notes from fallow

on gayism

Perhaps the founding national document against gayism is the Report on the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the Cult of Devil Worship in Kenya (1995). Founding does not mean first. Anti-homosexual statements are found in Jomo Kenyatta’s Facing Mount Kenya (1938) and J.M. Kariuki’s Mau Mau Detainee (1963). They run through the corpus of Kenya’s prison literature.

By founding, I mean this document situates gayism—a term not found in the report—within the national imaginary. What is more official in Kenya than a national report? Though recommendations from all major reports have been ignored by the criminal state, we still reference them: The Ndung’u Report on land; the Waki Report, which led to the failed ICC trials; the post-election Truth, Justice, and Reconciliation Report, and so on. All consigned to the special vault from which their findings cannot be activated. By being placed in this report, gayism moves from being a moment in the penal code, and is activated within a narrative of how Kenya imagines itself.

Kenya has no founding legal scandal about homosexuality—no Oscar Wilde trial, for instance. And we have nothing that comes close to the infamous S.M. Otieno case—better known to some of us as the Wambui Otieno trial—in which the patriarchal courts sided with patriarchal tradition over a wife’s right to bury her husband. In fact, it’s difficult to find criminal cases specifically about homosexuality in Kenya’s legal archive.¹ Others who know more can correct me.

To repeat: Perhaps the founding document against gayism is the Report on the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the Cult of Devil Worship in Kenya (1995).

The Commission of Inquiry was formed a few years after multipartyism had been reintroduced into the country (in December 1991); after the St. Kizito tragedy (in July 1991); after the media had been “liberalized,” which is to say, we had more than one state-run tv station in the early 90s; and at a time of heightened protests by public university students, leading to universities being shut down for extended periods. It was a restless time.

The Commission was formed at a moment when social, cultural, and political changes required an explanation, and, somehow it was easier to blame the devil than to attribute these changes to political repression and economic decline.

In any case, back to gayism.

Gayism enters the report as an aside. In Chapter Three, “Does the Cult of Devil Worship Exist in Kenya?” we get the first mention of gayism as part of a list. Let me cite the full thing:

Use of symbols, signs, codes, etc., for communication purposes seem to be central to the practice of devil worship especially in learning institutions. Such symbols and signs include:

• horned hand

• the Swastika

• the upside down pentagram, with goat head sign — Satan’s international symbol of pride, horned hunter of the night

• human skull

• Jah —the Rastafarian god

• figure 666

• possession of weapons (knives)

• obsession with sex (Lesbianism/Homosexuality)

• back reading, Natas Si Dog (Satan is God)

• use of scaring nicknames such as:—killer, cobra, scorpion, python

• runes which are names of Demons

• the witchcraft signs of flying witches on brooms

• magic horns of witchcraft

• the snake

One reads this list with a sense of disbelief. Imagine thinking that being nicknamed “killer” or “python” means you are in thrall to the devil!

Notice how (Lesbianism/Homosexuality) appear as an aside, as evidence of “obsession with sex.” They mark excess. What spills out. To be hypersexual is to participate in “(Lesbianism/Homosexuality).” These do not refer to specific erotic practices. Instead, they gain their meaning—how we are to feel about them—through their proximity to other terms. To engage in lesbianism/homosexuality is like possessing a weapon or using a “scaring nickname” or owning an image of a human skull or listening to reggae or reading books featuring witches (including, I suspect, Roald Dahl’s The Witches or any number of fairy tales). “(Lesbianism/Homosexuality)” are considered “symbols” and “signs” of “obsession with sex,” and obsession with sex is evidence of devil worship.

Part of the Commission’s mandate was to collect testimony. From the testimony published in the report, not a single word is said about lesbianism and homosexuality. Now, granted, the report mentions a lot of oral and written testimony was submitted. And I have no clue if the archives of that testimony still exist. Still, no testimony included in the report mentions lesbianism or homosexuality.

In Chapter Five, “Linkage of Devil Worship to Drug Abuse and Other Anti-Social Activities,” the report lists a grouping of anti-social activities:

• homosexuality

• lesbianism

• rape

• child abuse

• use of violent and vulgar language

• defiance to authority

• mass indiscipline

• obsession for heavy metal music especially rock and roll

• sex orgies

• corruption

• human sacrifices

• partaking of human flesh and blood

• violence

• praying in the nude and in the dark

We begin with the simple observation that homosexuality and lesbianism are no longer simply asides, evidence of “obsession with sex.” They have been promoted out of the parenthesis. They now lead the list of anti-social activities. Anti-social activities, per the report, are “activities and behaviours that are recognized as a departure from the norms and beliefs of a society.”

Recognized by whom? Well, the report has an answer. When questioned over whether the inquiry was “in the public interest,” the Commissioners write,

The test to be applied to determine whether an inquiry into any matter is in the public interest is not whether a reasonable man, or even the majority of reasonable people, would agree that the intended inquiry is in the public interest. Only the President, and no one else, need be satisfied as to the necessity for the inquiry. (emphasis in original)

Sycophant brain is a very dangerous disease. That is all I will say.

In this new list, lesbianism and homosexuality gain meaning through a cluster of associations. Homosexuality and lesbianism, the first two items on the list, are related to rape, child abuse, mass indiscipline, corruption, human sacrifices, and violence. The terms of that relation are left up to the imagination. Does engaging in homosexuality and lesbianism require human sacrifices? Do homosexuality and lesbianism stem from or lead to child abuse? Do homosexuality and lesbianism lead to or stem from mass indiscipline? It’s enough that the cluster of associations exist.

In the report, gayism emerges as a cluster of speculative associations. It might be related to devil worship. It might cause indiscipline. It might lead to eating human flesh. It might lead to child abuse. It might lead to corruption. It might unmake society. The speculative “might” gains weight with each repetition, turning speculation into something like evidence.

Following the list, we get this remarkable statement:

Whereas some people, knowingly or unknowingly, do not associate these manifestations with devil worship, there are many others who believe that devil worship is either a causal factor or a resultant phenomenon of these vices. (my emphases)

The weight of something like evidence is strengthened by the rhetorical shift from “some people . . . do not associate these manifestations with devil worship” but “many others” do. Many outweighs some. Readers of the report are implicitly asked if they belong to the “some” or to the “many.”

The Commissioners—and the state and president they represent—are part of the many. To be against the many is to be against the state and the president. It is to be unpatriotic. And, in the twisty thinking of the report, to be unpatriotic is to be in league with devil worship. After all, “mass indiscipline” and “defiance to authority,” both central to struggles against Moi’s regime, indicate one’s link to devil worship.

*

Let me turn to Sara Ahmed’s notion of problematic proximities for a bit. Ahmed shows that the “nearness of words does the work of argument without having to make an argument.” When we place items in a list, as in the report, we are asking readers to create affective and intellectual connections across those items. We are disgusted by the idea of child abuse and triggered by the idea of rape and horrified by the idea of cannibalism: these feelings wash over the other items on the list, spreading to “use of violent and vulgar language” and “obsession for heavy metal music especially rock and roll.” We do not necessarily equate them: intellectually, we know that saying fuck or shit is not the same as eating human flesh. But affectively, we are encouraged to feel the same way toward the use of vulgar language as we do toward cannibalism. We are, after all, bios and mythos, made up of a bunch of biological stuff and storymaking stuff. We are affected by story, just as much as we are by cytotoxins.

Gayism enters national discourse as a cluster of affective and intellectual associations. In this moment, the terms “unnatural offenses” and “gross indecency” in Kenya’s Penal Code (162 & 163) are framed as national spiritual, moral, ethical, cultural, and political problems. In this moment, homosexuality and lesbianism are transformed into gayism: a problem to be addressed.

1. Blackmail is more lucrative than criminal punishment. And I suspect the police have made quite a lot of money from blackmailing people found in sodomitic embraces.