By Norm Dixon
JOHANNESBURG — The coming of democracy here has special significance for the lesbian and gay community. One of the gains, a world first, is a constitutional bill of rights that specifically outlaws discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation.
Supporters of gay and lesbian rights have been celebrating with the holding of South Africa's first gay and lesbian film festival. The aim was to raise the profile of the community, encourage an atmosphere of tolerance and draw attention to South Africa's leading role in promoting gay and lesbian rights. It has led to an important discussion about how to protect the gains made.
The two-week festival, held in the plush northern suburb of Rosebank and in the Ipelegeng Centre in Soweto, signals an important shift in social attitudes. Previously South Africa's puritanical and authoritarian censorship laws would have prevented most of the 49 films being screened. The new constitution's provisions on freedom of expression have torpedoed the censorship regime. Threatened demonstrations by Christian fundamentalists failed to materialise.
Festival organisers — the Out in Africa Film Festival Committee, with representatives of the Gay and Lesbian Organisation of the Witwatersrand (GLOW) and other organisations — said in a statement: "We've got reason to celebrate. South Africa's past was one of infamous repression — its future holds the hope of building a democratic, tolerant and free society ...
"But this is only the beginning. Gay rights may be in the constitution, but they're not yet in our lives. Lesbians and gays find themselves shut out or accepted only on the condition that they keep quiet about ... their sexuality. What we need to do is get people talking. And how better to do this than through movies?"
Among the international guests present were British director Isaac Julien, whose Young Soul Rebels and his most recent The Darker Side of Black explore the interaction of race and sexual politics. Directors Greta Schiller and Barbara Hammer were also present. The festival included the South African premiere of Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, which features the music of k.d. lang, and the Taiwanese film The Wedding Banquet.
Opening the festival on June 23, before a spirited audience of more than 300 people, ANC member and PWV minister for safety and security Jessie Duarte pledged that police would protect the lesbian and gay community. She announced that she had asked to be a patron of GLOW. It was a privilege to be invited to open the festival. The audience included many senior regional police officers, she pointed out.
While Duarte pledged the PWV government's support for lesbian and gay rights, she urged the movement not to be complacent. "Not only are there legal injustices to be done away with but [also] mind sets and cultures ... It is one thing to for you to have your rights and equality in the law; it is quite another to have them each day in the street, at work, in the bar, in public places where you socialise and where you cruise."
She warned her audience that the ANC's support for, and commitment to, lesbian and gay rights should not be taken for granted. Recalling her own political evolution, she described how the movement to overthrow the apartheid regime was originally "silent on the rights of the individual to choose what their sexual orientation should be. Even though the people around me were champions of freedom from white minority oppression, we were all too ready to suppress any suggestion that racial oppression and sexual oppression were equal partners in human degradation."
Duarte challenged politicians to "develop their politically correct words into action and into tangible defence of the constitution".
The festival coincides with a debate within the lesbian and gay rights movement about the way forward. Some speakers at festival workshops and seminars suggested that a more subdued approach to campaigning may be required so as not to provoke a conservative backlash. This prompted prominent activist Mark Gevisser to write in the July 1 Weekly Mail: "The dilemma is a difficult one, the more noise gay people make, the more conservative backlash there is likely to be. On the other hand, no matter how fashionable a cause becomes, a powerful grassroots organisation has to be in place, on the ground, to ensure that lofty constitutional principles are indeed applied ...
"So is this a time for buttoned-down respectability or strident mass action from the gay community? A mixture of both would probably be most effective, for if there is not a highly visible and enduring gay movement in this country, the window of opportunity offered by the interim constitution could be lost. And that sense of empowerment felt and articulated at the opening of the film festival could evaporate."