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Marking 50 years since Pinochet’s coup and 33 years on from our introduction to political prisoner Paulina Salas in Death and the Maiden, she returns in this new work
It has been a cold, dark road towards dismantling the shackles of homophobia and rebuking the spirit of prejudice and blasphemy that curtains the small society of Botswana. And for transgender activists finding ways to make their voices heard and fight stigmas, art has become an important tool.
In June this year, prominent trans activist Katlego Kolanyane-Kesupile was part of the team that launched the second iteration of the Banana Club Artist Fund, enrolling several LGBTQ+ artists in Botswana for a three month residency aimed at amplifying the voices of marginalised communities through creativity.
Kolanyane-Kesupile is a cultural architect and artivist (or artist-activist), and alongside the Banana Club is also the founder of the Queer Shorts Showcase Festival, an LGBTQ+ themed theatre festival. She uses art to communicate on gender issues and to bring human rights to the fore in Botswana, using creativity as a catalyst for social transformation and mind-set change.
Expressing herself through artivism is the “merging of age-old traditions of storytelling, education and community building,” she told Index.
As part of the PlayCo Black Women Theatre Maker residency in New York, she wrote and produced an Afro-futuristic play. Her work “focuses on marginalised communities and the outputs are focused on creative educational products,” she said, and believes that an artist can also be a critical scholar of human rights and social justice. In fact, she holds a master’s degree in Human Rights, Culture and Social Justice.
At the heart of her craft and expression is a desire to showcase the validity and essence of LGBTQ+ individuals in society and why their experiences matter. Botswana is a country that has made leaps towards acceptance, but where prejudice still runs wild.
Two landmark cases in recent years went a long way to challenging homophobic stances in the country. The first was in 2017, when activist Tshepo Ricki Kgositau became the first trans woman to be allowed to change her gender marker to female on her identity card, after a high court ruling. The second was when same-sex relations were decriminalised at the country’s highest court in 2019. But pushing for more rights and acceptance for LGBTQ+ people has proven difficult.
Botswana has experienced a face-off between the LGBTQ+ community and religious entities, which culminated in a spat during a protest march in the country’s capital city, Gaborone, in July this year. Members of the Evangelical Church community organised the march against a bill that would comply with the 2019 ruling, and make homosexuality legal. Those on the march handed a petition to Parliament, and asked legislators to vote against the bill. The chairperson of the Evangelical Fellowships of Botswana (EFB), Pulafela Siele, said that allowing same-sex relations in Botswana “open[s] the floodgates of immorality and abomination in society”.
Legislator Wynter Mmolotsi, who received the petition on behalf of the National Assembly, said that Parliament is dictated to by the people.
“The only thing that Parliament can do is to make laws that are guided by the values of the country; the values of the people. Parliament can agree or disagree – and make laws that reflect the values of the nation,” he said.
The chief executive director of the organisation of Lesbians Gays and Bisexuals of Botswana (LEGABIBO), Thato Moruti, said that the church’s advocacy not only crippled human rights but also harmed the democracy that Botswana is known to value and prioritise. “The church is setting a dangerous trend of manipulating legislators and the courts. This could cause destabilisation of democracy as they are not only pushing Christian fundamentalism, but also sowing seeds of social discord based on gender and sexual orientation,” he said.
Moruti echoed the need to find common ground and respect the rights of all people, calling for dialogue instead of “combative approaches”.
Kolanyane-Kesupile is not the only trans activist in Botswana using creativity to push for acceptance and the rights of the LGBTQ+ community. Melino Carl is considered Botswana’s first transgender model, and has walked catwalks in Johannesburg, New York and Paris. Fashion is her first love, but growing her artistry and coming out publicly wasn’t easy. She has been assaulted five times and has dealt with being systematically humiliated and ridiculed because of her gender identity and sexual
orientation.
“Homophobia is not taken seriously. So many members of the LGBTQ+ community face discrimination and violence,” Carl told Index.
She said it’s important to highlight the validity of their identity: “Since there are not enough platforms to speak, I express my activism through fashion. I believe that it is a vehicle to inspire and uplift members of the LGBTI community and make them feel validated and boost their self-esteem and confidence.”
Supporters of Russell Brand have been asking why the women who featured in the Dispatches documentary about the TV personality turned YouTuber took so long to come forward and why investigative journalists at The Times and The Sunday Times chose this moment to publish their revelations. The simplest and least conspiratorial answer is that running such stories about the super rich is a legal minefield in a world where the British libel courts are stacked in favour of wealthy plaintiffs. Brand is known to be litigious and several of his alleged victims claimed they were threatened with legal action if they spoke out. Brand himself denies all wrongdoing and says all the sexual relations concerned were consensual.
The risk of attracting a SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) is very real for victims of sexual violence, as an event organised by Index on Censorship and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism in parliament this week demonstrated. Speakers included lawyers who have acted for victims and news organisations, Meirion Jones, the former BBC journalist who investigated Jimmy Savile, and Baroness Helena Kennedy. Two victims also spoke: Nina Cresswell and Verity Nevitt. Cresswell told of her fight against the libel suit brought by tattoo artist Billy Hay after she outlined in a blogpost his assault on her after a night out in Sunderland. In April of this year, a court decided that, on the balance of probabilities, she had been violently sexually assaulted. After her victory, Cresswell spoke of having a panic attack when she realised she was being sued and of the stress of the legal case. Following the verdict, Cresswell’s lawyer Tamsin Allen wrote in the Guardian: “Even after the recent judgment… there is still a clear risk that an abusive person can continue their abuse by bringing proceedings and seeking to bully a vulnerable defendant via the imposing power of the justice system. The survivor is unlikely to have the legal, financial and psychological strength to fight back. This is strategic litigation against public participation (SLAPP) par excellence – with a dash of gaslighting, personal vendetta and coercive control thrown in.”
Nevitt was sued by her assailant (who also went on to rape her twin sister on the same day) after she wrote about the assaults on social media. Nevitt told the Guardian: “I felt completely powerless and silenced because it was so difficult. The whole process is so degrading and disempowering.” MP Jess Phillips raised the issue in parliament earlier this year.
Commenting this week Jessica Ní Mhainín, head of policy and campaigns at Index, says: “There was already widespread alarm among legislators and researchers that the law could be weaponised – in the form of SLAPPs – to inflict further trauma on victims of sexual violence. The latest news does nothing to assuage our concerns.”
Questions have already been asked about the chilling power of legal threats in the Russell Brand case. At the same time, it is an important point of legal principle that Brand is entitled to defend his reputation if he believes he has been wrongly accused of serious wrongdoing.
In 2007 Brand received substantial undisclosed damages from Express newspapers after an article appeared in the Daily Star alleging that a young woman was drugged and raped at a flat rented by the comedian during the Edinburgh Festival. Brand’s lawyer said at the time: “The meaning of the article was that there were reasonable grounds to suspect that the claimant drugged and raped a young woman. This was totally untrue.” He added: “The claimant was never suspected of the alleged rape nor was there any evidence at all to involve him in its circumstances. Rather, at the police’s request he assisted them as a witness.”
Express Newspapers apologised and paid an undisclosed sum to Brand, as well as paying his legal fees.
Meanwhile, Index will continue to campaign against the use of SLAPPs. News from the past week shows how disparate the victims are and how urgent it is to address a legal system so open to abuse.