Homosexuality In Africa Quotes

Out in Africa examines the anthropological, cultural and literary representations of male and female same sex desire, as it is at odds with an apparent context of heteronormativity and emphasis on reproduction, in a pan-African context, from the nineteenth century to the present. ~ Chantal Zabus

As is often the case, an individual who has been racially oppressed may be blind that the same mechanisms of exclusion and denigration are at work in gender oppression. ~ Chantal Zabus

One miner at Robinson Deep Mines, Daniel, [...] claims that as an induna or "boss boy", he had sought the company of a "girlfriend", that is, a young Basotho man, because he was not authorized to go in town to "see women". However, when he got special permission to leave the mining complex, he recalls with barely suppressed emotion that, during such leaves, he would soon long to be reunited with his "boy-wife". He and his peers claimed that "[they] loved them better" and preferred them over the experienced (female) city streetwalkers. ~ Chantal Zabus

[Mark] Epprecht's larger thesis [...] is that Europeans introduced homophobia, not homosexuality, to Africa. ~ Chantal Zabus

Some colonies were even reputed as being paradises of homosexual debauchery. Indeed, in French, faire passer son brevet colonial, that is, to take one's colonial certificate, mean initiating a young recruit to sodomy, that is, intercourse ,i> per anum during which the noviciate would play the role of the insertee. ~ Chantal Zabus

Expressions to designate homosexuality exist in some fifty (Sub-Saharan) African languages - gor-jigeen in Wolof, ngochani in Shona, Hasini in Nandi, 'yan daudu in Hausa, mashoga ("passive" homosexual), mabasha ("virile" partner) in Kiswahili. [They refer] to ancestral practices in "traditional", that is pre-industrial, societies [...]. ~ Chantal Zabus

I've been studying how quickly we can get energy out to the poor countries - a lot of which are in Africa - and how little progress we've made there. There's no more electricity today in sub-Saharan Africa per person than there was 20 years ago. ~ Bill Gates

As long as we share our stories, as long as our stories reveal our strengths and vulnerabilities to each other, we reinvigorte our understanding and tolerance for the little quirks of personality that in other circumstances would drive us apart. When we live in a family, a community, a country where we know each other's true stories, we remember our capacity to lean in and love each other into wholeness.

I have read the story of a tribe in southern Africa called the Babemba in which a person doing something wrong, something that destroys this delicate social net, brings all work in the village to a halt. The people gather around the "offender," and one by one they begin to recite everything he has done right in his life: every good deed, thoughtful behavior, act of social responsibility. These things have to be true about the person, and spoken honestly, but the time-honored consequence of misbehavior is to appreciate that person back into the better part of himself. The person is given the chance to remember who he is and why he is important to the life of the village.

I want to live under such a practice of compassion. When I forget my place, when I lash out with some private wounding in a public way, I want to be remembered back into alignment with my self and my purpose. I want to live with the opportunity for reconciliation. When someone around me is thoughtless or cruel, I want to be given the chance to respond with a ritual that creates the pos ~ Christina Baldwin

We must fortify African democracy and peace by launching Radio Democracy for Africa, supporting the transition to democracy now beginning to take place in Nigeria. ~ William J. Clinton

The forest reveals what was in the seed.
The hen reveals what was in the egg.
The storm reveals what was in the clouds.
The light reveals what was in the star.

The perfume reveals what was in the flower.
The honey reveals what was in the bee.
The fruit reveals what was in the tree.
The rose reveals what was in the thorn.

The web reveals what was in the spider.
The butterfly reveals what was in the caterpillar.
The venom reveals what was in the serpent.
The pearl reveals what was in the oyster.

The diamond reveals what was in the rock.
The flame reveals what was in the spark.
The nest reveals what was in the bird.
The roar reveals what was in the lion.

The leaf reveals what was in the plant.
The fire reveals what was in the wood.
The droplet reveals what was in the ocean.
The rainbow reveals what was in the storm.

The ocean reveals what was in the shark.
The desert reveals what was in the camel.
The sky reveals what was in the eagle.
The jungle reveals what was in the elephant.

The team reveals what was in the coach.
The flock reveals what was in the shepherd.
The crew reveals what was in the captain.
The army reveals what was in the general.

The tower reveals what was in the architect.
The sculpture reveals what was in the sculptor.
The painting reveals what was in the painter.
The ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

Our atmosphere can't tell the difference between emissions from an Asian factory, the exhaust from a North American SUV, or deforestation in South America or Africa ~ Ban Ki-moon

Africa, have you seen it? No? Then is it truly there?...And the past, did it happen? And the future, will it come? Believe in your own eyes and you'll get into a lot of trouble'". ~ Salman Rushdie

So how do you find out what God thinks? The Christian says, you look in the Bible. And the Bible tells us that God forbids homosexual acts. Therefore, they are wrong.
So basically the reasoning goes like this:
(1) We are all obligated to do God's will.
(2) God's will is expressed in the Bible.
(3) The Bible forbids homosexual behavior.
(4) Therefore, homosexual behavior is against God's will, or is wrong. ~ William Lane Craig

Kilimanjaro is a snow-covered mountain 19,710 feet high, and is said to be the highest mountain in Africa. Its western summit is called the Masai 'Ngaje Ngai', the House of God. Close to the western summit there is a dried and frozen carcas of a leopard. No one has explained what the leopard was seeking at that altitude. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

Each year in Africa about two and a half million people go blind ... and they just go blind ... they sit around in their huts. ~ Fred Hollows

You're not an African because you're born in Africa. You're an African because Africa is born in you. It's in your genes ... your DNA ... your entire biological make up. Whether you like it or not, that's the way it is. However, if you were to embrace this truth with open arms ... my, my, my ... what a wonderful thing. ~ Marimba Ani

The key trait of a Sperm Pirate is that she is not driven by desperation. Escaping poverty or hardship is not her motive. She usually has a good education and access to the same opportunities as the man she tries to trap. However, she understands that it is more efficient to enjoy a lavish lifestyle through the sweat of another's labour. But the Sperm Pirate is acutely aware that the infatuation of a hormonal man has a brief shelf life. This poor collateral must be cashed in before it expires. A pregnancy is the best way to convert this volatile resource into a stable asset. Babies are reliable insurance policies. They create legal obligations for financial support, even when the sweet milk of passion turns sour. ~ Taona Dumisani Chiveneko

I wrote the very first stories in science fiction which dealt with homosexuality, The World Well Lost and Affair With a Green Monkey. ~ Theodore Sturgeon

A single charitable foundation started by one capitalist does more good than a world full of socialists and leftists. Think Carnegie and his libraries, or Sloan and Kettering their hospital, or Gates in Africa. ~ James Cook

His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular. ~ Idi Amin

Yes, many years of oppression may have complicated things and it seems impossible for blacks to create their own means of production. But, I truly believe that we must start somewhere. We must reimagine a world where we are proudly black and support all things black in order to reinvent the economic wheel. We talk. We produce theories. We prove ourselves and and and... But we must also put our money where our mouths and theories are. This is why we fight each and every single day. ~ Malebo Sephodi

But the soul of Africa, its integrity, the slow inexorable pulse of its life, is its own and of such singular rhythm that no outsider, unless steeped from childhood in its endless, even beat, can ever hope to experience it, except only as a bystander might experience a Masai war dance knowing nothing of its music nor the meaning of its steps. ~ Beryl Markham

By the seventh century, Christianity probably was far stronger and more sophisticated in North Africa and Asia than in Europe. ~ Rodney Stark

Living here in North America - I have been Americanized. When I go back home now, there are things that I have far less tolerance for in South Africa. We've come such a long way in terms of race relations and the economy as well as people's willingness to move on. There are still a lot of things that are frustrating about being in South Africa. ~ Kandyse McClure

Light in love is joy.
Light in faith is hope.
Light in compassion is mercy.
Light in gratitude is contentment.

Light in understanding is awareness.
Light in intellect is discernment.
Light in certainty is conviction.
Light in patience is expectation.

Light in truth is discovery.
Light in innocence is virtue.
Light in experience is illumination.
Light in consciousness is realization.

Light in your world is warmth.
Light in your sky is energy.
Light in your universe is wisdom.
Light in your yourself is virtue.

Light in your mind is truth.
Light in your heart is knowledge.
Light in your soul is wisdom.
Light in your life is God. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

The ideas of justice of Europe and Africa are not the same and those of the one world are unbearable to the other. To the African there is but one way of counter-balancing the catastrophes of existence, it shall be done by replacement; he does not look for the motive of an action. Whether you lie in wait for your enemy and cut his throat in the dark; or you fell a tree, and a thoughtless stranger passes by and is killed; so far as punishment goes, to the Native mind, it is the same thing. A loss has been brought upon the community and must be made up for, somewhere, by somebody. The Native will not give time or thought to the weighing of guilt or desert; either he fears that this may lead him too far, or he reasons that such things are no concerns of his. But he will devote himself, in endless speculations, to the method by which crime or disaster shall be weighed up in sheep and goats - time does not count to him; he leads you solemnly into a sacred maze of sophistry. ~ Karen Blixen

Africa is the most weathered continent in the world; 75 percent of its soil has been degraded. You don't just bring that back. I always like to say it's like putting an oxygen mask on a cadaver; it just isn't going to work. ~ Howard Graham Buffett

Scientists believe that the invention of clothing in Africa was a key factor in allowing our ancestors to migrate into colder climates and to spread across the globe. ~ Ziya Tong

Because of its exceptional capacity for self-criticism, the West took the initiative in abolishing slavery; the calls for abolition did not resonate even in black Africa, where rival African tribes took black prisoners to be sold as slaves in the West. ~ Ibn Warraq

In fact, a large majority of those have died and of those expected to die of AIDS, as well as of those who are infected with the virus, are in sub-Saharan Africa. ~ Claudio Hummes

If I know a song of Africa, of the giraffe and the African new moon lying on her back, of the plows in the fields and the sweaty faces of the coffee pickers, does Africa know a song of me? Will the air over the plain quiver with a color that I have had on, or the children invent a game in which my name is, or the full moon throw a shadow over the gravel of the drive that was like me, or will the eagles of the Ngong Hills look out for me? ~ Karen Blixen

PIGMY, n. One of a tribe of very small men found by ancient travelers in many parts of the world, but by modern in Central Africa only. The Pigmies are so called to distinguish them from the bulkier Caucasians - who are Hogmies. ~ Ambrose Bierce

Just us two men," my father said, my father who had so longed for a son that he had flown paper planes--adoption forms in triplicate--all the way to Africa to make his dream come true. ~ Marcus Samuelsson

All B.S. aside, it all comes down to ... we got to survive. I mean, even warriors put their spears down on Sundays. We got to survive here in this country ... 'cause I'm not going back to Africa. We got to survive here. And for us to survive here-White folks, Black folks, Korean folks, Mexican folks, Puerto Ricans-we got to understand each other. ~ Tupac Shakur

Love in the Daytime

My lover
Shines like the sun.
I may be burned
Black as a frying pan,
Sweating buckets
And keeling over
With vertigo,
But why worry?
My lover
Shines like the sun.
She pours over my body
And breathes into my soul.
It feels so good
When she lights
My love on fire
Like dry wood.

Translated from Tigrinya by Charles Cantalupo with Ghirmai Negash ~ Reesom Haile

Africa is one continent, one people, and one nation. The notion that in order to have a nation it is necessary for there to be a common language, a common territory and common culture has failed to stand the test of time or the scrutiny of scientific definition of objective reality ... The community of economic life is the major feature within a nation, and it is the economy which holds together the people living in a territory. It is on this basis that the new Africans recognise themselves as potentially one nation, whose dominion is the entire African continent. ~ Kwame Nkrumah

Roads are not practical in Africa. ~ Mo Ibrahim

Historically, epics are set in Africa or Asia or the Wild West, but if you make an epic today it's hard to disassociate from the contemporary realities of those places. ~ Baz Luhrmann

Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science - the science against which it had vainly struggled - the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome. ~ Winston S. Churchill

The Western industrial complex would not change even if millions of people perished in Africa or India or some other faraway place. The population of the earth increases by millions every month, and such losses would be seen as a little drop in the ocean. But if something serious were to occur in the West, then that would turn upside down the currently held vision of Western people with regard to the impact of modern technology on nature. It would be something that would wake them up and perhaps help to stop this really suicidal course that modern civilization is currently pursuing and that the rest of the world is trying to follow. ~ Seyyed Hossein Nasr