Matuba Mahlatjie, a blogger, is seen in Johannesburg February 13, 2008. Beyond the blogging scene, the Internet’s chat rooms and community sites have also become one of the safest ways for gay Africans and Arabs to meet, away from the gaze of a hostile society. When Ali started blogging that he was Sudanese and gay, he did not realise he was joining a band of African and Middle Eastern gays and lesbians who, in the face of hostility and repression, have come out online.
But within days the messages started coming in to black-gay-arab.blogspot.com.
“Keep up the good work,” wrote Dubai-based Weblogger ‘Gay by nature’. “Be proud and blog the way you like,” wrote Kuwait’s gayboyweekly. Close behind came comments, posts and links purporting to be from almost half the countries in the Arab League, including Egypt, Algeria, Bahrain and Morocco. Ali, who lists his home town as Khartoum but lives in Qatar, had plugged into a small, self-supporting network of people who have launched websites about their sexuality, while keeping their full identity secret. Caution is crucial – homosexual acts are illegal in most countries in Africa and the Middle East, with penalties ranging from long-term imprisonment to execution. “The whole idea started as a diary. I wanted to write what’s on my mind and mainly about homosexuality,” he told Reuters in an e-mail. “To tell you the truth, I didn’t expect this much response.”
Source: Times of Malta
Whether you agree with the homosexual lifestyle the BU household admire the tenacity and perseverance of this group. Like the Blacks and the Jews it is a group of people which has been persecuted, vilified, stomped upon and you can add the other adjectives. There has been the myth that Muslims and Arabs were kept in check because of their religion which we know is very punitive on individuals who practice the gay lifestyle. The myth has been shattered! The blogosphere has been buzzing about the large number of Arab and African gays who are operating in the ‘closet’. We have written this article because we see some similarities to the gay issue in Barbados.
Barbados is allegedly a deeply religion society, dominated by its Christian faith. Although Barbadians continue to be split on this issue, the reality of the Barbados landscape remains anti-gay in our opinion. We detect that there is a large homosexual population in Barbados, many of whom operate ‘closet style’. Like the gays in Africa and the Arab world there is heated debate about how traditional society should confront the gay movement.
It is an issue which the BU have blogged about several times, it is an issue which is burning, it is an issue which threatens to split modern societies, it is an issue which we need to reconcile soon.
Previous Articles
Our Quest To Understand Homosexual Behaviour Continues
The blogmaster invites you to join the discussion.