One of the themes in the many debates on the issue of homosexuality in Africa over the last two decades has been the influence of Western homosexual identity on the continent. Beyond these controversies relating to the ‘identity’ of individuals or groups (Niang 2010), a concrete actual example of this influence can be seen in the collective movements that have arisen precisely as a result of the opportunity offered by ‘the fight against AIDS’ (Roberts 1995, Johnson 2007). In 2004, organisations mainly from anglophone countries came together in South Africa to set up a network of affiliated associations with the explicit objective of working together on human rights and on the prevention of HIV and AIDS among sexual minorities (Guéboguo 2008). With only a limited initial following in francophone African countries, the movement is supported by the ‘Africagay’ network3 started up in 2007 by Aides, the French anti-AIDS non-governmental organisation (NGO). This article explores how these struggles are communicated in daily life in Cameroon, where homosexuality remains punishable by imprisonment without remission, and by a fine of 20,000 to 200,000 CFA francs (approximately €16 to €304).4
This article also aims to understand the emergence of the ‘homosexual’ movement in Cameroon. It shows how individuals engaging in homosexual behaviour, who are not a homogeneous category (Epprecht 2008, Awondo 2010), ally themselves to the cause of ‘human rights’ (Ropp et al. 1999) in order to open up a new terrain of contestation. It describes the rise of organisations that provide a political conceptualisation and analysis of homosexuality in Cameroon by clarifying the interaction among multiple actors in the sphere of ‘private sexuality and politics’ (Anfred and Oinas 2009). The hypothesis is that this movement demonstrates a methodology in new struggles to redesign concepts of citizenship (Diouf 2003, Sall 2004, Banégas 2006). It illustrates how groups that were previously dominated are attempting to ‘renegotiate’ their place in society as citizens with ‘decent’, acceptable sexual practices. The article therefore also sets out to politically define the Cameroonian ‘constitution of the “homosexual” subject’ (Foucault 1976). Such an interpretation must necessarily take account of the moral issues around the much-debated emergence of ‘MSM’ activists (men who have sex with men5) (Niang 2004) as subjects of Bayart's ‘glocalisation’ (2004). This movement, which falls immediately within a ‘transnational ethical categorisation’ (Ropp et al. 1999) as an international resource, also reinforces an ideological dependence with regard to Western-based NGOs. For example, recently formed organisations in Cameroon had to fulfil a number of ‘identity’ conditions in order to receive external support. Three aspects will be analysed here. The first of these will be a diachronic examination of the politicisation of homosexuality in Cameroon, combined with criticism of the state – mainly by the press – against a background of moral panic (Herdt 2009) and post-colonial tensions (Toulou 2007). Second, an examination of the register of language used in the protests, seen through two organisations (Alternatives-Cameroun and the Association for the Defence of Homosexual Rights [ADEFHO]) that are active in the areas of the right to healthcare and the right to freedom of sexual expression: this reveals the connections established with transnational organisations. Finally, the central figures in the confrontation over homosexuality will be considered, from ‘activists’ of ‘sexual democratisation’ (Fassin 2006) to ‘cultural citizens’ (Gomez-Perez and Leblanc 2007) who sound the ‘moral’ alarm in order to maintain the sexual order. The analysis of this recent movement thus forms part of a body of work critiquing the political process approach, whereby domination is organised by and around a single source of power (Armstrong and Bernstein 2008). As will be seen, the critique of homosexuality from many social actors forces groups mobilising for homosexual rights to diversify the targets of their campaigns from a simple focus on confrontation with the state.
Media coverage and ‘homosexuality’: from moral panic to the politicisation of sexuality
At the start of 2006, three independent Cameroonian newspapers published lists of public figures thought to be homosexual. The lists were headlined ‘List of queers’6, ‘Top 50 presumed homosexuals in Cameroon’ and ‘Homosexuality in top state positions’ by Nouvelle Afrique, L'Anecdote and La Météo respectively (Eboussi 2007). Before the lists were published, the archbishop of Yaoundé gave his homily during the Christmas 2005 holiday on ‘the homosexual problem’ that, he asserted, had become a passport for ‘preferential treatment’ in the public service and a means of ‘corrupting the youth … [and] threatening the stability of the family.’ In fact persistent rumours had been circulating in local newspapers calling into question the ‘homosexual’ phenomenon that ‘would slyly creep its way into local standards and morality’.7 The issue caused a shockwave across the country and increased the stigmatisation of homosexuality as an immoral and ‘unnatural’ practice.
In addition to criticism of homosexuality, the articles in the press challenging 11 government figures amounted to a direct attack on the government in power. The motives behind the attack seem therefore to have been much more political and economic than sexual, since there was as much criticism of political corruption (emphasising the illegitimacy of the government) as of corruption in the civil service and the means for social advancement (such as promotion on the basis of sexual favours). These seem to have been the grounds for the main argument adopted in relation to the ‘moralisation of political standards’ by journalists and religious actors, but also by youths who set up groups against homosexuality (see below). As asserted by Toulou (2007, p. 78): ‘In a context of post-authoritarian restructuring of power relations within the state, denouncing the immoral practices of the political leadership is entirely challenging their methods of government.’ For Toulou, stigmatising political elites on the grounds of homosexuality, understood as an amoral and covert practice, can be considered an attempt to discredit a political system considered corrupt on account of its lack of transparency.
Some of the ‘public figures’ in the press lists instituted proceedings against the publishers of the newspapers that printed the lists (Abéga 2007). Local media followed the progress of these court cases and organised marches in support of journalists accused of ‘defamation’. The crowds that marched to the law courts to jeer at the public figures and their defence lawyers confirmed that the ‘homosexuality scandal’ in Cameroon could be understood as a political confrontation between, on the one hand, a local press in multiple crisis (Atenga 2005) trying to position itself in a ‘moral market’ (in a context of increasingly diverse moral entrepreneurs), and on the other hand political elites seen as responsible for the country's decline.
Post-colonial tensions were another factor in the politicisation of the issue of homosexuality. For one section of the press, the use of homosexuality as a means of ‘political advancement’ within the state apparatus had been introduced by Louis-Paul Aujoulat, the historic figure in the French administration who had represented Cameroon in the French National Assembly on the eve of decolonisation. He also helped form the elite that inherited power at independence in 1960. In this context, putting homosexuality on public trial reopened criticism of the post-colonial state, while at the same time highlighting colonial responsibility for the moral degeneration of the country. The premise here was on the extraneous origins of homosexuality making it an avatar of colonialism and, above all, a symbol of the fawning compromise between the current political elite (some of whose members had known Aujoulat) and France, the former colonial power.
One of the most significant articles, written by a former leader of the nationalist party Union des Populations du Cameroun (UPC) (Union of the Peoples of Cameroon), appeared in Messager, the country's biggest independent daily newspaper, in March 2006. It contrasted the two historical figures of Dr Aujoulat, who had ‘formed’ the political elite and was seen as responsible for what the article called the ‘curse of Aujoulat’, i.e. homosexuality, and Dr Félix Moumié, the UPC party leader who had continued the nationalist struggle after independence and had been assassinated with the help of the French secret services in November 1960 during his exile in Switzerland. These two figures thus embodied the post-colonial process in a context where the nationalist memory remained ‘en errance’8 (Mbembe 1986). Using homosexuality as a means to politically discredit and put the state on trial casts light on the interaction between various actors seeking to assert their right to define public morality, including the contest of the press versus politicians. It will be seen below how this stigma of colonialism could be used against those mobilising in support of homosexuality.
Social movements: from ‘economies of private sexuality’ to ‘reconfiguring citizenship’
One of the bases for interpreting the ‘movements’ that spread across Cameroon in the wake of the ‘gay list scandal’ can be seen in the behaviour of actors within the political arena and political economies of private sexuality (Anfred and Oinas 2009). There are three players to be considered: first, the press, who (posing as civil society) decided to make the private (sexual) lives of men in public life into a political matter for moral judgment. Second, the organisations, which also gave publicity to private matters from a perspective of ‘fundamental rights’ (ADEFHO) and as a medical issue justifying public action; and third, the President of the Republic, who in a landmark speech in February 2006, defined the issue as being outside the remit of the public authorities and relegated it to the private sphere. Many ideas therefore emerge from this: an ‘exposure’ of politicians who had hitherto been protected as statesmen and who were now being challenged by the press's argument that ‘sexual immorality’ in the private lives of public figures had public repercussions (Pommerolle 2008). This exposure was picked up by organisations campaigning for greater recognition (Fraser 2000), which saw publicity about private sexuality as a strategic opportunity to gain greater legitimacy; and the politicians themselves, trying to maintain their privacy and keep private and public life separate. This political activity on the margins of ‘private sexuality’ reveals an ongoing discussion around the issue of ‘reconfiguring citizenship’, i.e. a new way of existing and being in a post-authoritarian space that puts at its centre an aspect that has rarely informed struggles in post-colonial Africa: people's sexuality. While one can think of a number of anti-authority protests that have mobilised youth (Banégas 2006), that have mobilised people for development (Sall 2004) or used forms of cultural activism in monitoring the public arena (Diouf 2003, Gomez-Perez and Leblanc 2007), the idea of the ‘sexual citizen’, i.e. someone that demands rights linked to his or her sexuality, has not often been publicly expressed.9 In this respect, this activism on the part of the organisations supporting homosexual rights constitutes a defining moment in reconfiguring the meaning of citizenship in Cameroon, and raises the issue of ‘sexual democratisation’, that is ‘the extension of the democratic domain, with the growing politicisation of issues of gender and sexuality’ (Fassin 2006), which has now become a major subject in Africa, but which has been little analysed to date.
ADEFHO: the start of mobilisation and public defence of the ‘homosexual defendants’
In the first three months of 2006, some 30 individuals, most of them youths, were in detention for homosexual offences in the central prisons in Yaoundé and Douala. In the longest-standing group in Yaoundé prison (most of those detained since 2005), there were 17 people, aged between 16 and 31. A few months previously, a woman of about 60 had undertaken to get these young people freed. The lawyer Alice Nkom, called to the bar in Douala, explicitly took on the defence of the men and made public announcements about the organisation for the defence of homosexual people's rights, ADEFHO, of which she was the chair. Nkom amazed the press and intrigued public opinion by her pugnacity and commitment, and was soon at the centre of an anti-authority group fighting for ‘the right to freedom of sexual expression’. In between hearings where she denounced the ‘illegality of the law’ condemning homosexuality, and the legal ‘technicalities’ used in the arrests of the accused, she was interviewed by local and international radio and television channels. ADEFHO, it was revealed, had in fact been set up in 2003 and its registered address was in one of the districts of Douala. According to the lawyer: ‘The organisation had more than 50 members, but they wished to remain anonymous because of social harassment and the risk of prosecution’ (Interview, Douala, June 2006). It was hard to find out how many active members there were in ADEFHO, particularly because arrests for homosexuality were increasing throughout the country, forcing its members into hiding. The fact that the organisation had been in existence since 2003 thus invalidates the widespread view that homosexual movements on the continent had emerged only in response to the AIDS crisis (Guéboguo 2008). The experience of ADEFHO in fact shows that the public linking of political analysis and (homo)sexuality described above increased the visibility of small networks of organisations already in existence. Therefore, if the ‘gay scandal’ had not directly involved the state via some of its representatives, these organisations would have remained largely anonymous. This politicisation, which gave a new visibility to gay sexuality, opened up new possibilities for many organisations, particularly AIDS-related bodies, as will be seen below.
The chair of ADEFHO, ‘Mom’ as she was called by the handful of young people who went nearly everywhere with her, was soon dubbed ‘the homosexuals’ champion' by the press. This placed homosexuality on the front page of newspapers that were generally not concerned about those held in prison. Alice Nkom adopted a radical line of defence, declaring Article 347b in the Cameroon penal code, relating to case law on homosexuality, to be invalid. Her reasoning was thus: ‘this law that was part of the legal framework under the first republic is in contradiction with the constitutional amendment of 1996 in Cameroon that stipulated that any law not formally adopted by the National Assembly of the Republic may not be enforced’ (Interview, Yaoundé, March 2006). This radical line of defence earned her the friendship of young people in Yaoundé and Douala who engaged in homosexual behaviour. Away from the extensive publicity that followed this declaration, a nucleus of young, mostly middle class, people mainly working in the private sector but also in government offices, formed around her legal offices. It was this nucleus of individuals around Alice Nkom that instigated the first crusade for human rights for homosexuals in Cameroon, generating the greatest media coverage since the arrival of the multi-party system in the 1990s.
Categorising systems of protest: from human rights to the politics of recognition
ADEFHO's campaign began to resemble a struggle for recognition in the sense that Fraser (2000), reversing ‘misrecognition’, speaks of citizen recognition as a ‘status’. It was within this logic that the first press releases from an ‘arbitrarily stigmatised’ group were made public on the international stage and gave form to the first transnational links on behalf of ‘Cameroonian homosexuals and MSMs’. This appeared to be the first phase described by Ropp et al. (1999, p. 5), during which campaigners place violations of rights on the international agenda via ‘moral consciousness-raising’. Messages of support were passed to ADEFHO via campaigning gay and human rights websites mainly in France, but also in South Africa. Amnesty International, the Belgium-based International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA), Interassociative lesbienne, gaie, bi et trans (Inter-LGBT), Behind the Mask in South Africa and many Western NGOs quickly reacted with petitions, press releases and widespread calls for support. The main theme in these initiatives was constant reference to the rhetoric of ‘human rights’, and more specifically to the ‘right to freedom of sexual expression’, seen as a fundamental and inalienable human right.
This international rhetoric was then reinforced from within Cameroon by ADEFHO, which judged Cameroon's democracy in terms of its ability to promote equality of the sexes and of sexual practices. Cameroon, as a signatory of the Geneva Convention on Human Rights, is often criticised for not respecting the fundamental rights of its citizens. Following ADEFHO's initiative, human rights, the strong link in Bayart's ‘transnational ethical norms’ (2004), were thus promoted in such a way that the category of homosexuality in Cameroon would be made visible, countering the local media discourse that ‘dehumanised’ the practice. In April 2006, Alice Nkom was invited to Geneva by an international homosexual rights NGO. Accompanied by two young Cameroonian activists, a lawyer and a student, she called for urgent action in support of ‘Cameroonian homosexuals’, and initiated the tactic of ‘homosexual testimony’10 on the international stage, which was to become the main weapon in this type of campaigning. The struggle was taken up globally, enabling the raising of funds for the 17 people imprisoned in Yaoundé.
In June 2006, the 17 young men were freed. This first victory by ADEFHO – winning the dismissal of charges on the grounds of lack of proof and legal technicalities – was a great boost for the young campaigning movement. The press, however, denounced the international pressures that, some suggested, contributed to the acquittals. It can be seen from this that the success of mobilising resources and support from Western organisations was turned into a stigma (Ropp et al., 1999). Nkom's open demands for decriminalisation and her appearances in the international media drew the anger of the press, which saw her actions as an extension of ‘Western’ debates that were unjustified in the local context. For example, in an interview with Radio France International (RFI), Nkom made a scathing attack on the Cameroonian law against homosexuality and accused the country's minister for justice of homophobia (Interview, Alice Nkom, RFI, ‘Journal Afrique’, 21 August 2007 at 0530, 0630 and 0730, noted by Bernard Najotte). This resulted in the hastily formed ‘Collectif des magistrats Camerounais’ (judges' association of Cameroon) registering a formal complaint against Nkom of defamation and incitement to commit criminal acts. When the lawyer came to defend her clients at the law courts in the administrative centre of Yaoundé, she was placed in preventive detention and only released at the end of the day. The suspicion of homosexuality that had hung over the elites, regarded as a symbol of the fawning compromise with Western colonialism, was turned back on Nkom by the judges in an effort to discredit her politically. The resulting risk of stigma frightened off a number of ADEFHO's young supporters, for whom discretion was a necessary way of life (Broqua 2007). This turn of events suggests the need to closely examine the area of internal pressures (in a post-authoritarian period), and how it tends to ‘demobilise’ people, by means of intimidation and repression against all subversive movements (Pommerolle 2008). In this particular case, the attempt at destabilisation was also linked to a populist option, as a number of elite groups within the judiciary had been disturbed at the rising fame of Alice Nkom.
Alternatives-Cameroun and the ‘MSM’ fight against AIDS
At the end of 2006, one group of young people left ADEFHO and, led by a young doctor in private practice, started meeting regularly in Douala. Along with a young researcher in social sciences and a Cameroonian homosexual activist living in England who was passing through Cameroon, the doctor formed an association demanding more rights for individuals engaging in (homo)sexual behaviour, including equality before the law. Many young people joined the organisation as members and, after its first meeting in Douala, a committee was formed and two offices were set up in Douala and Yaoundé. The founding charter of the association legally constituted it as a ‘human rights organisation’ whose policy was particularly connected with young people and sexual minorities. According to the chair of the organisation, ‘the advantage of human rights as a motive is that it covers a wide range of things and enables you not to be disturbed by the authorities or watched by the administration’ (Interview, December 2007). Another member argued that ‘human rights are a pretext that gives the organisation a legal status – otherwise it wouldn't be able to exist.’ At this stage, the organisation had 30 active members and a committee elected by a general assembly that met twice a year. As will be seen, the expansion of the organisation shows that the construction of the self, in the Foucauldian sense of ‘subjectivation’, compels these people to submit to a domain of homosexual activism within an ‘international civil society via the intermediary of the gay organisation movement’ (Bayart 2004). In fact affiliation to this international movement preceded the existence of the organisation as a condition for gaining the international support and protection. As Siméant (2008) observed at the World Social Forum in Nairobi in 2007, with the ‘Queer Spot’ allowing people engaging in homosexual behaviours ‘to be heard’, the international support is part of a ‘visibility strategy’ for African activists against the background of international protection afforded by ILGA in Nairobi.
The two young people who accompanied Alice Nkom on her trip to Europe in 2006 made initial contacts with international gay rights organisations and subsequently strengthened these contacts via the Internet. At first, the new organisation announced that it would be providing legal support for people being persecuted for their sexual behaviour, but it quickly focused on the fight against AIDS among MSMs, an internationally sanctioned public health category. Alternatives-Cameroun, unlike ADEFHO, was soon provided with a head office, thanks to the support it received from (French) partner organisations such as Sidaction or Aides and American organisations such as Amfar.
In its first months of existence, Alternatives-Cameroun provided legal support for individuals imprisoned for their homosexuality, alongside its campaign work on the prevention of AIDS. This division in its campaigning activities caused problems with ADEFHO and was the first cause of tension between the two organisations. These were exacerbated by Alternatives-Cameroun's membership criteria. While ADEFHO had left the question of identity open (given that Nkom was herself heterosexual), Alternatives-Cameroun approached the issue in radical terms. A phrase from a speech by Alternatives-Cameroun's leader became the group's slogan: ‘you can't keep talking about us as a problem; gays aren't a problem, they're part of the solution’ (Interview, Yaoundé, December 2007).
The organisation's approach, increasingly focused on the question of identity and with regaining control of the homosexual rights campaign, was a part of Alternatives-Cameroun's ‘extraversion’ strategies. They were responding to the identity model of homosexual organisations in the West, but also in South Africa. Their recent contact with gay activists in Europe (Act-UP-Paris, Aides, Inter-LGBT) and South Africans (Behind the Mask, ILGA-Africa and others) enabled Alternatives-Cameroun's leaders to form strong relationships and to join already developed transnational protest networks. The young Cameroonians in the organisation were asked to take control of the struggle and not leave it in the hands of a heterosexual woman. They were strongly encouraged in this direction by their peers in their Western and South African partner organisations,11 having attended meetings to which ADEFHO's Alice Nkom had not been invited. These and other ‘summer school’ conferences organised for young or potential members served as potential learning spaces for young men to be initiated into issues of homosexual identity and activism.
When Alternatives-Cameroun released its first half-year report in 2007, the organisation was already well known internationally and was enjoying a level of credibility arising from the fact that all its committee members were young men who had come out as homosexual. Moreover, as is often the case, the dominant personality of the organisation's founding chair, the doctor, had gained the trust of large NGOs such as Aides or Sidaction, which came to see that, by supporting Alternatives-Cameroun they could reorient their activities towards the MSM group that they would not otherwise be able to reach. This refocusing of Alternatives from sexual rights to sexual health rights illustrates the process of ‘socialisation of international norms and discourses and practice’ in the domestic context, as analysed by Ropp et al. (1999). It is also an example of the ‘boomerang model’ (Keck and Sikkink 1998) which exists when domestic groups in repressive states bypass their states and directly search out international allies to try to bring pressure on their state. It is worth pointing out that nothing had previously been done by the Cameroonian government to combat AIDS within the MSM group. Unlike ADEFHO, whose chair was constantly in the Cameroon media, to the extent that she became a favoured focus for their stories, Alternatives-Cameroun was more externally focused and remained little known by the wider domestic public.
The enforced neutrality of the state
Following his speech denouncing the ‘gay list press’ in February 2006, Cameroon's president was repeatedly called upon to arbitrate in the dispute that brought one part of the press and ‘civil society’ into conflict with new organisations campaigning for the rights of ‘homosexuals’. It can be seen from this how this struggle was distinct from the collective aggregation mechanisms that historically characterised socio-political conflict in Cameroon, either those linked to the nationalist movement (Joseph 1977, Mbembe 1986) or pro-reform protests initiated by students in the context of the multi-party democracy (Pommerolle 2007). From the start of the homosexual rights movement, the two organisations, both against the established sexual order, were never truly opposed to the state in the sense that the latter might have been identified as the ‘enemy to beat’. The character of the two organisations is demonstrated in how each saw the state as both a ‘protector’ and guarantor of the state of law, but also as a potential ‘ally’ working towards the decriminalisation of homosexual behaviour.
In an interview, Nkom highlighted ‘the confidence that has been placed in the country's leaders’ (Interview, Alice Nkom, on RFI Journal Afrique, 21 August 2007 at 0530, noted by Bernard Najotte). She quoted directly from the President's speech of February 2006, saying that the president of the Republic had ‘reminded us in 2006 that’:
This society of freedom and progress that we are trying to build implies common attachment to the democratic institutions which we are putting in place … Writing and communicating are, of course, a way of expressing our freedom. But freedom knows limits imposed by respect for privacy … (République du Cameroun 2006)
In a similar vein, an open letter in June 2007 from Alternatives-Cameroun to the President of the Republic referred to the head of state's role of ‘father and protector’, spoke of his February 2006 speech as ‘progressive’, and urged him to forge ahead with his ‘democratic’ choices. This effective ‘compact’ with the government can be interpreted in more than one way: in one respect, the state, represented by the people named in the newspaper lists, had been indicted by the press and part of society. The state, like the ‘presumed homosexual young men’ defended by ADEFHO, was therefore among the victims of the public conspiracy. The activists were thus calling on the state not just as a guardian figure. Moreover, as observed by Bernstein (1997), interaction between activists and ‘state actors’ is dependent not only on the political environment, but also on the (social) opposition that they face. This nucleus of actors also determines how discursive categories are used by campaigners and activists. The power of the state can therefore not be the sole, exclusive focus of activism, given that there are various sources that have authority and can influence society, as was shown in the insulting messages delivered by the press and religious figures.
A ‘multi-institutional approach to the political sphere’, such as that put forward by Armstrong and Bernstein (2008), is therefore relevant here in order to understand the rhetoric used by the activists. Such an approach sheds light on the situation in which the state found itself. Consequently, any confrontation by the activists with the state would appear inappropriate. Moreover, the emerging campaigns strategy drew on the lexicon of universal human rights (in the case of ADEFHO), leaving aside the question of ‘homosexual identity’ that is a central part of European or South African campaigning, and towards which these external actors are trying to steer the focus. In contrast, the strategy in Cameroon involves not directly confronting the executive power, but using language that reconciles homosexual behaviour with ‘republican’ ideals of respect for individuals' private lives. This therefore links directly to the ‘African struggles’ of the post-‘democratisation’ period, seen as struggles to renegotiate what it means to be a citizen. Sall (2004, p. 595) speaks of the role of ‘social movement[s] in the renegotiation of the bases of citizenship’ and confirms that these particular struggles raise the issue of ‘belonging and citizenship’, that is ‘how societies [in Africa] try to secure the access of the public spheres, that are themselves in the process of being transformed’.
Contrasting organisational and leadership trajectories
This study of the two homosexual rights organisations reveals two opposing models of social mobilisation, each operating in different spheres. While the models show real dynamism in the recently formed organisations, the potentially harmful competition between them, related to access to international resources, is also evident. The legal model appears to have been monopolised by ADEFHO and Alice Nkom, whose primary motive for involvement related to the fact that she was regularly called upon by people engaging in homosexual behaviour. Her capacity to tackle such a difficult subject was also linked to her earlier role in the feminist struggle. For the doctor who established Alternatives-Cameroun, the MSM fight against AIDS became the main battle. After treating men engaging in homosexual practices through community networking, he had decided to take a different direction to that chosen by the lawyer whose organisation he had belonged to since before the events of 2006. His view was that ‘it was time that homosexual men took a hand in their struggle’ (Interview, Douala, December 2007).
These personal histories aside, there seems to be an apparent division in the sharing of knowledge and legitimacy of the protests that confirms the professionalisation of social movements identified in the early 2000s by Eboko and Mandjem (2010). This does not, however, exclude the possibility that the two organisations' activities were very similar, and that it was this that exacerbated the rivalry between them. For example, at the end of 2008, Alternatives-Cameroun launched a campaign advocating the decriminalisation of homosexuality in Cameroon. When ADEFHO was invited to join the campaign, they distanced themselves from it, with ADEFHO's vice-chair maintaining that Alternatives-Cameroun lacked the necessary legal expertise. He criticised the advocacy campaign in these terms:
The people at Alternatives are forgetting that we at ADEFHO launched a decriminalisation initiative in 2006 aimed at the constitutional council, which is the only body with the authority to do this. Alternatives is saying that this can be done by the national assembly, but that's inconceivable; you see, they don't know anything about law and should be content with treating people. (Interview, December 2009)
This disagreement between the two organisations, linked in part to competition for access to resources at the international level, also has other roots. Alternatives-Cameroun and its rapid expansion was linked as much to the fact that its chair and the majority of its members are male ‘homosexuals’ (who have declared themselves as such) as to the chair's status as a health professional. Indeed, recruiting and introducing new male members is a requirement for joining the transnational networks, at least in the case of Alternatives. Since its formation in 2003, ADEFHO has in fact received very little material support from transnational organisations, and only exists thanks to Nkom. However, Alternatives receives enthusiastic support – funding, logistics and human resources – from many Western NGOs, and for a variety of activities, including non-health activities. For example, Alternatives obtained observer status with the African Commission on Human and People's Rights, while ADEFHO had been unable to achieve this since it was established.
Accordingly, the fact that ADEFHO's leader was a woman and that she did not seek any connection with lesbian organisations which might potentially have been supportive of the organisation's work, shows that gender divisions and issues of sexual identity overrode international perceptions of the work being carried out on the ground. The two organisations studied in this article hence exemplify two forms of vulnerability brought about by the spread of the homosexual cause. On the one hand one finds that the priorities of the international agenda, in this case the ‘health risks for MSMs’, therefore become the priority for the Western and South African identity-based organisations, while on the other hand there is the reality that some categories of homosexual identity and behaviour are excluded by this prioritisation. Women engaging in homosexual practices would fall into this second category, ultimately making them victims of their dominated status. In this way, the identity conditions imposed in the transnational male homosexual organisations have led to a cleavage between male homosexual and lesbian causes, which is in no way reflected in everyday experience. This separation has led to the work of an organisation such as ADEFHO being passed over and disregarded. While that organisation had not adopted an ‘extraversion’ strategy, it was no less central and credible an actor than Alternatives in advancing the ‘homosexual cause’ in Cameroon. Likewise, it appears that the fight against AIDS enabled organisations to obtain support in a relatively short time (as in the case of Alternatives), whereas ‘the right to freedom of sexual expression’ appeared less remunerative from this point of view (as was the case for ADEFHO).
The confrontation between ‘homosexual organisations’ and new ‘cultural citizens’
The concept of ‘cultural citizenship’ proposed by Miller (1998) in a study of the mass media, used to refer to the practices of spectators that reconfigure public spaces and to citizenship issues in democratic societies, has proven useful in understanding young Muslims and other groups seeking to influence the political and moral debate in West Africa (Gomez-Perez and Leblanc 2007). Their work provided a basis for analysing a ‘counter-movement’ that had arisen in Cameroon in order to combat homosexuality. Formed by former student leaders, this group demonstrates the need to be mindful of differences when placing ‘rebels’ to the sexual order in opposition to ‘cultural citizens’, thus highlighting morality and African cultural exceptionalism as a form of citizenship. In February 2006, the local daily newspaper, the Messager, published a press release from SOS Jeunes, a group established to say ‘no’ to homosexuality:
As young Cameroonians … we affirm, in the light of our African traditions and of the texts of revealed religions, that homosexuality is an infamy that young Africans, following the example of their forefathers, must firmly condemn and must purge from the African city.
Therefore … the youth of Cameroon declares, in the light of all the above, that its watchword is: Homosexuality = zero tolerance, zero debate. (Declaration of the official launch of Operation ‘Red card to homosexuality!’)
Second, this turn of events also reveals competition between different moral actors: members of established religious orders, particularly Catholics, feeling overtaken by the ‘new Pentecostal churches’ (Lasseur 2005), found in this debate on homosexuality a means of repositioning themselves in the battle for ‘spiritual goods’. The privately owned press is another of these moral actors. Tainted by corruption scandals in recent years (Atenga 2005) and adversely affected by the economic crisis, the private press sought to regain its position in the moral debate by launching a crusade against homosexuality, which was explosive because it combined the topicality of corruption among the political elite with the issue of access to employment in a context of mass unemployment. This interaction between moral actors helps us to understand the arguments put forward by SOS Jeunes.
Conclusion
This article sought to explain how, in terms of their day-to-day work, activist organisations communicate their campaign for ‘homosexual’ people's rights in Cameroon. It has demonstrated the multiplicity of actors in both the personal and political spheres. If the work in Cameroon of ADEFHO and Alternatives-Cameroun shows that the issue of homosexuality can indeed now be tackled in public, notably by the lawyer Alice Nkom in the media, then the ‘Red card’ counter-offensive against homosexuality launched by SOS Jeunes is a reminder that the scope for such campaigning needs to be kept in perspective. The dependence of the pro-homosexual movement on international support demonstrated by Alternatives-Cameroun from the time of its formation, and, more recently (but no less significantly) by ADEFHO, confirms that the furtherance of causes via engagement at the international level, while offering substantial resources to campaigners, is played out on an uneven and unequal playing field. As Pommerolle observed (Conference speech, Africa's Struggles, University of Paris I - Sorbonne, January 2010):
If these external actors sometimes provide protection or a refuge, these are the people who can give access to the international media and to the international arena, to financial resources and to contacts. These are the people who decide on the skills now considered appropriate and effective, and who supply training or assistance.
Note on contributor
Patrick Awondo has been studying for a Doctorate in Sociology at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, EHESS-Paris, since 2008. His thesis is on the subject of homosexual migrations and trajectories from Cameroon to France in a time of AIDS. He is also a junior researcher in the Unité de Recherche ‘Migrations et Societé’, part of the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, a French public science and technology research institute, which works with and aims to contribute to the sustainable development of the countries of the South.