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Remembering Simon Nkoli’s intersectional activism: race issues, LGBTQIA+ rights and sexual health

30 October 2024 Photo Supplied

Opinion article by Bokang Fako, Research Assistant at the Free State Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of the Free State.

It has been an eventful year, with historical highlights in our country. This year marks 30 years since we were declared a democratic state and the same year we held our 7th general elections, the results of which produced a Government of National Unity (GNU). October 2024 also marks 34 years since Africa’s first Gay Pride march, which took place on 13 October 1990 in Johannesburg. The march was organised by Simon Nkoli, together with Beverly Ditsie, Edwin Cameron, and other activists who were part of the GLOW collective. On this day, about 800 members of the LGBTQA+ community gathered to celebrate their queer identities and speak against the discrimination they continued to endure under the apartheid regime. They highlighted their experiences as black people who were also queer who had to navigate a racist and sexist regime that continued to marginalise them.

This year’s historical events serve as a reminder of how nuanced, multiplicitious and intertwined our experiences and struggles are as a country. Yet there exists a dominant narrative that is biased and rooted in a heterosexist mandate that essentialises a one-sided experience which distorts the complete story. The danger of amplifying one part of history while suppressing the other parts results in the erasure of significant parts of history which make up the entire narrative. We are left with experiences that have been assumed to represent the experiences of the entire people. If we do not speak or write about South African Pride Month with the same enthusiasm as we are about other historical events, we are not telling the whole truth.

This perpetual epistemic erasure of minority groups from historical narratives is why I want to accentuate Simon Tseko Nkoli’s intersectional activism during the apartheid regime and how his work has significantly influenced this country’s socio-political trajectory. The current narrative around apartheid and the progressive political figures who were involved in the struggle is one that is biased, only celebrating mainstream figures who are often cis-heterosexual men, instead of black women and queer people.

Nkoli’s activism embodies the tenets of intersectional feminism, which teaches us to acknowledge the multidimensional experiences of black women in the context of how areas of class, gender, race and sexuality interact with one another and the distinct levels of discriminations these produce. Intersectional feminism basically argues that, due to layered identities, cis-heterosexual black men experience racism far differently to how black queer women experience it. It becomes imperative for anti-discrimination interventions to centre this approach into attempts to eradicate discrimination.

At the time when black people were oppressed under the apartheid regime and the struggle was deemed to only be between blacks and whites, Nkoli, as a black gay man with a layered existence, did not compartmentalise his identities, nor did he prioritise one over the other. Nkoli recognised that it is not possible to be black first and gay second, that both issues are intertwined and can be linked to other social issues, including sexual health.

Anti-apartheid

Nkoli joined politics from a very early age. He formed part of the Congress of the South African Students (COSAS) where he served as a secretary and was almost forced to relinquish his position due to his sexuality but was eventually retained when his fellow comrades conceded to accept him for who he was. In 1984, Nkoli was arrested alongside 22 other political figures for protesting against the unfair increase of rents in Sebokeng. He, alongside his comrades, was detained and charged with treason, the sentence for which, was the death penalty. The charges were exaggerated because they were associated with the United Democratic Front (UDF) which was deemed a threat by the apartheid government. Their trial was notoriously known as the Delmas Treason Trial, the most prolonged political trial in the history of this country. Even while in prison for this matter, Simon’s sexuality was still a matter of contention.

LGBTQIA+ rights

When he publicly declared his sexuality at the age at 20, he was met with resistance that was exacerbated by his anti-apartheid activism. The resistance was escalated by his romantic relationship with a white man, Roy Shepherd, because of the pervasive racial divisions. He was not deterred by this, which led to the establishment of the Gay and Lesbian Organisation of the Witswatersrand (GLOW) through which he would highlight the intersections between race and sexual identity and helped highlight the existence and experiences of LGBTQIA+ people during the apartheid regime. GLOW was formed as a deliberate deviation from the Gay and Lesbian Association (GASA), which was predominately white-led and non-political and did not speak out against racial issues. While working alongside other queer activists through GLOW, they organised the first Gay Pride in South Africa, the very first Gay Pride in Africa. Through this organisation they raised awareness about the lives and experiences of LGBTQIA+ people. The movement ensured that the rights of the LGBTQIA+ people are recognised and fully acknowledged in the new constitution as we transitioned into a democratic country.

“If you are black and gay in South Africa, then it really is all the same closet … inside is darkness and oppression. Outside is freedom.”

Sexual health activism

He experienced homophobia in prison and was diagnosed with HIV there but could not access medication for some time. He spoke openly about his diagnosis to raise awareness about the pandemic and eventually helped of form part of the Townships Aids Project and publicly identified as a “Positive African Man”. His advocacy on HIV and AIDS was instrumental in raising awareness about the virus, primarily because it was at a time when society was not heeding warning calls about practising safe sex. There was massive stigma around the disease and homosexuality. Meanwhile, more people were getting infected and ARVs were not freely available. Nkoli contextualised his blackness and sexuality in speaking about his status, access to medication and making sense of the HIV pandemic.

I believe South Africa’s historical narratives often erase Nkoli’s activism because he does not fit the conventional struggle-icon parameters which are rooted in hetero-patriarchal standards. His queer identity places him on the margins. His work was influential and important to the struggle, but always decentred, for similar reasons Nelson Mandela was more idolised than Winnie. Patriarchy thrives on placing black cis-gendered men on the pedestal, which is often at the expense and erasure of the minoritised groups.

Nkoli’s activism teaches an important lesson about the nuanced approach to social justice and anti-discrimination issues. I learnt from him that struggles are connected, and some inform the others or create new forms of discrimination. He simultaneously, prioritised being black, gay and living with HIV, to emphasise that our existence is not monolithic. It is because of Nkoli’s work that I recognise and speak for the struggle of black queer people, not only in South Africa, but across the continent, particularly where the criminalisation of homosexuality is still prevalent. We may be demarcated by borders or distinguished by social identities, but it would be ahistorical to disregard how our lives and experiences are intertwined, just as our histories of systems of violence and oppression are intertwined.

So when we theorise and discourse about South African history, when we commemorate and reflect on how far we have come, may we always remember Nkoli’s work because even in his death, he is as much of a struggle icon as the rest of them.

News Archive

During 2011: Appointments

2011-12-01

Dr Lis Lange: Senior Director: DIRAP

Dr Lis Lange, an Argentinean by birth, immigrated to South Africa twenty years ago – a few weeks after Nelson Mandela had walked through the gates of Victor Verster. For the past ten years, she has been involved in quality assurance for higher education institutions at the Council on Higher Education at national level.

She is assisting our university in the areas of quality assurance and academic planning, contributing to the development of deep intellectual debate and multi-disciplinary research.

Prof. Charles Dumas, Department of Drama and Theatre Arts

Prof. Charles Dumas, Extraordinary Professor in our Department of Drama and Theatre Arts, will be spending three months per year for the next three years at our university to help develop filmmaking, specifically focusing on the development of the Video Unit Planned for the Department.

Prof. Dumas started the year off with the production, Our Father’s Daughters, which was produced during the Mini-festival as well as at the Reitz Four reconciliation meeting. The production was also turned into a short film. Prof. Dumas gave film-acting classes to the third-year drama students. He directed multiple productions, such as the third-year module production Ipi Zombi, the Grahamstown Festival production, Seven Guitars and the Dance/drama production, Race, Reconciliation and the Reitz Four.

Prof. Daniel Plaatjies, UFS Business School

Prof. Daniel Plaatjies is the former Director and Head of the Graduate School of Public and Development Management at the University of the Witwatersrand. He was mainly responsible for the leading, directing and managing of strategic academic programmes, teaching, research, governance, service management and monitoring. Prof. Plaatjies, who was appointed as Visiting Professor at our Business School this year, will as part of his new duties at our Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences, be lecturing part-time and supervise our PhD students.

Prof. Johann Neethling, Department of Private Law

Prof. Johann Neethling’s career is now completing its full circle with his appointment as Senior Professor in our Department of Private Law. In 1965 he was a first-year at this university. With his nine law text books and nearly 200 articles, together with 40 years’ experience in academic training he is of inestimable value to this Department. His publications contribute to the establishment of our university as a research institute.

Prof. Hussein Solomon, Department of Political Science

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Prof. Hussein Solomon joined our university this year as Senior Professor in the Department of Political Science. Formerly he worked in peace NGOs, advised diplomats and acts as a serving officer in the South African Air Force.

His area of research expertise includes conflict and conflict resolution in Africa; South African Foreign Policy; international relations theory; religious fundamentalism and population movements within the developing world. He is also the author of a number of books, including one on global jihad and one on India's secret relationship with apartheid South Africa.

He is also member of the internationally renowned Our Humanity in the Balance (OHIB) organisation, where his role is to bring these disparate communities together and to focus energies on a common project.

Prof. André Keet, International Institute for Studies in Race, Reconciliation and Social Justice

Prof. André Keet, our Director of the International Institute for Studies in Race, Reconciliation and Social Justice, joined the University of Pretoria on a part-time basis in 2008, whilst being a Commissioner on the Commission for Gender Equality. Later he left the Commission and joined the University of Fort Hare. “I was happy to join academia and now also serve on the Stellenbosch University Council; therefore I am very aware of the challenges facing higher education,” he said.

His vision for the Institute is to support higher-education transformation, promote non-discrimination, reconciliation and human rights, build national, regional and international networks, and developing ‘new’ languages, knowledge and discourses for reconciliation and social justice, all to the benefit of our university and South Africa.”

Prof. Helene Strauss, Department of English

Prof. Helene Strauss completed her PhD at the University of Western Ontario, London, Canada, where she taught courses on Film Studies, Children’s Literature and South African Literature and Culture. “I was subsequently appointed as an Assistant Professor in the Department of English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada.” She joined our Department of English this year.

Prof. Strauss has an on-going preoccupation with questions concerning social justice, race, gender and ethical interpersonal interaction in South Africa and beyond.

Prof. EC Ejiogu, Centre for Africa Studies

After 22 years in the United States of America, Prof. EC Ejiogu decided to return to Africa – to his roots – to join our university’s Centre for Africa Studies at the beginning of 2011.

Before joining the Centre, he was Assistant Research Professor in the Centre for Innovation at the University of Maryland, College Park. As Senior Researcher at the Centre, he has already helped with the streamlining of the academic programme, restructuring it to enable students to gain skills necessary to deliver a research proposal towards a dissertation after their three years of study. He has also taken up PhD and Master’s supervision.

His latest publications include a book published in March 2011 with the title, Roots of Political Instability in Nigeria, and a book co-edited with Prof. Kwandiwe Kondlo, Director of the Centre for Africa Studies, Africa in focus: Governance in the 21st century, published in April 2011.

Pura Mgolombane, Vice-Dean: Student Affairs

Bringing with him a decade of experience in Student Affairs our new Assistant-Dean for Student Life and Leadership, Pura Mgolombane, has big plans for student development. He says his office wants to help Kovsies increase its throughput rate and produce socially well-adjusted and employable graduates in South Africa, the continent and anywhere in the world.

Before joining Kovsies, he was employed as Director: Student Life, Governance and Culture at Walter Sisulu University. Pura, who has a background in Human Resources, Business Management and Corporate Law, says his academic training has empowered him with skills to ensure that the Student Life and Leadership is properly led, governed and managed.

Prof. Hasina Ebrahim, School for Social Sciences and Language Education

This former academic from the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal was appointed as Associate Professor at our School for Social Sciences and Language Education in the Faculty of Education. Amongst others, she is the project coordinator for the Faculty’s Early Childhood and Foundation Phase Teacher Education Programme and the MEd and PhD supervisor in the programme.

Prof. Ebrahim is also the Deputy-President of the first South African Research Association for Early Childhood Education (birth to nine). “This is certainly a milestone to profile the university in terms of its thrust towards excellence in research,” she says. One of the main aims of the association is to shape the research agenda for a marginalised field in South Africa.

Prof. Corli Witthuhn, Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences

Description: 2011 Appointments_Corli Witthuhn Tags: 2011 Appointments_Corli Witthuhn

Prof. Corli Witthuhn, a former Bloemfonteiner, attained her PhD in Microbiology at our university. Therafter, in 1999, she was appointed as a lecturer at Stellenbosch University and later as Vice-Dean.

Currently she is our Vice-Dean in the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences. She hopes to sustain her research here at our University.

Her life motto? “Opportunities are presented in the form of obstacles,” she says.

Prof. Melanie Walker

Prof. Melanie Walker is a prominent South African scholar who has been working as Professor of Higher Education Studies at the world-leading University of Nottingham in the UK, where she been Director of Postgraduate Students and a Director of Research in the Faculty of Social Sciences. She will join the University of the Free State in February 2012 as Senior University Professor in the Postgraduate School.

She is a graduate of the University of KwaZulu-Natal and the University of Cape Town, where she completed her PhD, after teaching in disadvantaged secondary schools for a number of years. Prior to working at Nottingham she worked at the Universities of Sheffield, West of England and Glasgow, as well as the Universities of Cape Town and the Western Cape. She is also a Fellow of the Human Development and Capability Association. She is currently Director of Research Training and a senior researcher in the EU-funded Marie Curie EDUWEL project, which includes senior researchers from eight European countries and 15 early-stage researchers.

With a long-standing commitment to social-justice research and equality practices, she is currently widely recognised internationally as leading in the application of the capability approach and human development to higher education policy and practice. Among others, she has led or participated in research projects funded by the NRF (South Africa), the Higher Education Academy (UK), HEFCE (UK), EU, and ESRC/DfID, which funded the Public-Good Professionals’ Capability Index research project.

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