President Obama concluded his first visit to Kenya as president on Sunday. Obama, whose father is Kenyan, was greeted by adoring crowds in Nairobi, the nation’s capital. While in Kenya, the president hailed Kenya’s promising future as an economic powerhouse, and an emerging democratic power.
However, the president didn’t just dish out praise. While in Kenya Obama spoke of how corruption and the second class status of girls and women are holding Kenya back from reaching its true potential.
“Those are traditions, treating women and girls as second-class citizens,” the president said. “Those are bad traditions. They need to change. They’re holding you back.”
President Obama also touched on the rights of LGBTQ Kenyans while appearing at a press conference with his Kenyan counterpart, President Uhuru Kenyatta.
“As somebody who has family in Kenya and knows the history of how the country so often is held back because women and girls are not treated fairly, I think those same values apply when it comes to different sexual orientations,” President Obama said.
He went on to describe the discrimination faced by the LGBTQ community as a force that undermines the democracy Kenya has built: “the path whereby freedoms begin to erode.”
President Kenyatta did not echo president Obama’s sentiments. President Kenyatta referred to homosexualtity and the persecution of the LGBTQ community as a “non-issue”
“We want to focus on other issues that really are day-to-day issues for our people,” remarked Kenyatta, who was met with thunderous applause from the audience.
Kenya, even though it has a long way to go, is the most progressive East African country when it comes to the rights of LGBTQ individuals. Gay and Lesbian couples receive some respectful national media coverage, and there is a vibrant gay-friendly nightlife scene in Nairobi. Recently, Kenya’s high court legalized a gay rights organization, arguing that, despite moral and religious opposition, refusing to register the organization violated the constitutional rights of LGBTQ individuals to assemble.
President Obama’s comments regarding the LGBTQ community were not well received by Kenyans who believe it is not the West's place to tell Kenyans what they should accept in their society.
“If [Kenyan people] are not comfortable with the gay rights, then [Obama] shouldn’t push,” said a young woman interviewed by the BBC. “He shouldn’t force it on Africans.”
The young woman’s comments mirror criticism made by an American journalist. Howard French, a former New York Times correspondent in West Africa who is now a professor at Columbia University, asserted that president Obama’s comments followed a colonialist tradition of Western countries lecturing Africans on what is the best for them. After all, it is a bit ironic for the West, whose economic supremacy can be attributed to its subjugation of Africa, to come in and lecture Africans on what is right for them.
President Obama’s comments were well intentioned, and have driven a much needed discussion about the rights of the LGBTQ community. However, any reform on the part of the LGBTQ community must be led by Kenyan activists, who are already tirelessly and fearlessly working to change the attitudes of their country.