Colonialism and An African Voice
Although much of his career has been spent in West Africa, Nana's concerns extend to the whole continent of Africa. "As Africans, we feel the vestiges of the long European colonial presence in our continent," he has said. "We feel them when other -- Western, European, 'international' -- LGBT organisations speak on our behalf and we are left unheard. Only Africans can speak for Africans."
On the other hand, Nana also bristles at the oft-cited notion that homosexuality is a foreign, colonial import alien to Africa. In a recent interview with a US-based journalist, Nana noted that "Homosexuality is not a colonial heritage. The ... evil that is part of the colonial heritage is homophobia and hatred."
Nana is a frequent media commentator on LGBT and HIV/AIDS matters, appearing on media outlets ranging from Radio France Internationale (RFI) to Chicago Public Radio.
Read more about this topic: Joel Gustave Nana Ngongang
Famous quotes containing the words african and/or voice:
“We live in a highly industrialized society and every member of the Black nation must be as academically and technologically developed as possible. To wage a revolution, we need competent teachers, doctors, nurses, electronics experts, chemists, biologists, physicists, political scientists, and so on and so forth. Black women sitting at home reading bedtime stories to their children are just not going to make it.”
—Frances Beale, African American feminist and civil rights activist. The Black Woman, ch. 14 (1970)
“Our frigate takes fire,
The other asks if we demand quarter?
If our colors are struck and the fighting done?
Now I laugh content for I hear the voice of my little captain,
We have not struck, he composedly cries, we have just begun our part of the fighting.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)