by Fundile Maphanga
Melusi Simelane is the Founder and Executive Director of Eswatini Sexual & Gender Minorities (ESGM), a community-based advocacy organization with the goal to advance the protection of the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex persons in the Kingdom of Eswatini.
Fundile Maphanga is a member of Chatham House’s Common Futures Conversations community from Mbabane, Eswatini. He is a Communications Consultant at The Agenda 2063 Academy, a non-profit organization that empowers Africans to be drivers of Agenda 2063, a strategic framework for inclusive and sustainable development. He is also a passionate pan-Africanist who is currently working to promote youth engagement in continental governance structures across Africa.
In the second of our new series of interviews, Melusi Simelane, an LGBTIQ+ activist in Eswatini, the country in Southern Africa formerly known as Swaziland, says that the state has long denied the LGBTIQ+ community any rights or recognition. But now BLM has helped create a global conversation about rights and police brutality, he tells Fundile Maphanga, a member of Chatham House’s Common Futures Conversations community. Real change, he says, will have to start at the bottom of society, not among the privileged.
Fundile: What does Black Lives Matter mean for Africans living in Africa, particularly in Eswatini?
Melusi: The Black Lives Matter movement means something different in the African context. For me, when we say Black Lives Matter, we are not talking about the colour of my skin, but we are talking about our status in society. In Eswatini, we are battling a legacy of colonialism and underdevelopment, including newly established Black elites who are looting the resources and opportunities that are meant for all people in the country.
The Black Lives Matter movement has put a spotlight on these issues. You will hear a lot of people saying that this discrimination and violence is not new. This is true. Police brutality is not new for the LGBTIQ+ community. However, what is new is being allowed into spaces and having my voice heard when I talk about this. While we are not there yet by any means, the Black Lives Matter movement has allowed for that conversation to move forward.
How does the legal environment impact LGBTIQ+ community members?
The environment is generally hostile to LGBTIQ+ people and it makes us vulnerable to social and economic exclusion, stigma and harassment. This is because the Swazi government uses a colonial law, the common law offence of sodomy, to restrict the lives of LGBTIQ+ individuals. Most countries in Southern Africa have this too. This law is itself a main point of struggle for the LGBTIQ+ community, but the government and our institutions take it further than criminalizing a sex act. They misinterpret it to mean that our identities are criminalized.
Due to this, they will deny us our rights. They will deny us services. They will actually refuse to register any organization which wants to address the inequalities that we face as an LGBTIQ+ community. The common law offence makes it easy for LGBTIQ+ people to be ridiculed. All this is made worse by the fact that no matter how many times you try to push the government to protect us, they take us back to discussing the questions of morality, culture and religion. All this happens while we have constitutional rights that protect everyone and Swazi law states that these are universal, no matter your identity. Read more via Chatham House