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30 October 2024 Photo Supplied
Bokang Fako
Bokang Fako, Research Assistant at the Free State Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of the Free State.

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

Students’ commitment the focus of architectural exhibition at Free State Arts Festival
2016-07-07

Description: Architectural exhibition  Tags: Architectural exhibition

The traveling exhibition of first-year architecture
students of the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan
University consists of 400 exhibition pieces.

Photo: Supplied

A unique travelling exhibition of over 400 pieces will be hosted by the UFS Department of Architecture from 11-23 July 2016. The exhibition, a project of the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) School of Architecture is the first exhibition of its kind on this scale.

First exhibition of its kind

The architect Boban Varghese, the head of the Department of Architecture at NMMU, said that a series of projects furthering academic engagements are being implemented under his leadership. This travelling exhibition of first-year architecture students is one of these.

The NMMU School of Architecture is engaged in addressing architectural education that is appropriate and relevant as it responds to the contextual challenges shaped by local and global issues.

Students’ work received recognition

Besides being recognition of student work, which is normally confined within the walls of the Schools of Architecture, the aim of the travelling exhibition is not only to introduce the work to students of other Architecture Schools and the architecture profession itself, but also to share the discipline of architecture with a wider public. In this sense, the exhibition is an educational and cultural event.

This important aspect is manifested in the generous support of the UFS Department of Architecture in sponsoring the second exhibition during the Free State Arts Festival, as a collaborative project between two Schools of Architecture. A third exhibition of the work is foreseen in Johannesburg during the annual Architecture Students Congress at Wits later this year.

432 pieces part of research programme

The exhibition PALLADIO AND THE MODERN
is the first exhibition of its kind of first-year
architecture students’ work in South Africa.

The exhibition entitled PALLADIO AND THE MODERN shows the first two projects of the first-year students when they have just arrived from school with little experience in architectural drawings and in building architectural models. Their dedicated commitment to the task of producing 288 drawings and 144 models - a total 432 exhibition pieces - forms part of a three-year research programme (2013-2015) in architectural composition conducted by the Senior Lecturer in Architecture, Ernst Struwig, Dr Magda Minguzzi and Jean-Pierre Basson. All the work exhibited is done by hand.

In the exhibition, the 36 villas of the Renaissance architect, Andrea Palladio (1508-1580), initiate a dialogue with the 36 houses of 20th and 21st international and national architects in their reciprocal theme of exploring the language of architecture.

Visiting hours: Monday to Friday 09:00-16:00
Exhibition closes on 23 July 2016

Sponsors:
Department of Architecture UFS; NMMU; Stauch Vorster Architects; The Matrix Urban Designers and Architects Cc; Adendorff Architects and Interiors Cc; NOH Architects; Thembela Architects (Pty) Ltd; Erik Voight Architects; DMV Architecture, MMK Architects; IMBONO F. J. A. Architects CC; dhk Architects; LYT Architecture; B4 Architects.

 

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