Extremely disappointing to see this, this is not a Sankara thing to do at all.
Hey assholes! Gay people exist, and will continue to exist, have existed since the dawn of people. Gay people are in your family, yes, you reading this now. You have gay people in your family.
Extremely disappointing, but there is on the ground resistance to this. My hope is that they go the way of Cuba and correct this mistake down the line.
Fuck’s sake. Why is the venn diagram of “not an imperialist puppet” and “okay with queer people” just two almost entirely separate circles with maybe a sliver labeled “Cuba” between them?
Filipino Maoists.
Nepal is good on LGBTQ rights relatively, though the communist movement is kinda split, though their first gay politician did recently defect TO CPN (Unified Marxist Leninist)
Nepal’s communist/maoist parties — at least the ones with power — are in name only. You can’t call parties that have unbelievable amounts of corruption and nepotism rampant in them communist — you could supply these people with enough money and they’ll forget communist ideals entirely. Not to mention that their leaders have a handful of controversies at any given time. However, the country does have LGBTQ rights in the constitution itself; but queer people can’t freely express themselves due to the backwardness of society.
could we get some examples of imperialist puppets which are okay with queer people, cant really think of any, ig the problem moreso is that many countries generally are not ok with queer people
Australia has many issues but it’s a very good place to not be cishet
I think Illstealya isn’t totally a puppet, obviously beholden to the much larger anglo + NATO economies but compared to a South Korea or South Vietnam they’ve got orders more latitude. Mostly due to intrinsic racism and persistent feelings in the anglosphere.
Those issues are pretty funny though, like even the gay Aussie I knew long enough had a story about fuckin with and subsequently “getting chased by” a “buncha <shorthand for Aboriginals>”
Depends what you mean by “ok with” and who counts as accepted queer groups but it’s not typically punishable by prison in quite a lot of countries these days, even many imperialist puppets. Like idk northern Europe or whatever.
not typically punishable by prison
Yeah true.
northern Europe
As in scandi countries?
Yeah, or even Germany or the Netherlands. Not to be positive about those countries in general btw, just so people don’t get the wrong idea.
Canada?
a puppet that is legally and ‘theoretically’ okay with queer people? Israel? Not that they actually are pro queer people, any more than they are pro jewish people
Taiwan, South Africa, most of South America, most of Europe, Israel kinda
Edit: replied to the wrong comment. There was someone asking for imperial puppets that are OK with gay people
How is Israel (even kinda) not an imperialist puppet?
Oh I replied to the wrong comment. There was someone asking for imperial puppets that are OK with gay people
Or Taiwan
Yea good point, I was just so taken aback by israel’s inclusion
Taiwan, most of Europe and Israel are US client states
terrible way to create national unity as well. he needs his people behind him to help him build the country. he does have that but this takes some of those people away and criminalizes their existence. there will be many people whose loved ones are adversely affected and they wont be feeling that national unity either. appeasing old conservatives ideals is not how you move a country forward
It’s also going to create a group of people much more easily recruited by the CIA and similar orgs, because they’ll either resent the revolution for oppressing them, or be blackmailed into collaboration.
The GDR didn’t deciminalize homosexuality out of a progressive concern for gay people’s wellbeing (far from it), but because they were all getting turned into spies by the west.
very interesting, i hadn’t heard of that before but it makes sense.
It’s a problem in Palestine, too. One of the common arguments against Israel being LGBTQ friendly is how they blackmail queer Palestinians and use them as intelligence assets, but obviously that wouldn’t be as much of a problem if the secular socialists who are fine with queer people were in power in Palestine.
I think it’s fucked if you do and fucked if you don’t in their case. Obviously criminalizing gay people is backwards and wrong and this isn’t a solution but if we can unpack this for a moment I think we can get at the reasoning.
Right now Africa faces a big problem in the form of ISIS and other “moderate rebel” islamist or similar extremist groups funded by, aided by, created by, controlled by, doing the work of the west to destabilize governments to prevent any power centers against the west forming and to leave much of the continent open to pillaging if they can topple governments and install some corrupt warlords like Syria in place instead.
Made worse, Ukraine’s intelligence services (created and bred by the CIA for maximum ghoulishness and highly experienced in assassinations, use of drones, clandestine cross border operations due to their war with Russia) are actively aiding and abetting these groups in highly sophisticated ways including sending special forces, drones, training rebels on use of drones, delivering weapons, and delivering US/eyes derived intelligence to allow them to pull off spectacular attacks against Russian military advisors and equipment they’ve bought which they need in the fight against these groups and probably in future to attempt to topple governments and plunge regions into instability.
So from their viewpoint they have an islamist insurgency that feeds like fire feeds on gasoline on perceived un-islamic progressive stuff like gay people getting rights, not being subjected to religious law, not being ostracized, living normal lives from people who buy into that kind of thinking and belief system which is unfortunately a lot. Things like gay people having rights openly is used to whip up a lot of people on the sidelines and convince them oh this goes against god, oh this will bring disaster to the country, oh gay people want to have sex with you and willremoved you, other cheap propaganda and radicalize them into sympathy for or participation with these groups.
On the other hand they have maybe a small amount of gay people that are open enough that they can be found and recruited by the CIA. Of the two one seems at the surface a much more manageable problem while the other more pressing and immediate.
Add in the west’s history of rainbow washing imperialism and it’s not surprising what choice they made. One can hope they try to educate the population on these matters but the fact is it will be a steep uphill battle met with fierce western backed (often through gulf states) organized resistance to any choice they make.
The west has essentially created this situation of a rock and a hard place and one path appears much easier.
(Though I admit to not being educated on just how much LGBTQ+ rights are being used as a wedge in these countries if at all and/or for stirring up sympathy for rebel groups so maybe this isn’t right and it’s just prejudice of the leadership)
One of the few sane reactions itt, thank you
This is a legit analysis, thanks for that!
True, but I think we forget just how homophobic some countries are - to the extent that homophobia and religious adherence is more of a unifier than a splitter, even for those who have queer family members.
Not that I think this is a positive move or that socialism is ideologically compatible with homophobia, but I don’t think this is as bad of a move as you’re thinking for national unity.
i agree with that, it could be a unifier for the majority of people (not saying this with any comment or assumptions about the people of burkina faso) but even still there will be large amounts of people who are hurt in the periphery, many people who may even currently support the criminalization of homosexuality. kinda how a lot of people in the US support ICE but then their sister’s husband gets disappeared and suddenly they’re not so happy about it anymore. with laws targeting queerness you tend to get a lot of that
I think a lot of people want to project Sankara onto him, partially because he emulates parts of his style and rhetoric. But if you were a military leader of course you would be inspired by your country’s most famous and inspirational modern figure. He’ll likely be better in terms of breaking away from neocolonial arrangements with France, but time will tell what else will happen, stuff like this included.
And people are projecting their queer politics to Sankara for that matter. Was Sankara even that good towards queer people?
The core contradiction of the Hexbear community is trying to reconcile AES with social liberalism.
There have been and are real socialist states (not just nominally so) that were some of the most advanced countries in the world on queer issues, specifically East Germany before and Cuba now. I do kind of agree with you in a more general sense, because Hexbear as a whole doesn’t know how to deal with the concept of social discipline.
AES (the state) doesn’t seem to me to be socialist in any significant sense, though it is worth supporting in its struggle against the west on roughly the same basis as Iran. Parading Sankara’s corpse isn’t very compelling when he could barely be called a Marxist in his approach to begin with (as in his political practice, not his speeches), and they do not approach even him.
I think the anti-revisionists have a point that “Actually Existing Socialism” is a question-begging term, which makes sense when one remembers that it was popularized by the USSR after revisionists had seized power and was mostly used in the context of justifying what we now all recognize as revisionism in the USSR and elsewhere. Arguments about whether or not your approach is socialist are so much simpler when you start by assuming that you are.
The soy “A -> B, B -> C, therefore A -> C” vs the chad “C = C”.
sankara could barely be called a marxist?
He was installed by a military coup, not a popular revolution, and then enacted some positive reforms but fundamentally failed to produce anything remotely like a dictatorship of the proletariat, and was thereby ousted by the military who held the power the whole time. Sankara was genuinely benevolent in his intentions, but his approach to revolution was anti-Marxist and it created a warped state that was basically a military dictatorship when it decided to be (though he did not support such a thing, he ultimately did not stop it), because popular support functioned as a convenience rather than the actual mechanism of decision-making.
It was Mao who once said that the party should never move too far ahead of the masses, to quote:
Communists must never separate themselves from the majority of the people or neglect them by leading only a few progressive contingents in an isolated and rash advance, but must take care to forge close links between the progressive elements and the broad masses. This is what thinking in terms of the majority means.
This is also why Stalin (unfortunately) recriminalized Homosexuality after Lenin legalized it; because he recognized that the masses of the USSR were still mostly socially reactionary and moving too far forward socially risked tearing apart the nascent Soviet state and turn said masses against the party. And he was right: see how many soldiers in the Ukrainian SSR alone willingly joined the Nazis the moment they had a chance.
This is not to say a socialist state shouldn’t strive to push the masses towards social progress, women’s rights were advanced far more quickly in the Socialist bloc than the Capitalist world last century for example. But such social progress must be organic and done within a framework that will be appropriate to the material conditions of the socialist society. If Burkina Faso had their stonewall moment today this law would probably never pass. But they didn’t, because the masses aren’t ready for it yet.
see how many soldiers in the Ukrainian SSR alone willingly joined the Nazis the moment they had a chance
I was going to make a joke about history repeating but felt bad about the guys who were murdered on the frontlines, forcefully conscripted, because soylensky prevented them from moving somewhere safer so the west could have test subjects for their new weapons systems.
Not every AES state is social illiberal. Maybe laws are. But all the isms are very much prevalent in the west to an high degree as well. The “existence” of progressive neighbourhoods in Berlin, Cologne, London or San Fransisco does not erase this fact.
Mind that Burkina Faso nearly lost half the country to the Islamic state, these laws are there to keep Burkina Faso alive and appease/win back the muslim population.
I can only speak for myself but I always default to “none of us are free until all of us are free”.
First the defense contractor deals with Amerikkka and now this.
Wait, wut?
I assume love is referencing this: https://hexbear.net/post/5970055
Well… He’s a fucking dumbass then. They’re going to make him a lapdog or kill him if he doesn’t play ball. Does nobody read history?
They really hate France so much they might make some blunders looking toward the US. I’ve talked to a lot of residents of West African nations mentioned in that article on omegle-like sites and they really just hate the French so much it’s very many an “any other port” mentality at times.
I mean… Understandable.
Bro needs to read theory, the only people who deserve prison for existing are landlords.
Bro needs to read theory
Gotta ignore that one line in origin of family too.
You gotta ignore some Old Testament stuff
Actions like these don’t make much sense to me, especially as calculated moves. Why would they want to give ammo to NATO’s propaganda machine?
it is probably something that exists as the norm in the region - a search on wikipedia on neighbouring country ghana shows that lgbtq stuff has been outlawed since colonial times
their society is still an echo from previous iterations of society at the end of the day, and focusing intensely on the shortcomings on a country which is not aligned with western interests is a propaganda tactic - this rhetoric/sentiment is most likely common among the populace in neighbouring countries
it is probably something that exists as the norm in the region - a search on wikipedia on neighbouring country ghana shows that lgbtq stuff has been outlawed since colonial times
The leadership of a state doesn’t exactly have to follow such nonsense, so this explanation is not sufficient.
Furthermore, such views are not something that I understand, either.their society is still an echo from previous iterations of society at the end of the day, and focusing intensely on the shortcomings on a country which is not aligned with western interests is a propaganda tactic - this rhetoric/sentiment is most likely common among the populace in neighbouring countries
That just means that antagonising LGBT people makes it easier for NATO to engage in this propaganda warfare.
The leadership of a state doesn’t exactly have to follow such nonsense, so this explanation is not sufficient.
The leadership of the country doesn’t come out of nowhere. Many of the popular prejudices will be adopted by them.
I don’t think that that’s a good explanation. A country’s leadership is going to first consider their economic reasons, and, if some relevant superstructural stuff contradicts it, they can just ignore those, as they have always done.
I highly doubt that state leadership groups in general care about upholding minor individual prejudices when there is no evident benefit for a strong enough part of said leadership groups.Banning homosexuality doesn’t have an obvious answer as to how it could be such a problem for the economy.
Furthermore, base-superstructure relations are only pressures that nudge things on a large scale. On shorter scales things can happen contrary to what base-superstructure would predict.
Although… because of Burkina faso’s relative lack of capitalist development, traditional family norms haven’t broken down there fully. Meaning that the base-superstructure relationship actually predicts such laws to be passed.
Banning homosexuality doesn’t have an obvious answer as to how it could be such a problem for the economy.
It doesn’t seem to help the economy while antagonising a part of the population, which will help NATO’s activities against Burkina Faso. So, I’d say there is a very obvious con and no apparent pros for the economy.
Furthermore, base-superstructure relations are only pressures that nudge things on a large scale. On shorter scales things can happen contrary to what base-superstructure would predict.
I find it hard to believe that a state’s leadership would not be class conscious, and would not understand their individual interests and the interests of other members of the ruling class. Relevant interests seem to be very good predictors of behaviour in such cases.
State leaderships can also just make dumb decisions from time to time, some more than others.
The leadership of a state doesn’t exactly have to follow such nonsense, so this explanation is not sufficient. Furthermore, such views are not something that I understand, either.
i don’t really understand it fully tbh, the history of africa is foreign to me - that said i don’t think all things leadership do is always based in extensive theory and calculation - they see visibly the exploitation that has deprived the country of it’s own wealth (causing them to revolt and throw out the french), but may still harbour backwards views on certain topics (which is the product of their environment not thorough analysis)
the outlawing of the lgbtq is bad obviously. i am not trying to justify it - this is just analysis
i have met those in my life who are in leadership positions in local regions, that struggles for issues such as Palestine harbour stances that are backwards/ US talking points - it is often a reflection of these points being pushed on them very early and them taking it as gospel (as if there were not as existing ecosystem that has ulterior motives). it is just a product of being human and not always analyzing/poor analyses (of) their actions.
That just means that antagonising LGBT people makes it easier for NATO to engage in this propaganda warfare.
i don’t disagree, this is a more common perspective adopted. my wording is more me thinking in terms of systems and paying mind to how the liberal world order works to push forward it’s interests
Religious and already homophobic population, plus they’re allied with Russia more than NATO so I suppose they’re not bothered.
plus they’re allied with Russia more than NATO so I suppose they’re not bothered.
Why would that make them not be bothered about NATO’s aggression?
Well, they’ve taken a side, and NATO are preoccupied with Ukraine for now. At the end of the day though, a gay rights NGO is a drop in the ocean when you weigh it up against the amount of money they can throw to cause all sorts of problems in the region. Stir up ISIS, pay off mining contractors, other various soft power measures.
It sucks but unfortunately the average western gay rights NGO in Africa is part of that apparatus. No matter how well-intentioned its founders/staffers are, despite all their hypothetical best intentions, they’ll likely be operating entirely atop Western-HQ’d IT systems and their work in the region will functionally serve as a source of blackmail against locals and become in practice a vehicle to create pretexts for ISIS and destabilization that NATO will arm and finance in the area.
Stir up ISIS, pay off mining contractors, other various soft power measures.
That does not explain why they would be interested in implementing the policies and laws.
A saddening development, but critical support for AES. I know fuck all about Burkina Faso, but I can’t say I’m surprised. The west is generally considered to be much more socially liberal than the rest of the world, and we seem to be doing our damnedest to get rid of rights for anyone lgbtq
Realistically, we made major strides after breaking Jim Crow apartheid and the libs spent the whole time lording their social reforms over the global south while pillaging them and paving the way for a far right government to dismantle the same reforms.
A lot of international anti LGBT sentiment recently comes from a place of resentment against the west and was imposed by the west in the first place.
We only think we’re progressive because we have the attention span of goldfish.
Sodomy was illegal in parts of America in the 21st century and institutional homo/transphobia is coming back in america. We’re all much closer to the global south re social liberalism than we think
Damn last time I checked this had 20 comments, that was fine because there’s really not much to say Africa is conservative as fuck on lgbt stuff even in states that are economically progressive or somewhat anti-imperialist, one supports these anti-hegemonic states despite that
Who are they trying to please with this ? What’s the lawmaking process? I was under the impression the government currently mostly does whatever it wants so I’m trying to understand what actual purpose this even has. Are there groups they need to court the opinion of internally? Are they doing this because they’re aiming to appeal to groups externally elsewhere in Africa as part of expanding AES?
I’d just like some insight into what forces or pressures brought this about at a time when surely their biggest priority should be territorial control of their whole borders which are being fought over with the extreme islamic groups. Maybe that’s it? Maybe it cuts into one of the motivations those people have for fighting for them? I don’t know, speculating.
I have very limited knowledge but the explanation I got was the military is not secular enough and the average soldier is influenced by either old Catholic homophobia or newer Salafist homophobia, and the latter is used as a recruitment technique to pull soldiers to the Salafist militias who are the biggest threat to the current governments. The theory apparently is that making ‘deviant’ sexual behaviour illegal on paper means the propaganda cudgel is taken away from the militias but thje government never has to enforce it meaningfully when they decide to be allies- that last part seemed like cope on the person I was talking to’s part
Probably just trying to win over the conservative catholic and sunni groups
Who are they trying to please with this ? … I’m trying to understand what actual purpose this even has.
The Justice Minister, Edasso Rodrigue Bayala, defended the law as a measure to protect “cultural values,” warning that those who engage in what he described as “bizarre behaviour” would face legal consequences. To him, the law is less about criminal justice and more about safeguarding what he calls the moral fabric of society. For many within the ruling establishment, this step is about planting their flag firmly in the ground. An assertion of sovereignty in a global climate where local values and international rights discourse often collide.. The purpose is to crack down on unnatural behaviour that is incompatible with traditional society. There’s also the sovereignity angle of resisting un-African liberal ideas.
What’s the lawmaking process?
Parliament has passed it, now it needs the leader’s signature: https://ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/africa/Burkina-Faso-s-parliament-votes-to-outlaw-homosexual-acts-1998964
resisting un-African liberal ideas
I’m not an expert but I’m pretty sure that someone should tell Mr. Bayala that islamic/christcuckian style homophobia are technically “un-African ideas”.
lol
Its crazy that foreign countries’ pr teams spend any energy on this site, but not surprising that they dont spend enough time here to be able to read the room.
is it Awoo or Vampire that you’re stating represent a foreign country’s PR team? I don’t see any mention of hexbear in any of Vampire’s links.
what are you on about?
for starters, which countries are “foreign”?
obviously 99% of web users are going to be from a different country to you, and therefore not share your country’s political norms
secondly, wut?
for starters, which countries are “foreign”?
Most of them!
obviously 99% of web users are going to be from a different country to you, and therefore not share your country’s political norms
Yeah but hexbear is like 90% queer and calling homophobia an assertion of sovereignty isnt in contrast with my country’s political norms (homophobia is very common here!) But it is in contrast with this website’s
Awoo’s question is based on this line of thinking:
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Assume the Ouagadougou government isn’t homophobic
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Then they pass a homophobic law
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Therefore they must be passing the law to play 3D chess
They passed an anti-gay law coz they’re anti-gay. Let’s not overthink this.
It’s not 3D chess to consider whether there’s political reasons rather than cultural ones.
I think it’s safe to say whatever reasons may exist, they aren’t valid ones. I’m highly skeptical the “play” of throwing a bunch of your comrades under the bus like that is ever effective even in the most clinical analysis.
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obviously 99% of web users are going to be from a different country to you, and therefore not share your country’s political norms
huh?
The web is full of foreigners who don’t think like you.
yes i understand that part but the 99% doesn’t make sense with how web traffic is siloed by language and whatnot.
I was under the impression the government currently mostly does whatever it wants so I’m trying to understand what actual purpose this even has
gonna go ahead and assume it’s because they’re homophobic and they like homophobic policy.
The groups being recruited by ISIS/AQ.
I know we try to use LGBT movements as CIA fronts but this doesn’t feel like a reaction to that.
The CIA used to finance pro-LGBT groups in Cuba and Venezuela. When Cuba granted LGBTQ+ minorities most of the rights and guarantees they wanted via a democratic referendum, those groups lost all the popularity and funding they had. Nowadays, all these groups complain about is that there is usually a lack of proper medicine to help trans people with their transition, but they don’t mention that this is less the government’s fault and more the result of the U.S. embargo against Cuba. The Castro family and most of the leaders of the Communist Party of Cuba supported LGBTQ+ rights.
Venezuela is a different case; it is a more socially conservative and religious society than Cuba. While Chávez wasn’t homophobic, he basically ignored anything related to LGBTQ+ rights, which led the U.S. to do the same thing they did with Cuba. Maduro seems much more friendly toward LGBTQ+ groups, stating multiple times that he supports and respects them. It seems that Maduro has also cracked down on homophobic speech and views within the PSUV (Venezuela’s ruling party) and the government, though the military and police still hold some reactionary views.
Maduro has previously stated that he would approve same-sex marriage. He has reformed laws recently to allow LGBTQ+ people to serve in the army and to allow same-sex couples to adopt children. He wanted the National Assembly to approve a new constitution that would have recognized same-sex marriage and gender identity, but then Juan Guaidó declared himself president and attempted a coup in 2019, and since then, those two reforms have been stuck in limbo.
I just looked into the situation in Nepal and while the communists have moved much more progressive on the issue, pretty much all the LGBTQ organizations on a national level, most of the media and parades were all funded or formed by USAID. We really do just make everything a trojan horse, and we know damn well what we are doing
The rationale I see floating around is that it’s an attempt to mitigate recruitment efforts by ISIS separatists. In any case, it changes very little in day-to-day life since Burkina Faso is a homophobic society anyways. Burkina Faso when it was a French neocolony was about as homophobic as it is now.
I’m not even sure if Sankara himself was cool with queer people. People thinking he was are merely projecting what they want him to be or assuming that just because he combated widespread misogyny that he would be cool with queer people somehow. Can someone find a law that Sankara sponsored or even a speech Sankara made where Sankara gave his support to queer Burkinabe?
Not very cash money of mr traore
