Blog - A new constitution built on a former prison site

Author : Saskia Wieringa

Constitution Hill in the middle of Johannesburg is one of the most impressive museum sites I know. I have visited it several times, but every time I am again moved by the messages it contains and visualizes so vividly. The place consists of the old Fort de Kock, defended so valiantly by the Boers against the superior English forces and a few surrounding buildings. It later turned into a jail in which for instance Mahatma Gandhi was detained. During the apartheid era it housed thousands of militants, black and white, among whom Nelson Mandela. The fort had by then acquired an ugly reputation and was notorious for its internal gangs and the brutality of the warders. In good apartheid style also the women’s section was divided into two spaces, one for black women among whom Winnie Mandela and Albertina Sisulu and one for white women. The four main meeting rooms in the jail have been named after the leaders of the Women's March on the Union Buildings in August 1956 to protest against the Pass Laws: Lilian Ngoyi, Helen Joseph, Sophia Williams-de Bruyn and Rahima Moosa. The quality and quantity of food and services was also divided by race. Only Mandela got a ‘white’ treatment when he spent his time there, sleeping in a bed in the hospital.

This time there was a large exhibition on the years Mahatma Gandhi spent in South Africa. Watching the beginning of the segregation and racism that resulted in apartheid, he formulated the ideas that were later to inspire his fight for the end of the colonial domination of the Asian subcontinent.  For us, researchers from Asia and Africa, who had been discussing violence against WLW for 7 days, this example of cross continental inspiration was very empowering.  

Both the methods employed to bring to life the brutal experience of apartheid and the symbolic power of the museum inspire me. I always hope such a monument can once be constructed to commemorate the genocide in Indonesia in 1965/6. The first time I visited the site Ruth Morgan, at that time the director of the Gay and Lesbian Archives in Johannesburg and I had just been discussing which methodology would be able to bring to light the invisible lives of women loving women in Africa, for the upcoming biannual conference of the IASSCS in Johannesburg in 2003 of which I was the president at the time. We wanted to invite young researchers to collect life stories of women in same-sex relations in their own countries. Our resolve was strengthened when we saw how the oral history presented in the various exhibitions within the walls of the former prison vividly portrayed the violence of apartheid and the brutality of the repression faced by those who fought for equality and justice. To build the constitutional court on this site was a brilliant move. It impressed upon all the need that human rights are the basis of justice for all. Till now the South African constitution is the most progressive in the world, including the prohibition of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

A progressive constitution however doesn’t mean that WLW now can bask in the enjoyment of their full rights. Just these last few years there has been an increase in so called ‘corrective’ rapes, in which butch women are singled out.  In a number of cases this had ended in brutal murder.

For the IASSCS congress we were able to train 9 young students and activists to collect life stories. Two women investigated the lives of WLW in South Africa, Busi Kheswa and Nkunzi Nkabinde. Busi researched the butch-femme culture of Johannesburg, and Nkunzi collected stories of female healers or sangomas who had so called ancestral wives. The ensuing book, entitled Tommy Boys, Lesbian Men and Ancestral Wives is widely used by lesbian activists to help proclaim their African citizenship: we are African, lesbian and proud. As Annica Marincowitz wrote in the Sunday Times: “ Bob Mugabe won’t like it. Neither will Sam Nujoma nor Daniel Arap Moi. A new book,…says that homosexuality in Africa has long been in existence.”

Motivated by our oral history project Nkunzi went on to write her autobiography as a lesbian sangoma: Black Bull, Ancestors and Me. She trained as a guide for the Constitutional Hill Museum, which gives her a stable income, while continuing her practice as a sangoma. Busi went on to replace Ruth Morgan as the director of the Gay and Lesbian Archives and has now become the director of FEW, Forum for the Empowerment of Women.

Last week I spent in Pretoria, facilitating the final workshop of a project on collecting life stories of WLW globally. In a way this research built on that first project that Ruth and I coordinated   when the workshop organizer decided to organize a fieldtrip to Johannesburg I hoped to see Busi and Nkunzi, with the help of Ruth. However due to a tragic accident it had been impossible to contact them.

When we walked up the central square of the Constitution Hill museum I had given up hope to meet Nkunzi. Yet there she was, grinning broadly, guiding a large group of visitors. We hugged for a long time and in between exchanged the latest news until we both had to go our various ways. Later, in the former women’s prison, we came upon the offices of Behind the Mask, a gay and lesbian group, and FEW.  The building in which formerly so many women activists were jailed and (sexually) tortured now houses the action groups that fight for the rights of women and lesbians. Despair and humiliation have made place for hope and inspiration. I asked around for Busi but was told she went out.

We also left the site and went off in search of a restaurant. Seating ourselves along a large table in the popular Mike’s Kitchen one of our participants gestured to me to look behind me. Surprised I turned and greeted the coordinator of Behind the Mask, who had just informed us that Busi was out. Busi, who sat beside her, got up and rushed to our table. There we sat, two directors, holding hands, talking about life and the frustrations of finding enough funding to keep our organizations going. Mundane issues, perhaps, but all of us at the table realized that it is women like all of us, organizing globally, who will help to realize the potential of a progressive constitution and the human rights instruments that our governments have signed. But how many women have to die before women, in same-sex relations or not, can say women’s freedom and dignity are safeguarded?