WE NEED TO THINK CRITICALLY ABOUT PRIDE
NYX MCLEAN
IT HAS been 30 years since the first Pride march in South Africa. The first Pride march in Africa. Last year Joburg Pride announced a new venture of theirs: Pride of Africa. Joburg Pride has been under immense criticism in the past,
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especially after 2012’s clash with the One in Nine Campaign who were drawing attention to hate crimes, and then ongoing criticism of pinkwashing as the organisers moved Joburg Pride from Rosebank to Melrose Arch and then to Sandton. I think it is audacious of Joburg Pride to assume that they can hold space for the Prides in Africa – because they are Prides plural, not a singular Pride of Africa. And yes, South Africa leads on the continent in terms of our constitutional protections but let us not assume that our LGBTQIA+ community is a role model for the rest of the continent. We have much work to do and we need to desperately tackle many
issues at home, such as our racism for one. If we try to imagine what a Pride of Africa would look like now, we may find ourselves with another out-of-touch Pride in which whiteness donned in rainbows and glitter sponsored by alcohol companies and financial service providers dominates. We seem to be chasing some strange dream of pulling off a New York Pride or a Sydney Mardi Gras. We need a reality check, desperately. We need to think critically about how we think of Pride, and who we allow to imagine Pride for us. Many of those who organise Prides organise them as if they are branded events.
