar owner promptly fires the
barman and invites Ashu and Chi back noting, “was it so wrong to feel, to be who you are?”
(241). The bar owner’s action of firing the barman is her beat change. She changes the outcome
of the barman’s wrongdoing to fulfil her desire of creating a space inside her establishment
where people can operate freely without worry. Ashu and Chi apprehensively return to the bar,
which is propelled by the bar owner’s ability to relate to the two: “I knew what being different
meant and how it felt” (241). It is also a moment for the bar owner to be brave in the face of
adversity, which usually does not affect her. Previously, the bar owner’s silence was due to
societal opinion and potentially internalized homophobia. The act of inviting Ashu and Chi
back into her bar, however, seems to derive from her need to be authentic and morally sound.
As she notes, “it was time to right a wrong and I had to start somewhere” [sic] (241). Once the
“cute couple of Ashuni and Oluchi” (241) reacquaint themselves with the bar and get to know
the bar owner, a sense of euphoria and freedom develops between the three women: “The spell
was broken. I think they sensed a need in me to connect with other ostracized women, and right
there they opened their hearts to me” (243).
Although this short story ends in a positive note while also making a nod to the name
of both the pub and the title by coming full circle in terms of character development, it also
highlights a few noteworthy points about the realities queer Africans face within Africa. “Pub
360” illustrates the various stages of visibility queer people hold in Kenya. Ashu is proud and
open, whereas Chi is reserved. The bar owner, like Chi, appears not to be honest and as
authentic as she hopes to be. As the story progresses, however, we see Ashu and the bar owner
take steps to improve their confidence and openness. Just as the bar owner states, “Pub 360
needed a change,” (242) so too did the bar owner herself. The short story also highlights the
presence of homophobia and how it can take on various forms. More so, the story shows
homophobia is not always overt and deliberate but can linger in supposedly places of safety

29
Joey Soloway, the writer, director and creator of the Amazon series Transparent, identifies as non-binary and
uses they/them pronouns.

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and internalized within a person’s being. It is representative of the ideas surrounding visibility
and invisibility. All three women emerge from hiding their selves to making themselves visible
– indicative of how the QA anthology hopes these stories will help other queer Africans in their
plight to change from the invisible to the visible.

Conclusion: Making Africa More Queer

As Senayon Olaoluwa points out, the “debates around the reception of, and opposition to,
homosexuality the world over have generally been about discourse of intimacy” (24). These
three stories include discourses of intimacy, courage, and openness in environments where the
validation of such is discouraged. Thus they show the possibility of queer African lives’
ordinariness once the entanglements with religion, heteronormative hegemony, and the
patriarchy are acknowledged and dismantled. As Oluwafemi Atanda Adeagbo points out, the
“stories show the extent to which people go to express their sexual desires, even in the context
of strict discrimination and condemnation (133). The QA anthology depicts how sexuality and
gender identity enmesh with religion, cultural and national identity, and tradition to form a
queer African identity. This struggle within the stories collected in the anthologies thoughtfully
depicts the realities of many queer Africans. The anthologies also offer an impetus for, as
Matebeni et al. suggest, a “future understanding of the ways in which living and performing
queer African lives require ongoing critical responses to hetero-patriarchal regimes of authority,
combined with further intersectional analysis” (13). The problems surrounding the anthologies
also highlights the need for more representation in queer literature. When queer literature is
afforded time, capacity, and resources to make invisible stories visible, it has potential to
facilitate other forms of rich storytelling. For example, the Ugandan story “Jambula Tree”
became the inspiration for the Kenyan film Rafiki and a queer South African novel, A Man
Who is Not a Man, was the inspiration for the South African film, Inxeba, as will be explored
in the next chapter.
As succinctly stated by Barbara Boswell in the introduction of Queer Africa 2, which
can be applied to the QA anthology as a whole: “rendered here is an array of interpretations of
what it means to be fully human, queer and African – three categories of identity often
misconstrued as mutually exclusive” (1). The Queer Africa anthologies and other fiction, non-
fiction, and historical facts that are considered intrinsically queer, lay the foundation for
creating a space where Africa can achieve a new normal that would facilitate a more thorough
and in-depth understanding of the lives of queer Africans all while acknowledging their various

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histories and experiences which have altered many lives. Moreover, as Ayub Sheik points out,
the stories are an “important step on the route to engaging with Africa’s deeply ingrained
prejudice and taboos about minority sexual rights” (170). Eliminating these ingrained ideas
will reduce homophobia and create an environment where queer Africans can feel free to
develop lives and livelihoods in countries where they know they belong. It will help move
Africa forward into the future as a fully-realised queer-inclusive continent. It will make Africa
queerer than it has ever been. The desire for more stories to be told exists – queer Africans
need the space for it. The short story by design allows these types of stories to be told quickly
and succinctly, allowing us to change the contemporary queer narrative template. Moreover,
these short stories’ ordinariness, where the focus is not strictly about coming out or the
stereotypical writing of Africa, also helps create a template for how queer Africans can tell
their stories – openly, honestly, and authentically in the post-colonial continent.

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Chapter Three – ‘Ndiyindoda! or ‘I Am a Man!’: Exploring the
Nexus Between Queerness and Masculinity in South Africa in John
Trengove’s Inxeba

Introduction: Fractured Queer Identities

Inxeba (2017), also known as The Wound, is a South African film directed by John Trengove
and written by Trengove, Thando Mgqolozana, and Malusi Bengu. Mgqolozana’s novel, A
Man Who Is Not A Man (2009), inspired Trengove to collaborate to write a similar narrative as
a screenplay. Inxeba tells the story of the closeted relationship of two men, Xolani (played by
the South African musician Nakhane Touré) and Vija (played by Bongile Mantsai), which
occurs within the setting of the traditional Xhosa circumcision ceremony for men, referred to
in IsiXhosa as ulwaluko. 30 The film focuses on a time when the two men, whose only
connection with each other occurs during the times of the year when the ceremony takes place
near their family home, face exposure from a young queer initiate, Kwanda (played by Niza
Jay Ncoyini). Inxeba deals with the complexities surrounding black identity, masculinity, and
queerness and heightens these questions by centring the film within the practices of ulwaluko,
the ritual regarded by the AmaXhosa as a sacred initiation into manhood and leadership within
both family and community. The word ulwaluko translates to circumcision, but the ceremony
is more than just this physical transition. Nkateko Mabasa explains:

Ulwaluko, a rite of passage for boys to become men, is a tradition that not only
armours Xhosa males with a sense of duty and responsibility, but bonds together
the youth, who are future fathers and elders of the community. It is to these men
that authority and power over the family will be handed over. And so these
lessons are considered to be revered, and only for Xhosa men who go to the
mountains and brave the elements. (“Inxeba” par. 5-6)

Taryn Joffe notes that the film “interlinks issues of same-sex desire, cultural identity, patriarchy
and generational divides into a provocative depiction of masculinity” (par. 4). It does so with
a studied reliance on the emotional weight of a narrative where the identities of three characters
are fractured due to the oppressive structures from which masculinities are created. As Taylor
Mitchell observes, the film portrays “different understandings of masculinity through the film’s

30
Nakhane Touré, as they are credited in the film, identifies as non-binary and uses the pronouns they/them. They
also use the mononym Nakhane.

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three main gay characters” (par. 1). It is a jarring narrative, examining South Africa’s
complicated relationship with masculinity.
South Africa is a culturally diverse country, replete with variant forms of masculinity,
as well as various attitudes towards masculinities, which differ from the heteronormative
patriarchal models of masculinity. Furthermore, as Eusebius McKaiser notes, “heterosexuality
is, sadly, normative in our society. And so the default assumption is that we are all heterosexual
and that is a key part of our identity” (A Bantu 102). This assumption is similar throughout all
the different South African cultures and has dominated our society for centuries. But these
dominant models of sexuality and masculinity, however, are continuously being challenged in
ways that shape the country’s attitudes about what makes a man in South Africa. The vexed
history of masculinity in South Africa has implications for homosexuals and queer men, as
heterosexuality has always been associated with the connotations of ideal masculinity:

The narrowing of meaning which allows “manhood” to be synonymous with

“heterosexual masculinity” deliberately ignores the evidence of diverse
identities. That is because these diverse identities are seen as a threat to the
belief that masculinity is a given subject position whose characteristics may be
taken for granted. (Mbao par. 18)

Historically, not only were homosexual and queer men considered as not man enough, but that
stigma is still attached to the contemporary identity of their manhood.
The complexity of South Africa’s relationship with masculinity lies within the fact that
the country’s constitution is one of the most progressive amongst other African countries as
well as the world, but public attitudes and opinions towards nonnormative sexualities, and
those who deviate from what is seen as the ‘default’ model of heterosexual masculinity, still
remain antagonistic, are often uninformed, and laced with bigotry and prejudice. As Monica
Mbaru et al. point out:

Even as South Africa is about to mark the 20th anniversary of the world’s first
constitution to include specific wording which will protect people from
discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, the reality on the streets for
lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) people differs from what the legal
framework would suggest. Human rights abuses on the basis of SOGI [Sexual
Orientation and Gender Identity] occur daily, including reported cases of
lesbian, bisexual and transgender women being murdered, raped and subjected
to violence. Furthermore, in the regional and international arena, South Africa
has failed to demonstrate consistent and reliable leadership in human rights for
LGBT persons. (178)

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Thus, the question needs to be asked: why is there a disjuncture between the legal protections
and the public opinions and attitudes towards queer South Africans? The ideas around
masculinity, sexuality, blackness, and culture – all which intersect – need to be interrogated to
answer this.
When interrogating queerness in South Africa, an intersectional lens needs to be used
to highlight the disparities in how different queer people are treated. Factors such as race,
gender, and socio-economic status afford different levels of privilege and safety to queer people
in South African society. As Ingrid Lynch and Matthew Clayton argue, “Gay, bisexual and
other men who have sex with men in South Africa negotiate their gendered identities in
predominantly heteronormative contexts that privilege a particular version of masculinity”
(279). Although all queer people in South Africa live precarious lives, black queer people are
more vulnerable than their counterparts of other races, who are afforded more privilege. As
Xavier Livermon points out, the laws and protections, as stated in the South African
constitution “have yet to bear fruit for the majority of black queer South Africans” (“Queer”
302). Therefore, this chapter has a focus on black queer men but is cognisant of all other queer
South Africans. This chapter also seeks to illustrate, through various examples from the film,
how dogmatic principles of heteronormativity affect queer men and how South African society
works to insist on the kind of masculinities which must be maintained and adhered to by all
regardless of the individualities of South African men themselves. In this chapter, I will explore
these intersections, with a close reading of Inxeba, discussing how the film examines these
very complexities. In this regard, I will also explore the controversies and debates surrounding
Inxeba and its release – and the thinly veiled homophobia expressed regarding the reception of
the film in South Africa.
One of the ways in which the filmmakers have addressed South Africa’s complicated
relationship with masculinity and sexuality is through what Livermon has called “cultural labor”
(Livermon “Queer” 300). As discussed in my introduction, Livermon suggests that the “notion
of freedom” is “engendered through particular forms of cultural labor that increase visibility
and create possibilities of belonging for black queer people in black social milieus” (“Queer”
299). By drawing on their personal stories and lived experiences to express the realities faced
by many queer South African men, the filmmakers quite deliberately assert a queer African
identity. In addition, despite its fictitious nature, the film portrays the damaging effect anti-
queer attitudes and beliefs held by the dominant heteronormative society, has on black queer
South Africans.

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 Nkateko Mabasa observes that the precarities faced by queer people in South Africa are
particularly severe in the Eastern Cape. He notes that:

The South African Institute of Race Relations released a report in November

2017 analysing the frequency with which members of the LGBT community
are met with violence. The report showed that the Eastern Cape, which has a
predominantly Xhosa population, was ranked as the top province where
violence against LGBT people is most prevalent. With a 15% average, it more
than doubled the 7% national average. (“Inxeba” par. 21)

The precarious lives of queer people in the Eastern Cape, especially queer Xhosa people, are
illustrated in Inxeba.
In South Africa, however, the disjuncture between the legal protections and social
attitudes is because, in order for legal protections to work well within a country, those legal
freedoms require what Livermon calls a “sociocultural construct” within the national
community (“Queer” 300). That sociocultural context is missing in South Africa – this is the
case for gender, sexuality, identity, and race. There are many provisions in the constitution
which protect queer South Africans. As Willem van Vollenhoven and Christo Els note,
however:

Despite these post-Apartheid constitutional provisions, human rights violations

against LGBT people recurrently surface in the South African media. Continual
social intolerance against LGBT people hints towards a gap in the South African
education system to educate ill-informed members of society against
homophobia and unfair prejudice against sexual orientation. (266)

Berlant and Warner note that “the nostalgic values covenant of contemporary American politics
stipulates a privatization of citizenship and sex in a number of ways” (314). I would suggest
this applies to South African society too, where the acceptance of queerness is viewed, in many
South African cultures, as a capitulation to an immoral society. The lack of awareness in South
Africa is largely due, in many respects, to how people remain in thrall to the old ways of doing
things – this pertains to racism as much as to homophobia. South Africa is replete with
inequality in terms of racial wealth gaps, gender, and sexual freedoms – due to the lack of
deliberate attention to South Africa’s violent past.

What Makes a Man: “A boy may cry; a man conceals his pain”

Inxeba begins with the growing sounds of coming up for air from underwater. For the viewer,
it is as if you are at the bottom of a lake, and you can hear all the noise from the outside world

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seeping in – the crashing sounds of a waterfall increase as well as a growing siren that becomes
deafening. The sound cuts off and the protagonist Xolani is shown on screen: “He’s reserved,
gentle, sympathetic, and, though he can’t admit it publicly, gay” (Lewis par. 2). This opening
scene and the introduction of Xolani sets the tone for the film. The atmosphere is
claustrophobic to the viewers illustrated by the unhappy protagonist – the pain and anguish on
his face are palpable. The sound of being underwater resonating throughout the film becomes
metaphorical for Xolani’s life experiences.
Xolani unenthusiastically works in a warehouse as a forklift operator. At the opening
of the film he is shown leaving the warehouse at the end of his workweek, and making his way
to the rural community where the ulwaluko ceremony is to take place. Xolani is a caregiver,
also known as ikhankatha, to the initiates. A caregiver’s role is to help the young initiates on
this journey from boyhood to manhood. According to Richard Bullock, who spent a month
observing an ulwaluko ceremony, the young initiates are also known as umkwetha while
collectively known as abakwetha (par. 5). They will stay in huts, also known as iboma, for the
duration of the ceremony. Bullock notes there are other roles for younger boys who are not yet
old enough to be able to participate in the ritual: “While elders ensure practices are correctly
adhered to, five or six younger boys will be in constant attendance to the abakwetha. Delighting
in their role as inqalathi, the young boys chop wood from the nearby forest, and begin making
a pile of firewood outside the entrance to the iboma” (par. 8). The inclusion of the younger
boys (amanqalathi) highlights the significance of the ritual and how its importance is instilled
from an early age.
Writing in the Mail & Guardian, Niza Jay, the queer Xhosa actor who plays Kwanda,
observes that Inxeba “documents the complicated relationship between three Xhosa men,
whose understanding and embodiment of manhood differs greatly. The film is a confrontation
of what it means to be a man, specifically a Xhosa man” (par. 6). The ulwaluko ceremony is a
crucial part of the path to Xhosa manhood expected of every Xhosa boy in each generation. As
Nakhane Touré notes about their own experiences at the ceremony: “there’s a huge spotlight
on masculinity and what it means to be a man in the Eastern Cape. So I did everything. I went
through the rites of passage of being Xhosa. I went to the mountain” (qtd. in Mabandu par. 22).
Touré describes how their mother was insistent on them partaking in the ulwaluko ceremony
and how she expressed her desire for them to participate in the ceremony to fulfil the
expectations of their father. Touré states that “I remember my mother used to tell me: ‘Just go,
and get it over with. Satisfy your father and after that, you can do whatever you like with your
life’” (qtd. in Mabandu par. 23). The desires expressed by Touré’s mother shows the

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importance of the ceremony to the AmaXhosa and how formative it is considered to be. Due to
the ceremony’s continued ties to heteronormativity and patriarchy, there is a clear sense of duty
to uphold these practices. As will be discussed in more detail presently, there are clear
similarities between Nakhane’s own experiences and the familial pressures placed on the
character of Kwanda in the film so that he will participate in the ceremony.
When Xolani arrives at the ulwaluko campsite, an elder introduces him to Khwalo, who
is the father of a new initiate, Kwanda. Khwalo attended the ulwaluko ceremony in the Eastern
Cape, and now Kwanda is expected to do the same. Khwalo invites Xolani into the privacy of
his luxury car to request that Xolani be his son’s caregiver. He wants Xolani to guide and look
out for Kwanda during the ceremony. Caregivers typically look after a couple of initiates
during the ceremony but Kwanda is Xolani’s only initiate this year. The camera shot is placed
in a such a way that the viewer feels as if they are sitting in the backseat of the car
eavesdropping on their conversation. Khwalo explains to Xolani the reason for his particular
request: “I want you to be firm with my son. The boy’s too soft. If you ask me, it’s his mother
who spoiled him. She didn’t want him to come here. She wanted him to go to the hospital”
(3:21). This sincere and honest admission from a father who wants to take care of his son,
whom he does not wholly understand, is the film’s first indication of Kwanda’s queerness.
Khwalo informs Xolani that “Lately he’s been bringing home these friends. Locking
themselves in his room. Something’s not right with these rich boys from Joburg” (03:50).
Because Xolani himself is gay, he can see right through Khwalo’s suggested obliviousness, or
denial, of Kwanda’s sexuality. To Xolani, it is clear that Kwanda is perhaps dating or
experimenting with other boys, but he does not have an open and comfortable relationship with
his parents to be able to let them know. Xolani stares blankly ahead as Khwalo talks, almost as
if he is triggered with guilt and embarrassed by Khwalo’s words – like he is the one who has
been locking himself in a room with his friends.
Khwalo is originally from the area but now stays in an affluent suburb of Johannesburg
with his family, which affords him this ability to request special care for his son. He pays
Xolani a sizeable amount of money to ensure Kwanda’s safety. As Khwalo makes his request
for Xolani’s protection of his son in the area where he himself was initiated, he illustrates an
important intersection of urban and rural in South African life. But the film also focuses on the
growing juxtaposition of urban versus rural, or modern versus traditional roles. This is
portrayed throughout the film, by many characters, but mainly embodied by Khwalo’s son
Kwanda. Azad Essa notes, “as more and more families move to the cities, there is the inevitable
clash between tradition, materialism and between rival ideas; a deepening resentment towards

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city-slickers. As the rural-scapes shrink and country ideas become frail or dry, the attempt to
hold on to established ideas takes root” (par. 8). The kind of physical strength of endurance
required by rural life is not expected in the city, but nevertheless Khwalo wants his son to
participate, just as Touré indicates that their mother did, despite their own, quite different
reservations. Kwanda’s social status, attitude, and privilege, which will be explored later on,
can easily be read as representative of the dichotomies of this juxtaposition of urban versus
rural and modern versus traditional in South Africa. His queerness, however, represents a
modern portrayal of the changing masculinity in a post-colonial South Africa. As Munro notes:

The deployment of the figure of the gay person as a symbol of South Africa’s
democratic modernity is, of course, a radical departure from the traditional,
heteronormative familial iconography of nationhood – and it emerges from a
history in which homosexuality has long been a deeply contested idea, bound
up with the reimagining of race, gender, and nation in the context of settler
colonialism. (South Africa viii)

From this early moment in the car, the film depicts how the tensions and complexities which
frame masculinity or lack thereof, and the processes by which a man is made, are on display.
Khwalo, who is concerned for his son, is an accurate depiction of the difficulties of
contemporary Xhosa masculinity. Khwalo is aware of Kwanda’s mother’s reservations, and
uses his wealth to pay Xolani to ensure that Kwanda is kept safe, while still hoping that the
ceremony will toughen him up. Xolani accepts Khwalo’s request and takes the money, while
reassuring him: “Don’t worry, uncle” (04:28). It is not made completely clear but it is implied
in this scene that Khwalo makes a deliberate choice in his singling out Xolani to look after
Kwanda – as if he is aware of Xolani’s sexuality and he knows that because Xolani has been
through ulwaluko himself that he will best be able to guide Kwanda. As explored later in this
chapter, it is suggested throughout the film that Xolani’s sexuality is known by members of the
ceremony but is not acknowledged openly. Xolani agrees to look after Kwanda because he can
relate to the boy. He understands that partaking in the ceremony is an important tenet to
surviving the patriarchal hegemonies still dominant within Xhosa culture particularly as a gay
man. One of the strengths of the film is in its nuances, which leaves a great deal unsaid and up
to the viewer’s discernment. Throughout the film, Kwanda’s type of masculinity subverts the
heteronormative masculinity that has been enshrined in traditional Xhosa culture before and
after South Africa’s colonial period because he is queer. Although Kwanda does not subscribe
to conventional modes of masculinity, he is not any less of a man after the circumcision because
he is gay. Although Khwalo’s desire to harden Kwanda is harmful, as his son does not need to

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be hardened in order to be a man, by ensuring that he participates in this cultural milestone, he,
in his own way, is protecting him for the struggles he may face later in life.

Contextualising the Wound: The Birth of Manhood

The struggles Kwanda may face later in life, from which his father is trying to shield him,
derive from the expectations in which all the men in the film are embedded: namely patriarchal
hegemonic masculinity. The expectations of heteronormative patriarchal Xhosa culture are
what link the struggles that the three main characters face in the films, albeit for their different
reasons. These interconnected struggles faced by Xolani, Vija, and Kwanda are also what give
the film’s title its duality. Therefore, a contextualisation of the wounding in the film is pertinent
to understanding the nuances and the metaphorical resonance of its title. Firstly, The Wound,
which is the English translation of Inxeba is symbolic of the physical wounding that the
initiates undergo during the ceremony, the pain of the actual circumcision, as well as continued
pain, thirst, and hunger. Secondly, it symbolises the psychic wounding of the three queer men
in the film due to restrictions on their authentic lives in the face of the expectations of
heteronormative masculinity. Thirdly, there is a spiritual and transcendental element to the
circumcision wound from which masculinity emerges – the wound as the actual and symbolic
impetus to manhood. In his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of
Nelson Mandela (1994), Nelson Mandela states, “as a Xhosa, I count my years as a man from
the date of my circumcision,” signalling the wound’s cultural significance as the origin of
manhood and its continued relevance (59). Lastly, in the context of the film’s narrative, the
wound symbolises masculinity itself and how the complexities involved in sustaining forms of
patriarchal hegemonic masculinity may be harmful to men. There is an idea that boys need to
be wounded to become men – that the ceremony is in place to break down boys to build them
up as men. The psychic growth that the boys experience, however, intertwines with
intergenerational ideas of what a man should be, resulting in the disturbing reality of how toxic
masculinity has encouraged boys and men to act. As Gibson Ncube notes, “the clichéd adage
‘boys will be boys’ has, over the ages, normalised unbecoming behaviours. It has also
socialised young men into thinking that being a man could entail getting away with reckless
behaviour, even the use of violence and aggression to assert power” (“South African” par. 1).
Ncube’s remarks further highlight the nuance of the film. On the one hand, Inxeba deals with
the complexities around masculinity and what it means to be a man in Xhosa culture, but on
the other hand, it shows how this is further complicated when experienced through a queer lens.

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The symbolism of the title is prevalent in the intersecting narratives of Xolani, Kwanda, and
Vija whom all arrive at the ceremony, inflicted with their psychic wounds. According to the
website, South African History Online:

Homosexuality in the film is explored as both a repressed and oppressed

experience in the setting of traditional Xhosa cultural tradition. It is hidden and
anyone suspected of deviating from heterosexuality is immediately scorned and
excluded, due to traditional beliefs purporting homosexuality as taboo and
wrong. Although this is highly criticised and resisted in the film, through the
character of Kwanda, the pain and fear of having same-sex desire is expressed
through the struggles of the characters of Xolani and Vija. (par. 7)

All three queer characters are complex and are shaped by the patriarchal hegemonies present
in Xhosa culture, but, as mentioned above, they all approach cultural traditions differently.
Kwanda lives a privileged life in Johannesburg, which allows him more freedom than
his counterparts Xolani and Vija. His father’s wealth and his upper-class lifestyle provide him
with a certain mindset, which he brings to the Eastern Cape. Kwanda is rebellious and has an
air of arrogance regarding this cultural tradition. He attends the ulwaluko ceremony, however,
to please his father, despite his desires not to participate. Kwanda’s duty to please his father
mirrors Nakhane Touré’s real-life experiences. Although Kwanda is defiant in how he critiques
the ceremony, he is also, at some level, unaware of what he has lost as a result of his urban
detachment from the land and the roots of his Xhosa culture. The filmmakers’ decision to
portray the importance of the ulwaluko ceremony to the lives of two other queer men, despite
the struggles and lived complexities of their relationship, highlights the fact that just because
Kwanda is queer, does not mean that he cannot participate in his culture. The ways in which
Kwanda resists and critiques the cultural ceremony will be explored later in this chapter.
Xolani and Vija on the other hand struggle to resist patriarchal hegemonic masculinity
because they are both closeted. Not only are they closeted but neither of them are afforded the
privileges of wealth and social status that Kwanda has. For Xolani and Vija, due to their
working class positioning in South African society, there is a far greater risk in being an openly
gay man. This issue will be explored in further detail later in this section. They both use the
ulwaluko ceremony as a conduit for their authentic expression. Outside of the ceremony,
however, Xolani’s life is awash with isolation, inauthenticity, and unrequited love. Vija, who
has a wife and children, also struggles with the reconciliation of his sexual orientation and
masculinity but he is more comfortable with his lot, due to the fact that he is successful by
patriarchal hegemonic standards, standards he is reluctant to relinquish. Vija is a complex
character. While it might be argued that he is bisexual, the closeted nature of his desire for

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Xolani suggests instead the compromise he has made with social norms. He wants Xolani but
he wishes to be seen as a man. Ironically, his marriage and children, as well as his class,
prevents him from having the opportunity of being openly gay. Vija thus attempts to keep his
relationship with Xolani at a transactional level in the sense that he does not fully express his
emotions – which is safer for him. Therefore, he has made a deal with himself that his brief
reconnections with Xolani in the mountains are enough. For Xolani, as is shown in his
frustration with Vija’s curtailed emotional reactions, these brief encounters are not enough to
satisfy his hunger for a life that would allow him more regular contact with his lifelong friend
and lover. Although their participation in the regular ulwaluko ceremony brings Xolani and
Vija a version of happiness and presents them with the opportunity to continue their affair,
there is no hope for either of the men to heal from their wounds. Both Xolani and Vija have
chosen to guide and support the young initiates on their journeys into manhood, where for each
initiate their lives start to change from the moment they are circumcised but, as the film
repeatedly suggests, life for these two caregivers cannot change no matter how much they
desire it.
In the film, the depiction of the circumcision is quick – with the arrival of the surgeon
and him actually circumcising the boys lasting no more than two minutes of screen time. Before
the surgeon performs the circumcision, the elders order the boys to line up and drop their
protective blankets used to cover their naked bodies. The initiates are washed and cleansed
with buckets of water “to protect them from bad spirits” (05:00). After being washed, the
caregivers gather their initiates and take them to their huts. Sitting outside the huts, the boys
wait for the surgeon to come and perform the circumcision. The elders tell the boys to sit and
look away as the surgeon spreads their legs and circumcises them. The short scene which
depicts the momentous occasion is disorientating as the camera hastily follows the surgeon as
he himself rushes from one boy to the next. The circumcision is swift and the boys are forced
to endure the pain of which will be a testament to them becoming men. The camera only
focuses on their faces as the surgeon performs the circumcision – which maintains a sense of
privacy to the film. Nelson Mandela recounts his own experiences of the ulwaluko ceremony.
He points out that “flinching or crying out was a sign of weakness and stigmatized one’s
manhood. I was determined not to disgrace myself, the group, or my guardian. Circumcision
is a trial of bravery and stoicism; no anesthetic is used; a man must suffer in silence [sic]” (61).
He continues that “a boy may cry; a man conceals his pain,” which highlights the pressure
placed on these young boys not only to perform a sense of masculinity developed in a matter
of weeks but also to endure overwhelming physical pain in order to prove their masculinity

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(62). Mandela’s words can also be read as a critique of masculinity itself and how men are not
allowed to show any pain or emotion as it is considered to be weak. Once the circumcision is
complete, the surgeon shouts at them to repeat, “Ndiyindoda!” which translates to “I am a man!”
(05:43). After the surgeon has circumcised them, most of the initiates confidently repeat the
phrase. Kwanda, who is last to be circumcised, is not only apprehensive about spreading his
legs but after his circumcision when he is told to repeat the phrase, he lacks the confidence that
the other initiates show. The surgeon is unhappy with Kwanda’s quiet proclamation and orders
him to repeat the phrase. Kwanda, who is in pain due to circumcision, repeats the phrase more
confidently, showing his strong will and ability not to back down, which will be further
explored later in this chapter. After they profess their manhood, the head elder inspects each
circumcision and informs the initiates that they are now men. There is a moment which
highlights the power dynamics at play during the ceremony when the surgeon declares:
“You’re a man, my boy” to the first initiate who gets circumcised (06:15). While one might
assume that this is just the colloquial use of ‘my boy,’ the remark highlights that these young
men are still at the beginning stage of this significant ritual. The circumcision is only the first
physical aspect of the experience that makes them men – they need to further heal and thus
endure the psychic transition from boyhood to manhood.
After the circumcision, Kwanda has an empty look on his face suggesting a deliberate
choice by the filmmakers to show his continued detachment from this centrally important
cultural milestone. In the scene following the circumcision, Kwanda is joined by Xolani in his
hut as he starts the healing process. Xolani paints Kwanda’s face with a white clay mixture
which “is supposed to keep [the initiates] warm and protect their skin from the sun” (Bullock
par. 17). Alternatively, some suggest it is to “ward off witches attacks, during their journey”
[sic] (“Ulwaluko; An Ancient” par. 9). Xolani helps Kwanda dress his wound, but as he does
so, Kwanda squirms in pain. Xolani does not take well to Kwanda’s inability to be stoic in the
face of pain – he sees it as a weakness. Xolani informs Kwanda that: “You were assigned to
me. I’m Xolani Radebe. Your family knows me. Our fathers were close,” which depicts the
ceremony’s intergenerational continuity (07:42). As discussed earlier, it is difficult to know
what exactly Khwalo knows about Kwanda’s sexuality. Because Khwalo knows Xolani’s
father, he perhaps has a sense of similarity between the two sons. Before he continues with his
explanation of what is to come in the following days, perhaps to comfort and reassure Kwanda
with the promise of his continued care and presence, Xolani states that “a lot of city boys don’t
come to the mountain anymore. Cowards. Don’t know what it means to be a man” (08:02).
There is irony in Xolani’s words, as it is clear that he struggles to apply to himself the manhood

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that has been prescribed to him. Xolani relates to Kwanda and, as seen later in the film, this
proves to be a source of internal conflict for Xolani. Kwanda continues to feel the pain as
Xolani is dressing the wound and his discomfort becomes increasingly audible, which further
irritates Xolani. He threatens to stop helping Kwanda and to leave him to do it himself. When
Xolani finishes, he explains to Kwanda while showing him the bloodied gauze used to dress
the wound that “this is the first witness to your manhood” (08:34). Xolani goes on to explain
the various rules of the ceremony and how the initiates are sworn to secrecy: “You’ll stay in
this hut for eight days. No drinking water. No sleeping. All questions come to me. When you
go home, you don’t speak of what happened here” (09:26). The dressing of the wound and the
informing of the rules are put in place not only to guide the initiates but also to establish another
form of power dynamics – this time between the initiates and their caregivers. The rule
regarding the secrecy of what happens during ulwaluko is juxtaposed with Xolani and Vija’s
affair throughout the film. Although Xolani is the one who enforces the law of confidentiality
on to Kwanda, he cannot speak of his affair to anyone other than Vija, who enforces the rule
of secrecy onto Xolani out of protection for them both.

Maintaining the Secrets: Homosexuality and Traditions

The film progresses with beautiful shots of the Eastern Cape landscape full of colour and light.
The vast openness is frequently juxtaposed against the small, dark, and claustrophobic confines
of the hut, symbolic of both the ideas of masculinity forced on Kwanda and the constrictive
nature of the secret that Xolani and Vija harbour. There are many scenes throughout the film
which attend to the realities and complexities of what it means to be gay in a situation where
homosexuality is seen as an abomination. Vija would lose everything if he were to leave his
family to be with Xolani. During Xolani and Vija’s first encounter in the film, the viewer is
not let into the details of their secret relationship, and made to believe that Xolani and Vija are
friendly acquaintances who know each other from their own ulwaluko ceremony. Vija refers
to Xolani by the nickname, “X,” highlighting a sense of history with each other. Their first
encounter is brief but, when Vija leaves, the viewer discovers that Xolani is deeply in love with
him, by witnessing the yearning, painful look that falls across Xolani’s face, as if his psychic
wound has been reopened. It is clear that Xolani is unable to live as an openly, authentic gay
man in his life beyond the ceremony because he loves Vija and has a deeply emotional
attachment to him. As Emmanuel Tjiya points out, Xolani is “a man so paralyzed by fear and
held hostage by unrequited love that it feels like he forgot how to breathe” (par. 5). Both men

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remain closeted which is where their struggles lie but ironically it is also what saves them.
According to Gibson Ncube: “The space of the mountain can be viewed as an extended
metaphor of the closet in that every year it affords Xolani and Vija a place and fleeting moment
in which they can pursue their relationship” (“Film” 73). They are unhappy that they cannot
express themselves authentically in their day-to-day life but hold on to the happiness that
derives from meeting up once or twice a year at the ceremony.
Vija’s campsite is placed near the river, which in the film is a deliberate stylistic choice,
as it suggests and sustains to idea of the water’s suffocating presence. In another scene, the
physical connection that the two men have is depicted when Vija notices Xolani at his campsite.
Vija quickly informs his initiates to stay at the campsite and look after themselves as he leaves
with Xolani. The pair make their way through the woods to an abandoned house on a hillside
without speaking a word to each other. As they walk inside, the two remain silent while they
have sex on the floor of one of the empty rooms. The entire sex scene last no more than one
minute and the camera shot is not centred on the two men on the floor but rather captures the
bodies of the men in a doorway where their faces are not visible. The sex is rough, unemotional
and formulaic, but after their sexual encounter, both are in happy spirits – even sharing a laugh.
The unspoken understanding of how they would go to the abandoned house to have sex
illustrates that this routine is familiar to both of them and that they have done this many times
before.
After they have sex, they speak to each other on a more personal level. Vija asks, “How
are you, X?” to which Xolani replies with a generic, “You know. Not too bad,” but when Vija
proceeds to ask more than just pleasantries Xolani looks confused (15:02). Xolani’s confusion
suggests that Vija may be showing more interest than usual, in contrast to what Xolani expects.
Xolani is stuck in limbo, and reiterates this covertly to Vija: “Nothing’s changed, Vija” (15:21).
Vija knows and feels what Xolani feels deep down but because their current arrangement is all
that they can have he states: “It’s good to see you, my friend” to which a somewhat defeated
Xolani responds, “Me too” (15:26). They are both able to acknowledge and recognise that their
situation is unfortunate but it is also the only way they can find to be together.
The conversation shifts to talking about the initiates where Vija notes that Xolani has
been entrusted with Kwanda. He states, “They trust you with the softies. Better you than me,
boy. I’d just make them cry,” (15:52) signalling Xolani’s caring nature once again. This
acknowledgement from Vija of how Xolani is perceived to be soft, gentle, and patient is
comforting to Xolani and leaves him, once again, staring longingly at his lover. There is an
interesting shot of Vija’s face during this moment in the film that is from Xolani’s point of

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view. It is a close, intimate shot that depicts the intensity of Xolani’s feelings towards Vija.
Vija’s entire face consumes the screen, which is symbolic of how he consumes Xolani’s
mind.31 This moment, however, is interrupted by Vija announcing that his wife, Boni, has given
birth to their third child. This news of Vija continuing his family’s legacy dissipates any
hopefulness Xolani has and reminds him of his isolated reality. Xolani tries to hide his anger
and frustration at this news from Vija. After a brief moment of processing this news, he says
reluctantly: “I’m happy for you” (16:30). Xolani proceeds to ask Vija if he is excited for the
new child. Vija retorts: “I should be working extra hard. I shouldn’t even be here this time”
(16:38). Xolani, who is completely wrapped up in his feelings for Vija, offers to help him out
with money. Vija, however, rejects his offer indicating the patriarchal belief that men provide
for their family through their hard work. Vija asks Xolani about his job but, with an apathetic
response, Xolani says that everything is “still the same” (16:57). There is, however, a glimmer
of hope for Xolani when he mentions that he might be promoted soon which would have him
move to Queenstown in the Eastern Cape where he will be closer to Vija, and they could “hang
out like the old days” (17:18).
Vija does not say anything about Xolani’s potential move but looks visibly annoyed.
The possibility of being closer to each other does not spark excitement for Vija in the way that
it does for Xolani, as Vija knows that life outside their time in the mountain during the
ceremony is complicated by his life with a family. Tracey Lee McCormick details the
complexities of coming out in her paper, “Queering Discourses of Coming Out in South Africa,”
and observes that “Coming out is presented as the primary way in which to activate a stable
identity, to bring about change and to end the misery of denial” (136). Although coming out of
the closet is often seen as liberating in a white liberal society, it is not the same for other
societies due to the “homophobic link between colonialism and post-colonialism in which
homosexuality is aligned with the taboo” (McCormick 137). Furthermore, McCormick
expands on the idea of the closet, through an African lens, using Ruth Morgan and Saskia
Wieringa’s Tommy Boy (2005) as a departure. McCormick notes that:

Morgan and Wieringa make it clear that western approaches to identity are
problematic in the African context. They state that ‘[o]ne of the major concerns
[they] have is the tendency to essentialise and universalise human experiences

31
This shot is reminiscent of Barry Jenkins’s work in Moonlight (2016) where closeup shots are frequently used.
They add another dimension to the narrative and according to Jacob T. Swinney “the close-ups seem to transcend
the narrative of the films. Time seems to stand still as we gaze into the eyes of the characters. They are intimate
and profound as they become pure cinema” (par. 2).

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 by assuming the relevance of ‘western’ categories to the lives of people
elsewhere.’ (137)

Therefore, as much as Xolani hopes that their affair can be more than what it is, Vija knows
that his family life, and the attitudes of their communities in South African society outside of
the secrecy offered by the mountain retreat do not permit it and it would be dangerous for them
to come out. Xolani’s hopes for the two men to be in a relationship outside of their bi-annual
reconnection disrupts Vija’s sense of reality. They use the ulwaluko ceremony as a cover and
an opportunity for a sexual relationship but when Xolani seeks more than Vija is accustomed
to giving, he threatens Vija’s livelihood. In Vija’s eyes, if their affair should ever be uncovered,
he would be emasculated, both in his personhood, and his community. The film’s placement
of a queer narrative within the confines of a traditional AmaXhosa space, not only disrupts the
heteronormativity of the traditional narrative, but also offers a reinterpretation of the
vulnerability in how masculinities are made.

Unmasking Traditions: A Generational Divide

As the film progresses, Kwanda’s detachment from and defiance against the cultural traditions
in which he has been forced to partake becomes more visible. Although he finds comfort in
Xolani’s presence and help throughout the ceremony, Kwanda becomes impatient with the
process. Kwanda’s learns that he and Xolani are similar when Xolani reveals what he
experienced during his own ulwaluko ceremony: “You’re lucky. It was bad for me … I was
kept separate, like you. But I didn’t have a caregiver. And the other initiates wouldn’t help me.
I taught myself how to do the dressing” (18:52). Xolani shows Kwanda a scar on his upper arm
and explains: “A rabid dog got into my hut. It was just me and the dog in the hut. And with all
the pain I was in …” (19:19). It is explained later by Vija that Xolani killed the dog but in this
moment Kwanda realises that Xolani was also alone and ostracised because of his difference
from the other initiates – Xolani, however, did not have any of the class privileges Kwanda has.
Kwanda is perplexed as to why Xolani would return to the ceremony, given that he did not
have a good experience: “So what bring you back here? What do you get from servicing
initiates?” unaware of Xolani and Vija’s affair (19:38). Xolani tells Kwanda “It’s not me. Your
parents asked for my help” (19:43). To get to know his caregiver better, Kwanda asks Xolani
if he misses his friends and his girlfriend. When Xolani does not answer Kwanda’s question,
the dawning recognition on Kwanda’s face suggests that this is the moment when Kwanda first
registers Xolani’s homosexuality (20:10). As they sit silently together in Kwanda’s hut, this

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affinity between the two men makes Kwanda realise that he is not alone. Just as Xolani feels
alone in his life because he cannot live authentically with the man who has shaped his idea of
intimacy and sex, so too does Kwanda feel alone in this hypermasculine space where he feels
that the masculinity on display is performative, outdated, and unnecessary.
As the days progress, there are various elements and steps involved in completing the
ritual. Khwalo arrives at the campsite to check on Kwanda, but also to partake as a father in
the ritual. The elders and the other men all stand outside the initiate’s hut and call for Kwanda
to come out. Before he comes out of the hut, he has to say shout something so that everyone
outside can hear. The head elder shouts “We can’t hear you” to which Kwanda shouts back the
Xhosa word “Ngqash!” (21:34). According the website Word Reference, the word “Ngqash”
is used only by Xhosa initiates at the ceremony and the words “have no English translation nor
are they ever used outside that space. They are never known or used by anyone who [has] never
undergone initiation. They are both exclamation words that [assert] rejection.” It has also been
suggested that word “rejects all things boyhood [or] non-Xhosa” (localmaximum no. 4). After
Kwanda comes out of his hut, Khwalo thanks all of the men for his help: “Oh my brothers. I’m
so happy. I’m so happy. Thank you, gentlemen” (21:51) as the other initiates watch Khwalo
praise his son, further highlighting the class differences as their fathers are not there. Following
this joyous moment of Khwalo’s satisfaction with his son’s journey so far, the festivities and
the celebration begin. At first, a goat is slaughtered, and then the men dance around a fire and
engage in ritualistic displays of traditional fighting. During these fighting displays, other men
are dancing and singing traditional chants and songs. It sounds beautiful and full of fervour and
joy. The men are fuelled not only by alcohol but with the excitement attendant on this passage
to manhood for the new initiates. There is also a sense of nostalgia in the older men as the
prideful displays of enthusiasm show how important this moment is and should be in a young
Xhosa man’s life.
There is, however, also a moment of vulnerability when Vija and Xolani are celebrating
together. They are intoxicated and therefore let their guards down. They openly embrace each
other with Xolani gripping Vija around the waist. Xolani is visibly frustrated as Vija breaks
away from his grip. He is overcome with his longing for intimacy with Vija but is also snapped
back into reality when he realises where he is. As the ceremony progresses into the night, the
elders and caregivers sit around a fire and continue to drink alcohol as they talk. A visibly
drunk Vija recounts his memory of his and Xolani’s initiation during which Xolani bravely
killed a rabid dog that was attacking him. Vija proudly talks up Xolani’s masculinity which
leaves Xolani hurt as they are forced to hide their authentic feelings. Vija tells Xolani in front

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of the other men at the fire: “X. You’re the man. We go way back. We’ll always be friends and
that will never change, understand?” (24:50). In a way, Vija’s public assertion is the only way
he can express his admiration for Xolani under the mask of brotherhood, despite how the label
of friendship undercuts their true connection. Although their flawed, dysfunctional, and painful
relationship has been going on for decades, it is kept safe not only because of the danger of
exposure but by the guaranteed secrecy of the ritual itself.
At another section of the campsite, the initiates sit around their own fire and talk about
their future sexual conquests. Kwanda does not participate in this conversation with the other
initiates as the ritualistic space does not permit conversations about homosexual sex. Kwanda
is interrogated about his city life by two amanqalathi. Kwanda reinforces his detachment to
ritual by ignoring the amanqalathi and leaving the group of initiates. He makes his way to the
group of older men ignoring the clear power structures and segregation of the different men.
Vija notices Kwanda at the elders’ campsite and interrogates him after he defiantly sits down
next to one of the older men at the fire. Vija, bothered by Kwanda’s presence, seeks to find out
why he is ignoring the rules of the traditional space. A visibly irritated Kwanda seeks
clarification from Vija: “I was wondering, caregiver, what happens next? Aren’t we done yet?
(26:19). These remarks trigger an audible negative reaction out of many men around the
campfire. A wary Xolani looks on as Vija asks Kwanda to explain further to which he retorts:
“I mean, we have to sit here for two more weeks watching our dicks heal?” (26:30) Vija, visibly
annoyed by Kwanda’s disrespectful remarks, launches a tirade against him questioning
Kwanda’s wishes in rushing of the ceremony. Vija gets up in front of everyone sitting around
the fire and walks over to Kwanda to confront him. A nervous Xolani asks Vija to leave him
alone and tries to order Kwanda to go away as he is aware of Vija’s penchant for violence. Vija
asks Kwanda to give him the stick that he is to carry around with him during the entire ritual.
He reluctantly offers Vija his stick but does not let go of it – which comes across as a direct
challenge to Vija. A scuffle ensues and, Vija who overpowers Kwanda in a headlock forces
him to leave the area. Gibson Ncube notes the use of violence during the film, and how it forms
part of the foundation of manhood made there: “Inxeba shows that the construction of
masculinity involves the use of violence and aggression to assert one’s manliness” (par. 15).
By challenging Vija, Kwanda is directly challenging his masculinity. Other men voice their
disagreement with Kwanda’s attitude while someone remarks, “He needs a beating!” as Xolani
looks on (27:56). This scene, which focuses our attention on Xolani watching as these words
are uttered, serves as a deft, stylistic foreshadowing of what is to come later on in the film.
After Kwanda is ejected from the elders’ area, the head elder continues the lessons to the young

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initiates as he tells a historical tale about the ceremony. During this storytelling, Kwanda sits
in his father’s Mercedes SUV and begins to listen to loud music on the car radio, which serves
a physical depiction of his elevated class. During his moment of scorn, Kwanda notices Xolani
walk off with Vija following closely behind him – which further raises his suspicions about
Xolani, but also makes him suspicious of Vija.
In the next scene, it is the following day, and Xolani is talking to Kwanda who is
washing in the river when they both spot Vija. Kwanda, intrigued by what he saw the night
before, begins to ask more about Vija and his friendship with Xolani. Xolani warns Kwanda to
stay away from him to which Kwanda asserts, “I’m not scared of him” (30:28). Later that
evening, Xolani and Vija make their way through the hills for another sexual encounter. Xolani
tries to kiss Vija, but he does not let him and instead restrains his head and forces Xolani to
perform oral sex on him. Vija’s physical aggression with Xolani in this scene could be read as
a form of punishment for trying to kiss him, an act Vija continues to resist – as a kiss is very
intimate and would force Vija to confront his feelings.
Throughout the film, Kwanda is often teased by the other initiates for being gay. As
Gibson Ncube notes: “In several scenes in the film, the initiates engage in stick fights. They
also look down on one initiate, Kwanda, whom they call “is’tabane”, a derogatory isiXhosa
word for homosexual” (“South Africa” par. 15). Despite the negative attention Kwanda
receives from his fellow initiates, he ignores it and is silent and observant of his surroundings
and the people around him. He repeatedly takes specific and careful consideration of the
relationship between Xolani and Vija. His observation and growing recognition of the
interactions occurring between the two men culminates in a moment of confirmation in the hut
with Xolani. As Xolani sleeps, Kwanda moves his hands over Xolani in a way that is not
directly touching him but is nevertheless an effort to get as close as possible. Xolani wakes up
confused and concerned about Kwanda’s actions. Kwanda reassures Xolani that “it’s OK,”
suggesting he is okay with Xolani dropping the mask of secrecy (35:44). Once he realises that
Kwanda knows of his queerness, Xolani grabs hold of Kwanda’s hand and pushes him back.
He says nothing but leaves a surprised Kwanda in the hut. Overcome with the shock that
Kwanda knows about his homosexuality, Xolani leaves the young man alone at the campsite
as he makes his way to a van where other men from the camp are on their way to fetch supplies.
As is shown in his expectations that Xolani will return his advances, Kwanda continues
throughout the film to be both defiant and proud. There is a striking scene in which Kwanda
stares at himself after he puts his nose ring in – openly declaring that he no longer wishes to
hide the type of self-expression his culture deems taboo. Despite his bravery, the other initiates

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continue to tease and berate him. Although they outnumber him and steal his shoes, which, as
will be discussed in more detail later, are symbolic of the class differences between Kwanda
and the other initiates, Kwanda does not back down. He fights to get his shoes back, and when
he does, he separates himself from the other initiates. Later, when Xolani is on his way back to
the campsite, he notices that Kwanda is at Vija’s campsite. Shocked by this discovery,
especially after knowing what Kwanda knows, he joins them. He looks worried and concerned
that Kwanda may have revealed what he suspects. Xolani orders Kwanda to come with him,
but the young initiate refuses and once again challenges his authority. He does, however, relent
finally and join Xolani. In a critical scene of the film, as they make their way back to their
campsite, Xolani asks Kwanda about his defiance. Kwanda immediately confronts Xolani
head-on about his relationship with Vija: “What do you see in him? Do you think he cares
about you? Do you think he thinks about you? I can see what you are, but you can’t admit it.
You want me to be a man and stand up for myself, but you can’t do it yourself” (39:23). Xolani
is taken aback, unable to handle the confrontation from Kwanda, and begins to walk away. A
relentless Kwanda follows him and asks, “Aren’t you tired? Pretending to be something you’re
not” (39:44). This harsh interrogation further antagonises Xolani. He instructs Kwanda to leave
him alone, but not before Kwanda says: “Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me” (39:53).
This moment serves as confirmation that someone other than the two men involved knows
about the affair. Despite his insight into their relationship, it also helps to illustrate how Kwanda
remains unaware of the realities that Xolani and Vija face. Although he comes from the city of
Johannesburg to rural Eastern Cape where a particular version of masculinity is required and
where he knows that he does not fit in, his privilege offers him more safety. Thus he is not
afraid to challenge the preconceived notions of masculinity that inform the elders, the
caretakers, and the initiates. He does this by highlighting the hypocrisy of Vija and Xolani’s
relationship and the patriarchal beliefs that their homosexuality emasculates them. He does,
however, also afford Xolani a sense of protection in his promise to keep the relationship secret.
To him it seems apparent that Vija is only using Xolani so he confronts this issue in the hopes
that it will help Xolani to stand up for himself. Following his confrontation with Kwanda,
Xolani makes his way back to Vija’s campsite. When Vija notices him, Xolani apologises for
his initiate’s behaviour. Throughout the film, whenever Xolani is around Vija, he reverts to the
days when they were boys, and he loses all sense of confidence.
Xolani, despite Vija’s initial dismissal of the idea, also gives him money to help towards
his financial burdens placed on him by his family because it is all that he can do for him. Vija
reluctantly takes the money only after Xolani takes his hand and puts it in his hold. Surrounded

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by the sounds of the water, serving as a reminder of the notion of suffocation, the two stare at
each other until Vija admits to Xolani, with a crack in his voice: “You’re a good man. Thank
you” (43:18). Vija clearly feels guilty about how he treats Xolani and as Xolani leaves the
campsite, Vija calls after him, asking that the two go for a drink.

The Confrontation of Gay Xhosa Love

In a crucial scene of the film, Xolani slowly reaches his breaking point as he confronts Vija
about their relationship. The two men are shown walking alone together in the vast open fields.
Electricity pylons tower over them while they talk, drink, laugh, make jokes and recollect
memories from their shared past. Their joking evolves into a serious conversation when Vija
asks Xolani: “The kid’s a faggot isn’t he?” (44:40). At this moment, Vija’s internalised
homophobia exposes itself. He does not see the irony in his use of disparaging language to
describe Kwanda as being gay, which often happens in closeted situations. His failure to
reconcile that Kwanda can go through the ceremony and still be his authentic self, not only
antagonises him but causes much internal conflict. Because of his earlier confrontation with
Kwanda, Xolani starts to doubt his situation with Vija. When answering Vija’s question, Xolani
takes his time and replies, “So?” to which Vija replies, “I wouldn’t get too attached if I were
you. Get out while you can” (42:50). Vija’s remarks suggest that he thinks Xolani is attracted
to Kwanda, but also imply his own attitude towards the pain, internal conflict, and anguish that
comes with this sort of attachment.
But Vija’s actions suggest the exact opposite of his words as he thanks Xolani once
again for the money, puts his arm around Xolani’s shoulder and tells him that he is a good
friend. He states sincerely: “You never change. Thank you” (43:44). What ensues after Vija’s
remarks is a pivotal but rare moment of unguarded togetherness and tender physical closeness.
Xolani leans in to kiss Vija who, this time, does not back away and returns the kiss with
passionate intimacy. Xolani pulls away and confesses his feelings to Vija in an attempt to get
Vija to face things head on: “You know why I don’t change? Why do you think I’m here? Fuck
Queenstown. I was always the clever one at school. I could have left. Instead, I work. I live
alone. Eat alone. But I always come back here. Why do you think that is? I come back for you.
To help you” (44:30). After Xolani’s confession, Vija sighs audibly and pulls away as he cannot
do as Xolani wishes and be together. He then tries to return Xolani’s money and the two begin
to argue. Xolani asks: “Why are you doing this?” and with a cracked voice Vija responds, “I
can’t do this!” Xolani pushes Vija even more, asking “Why?” multiple times before he finally

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asks him, “What are you afraid of?” while ignoring the very dire repercussions of Vija coming
out (45:40 – 45:48). Xolani is forcing Vija to confront his deepest secret that has been wrapped
in self-loathing and overt masculinity – masked by his heteronormative life outside his
connection with Xolani during their brief encounters in the mountains.
The two are no longer arguing about the money, but about how Vija cannot commit to
more for Xolani. In a stylistic choice designed to show the parallel struggles of the two
characters, Xolani belligerently continues to ask Vija what he is afraid of, echoing Kwanda’s
words as he notes furiously: “We do this every year. The same thing. Aren’t you tired? When
will you stop hiding?” (46:04 my emphasis). The decision of the filmmakers to have Xolani
repeat Kwanda’s question, as it was earlier posed to him, is important here to demonstrate the
young man’s role as a catalyst who pushes Xolani to address what has been unspoken between
him and Vija for decades. Vija is scared of confronting his love for Xolani because it means
that he could lose everything. Vija is conditioned to perform his masculinity through
expressions of violence and assertiveness – throughout the ceremony and in life. Therefore,
Vija ignores Xolani’s questions and the pair begin to scuffle. Vija overpowers Xolani, leaving
the latter angry and frustrated. To hurt Vija in the only way he knows how, as Vija leaves,
Xolani tells him: “You should know I’m not coming back. We won’t see each other next year.
Run, coward” (46:27). The moment after Vija walks away is one of real poignancy for both
men. The confrontation of their love has shaken Vija while emboldening Xolani who begins to
take heed to what Kwanda has been saying to him – he deserves more than Vija has been giving
him and he can be braver than he is. He has destroyed Vija’s comfort for the sake of pursuing
his own happiness more actively. Xolani’s confrontation is brash and Vija’s treatment towards
Xolani is manipulative, however, these are the choices available to them. This is not their doing
but rather a direct result of societal expectations.

If the Shoe Fits: Depictions of Classism in Inxeba

At the ulwaluko ceremony, Kwanda is often outcast from his fellow initiates – sometimes due
to his own choices. There are several scenes in the film that depict a disjuncture between
Kwanda and his fellow initiates due to his class and his sexuality. In the scene that follows
Xolani and Vija’s confrontation, the initiates must say their thanks to the elders for what they
have taught them during the ritual. They connect their newfound manhood to themselves by
reciting their names with their clan and family names. There are resounding cries of the goal
to revive family houses, to continue legacies, and to lead communities. When it is Kwanda’s

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turn to speak, he refuses and says, with a despondent look on his face, that he does not want to
speak. Niza Jay observes: “although Xhosa culture rightfully creates a space for abiding male
bodies to flourish, endowing them with the tools to occupy their designated place as men in the
culture, defiant bodies such as mine are expected to forego self-definition to satisfy cultural
expectations of manhood” (par. 14). As Niza Jay points out, an authentic queer body will not
satisfy Xhosa cultural expectations – which is something Kwanda realises the longer he
participates in the ritual. Kwanda feels like he does not belong and he knows that he will not
please the elders with an answer that differs from the other initiates, resulting in his silence.
Xolani comes to his defence and states: “He’s not ready yet, elder. He’s still learning” (48:56).
Kwanda’s silence does not sit well with the rest of the men. One of the other caregivers, Babalo,
retorts “That’s nonsense, you hear me? This boy will stand up and speak like all the other
initiates” (49:00). Xolani defends Kwanda by reminding the other men that “He’s my initiate
and he’ll speak when he’s ready” (49:13). One of the elders, however, begins to berate Kwanda
and his upbringing: “What were we thinking? The father fucks off to the city, as if he was
banished from here. Deserting his home and traditions. As a result, this is what we’re faced
with today. It’s staring us in the face” (49:19). There is a moment where the camera focuses on
the pair sitting alone on a log by the fire, separated from the rest of the group, as Babalo rebukes
Xolani’s defence of Kwanda: “Caregiver, don’t forget where you come from” (49:41). In this
scene, the filmmakers once again, illustrate the parallels between Kwanda and Xolani – and
their shared isolation in the AmaXhosa culture.
Kwanda is defiant but unsure of what he believes in. He knows, however, that it is not
the teachings of the ritual. Kwanda agrees to participate in the ceremony to please his father
but, as time passes, he learns that pleasing his father will not make him truly happy. His goals
change, and when viewing his actions through a cultural lens, he is often behaves in ways that
are immature, disrespectful, and entitled. Through a queer lens, however, Kwanda is
progressive, authentic, and courageous given the ties that culture and tradition have to
heteronormative patriarchal hegemony. Kwanda’s defiance and progressiveness are born from
a reaction to the ceremony and culture, namely his inability to be himself in a space that
requires him to conform and follow the mould that has been in place for millennia. On the one
hand, he is not made welcome by any of the other initiates nor by the practices of the initiation
ceremony because of his sexuality. On the other hand, throughout the film there is much that
highlights Kwanda’s elevated class, namely his electronic music, shoes, and nose ring – all of
which also separate him from the other initiates. He fails to realise that his classism and

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snobbish attitude towards the teachings of the rituals are what are divisive. This will be further
explored later in this section.
Kwanda can be brash, provocative, individualistic – he favours that above the
community-driven life of the rural AmaXhosa. His individualism, however, highlights the need
for the inclusion and recognition of nonnormative sexualities by traditional cultures, as
afforded to every South African, as stated in the constitution. When queer men (and women)
hide their authentic selves during cultural practices, further divisions are sewn into the fabric
of a country and a national culture with an already fractured history. Although the viewer may
interpret the earlier statement from the elder as highlighting the apparent dichotomy between
modern and traditional, I think that it calls attention to the inability for this cultural ritual to
adapt and change with contemporary modes of inclusion and acceptance.
The tension within the group of initiates derives from the entanglements of sexuality
and class in this traditional space, as exemplified by Kwanda. Because he lives an affluent life
in the urban city, Kwanda is distant from his cultural roots and maintains a classist attitude
towards other initiates. The filmmakers choose to represent Kwanda’s resistance to the Xhosa
culture and elevated class through specific symbolism, namely his shoes. In an earlier scene,
as the initiates are walking in the forest, they tease Kwanda about his insistence on wearing
shoes as they are all barefoot and are clearly used to walking like this. One of the initiates,
Zuko, informs Kwanda: “You know you’re not supposed to wear them here?” as a way to
alienate him (32:48). Zuko further separates Kwanda when he says that “I can tell he thinks
he’s white” (32:57). Therefore, the shoes serve as a metaphor for Kwanda’s elevated class and
his disconnection from the AmaXhosa culture – his feet never touch the ground and therefore
he is not connected to the land. The initiates also link his city living to whiteness when they
ask him invasive questions about white girls from Johannesburg. This questioning provokes
Zuko to further embarrass Kwanda when he states, “Why are you asking him? What would he
know about girls?” to infer to the others what they all suspect about Kwanda’s sexuality and to
highlight how he does not belong there (33:12).
Another crucial moment that depicts the differences between Kwanda and the other
initiates occurs as they are showing each other their circumcisions. A few initiates invite
Kwanda to show them his circumcision. At first, he is reluctant to show the other initiates his
penis. As a queer person, such same-sex experiences of nakedness and exposure, viewed as
spaces of safety for cis-heterosexual men, are charged with risk, as well as with shame and
desire. Kwanda joins the group but before he can compare his circumcision, Zuko, one of the
initiates, makes an exaggerated point of excluding Kwanda from this unsexualised display

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when he declares, “Fuck that! He’s not looking at mine. He sleeps with men. That’s why he
wants to see our dicks. Just because your father has money” (51:27). His statement is not only
homophobic, but it also calls attention to how heteronormative culture and society overtly
sexualise queer bodies. To defend himself and his father’s reputation from the other initiate,
Kwanda lambastes the initiate’s father: “So he’s one of those [men] who disappears for weeks
and fucks around on your mom with a different woman in every town. And when he comes
home at the end of the month he wants respect because he’s the man, right?” (51:52). Kwanda’s
defensive retort is a further critique of the ideas of masculinity which surround the initiates and
the ceremony and which he exposes as hypocritical. His harsh rebuke is his only protection
from their homophobic verbal violence with its constant threat of physical violence. So
Kwanda too is pushed towards hypermasculinity in order to protect himself. This highlights
the requirement of being able to demonstrate a capacity for violence as a way of protecting
yourself as a man – shown in Vija, the other men, and finally in Xolani, as will be explored
later. The initiate then tries to launch an attack at Kwanda and continues to assault him verbally
with homophobic expletives: “I’ll show you what we do to faggots where I come from” (52:10)
while the other initiates stop him before anything can happen. This scene confirms Kwanda’s
feelings of being othered by the demonstrating the other initiates unnecessarily sexualising his
body. This sexualisation of a non-sexual act is an affront to Kwanda as it feeds into the
stereotypes about gay men being hyper-sexualised, unable to contain their sexual urges around
other men. Kwanda is yet again ostracised in the ceremonial space for trying to be his authentic
self.
From afar, Vija notices this confrontation between the initiates and as Kwanda leaves
the group, he calls him over to talk. Vija explains to Kwanda that: “You shouldn’t let them get
to you. They’re jealous. They want the life you have” (52:46) as he calls attention to the class
differences between Kwanda and the other initiates. Kwanda responds “I don’t have time for
them” illustrating his entitlement and arrogance. The poverty of all the other men is visually
apparent throughout the film. Kwanda has no humility or reason in the face of such poverty.
He does not find value in a different mode of life to his own as he looks down on these men.
Kwanda is aware that his wealth gives him power. The Eastern Cape AmaXhosa community is
not his and so he does not care how he behaves here and his actions have no consequences for
him. Vija realises that he is unable to reason with Kwanda and asserts: “So you are here to fuck
up our ways” (53:08). Kwanda, who has proven that he can stand up to Vija (and his authority),
asks for clarification. Vija confronts and calls out Kwanda’s criticism and resistance to the
ceremony: “I can see your tricks. You pretend not to give a damn. But you won’t be satisfied

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until you’ve disrupted our ways. Isn’t that right?” (53:21). Kwanda, clearly aggravated by
being called out by Vija, informs him that, under Xolani’s orders, he cannot speak to Vija.
When asked why, Kwanda then wields the only power that he knows could hurt Vija, his
sexuality, insinuating what he knows about the two men: “Maybe it’s because he wants me all
for himself” (53:52). It clearly shakes Vija as he leaves the young initiate.

Catalytic Change: Confrontations of Queerness in Inxeba

Throughout the film, as pointed out by Vija, Kwanda is presented as an uncomfortable force
of disruption and change. Kwanda’s ability to read between the lines affects both Xolani and
Vija as “he challenges them and their conceptions of masculinity, becoming a threat both to
the lovers and to himself” (Joffe par. 2). He does not always do this intentionally. Sometimes
his mere existence upends the traditional modes and values. There is a shift in Xolani and Vija’s
relationship towards the end of the film which demonstrates how Kwanda’s presence in this
ritual space has catalysed a change in their interactions and had an effect on both Vija and
Xolani – both of them now question their shared reality. Xolani is starting to realise that he
may deserve better whereas Vija finally realises that he should admit his feelings toward Xolani
and behave better or he will lose him. Despite the tensions and vexed emotions caused by their
secretive and problematic relationship, Vija and Xolani remain drawn to each other. There are
moments in their brief interactions where they can be themselves as they can with no one else.
After Kwanda confronts Vija with his knowledge, the next scene shows Xolani
returning from another supply trip to find an empty campsite. The amanqalathi inform him that
the initiates have gone up to the mountain with Vija – leaving him to panic and chase after
them. To the viewers, it is not clear what he is worried about – that Kwanda could expose his
affair with Vija, or that Kwanda is alone without his protection. When Xolani and the other
caregiver, Babalo, catch up to Vija and the initiates, they discover that the young men have
gone to look for the waterfall. It can be inferred that Vija’s actions are a sort of power play in
response to his confrontation with Kwanda earlier. Xolani is angry at Vija, and so is Babalo,
with the latter asking “Why would you just take them without telling us?” (55:38). In an effort
not to show his anger in front of the initiates, Xolani agrees and leads the group to the waterfall.
While walking to the waterfall Babalo asks Vija about Xolani:

Babalo: Did you hear? X won’t be coming back to the mountain next year.
Vija: Nonsense. He’ll be back
Babalo: Maybe he’s ready to take a wife, raise some kids of his own.

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 Vija: With who? That little girl from the church?
(56:20).

The camera is focused on Xolani’s face during this entire conversation and shows how Vija’s
effort to hide their love affair by teasing Xolani about the girl from the church is hurtful to
Xolani.
Before they all make it to the waterfall, they come across a white farmer who is working
on a fence. The initiates and caregivers react with trepidation – highlighting the seclusion of
the ceremony as well as the power dynamics between the Xhosa men and the white farmer.
Throughout the film, race is not the focus of the narrative, granting the Xhosa men with agency
but this scene suggests the fraught relationship between Xhosa culture and white farming
culture. Xolani and the rest of the men become less assertive and confident when they
encounter the farmer, indicating an imbalance of power, specifically in a space designed for
them. This speaks to how important the film is, as it is not led by a narrative about race,
suffering, nor a monolithic view of Africa. 32 While Babalo thinks that they should not cross
the fence where the farmer is working, Xolani disagrees. He walks up to the farmer to explain
that they wish to cross to see the waterfall, but as he is talking to the farmer, Vija proves to be
reckless and coerces the initiates into stealing a goat from the farmer’s van. Initially, this scene
seemed like an add-on to propel the narrative in the subsequent scene to follow. Interestingly,
however, in his autobiography, Nelson Mandela speaks about his experience with his ulwaluko
ceremony and how he and the other boys during his ceremony stole a pig: “A custom of
circumcision school is that one must perform a daring exploit before the ceremony. In days of
old, this might have involved a cattle raid or even a battle, but in our time the deeds were more
mischievous than martial” (63). The panic of fleeing from the farmer with the stolen goat
ensues before Xolani realises what is happening. When they get to the forest Vija, in an attempt
to undermine and embarrass Kwanda, instructs him to slaughter the goat. Kwanda reluctantly
takes the knife that Vija offers him and mounts the goat. During the chaos of this theft, Xolani
catches up to Vija and the initiates. He challenges Vija, and the two begin to fight. During this
scuffle, despite his best efforts, Xolani is once again overpowered. The tensions rise and
culminate in a scene where Kwanda, covered in blood, successfully slaughters the goat and
proves his masculinity to the rest of the group. Interestingly, when Vija subdues Xolani in their
tussle, he holds his head to the ground and at the same moment the camera cuts to Kwanda

32
See Taiye Selasi, “Stop Pigeonholing African Writers” where she highlights “the west’s tradition of
essentialising African subjects” and explains how Africa is often viewed as a singular entity, as explored in the
previous chapter (par. 3).

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cutting the goat’s throat – which can be viewed as another deliberate linking of Kwanda and
Xolani by the filmmakers. From the scene where the initiates compare their circumcisions to
this moment where he slaughters the goat, Kwanda’s acceptance of his own kind of masculinity
is entirely on display and Gibson Ncube points out that it “contrasts the hard manly expression
of masculinity that is expected by heteropatriarchal strictures. This emergent masculinity
presents itself as not inferior to the culturally idealised masculinity. It presents itself as
complete and valid in its own right” (“South” par. 12). In addition, Kwanda is not interested in
praise nor confirmation from Vija and his initiates and therefore leaves the rest of the group –
showing that he has accepted that he is different. He is not waiting for the others to accept him.
Kwanda is not afraid of Vija nor his threats, and even though he proves that he can perform the
type of masculinity valued by men like Vija, he does not subscribe to that type of masculinity.

The Wounds of Xhosa Masculinity

Later that evening, the day’s events have changed perceptions for everyone. Vija stumbles
drunkenly through the woods alone while Kwanda dances around the fire with the rest of the
initiates at the campsite while they all drink. Xolani, on the other hand, is asleep alone in the
abandoned house that he and Vija often use for sex. The following day Xolani is confronted by
Kwanda, who has a concerned look, which Xolani notices and asks: “Why the long face?
You’re going home tomorrow. Isn’t that what you wanted? (1:01:54). Kwanda acknowledges
that Xolani did not sleep in the hut the night before. Kwanda finds comfort in Xolani, so it is
no surprise that he cares for him – especially after Xolani’s public altercation with Vija. Xolani
deflects Kwanda’s concerns and expresses to Kwanda that he should be in high spirits. There
is, however, also a hint of jealousy in his remarks: “You should be pleased. You’re going back
to your life. You’re a man now” (1:02:12). Kwanda proves once again to be unrelenting in his
concern for Xolani’s happiness. To get through to Xolani and help in the only way he knows
how he continues to ask questions and try to reason with him:

Yes, I’m a man. I’m not taking anyone’s shit anymore. Not my dad’s. Not
anybody’s. You like this place? Seeing the same people? Doing the same
things? Don’t you want to leave, Xolani? See new things? They all see you, but
won’t let you be – I know what your problem is. You’re afraid of what you
want. (1:02:31)

When Xolani continues to ignore his pleas, Kwanda lashes out and calls him a “stupid faggot”
(1:03:15). This slur used against Xolani garners his attention, and he confronts Kwanda. He

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interrogates why Kwanda wants him to leave and assumes that the young man wants him to
join him in Johannesburg and pursue something more. Xolani highlights the disparities
between the two men and how they are from different social classes. Kwanda, who was raised
in Johannesburg can live more comfortably there whereas Xolani, who has lived in Eastern
Cape and would be an outsider in Johannesburg, knows that he would not fit in. In one of the
most important moments of dialogue in the film, Xolani notes: “The mountain is all there is for
me. And it’s not enough,” calling attention to their class differences and the choices they have
in their respective lives (1:03:47).
Xolani angrily leaves Kwanda and makes his way out of the woods, but as he is going,
he is approached by two initiates who confront him about his relationship with Kwanda. They
infer that they know that he is gay and that he has had sex with Kwanda. They let him know
that the relationship they suspect is wrong: “We mean no disrespect but we’ve been hearing
stories … You and that city boy. Caregiver, we’ve been watching you … This is not the first
day we’ve seen you. We’ve been watching you. What kind of man does what you do? (1:04:15-
1:04:52). Xolani does not appreciate their attitudes and disrespect and begins to question them
while they in turn become aggressive and invasive with their questioning. Before the situation
gets any more out of control, Vija arrives and reprimands the young initiates. While Xolani
stands and watches, Vija then begins to beat up one of the young men. As his violence against
the initiate intensifies, the familiar sound of the siren from the beginning of the film grows
louder and louder, until one of the other caregivers steps in and stop him. The caregiver rebukes
Vija actions, asserting: “A man doesn’t behave like this!” (1:05:28). Vija becomes
overwhelmed by the entire situation and in this moment he exposes himself – his fear, his
feelings for Xolani, his need to protect him, are all on display in his aggression towards the
initiate who has confronted Xolani with his queerness. Vija fears himself. He tries to fight
himself, his emotions and his situation in the only way he knows how – through violence. His
vulnerability has been expressed through violence as his fear of being perceived as weak leads
him to extremes of which other men in his community disapprove, strongly. Vija also struggles
with the idea of identity – all of the conflicting moments leading up to this moment result in
him not knowing who he is. This crucial scene highlights the strength of the film’s ability to
represent all kinds of Xhosa masculinity.
Vija is confused by his actions and therefore makes his way to the waterfall with Xolani
following after him. Although water often symbolises how Xolani is suffocating and drowning
throughout the film, in this pivotal scene, water is used as a symbol of cleanliness and rebirth.
At the base of the waterfall, Vija walks into the water. Xolani follows him and immediately

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embraces him. This is a key moment in the film where Vija finally confronts his emotions. At
first, he fights Xolani’s embrace but eventually succumbs to it – as the two men cry while they
hold each other. The overwhelming white noise of the waterfall behind the two men embracing
is symbolic of their overwhelming feelings. In the next scene, Xolani and Vija move to the
woods to have sex, but this time it is far more intimate and sensual compared to any of the
other times depicted in the film so far. They fall asleep in the woods, naked, in each other’s
arms – dropping their guards once again. Their vulnerability is exacerbated when Kwanda
comes across the two men asleep together naked. They begin to panic and put on their clothes
after the young initiate awakens them. He stares at the two disapprovingly – which is not to
suggest that he disagrees with their relationship entirely, but that his disappointment and
disapproval lies with their hypocrisy. Kwanda fails to recognise or understand what being gay
is like for a slightly older generation of men and here he demonstrates his lack of compassion
or solidarity. He addresses Vija in order to provoke him: “Excuse me, brother. Does your wife
know the shit you get up to on the mountain?” (1:08:25). Once again, Vija’s vulnerability
results in him responding in violence. Consumed by his anger towards Kwanda, Vija chases
after him to stop him from exposing the affair and outing him as a gay Xhosa man. In his efforts
to continue protecting Kwanda, Xolani tries to prevent Vija from going after him but gets hit
in their struggle. As he runs through the woods, Kwanda trips and is injured, but manages to
evade Vija and the violence aimed at him if Vija was to catch him. Xolani eventually catches
up to Vija who has given up on his search for Kwanda – shown by him sitting with his head
hung low, full of shame. Xolani can see how Vija is broken and exposed by the discovery of
their secret. Stumbling through the dark, Kwanda tries to make his way back to the campsite,
but due to his injury and his inability to find his way, he spends his last night of the initiation
ceremony hidden in the bush.
The next scene opens the following morning, where the elders are gathered at the
campsite to congratulate the young men on completing their initiation ceremony. As they
inspect the initiates’ circumcisions, one of the senior men notes: “This is how a man is meant
to be” (1:11:14). Another elder questions where Kwanda is. The other caregivers inform him
that he is missing and that Xolani and Vija are looking for him. The shot of Kwanda standing
over Xolani and Vija asleep is echoed in the following scene where Xolani eventually finds
Kwanda the next morning and stares at him as he wakes up. Xolani instructs Kwanda to put
his clothes on and tells him that he will guide him to a nearby highway to protect him from
Vija. As they make their way to the highway, the elders back at the campsite leave the initiates
with parting words: “Young boys, you have crossed the first of many rivers of manhood. You

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must be patient and persevere, my sons. The deepest river is the one you cross when you leave
this place. As men you should be proud. Grow a family. Build a kraal and let it not be hollow!”
(1:13:13). To complete the last part of the ritual, the initiates and caregivers set the huts alight
and leave them to burn as they all leave for home. The words from the elder ring out loudly
while the initiates burn down their huts. As they are chanting and singing, the scene cuts to
Xolani and Kwanda are far away near the top of the mountain. Kwanda is struggling as he
makes his way to the highway with Xolani close behind him. There is a defining moment of
foreshadowing as one of the elders below them asserts: “Open your ears. Open your eyes.
Reject the foreign ways of the city. And beware the temptations of the white devil that attacks
the womb of the black woman” (1:13:50). Xolani rises and stares intensely at a hobbling
Kwanda, and it is clear that he is no longer looking out for Kwanda, but for himself and Vija.
The beautiful chants of the men making their way home can be heard across the
mountain where Kwanda is still attempting to comprehend his altercation with Vija. He begins
to more broadly question homophobia in Africa as he says to Xolani:

This is South Africa, not Uganda or Zimbabwe. We’re not lead by Mugabe.
Like Africa doesn’t know gay love? I’m sure Shaka and his warriors all wanted
each other. Probably Jesus and his disciples were the same. How can love
destroy a nation? What’s the purpose of a dick anyway? Sure, it’s nice. But is it
really such an important instrument? … People think they are so smart. Men
follow their dicks around like it’s the most important thing. A stupid little tip.
It’s completely irrelevant. (1:14:45 – 1:15:41)

Kwanda’s words highlight the questions that need to be asked about South Africa, African
homophobia, and the centrality of the penis to ideas of identity – what Jacques Derrida calls
phallogocentrism.33 Kwanda’s acknowledgement that homosexuality in Africa has existed for
all time also echoes the sentiments that homosexuality is not destructive, but instead, that
homophobia is. Because Kwanda is young, naïve, privileged, wealthy and urban, however, he
sees his version of homosexuality in African culture as straightforward and comfortable. Due
to his immaturity he is given to black and white thinking without compassion or generosity for
the relationship between Xolani and Vija – he does not understand the complexities of why
their secret consumes, controls, and could destroy them. Kwanda continues to air his issues
with Vija, other men and masculinity while Xolani proceeds to guide him further up the
mountain. A defeated Vija eventually meets up with the returning initiates and when Babalo

33
According to M.H Abrams, phallogocentrism is where discourse “is centred and organized throughout by
implicit recourse to the phallus (used in a symbolic sense) both as its supposed ‘logos,’ or ground, and as its prime
signifier and power source” (128).

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asks him if he is all right, to which he does not answer. Vija’s silence is born out of fear and
the risk of exposure, but when he spots Khwalo who is waiting for Kwanda, he joins the other
men in their singing. Vija is relieved and feels secure in his secret not being exposed as Kwanda
is not there. Up on top of the mountain, Xolani turns to Kwanda and affirms his belief that Vija
is a good man. Kwanda retorts: “He’s a little boy posing as a big Xhosa man. Like all the rest
of them. You need to free yourself from this bullshit” (1:17:11).
Throughout the film, it is clear that Xolani cares deeply for Vija despite his obvious
flaws – he relentlessly defends Vija’s bad behaviour, hypocrisy, and inability to be real. When
Xolani points out that “He’s got a wife and family. You don’t think about those things,”
Kwanda does not feel empathy for Vija. He goes so far as to say that he should be exposed: “I
don’t give a shit! Someone should expose him. As a liar and hypocrite,” once again
demonstrating his inability to understand the precarity of this exposure for the two men
(1:17:22 – 1:17:26). Kwanda, on the other hand, continues desperately to try help Xolani
reconcile with his happiness, stating that he deserves better in life: “You think he loves you?
You think you’re the only guy he fucks? Fuck! I’m so angry! Aren’t you fucking angry?
Doesn’t he make you mad?” (1:17:33). Xolani does not answer Kwanda’s questions, but the
questions linger in his mind as the anger grows on his face. Kwanda walks in one direction,
but Xolani stops him and observes that there is another way down. Kwanda is confused by this
as he can see the highway from the top of the mountain. With one more effort to ensure
Kwanda’s silence, Xolani pleads with him, reiterating the rules he laid out at the beginning of
the ritual, but this time there are more dire implications if he speaks out: “You can’t speak of
what happened on the mountain” (1:18:10). Kwanda looks at Xolani with a dumbfounded look
on his face and walks away – signalling that he has no desire to keep the secret anymore. Filled
with anger and frustration, Kwanda can no longer guarantee his silence when he leaves and
continues on their original path as Xolani follows him. They find themselves even higher up
on the mountain with the flowing river below.
During their last moments together, it is evident that Xolani grapples with the reality of
Kwanda revealing his secrets versus his responsibility to protect the young initiate. He is,
however, overcome with shame, fear, and the risk of exposure. It is clear that, from the moment
Xolani witnessed Vija hang his head in shame, Xolani would put the man he loves first.
Kwanda peers over the edge of the mountain and utters: “You said there was a path,” when
Xolani, who is plagued by the risk of exposure and therefore him losing the closest thing he
has to a relationship, strikes Kwanda on the head with a stone (1:18:30). For Xolani there is no
path – the conflicting versions of South African masculinity do not offer him a future. Xolani

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watches as Kwanda falls to his death into the river below. It is a frightening moment, but by
hitting Kwanda on the head with a stone and inflicting a literal wound, Xolani enlarges his
unhealed psychic wound. The shame that comes from being gay within a culture that
emphasises performing cis-heterosexual masculinity and adhering to cultural norms, both of
which do not accommodate homosexuality, drives Xolani to commit this unspeakable act and
follow this path he has reluctantly chosen.
As Xolani makes his way into town on foot, the familiar ringing from the opening scene
grows increasingly louder. Xolani has a numb look on his face, and this scene of his returning
home is intercut with shots of people at the closing of the ceremony, dancing while waiting to
greet the returning initiates. The camera moves in such a way as to mimic someone underwater.
It is as jarring as it is disorientating. As the shot begins to realign its orientation, it focuses on
a young boy who stares directly into the camera, displaying his innocence. The image of the
boy is juxtaposed with a shot of Xolani on the back of a truck as he heads into the city –
signalling the birth and death of innocence. Philile Ntuli observes that Xolani “leaves the
mountain the same as he had arrived: wounded, secretive, and dangerously violent” (par. 9).
He has a solemn look on his face as he makes his way back to his life where paradoxically
nothing has changed. Although Xolani is the one who murders Kwanda, as Ntuli points out,
the young initiate is ‘killed,’ in the metaphorical sense of killing his authenticity, spirit, and
individuality, in many other ways:

For his insistence at freedom, they all kill the effeminate and unapologetic gay
initiate. His fellows kill him with bitter looks and sharp dehumanising tongues;
his father does it with traditionalist patriarchy; the elders with their defence of
sameness; Vija, Xolani’s secret lover, with the hands of lust, and Xolani, the
bravest, with a rock and silence. (par. 11)

Xolani’s murdering of Kwanda highlights the pervasive nature of how the “fear of deviance
from normative masculinities [and the exposure of this deviance] drives this violence” even in
men who are a gay (Msibi 53). Xolani’s actions speak to attitudes felt in South Africa where,
unfortunately, there are too many examples of violence committed against queer people even
in this age of progressive change. 34
Inxeba shows that the nexus between queerness and masculinity in South Africa is
replete with a masculinity that is, at its most visible state, extraordinarily fragile and
interchangeable with violence. Although the dismantling of masculinity’s link to violence

34
See “Hate Crimes Against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) People in South Africa, 2016”

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against queer people is filled with conflict and nuance, representations of queer masculinities
in the characters of Kwanda, Xolani, and Vija seek to disrupt both the discourse and the
stereotypes surrounding queer people in Africa. The violence depicted in the film is a direct
form of “cultural labor” where lived experiences of black queer Xhosa men are made visible
(Livermon “Queer” 300). This “cultural labor” upends the history of Western films where the
violence has a long history of being a way of punishing or policing gay characters for being
gay (Livermon “Queer” 300). 35 The film is an important case study in the ways in which
masculinity wounds different men – as seen by the depiction of the three main characters, and
also by the reception of the film, which illustrates the homophobic socio-cultural environment
in South Africa, as will be explored in the next section.

Wounded Debates: The Reception of Inxeba in South Africa

This section will extend on Livermon’s ideas and show how his thinking around black
queerness is demonstrated by the film’s reception in South Africa. Critically, Inxeba, which is
“the most awarded film in South African history,” (Politically Aweh 00:03) has been a
juggernaut for South African cinema due to its reception abroad – “it has garnered 19 awards
at 44 festivals across the globe” (“Inxeba” Mabasa par. 14). Furthermore, Inxeba has been
critically well-received in South Africa. It “walked away with six awards” out of the eight
nominations it received, including the Best Feature Film in 2018, at the South African Film
and Television Awards (Kumona par. 1). The film almost made its way to the Hollywood
awards stage as “it was also short-listed for an Oscar in the Best Foreign Language Film
category” (Mabasa “Inxeba” par. 14). Despite its reception from critics, however, the film has
also been met with an outcry by people locally in South Africa. Not only are there dissatisfied
people online, but there was an outcry from the public as, “cinemas across the Eastern Cape
were forced to cancel screenings of the film and offer refunds to patrons who had bought tickets,
as a result of protests, intimidation of employees and patrons, as well as damage to property”
(Mabasa “Inxeba” par. 1).
The uproar surrounding the film is a direct reaction to the film’s content. Due to the
secretive nature of the ceremony, the filmmakers have been accused of revealing secrets that
no one but the AmaXhosa initiates, and the men who take part, should know. Furthermore,

35
See Haley Hulan’s “Bury Your Gays: History, Usage and Context” as discussed in the previous chapter. Also
see Jess Magnan “Bury Your Gays: How a 1930s Hollywood Production Code is Killing Your Favorite LGBTQ
Characters Today.”

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because the film is written and directed by a white man, the film has been considered to be
damaging to African culture by catering to a Western white gaze through its storytelling. In
addition, many of the film’s detractors have suggested that the film is disrespectful to the Xhosa
culture – that it exploits a sacred ritual under the guise of artistic expression. All these
arguments will be explored in this section. When analysing the furore surrounding the film, it
is clear that the debate about Inxeba serves as a microcosm of the more extensive debate around
legitimacy of queerness in South Africa.
The history of the release of Inxeba is complicated. It was initially classified by the
Film and Publication Board (FPB) with a 16 LS rating.36 The Congress of Traditional Leaders
of South Africa (CONTRALESA) and the South African National Traditional Healers
Association, however, felt that the rating was not restrictive enough. Therefore
CONTRALESA appealed this rating because, in their view, Inxeba “infringes on their right to
the protection of [the Xhosa] culture, enshrined in the Constitution of South Africa” (Mabasa
“Inxeba” par. 10). The outcry also derives from a nationalistic sense of the need to protect
one’s culture, as demonstrated when CONTRALESA provincial secretary, Nkosi Mkhanyiseli
Dudumyo, called for a boycott of the film, asserting: “All people who are proud of their culture
and are patriots must join us in protecting our custom against intentional exploitation and
commercialisation” (Dudumyo qtd. in Feni and Ntshobane par. 5). As will be explored in this
section, however, the exaggerated outcry is guided primarily by homophobia. According to
CONTRALESA’s Gauteng Chairman, Prince Manene Tabane, Xhosa men “are being
embarrassed. He mentions that “the things that are being shown there is not what is happening
in the mountain. It is disgusting and disrespectful of our cultural practices” (Tabane qtd. in
Mabasa “Inxeba” par. 11). The FPB listened to these outcries and changed the rating. As Zelda
Venter notes: “The [FPB] said it reclassified the film from a 16 age restriction to X18 following
numerous complaints by cultural organisations, which among others, objected to the
homosexuality depicted in the film, the violence and the vulgar language used” (“Inxeba” par.
13). Their appeal was successful, and the film’s rating was altered – reclassified “to an X18
SNLVP rating, which meant it was classified as pornography” (Venter “Judge” par. 7). The
film’s reclassification as pornography meant that it was only suitable for adults and licensed,
adults-only businesses could distribute the film. This reclassification raised many questions.
As Eusebius McKaiser declared: Inxeba “cannot be pornography because it does not aim to

36
This rating means that the film is not suitable for persons under the age of 16 and that the film contains scenes
of strong language and scenes involving sex, sexual conduct or sexually-related activity. See the Film and
Publication Board website at https://www.fpb.org.za/ratings/ for further explanation of film ratings.

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arouse. The bits of nudity and implied sexual activity in three scenes do not last, collectively,
for more than a few minutes in a film that is of regular feature length” (“Rating” par. 21- 22).
He went on to argue that “the appeals tribunal did this only because the implied anal sex scene
offended their homophobic sensibilities (even in the absence of explicit sex)” (“Rating” par.
26). The film’s reclassification, as McKaiser points out, “stems from a wicked belief that
homosexuality per se is pornographic. That is a view the appeals tribunal members can hold
privately. It cannot in law be the basis of the X18 classification” (“Rating” par. 28). Therefore,
the film producers turned to the courts in an attempt to “set aside the X-rated classification”
(Venter “Judge” par. 10). Despite the infringement on the filmmakers’ freedom of expression,
they also argued that “the classification as hardcore pornography meant that the film could only
be viewed at ‘adult premises’ and no longer at mainstream cinemas,” which is detrimental to
the film’s success – given its critical acclaim (Venter “Judge” par. 13).
The filmmakers’ court case to review the X18 rating of the film was met with much
debate too, including discussions about freedom of expression and the infringement of the
cultural rights of the Xhosa people. The review case was brought before Judge Joseph Raulinga
who observed that “the right to freedom of expression had an effect on the rights of the Xhosa
traditional group,” noting that “the film included language which was degrading to Xhosa
women and it exposed women to societal violence such as rape” (Raulinga qtd. in Venter
“Judge” par. 20). Judge Raulinga also expressed that the film “contains harmful scenes which
could cause tensions within the Xhosa community and even within the broader African
community” (Raulinga qtd. in Venter “Judge” par. 21). According to Zelda Venter, however,
he “concluded that the appeal tribunal did not have the jurisdiction to reclassify the film and
therefore he granted the review” (“Judge” par. 22). John Trengove, who, with his fellow
filmmakers and producers, was at the helm of trying to rectify the unfair reclassification, notes
that “constitutionally speaking, this ruling by the FPB tribunal is completely out of line and
there’s really zero foundation for it. It’s just a bureaucratic process, and I think we will get the
decision overturned” (Trengove qtd. in Joffe par. 18). In time, the rating was changed but to
18 LVS – which allowed it to be screened in cinemas again, but, like Rafiki, this rating still
negatively impacts the film. The controversy not only centred around the content of the film
but the conflict that arose outside of its release. As Nkateko Mabasa notes, the producers also
“filed a complaint with the Human Rights Commission over the threats of intimidation and
violence met by the cast and cinema employees” (“Inxeba” par. 3). The threats to the actors
and creators of the film derived from the perceived threats to Xhosa masculinity and traditions.

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 From the moment its trailer was released, Inxeba has been met with controversy and
debate. Nkateko Mabasa highlights that “there was always going to be controversy surrounding
the movie given that when the trailer was released in 2017, it received widespread criticism
over it ‘allegedly’ revealing the secret and sacred traditions of the Xhosa initiation ceremony”
(“Inxeba” par. 4). Many people from the Xhosa culture have taken issue with the film’s content
and its portrayal of the sacred ulwaluko ceremony– calling for its banning. This controversy
stems from the belief that the film reveals secrets of the ceremony. As Amanda Khoza notes,
“secrecy is sacrosanct and deeply entrenched,” within the ritual, and it is immensely personal
to the male initiates (par. 24). Ulwaluko is “a practice that has always been masked in secrecy
and is intended to prepare young men for manhood” (Kgomosotho par. 1). This secrecy enables
women and non-initiates to be deliberately as well as carefully excluded from this ceremony
that holds so much importance. On the one hand, there is the validity in the notion that the
secrecy should be maintained to avoid any exploitation or corruption of the cultural sanctity of
the ceremony. On the other hand, however, the narrative of the film highlights the need for
freedom of sexuality in traditional cultures. The debate that greeted the film demonstrated how
expressing sexual freedom in South Africa is often taboo, especially if this entails gay
sexuality. As Nonhlanhla Dlamini notes: “discussions around matters of sex and sexuality
evoke anxiety in Southern Africa and Africa as a whole because of secrecy and silence on
sexual matters” (2). John Trengove, who insists that there was no cultural malice nor disrespect
intended in making the film, argues:

This is not an exposé but rather a film that is set in this space where young boys
are taught to be men. How are we teaching our boys to be men? What is this
idea of masculinity? And who are these two characters who are forced to hide
such a crucial part of their identity while they’re imparting this knowledge? (qtd.
in Joffe par. 14)

According to Gibson Ncube, “what Trengove depicts of ulwaluko cannot be described as

intrusive because what the film screens is what is generally known even by those who have not
taken part in the initiation rites” (“Film” 64). Furthermore, Trengove also observes that “the
backlash to The Wound seems to be proportionally much bigger than it was to [Nelson]
Mandela’s autobiography” which, as many have pointed out, also discusses and explains many
parts of the ulwaluko ritual. Trengove observes: “You could kind of look at that and speculate
that perhaps there is a homophobic subtext to the outrage” (qtd. in Politically Aweh 2:13 –
2:44). In his autobiography, Nelson Mandela mentions many details surrounding the ritual
itself as well as his own experiences:

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 In Xhosa tradition, [becoming a man] is achieved through one means only:
circumcision. In my tradition, an uncircumcised male cannot be heir to his
father’s wealth, cannot marry or officiate in tribal rituals. An uncircumcised
Xhosa man is a contradiction in terms, for he is not considered a man at all, but
a boy. For the Xhosa people, circumcision represents the formal incorporation
of males into society. It is not just a surgical procedure, but a lengthy and
elaborate ritual in preparation for manhood. (59)

Beyond the public access to Nelson Mandela’s musings on the subject of ulwaluko, the film
contradicts the idea that it is disrespectful to the cultural practices by its tasteful depiction of
the actual circumcision ritual, as pointed out by Masego Panyane: “When the ingcibi
(traditional surgeon) makes the cut, the film presents a raised, side view of umkhwetha (the
initiate). There’s a scene where Xolani, the ikhankatha (the caregiver), is dressing Kwanda’s
wound. We only see their faces and are left to imagine what happens below” (par. 10-11).
The film was also touted as an inadequate representation, with morally corrupt
depictions of Xhosa culture. As Zelda Venter observes, many of the film’s opposers have
echoed Judge Raulinga’s earlier statements, explaining that “the film disrespects women, [as]
it is riddled with vulgarities and incites rape and violence” (“Judge” Venter par. 6). The FPB
said that “complaints were largely based on the perceived cultural insensitivity and distortion
of the Xhosa circumcision tradition . . . and strong language in the film” (Dayile par. 7). As
Tshego Lepule notes, “Traditional leaders have called for the movie Inxeba: The Wound to be
banned and for film-makers to issue a public apology for portraying their traditions as
‘barbaric’” (par. 1). Another of the film’s detractors includes the Man and Boy Foundation
executive director Nkululeko Nxesi who said that “traditional initiation schools are sacred
spaces – not a space for sexual activity, regardless of whether it is homosexual sex or not”
(Nxesi qtd. in Collison par. 10). Batana Vundla, who was one of the producers of the film,
debunked the idea of cultural insensitivity and reinforced the idea that the outcry derives from
homophobia:

But this thing of ‘protecting of culture’ is really just a ruse to cover up

homophobia. They will say these things don’t happen in initiation schools, but
we’ve worked with Xhosa men who have been to the bush and they have guided
us. Over the five years it took to make this film, we had hundreds of
conversations with men. We didn’t imagine these things. We know these things
happen. We made a point to honour the sacredness of initiation, its relevance
and its importance. We approached it with the reverence and sanctity it deserves.
This was not something that was done to insult anybody. But it is our right as
artists to depict different modes of blackness and masculinity in society today.
This is not a send-up of anyone’s culture. (qtd. in Collison par. 22-23)

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As Batana Vundla points out, much of the response to the film is homophobic – even more so
because the fervent negative response includes people who have not yet even seen the film.
This misinformed reaction speaks to the larger attitudes towards queerness in South Africa. As
Eusebius McKaiser observes:

The widespread sense of entitlement to hate Inxeba without having seen the film
stems from the general acceptance of homophobia and conservative cultural
tropes in society. Someone tells you there is a film in which the central
characters have same-sex desire and same-sex sex and that is enough to give
licence to public disapproval even without watching the film. (“Rating” par. 12)

The homophobic attitudes and beliefs depicted in the film, and which it strives to confront are,
therefore, clearly mirrored in the public outcry at the film’s release. For instance, after attending
a screening of the film at Rhodes University in September 2018, I witnessed first-hand the
backlash against the film’s content. Responses to the film focused around questions about
whether the decision to set the film’s depiction of homosexual relationship within one of the
most sacred Xhosa rituals was appropriate. In the press and on social media, Inxeba has also
attracted a backlash, because the director decided to combine the breaking of taboos around
homosexuality and circumcision in Xhosa culture. As Wamuwi Mbao points out:

In the days that followed, I watched as conversations around the film played out
in public spaces and on social media. It was a chorus of mostly heterosexual
black men who filled various social media corners with the song of their hurt.
They performed their dismay, and they made clear their disbelief that such a
film was being put out into the world and that nobody was doing anything to
stop it. In the tenor of their anger, it was easy to discern fear – the fear that one
of the foundational sites of black male subjectivity was being symbolically
castrated through its proximity to homosexuality. Their reaction reflected their
deep discomfort with the notion that something so intrinsically a part of their
specific cultural economy could be treated as a narrative – that is something
which they do not have singular ownership over. (par. 6-8)

This backlash demonstrates precisely the need for such narratives to be told in these settings,
as the film illustrates a simple but powerful fact: that queer identities and queer intimacy exist
and have always existed within Xhosa culture and thus within traditional rituals such as
ulwaluko. The heteronormative confines of tradition and culture, however, mar the visibility of
queer Xhosa people. Nakhane Touré highlights the hypocrisy surrounding responses to the film
when they note that the men in the Xhosa community ignore so many other issues:

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 People have jumped to conclusions about a film they haven’t even seen. I speak
as a Xhosa man who has been to initiation, and who is proud to have done so,
when I say that no secrets are revealed. What is being revealed instead, is a
violent homophobia. Those issuing threats are nowhere to be seen when Xhosa
initiates are sexually assaulted during initiation. Where are you madoda (men)
when babies are raped in our communities? Where is your anger when women
are raped and murdered? The answer is nowhere. Instead, you choose to attack
an important and insightful film that I do not for a single moment regret being
part of. (Nakhane qtd. in Zeeman par. 8-9)

Therefore, it seems that the outcry over the film highlights the belief that heteronormativity is
under threat by queer people. Furthermore, due to the history of imperialism, as bell hooks
argues, “most black men are clinging to outmoded survival strategies, of which patriarchal
thinking is one, because they fear that if they give up what little ‘power’ they may have in the
existing system they will have nothing” (We Real Cool 130). As Nkateko Mabasa asks:

Could this movie be seen as a perceived threat to the conservative cultural

values that have guaranteed privilege to a certain group that is now feeling
powerless? Is there a balance between protecting cultural practices that may
seem oppressive to some and the freedom of speech that may infringe on the
other’s rights? (“Inxeba” par. 25)

According to Percy Mabandu, Touré confronted their uncle Langa Mavuso, who, at the time,
was a tribal chief in Alice, about the presence of homosexuality at ulwaluko ceremonies. Touré
explains that they informed their uncle that “‘there are men having sex with other men’ and he
didn’t even try to get away from it. He said: ‘Yes, but we don’t talk about it’” (par. 27-28).
Touré’s real-life testament to the presence of homosexuality at the initiation ceremonies
signifies the important link between the film’s portrayal and South African realities – it is based
on lived experiences. Therefore, the accusations of cultural insensitivity are linked to the idea
of breaking taboos particularly the secrecy of homosexuality. Epprecht explains that “talking
publicly about sex was taboo” and that highlighting this taboo was an “important part of the
cultural protection against sexual scandal.” Furthermore, Epprecht notes that “polite people
turned their eyes away and, if possible, shut their ears and eyes against suspicious behaviour.
What this meant was that sexual acts that were forbidden or shameful in theory could take place
in practice as long as they remained a secret” (Unspoken 31). The claim that queerness is non-
existent in Xhosa culture is damaging to both queer Xhosa people and the culture itself.
According to Zohra Dawood, who is the Director at the Centre for Unity in Diversity in South
Africa:

135
 [t]he film is important in contemporary South Africa and touches on issues that
are of a highly sensitive nature, including that of male circumcision and the
secrecy around this practice. In essence, however, it is about homosexuality.
That sections of the population are deeply uncomfortable with issues of
sexuality and the reality of gay and lesbian men and women who live with and
amongst us is of course true. Multiple instances of homophobic acts and ‘lesbian
killings’ have sadly dogged South Africa, and shifting our gaze away is not an
adequate response. The question to ask is whether the discomfort experienced
by many of the film’s content, trumps vital constitutional protections - not only
to artistic expression but vitally also by the right of gay and lesbian men and
women to choose their sexual orientation and live free of harm and violence.
(par. 5)

As Dawood points out the film has a focus on masculinities and homosexual relationships that
take place at the ceremony – which, under the laws provided by the constitution, is legal. The
depiction of a gay relationship and sex in this cultural setting, as seen by the reactions to the
film, are, however, not culturally accepted. The disapproval, however, does not mean that queer
Xhosa men do not exist – it only adds to the heteronormative patriarchal belief that queerness
does not exist in Xhosa culture. Unless one is homophobic, a queer narrative about Xhosa
culture is not disrespectful to Xhosa culture because queerness has always been a part of it, as
it exists in all cultures.
Another of the prominent issues that have faced the film is the notion of cultural
imperialism’ and the white gaze in African storytelling due to the fact that the film is written
and directed by a white man who has no lived experiences of the ceremony. Taylor Mitchell
notes that there is concern about the depiction of the Xhosa culture and the ritual, highlighting
that “the preservation of Black history and culture is integral – after Apartheid sought to
degrade, destroy, and replace it – both in the past and today” (par. 5). Trengove, however, is
aware of the complexities, both historically and culturally, surrounding his right to tell the story
of Inxeba set in this traditional space. He notes that “we have a very painful history of racial
imbalance and race discrimination and so this idea of representation and who gets to tell stories
is obviously something that is highly contentious and highly politicised” (Trengove qtd. in
Joffe par. 11).
While many people have called for the film’s banning, others attached to the film have
shown support for Inxeba due to their personal stakes in the film. As explained by Trengove in
an interview with Taryn Joffe, Trengove himself, his co-producers Batana Vundla and Elias
Ribeiro are “all queer filmmakers and we identify as such” (Trengove qtd. in Joffe par. 20).
Furthermore, according to Masego Panyane, Trengove explained that “the extras were not
actors, but men who had had first-hand experience of the ritual itself and would, during scenes,

136
speak out if they felt that these were not being true to what occurs on the mountain” (par. 7).
Trengove also explains the sense of urgency around why he decided to make the film:

Going in I had huge reservations. I have always been critical of the idea of white
filmmakers telling black narratives, so when this prospect was presented to me
my first reaction was that it was almost inconceivable that I should be the one
to make this film. At the same moment we felt that there was this dire need to
have some authentic representation of black, queer communities in the South
African film camp. When we were about to start shooting there was a spate of
very disturbing films that had been made in South Africa with really horrendous
stereotyping of queer people, so simultaneous to there not really being the right
kind of support for filmmakers to make the kind of film that we thought was
important, there was also this sense of things being quite urgent, and something
needing to happen. On the urging of our co-producer Batana Vundla, who is
himself a gay, Xhosa man, I embarked on this process and waded into this
terrain. (Trengove qtd. in Joffe par. 6-7)

Much of the scrutiny surrounding the film stems from detractors whose “objection resides
primarily in the fact that the film has been directed by a white man, John Trengove. They
believe that the film cannot be accurate because it is the work of a person alien to the culture”
(Mbao par. 12). This belief, however, robs any of the queer black contributors of any agency
or volition in drawing on their own experiences during the making of the film.
Trengove notes that ulwaluko is “a vast and very nuanced practice, and there remains a
lot to be said about the ritual that is not my place to talk about. Things that need to be said from
within the culture. Hopefully, The Wound could spark some of that” (Trengove qtd. in
Dercksen par. 9). Trengove highlights why he got involved with the film, stating that “maybe
a gay Xhosa kid will watch it one day and go: ‘Actually, that wasn’t my experience at all’ and
be inspired to write his own story” (Trengove qtd. in Thangevelo par. 16-17). Noting that there
were flaws in the depiction of the ritual itself, Xabiso Vili notes that to look at the film as an
exposé “takes away from its actual value. Instead, it explores a relationship between two gay
men in a hyper-masculine context” (par. 8). Vili goes on to note that “initiation school becomes
a microcosm for a greater societal norm of toxic masculinity” (par. 9). Inxeba makes clear that
its focus is on exploring the narratives of toxic masculinities in Xhosa cultures with input from
Xhosa people. But Vili also raises the issues of the film’s catering to a Western audience:
“Considering the initial screenings of Inxeba were mostly abroad (Sundance Film Festival,
World Cinema Amsterdam, Philadelphia Film Festival), it becomes a film that caters to a white
gaze, utilizing Xhosa stories as its tool. This is a form of ‘cultural imperialism’. Our culture
has been taken, sold to Europe before returning to us” (par. 5). Vili is not wrong in asserting
the fact that the story, which initially premiered at international film circuits, uses Xhosa stories

137
to propel its narrative. There is, however, no doubt that the film would not receive the warm
welcome, acclaim, or success if it were to be screened in South Africa solely. The reception
Inxeba received has proven that the film would not be the success it is today had it not expanded
beyond South African viewership.
Despite his good intentions and the success of making a black queer-centred film,
Philile Ntuli highlights an instance where John Trengove was guilty of mispronouncing the
film’s title. To the foreign viewer who might engage with the media reaction of the film, this
appears to be just an instance of a language barrier. This error, however, holds weight and
historical implications:

First, because it pokes the wounds that continue to fester in the many black
tongues that have rolled over backwards for decades to pronounce English
words “correctly”. For the director of a film centred on a sacred African ritual,
it is disrespectful. Second, and consequently, that the film can easily be
summarised as a successfully constructive critique of the multiple brands of
homophobia vested in one of the few surviving preserves of African customary
practices does not and should not ignore the sacredness of the entire experiment.
Yet it does. (Ntuli par. 2-3)

The debate encompassing the film’s release explored in these sections highlights the
complexities of LGBTQ+ rights in South Africa when intersected with cultural norms. Taylor
Mitchell observes that:

The difficulty of navigating allegations of cultural insensitivity, whilst

promoting and protecting LGBTQ rights, complicates the future of queer
advocacy in South Africa: how does one protect cultural communities while
advocating inclusivity and the acceptance of new, queer members? The answer
is not legal protection of LGBTQ people, in specific, or freedom of speech at
large – for South Africa’s constitution protects both. The difficulties in
implementing such policies lie in the power structures of South Africa’s
government, as well as other institutions such as the country’s film
board. (Mitchell par. 6)

In their PhD thesis, “The Rupture in the Rainbow: An Exploration of Joburg Pride’s
Fragmentation, 1990 to 2013” Nyx McLean analyses the disparities between race and class
present in the Johannesburg Pride events. McLean observes how the commercialisation of the
pride parade in Johannesburg and its predominantly white occupants are reflective of the neo-
apartheid state of South Africa in terms of opportunity, recognition, and self-expression for
black queer South Africans and the inequalities whiteness enshrines in South Africa society.
McLean explains that:

138
 The use of the term neo-apartheid seeks to suggest that despite the ending of
apartheid, economic power and wealth have not been fairly redistributed. This
suggests that while apartheid, as a legislative system, may be over ‘it still
manifests itself in practice,’ and continues to generate white economic power
through neoliberal policies and politics. (131)

Whiteness and its privilege is often detrimental to the vexed issue of ensuring the freedoms of
black queer South Africans within not despite of their cultures.
The scrutiny around the film revealing secrets or being told by the wrong person
invalidates any “cultural labor” performed by the black queer contributors and highlights how
the film is a microcosm of the larger debate around queerness in South Africa (Livermon
“Queer” 300). Therefore, the furore around John Trengove’s role and the way his involvement
is seen as the destruction and whitewashing of the ulwaluko ceremony is no more than an
attempt to hide homophobic attitudes. As Mbao points out, “The protests against Inxeba are a
pathological symptom of an ingrained ideological fallacy: they assume that Xhosa society is
an organic whole, united in expression and identity” (par. 17). The “cultural labor” performed
by the various black queer contributors of the film and the misconception around the exposure
of the ceremony’s secrets, which have been widely available and documented, attests to the
errors of the controversies surrounding Inxeba (Livermon “Queer” 300).
As seen throughout the debates discussed in this section, the social structures and
cultural institutions have power over how much controversial art is released in South Africa –
despite the presence of laws and protections. Inxeba challenges these institutions to discern
whether or not they follow the law of the constitution or whether they follow their comfort.
Inxeba solidifies the existence of queer Xhosa individuals – despite how fractured the identities
of the characters may be.

Conclusion: Healing Masculinities

Inxeba is a critique of South Africa’s homophobic society – as seen by the film’s content and
the reactions it has received. Xabiso Vili observes that:

Inxeba has served as a mirror to many aspects of South African society. It

cannot be discounted that many homosexual people share experiences with
characters in the story. It can also not be discounted that many of the responses
to the film were eerily similar to the homophobia and hyper-masculine
behaviour exhibited on our screens. (par. 13)

139
The film puts a young gay man at the centre of cultural conflicts. It shows the harmful realities
that many men have face when going up against ideas of masculinity embedded in a patriarchal
culture. As Gibson Ncube observes:

Men, the film demonstrates, are expected to be emotionally distant and self-
determining. To have successfully transitioned from boyhood to manhood, a
young man is expected to perform specific scripts of masculinity deemed to be
desirable. The film shows that ulwaluko is, among other factors, a breeding
ground of violent masculinities, homophobia and misogyny. Fearing that he will
be outed as gay, Xolani – the character played by Nakhane – takes violent action
against Kwanda in the climactic scene. This highlights how gay masculinities
also perform the scripts of violence that are not different from those enacted by
straight men. (“South African” par. 16)

As seen by the struggles of Kwanda, Xolani and Vija, Inxeba highlights both the complexities
faced by, and the various subject positions taken up in response to, homosexual men in South
Africa. Kwanda is defiant in his resistance to his family’s culture, customs and masculine
ideals. Vija has settled for a closeted life where he passes as a straight man. Xolani would rather
kill the young initiate than risk the exposure of himself and his lover in a society where it is
difficult, if not impossible, to live as their authentic, true selves. Inxeba is an honest depiction
of a South African society rife with internal conflict, where men are shown as deeply afraid of
disappointing a set of traditions and cultural codes. According to Niza Jay, the film “represents
another moment of vital confrontation for South Africa. The film confronts the prevailing
depictions of the black body, the erasure of dissenting voices and, most importantly, the
limitations of our film industry’s narrative exploits” (par. 16). Although replete with violence
and homophobia, Inxeba, through its confrontation of South African masculinity, aims to heal
the very conceptions that seek to destroy it. The strength of the film is that it acts as a question:
How do we get out of this impasse? It seeks to heal the wounds of South Africa’s complex
history by confronting the threads of lived experience which make up the film and how the
discussion and increased visibility queer black South African lives can slowly help with
progress.

140
Conclusion – The New Normal for Queer Africa

This thesis has examined representations of queer African lives on film and in literature,
produced by Africans for Africans, as a means to interrogate the role played by the
interconnected histories of colonialism, religion, and the policing of queer intimacy,
specifically in Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa. Through this thesis, I have drawn on the work
of various scholars, such as Epprecht, Berlant, Mbembe, and Ncube as a means to foreground
the importance of interrogating the complexities of queerness in Africa and the entanglement
of queer identities and histories located both within and outside the continent. As Achille
Mbembe points out “Africa is never seen as possessing things and attributes properly part of
‘human nature’,” and therefore, what I have hoped to show in this thesis is how important films
like Rafiki and Inxeba and literary formations such as the Queer Africa anthologies are to the
representation and full realisation of queer African identities. The chapters on my chosen texts
have attempted to demonstrate how countries, like Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa, as well
as the continent of Africa more broadly, are rich with stories and lived experiences that need
to be told in order for the world to grasp the complex human nature of queer Africans. An
implicit claim of all three texts, Rafiki, Inxeba, and the Queer Africa anthologies, is that
queerness and queer people has always existed in Africa and will continue to exist, despite
pushback and oppression.
Regarding the two films explored, Gibson Ncube succinctly explains their impact and
importance for not only the queer viewer but the non-queer viewer too:

for viewers who identify as gay, watching the film offers a space of recognition
and belonging. For these viewers, the process of viewing the film becomes an
empowering experience in which kinship and community are forged and
coalesced. The screen represents a space of contact and dialogue where ideas of
what it means to be black and queer are performatively discussed and rethought.
For a viewer who identifies as queer, watching a film such as Inxeba/The Wound
becomes a process of facing the diverse contradictions, emotions and corporeal
pleasures and pains that accompany the negotiation of non-normative sexual
identities. In this sense, the act of watching a queer film can be considered a
discursive activity in which meaning-making cannot be dissociated from
community-making and space-making. It is through the process of watching a
film that there is a leap from the imagined to the liveable and legitimate. (“Film”
68)

Ncube’s words ring true about not only the two films explored in this thesis but about the
literary representations explored through the anthologies. All three chapters have aimed to
show how important and vital representation is in the creation of a new normal and of the desire

141
for queer Africans to tell their own stories. Through this “cultural labor” of making one’s self
visible, one’s life becomes worthwhile (Livermon “Queer” 300). Furthermore, queer
representation in film, television, literature, arts and in the world as a whole, not only benefits
queer Africans who have a complicated history of oppression but benefits those who do not yet
understand or have adequate knowledge about queer African lives. Because queer people in
Africa have a longstanding reality of invisibility, representation not only makes queer people
more visible, and therefore legitimised, but can also save lives, change opinions, and transform
laws. Through this thesis, I have striven to demonstrate in detail how truly beautiful and queer
Africa really is.

142
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