Namibia Pride Week Paints the City Rainbow

Equal Namibia activist and organiser Omar van Reenen stands on a rooftop deck at The Brewers Market and peers at the newly painted rainbow sidewalk on Tal Street down below.

The colourful LGBTQI+ flag barely dry on one of the busiest streets in Windhoek is the product of the penultimate event in the city’s first Namibia Pride Week (27 November to 5 December), a nine-day collection of intersectional happenings centered around the theme ‘Celebrating Intergenerational Equality’.

“Pride is the opposite of shame. Shame that has been weaponised by society and the state to suppress, oppress and marginalise us,” says Van Reenen. “Namibia Pride Week was about love and acceptance, overcoming discrimination and counteracting the weaponisation of shame which has been cast on our community to push us into the margins of society,” Van Reenen says.

The rainbow sidewalk is a step away from the fringe and is a manifestation of a phrase one hears over and over again at the previous day’s LGBTQI+ Pride parade: “We are here and we are queer.”

Beginning at El Barrio restaurant on Jan Jonker Road and making its way through the city’s centre in a splash of balloons, decorated trucks, rainbow flags and a marching band, the parade pauses below the bronze statue of Namibia’s founding father at the Independence Museum and ends at the Ministry of Justice on Independence Avenue.

Its dancing, brightly clad estimated 300 participants also linger at the home affairs ministry, which recently announced its intention to appeal against High Court judge Thomas Masuku’s granting of citizenship to the son of local same-sex couple Phillip Lühl (Namibian) and Guillermo Delgado who was born through surrogacy in South Africa.

The Namibia Pride Week sign stretched between the home affairs ministry and a building across the street is challenging and cheeky. Another banner held by, among others, Mr Gay World 2021 – South Africa’s Louw Breytenbach, who has flown in to serve as the parade’s grand marshal – is unequivocal and demands that Namibia abolish the sodomy law.

“We’re not going to be living with the moratorium on the sodomy law and we should be grateful that it’s not being used,” says Van Reenen.

“I’m not going to be grateful to live in a grey zone, to live in the shadows of the Constitution while the Constitution speaks to us and to our dignity.”

Though Namibia’s sodomy law explicitly criminalises sex between men, Van Reenen and other LGBTQI+ people must live with all that its existence emboldens and allows.

“All the discrimination stems from the sodomy law which is used to condone state-sanctioned homophobia,” says Van Reenen. “The effect is a cloud of permissible discrimination as well as the incitement of violence and hate speech upon the entirety of LGBTQI+ persons.”

This year has been pivotal in the fight for the recognition of LGBTQI+ rights, for the renewed struggle to abolish the sodomy law and for the acknowledgment of the queer community’s realities, which are often coloured by discrimination, homophobia, transphobia and violence.

This year some of this discrimination and violence was taken to the courts, notably in the case of Mercedez von Cloete, a trans woman who was awarded N$50 000 for the unlawful arrest and transphobic brutality she endured at the hands of a local police officer in 2017.

In addition to continuing the campaign to abolish the sodomy law, Namibia Pride Week was also held to somewhat soothe the trauma of this year.

“This year has mostly been court cases, protests and marches and Namibia Pride Week has largely been a week of fun and colour,” says Equal Namibia’s Patrick Reissner. “Because it’s Pride, things are still light, fun and easy to digest which is effective, but Pride in itself is still political,” he says.

“As we painted the rainbow flag, we had so many passersby show interest. Whether the response is negative or positive, it does start a conversation. It’s a seed that has been planted so carefully and so cleverly which will just keep sparking interest, pride, visibility and conversation.”

While Namibia Pride Week engaged in lighter drives for visibility including sunset yoga and meditation at Zoo Park, a special instalment of Drag Night Namibia at Café Prestige, a Vinyls
LGBTQI+ Quiz Night, Voices for Choices and Rights’ Feminist Festival, a viewing of multiple award-winning queer love story ‘Kapana’ and Pride Pop-up at Chicago’s, the event also honoured the life of Bewise Tjonga, a queer visual artist who used their art to celebrate and spotlight queer love.

“I think the past week of events, music, art, film and discussions has all been a beautiful way to culminate the amazing year that 2021 was for Namibia’s queer history,” says activist and Namibia Pride Week organiser Hildegard Titus.

“This year has been about sending a message that we know our rights, we’re going to fight for them and that we have each other’s backs,” says Titus.

“A lot of the time people talk about queerness being unAfrican. Well we’re African, we’re Namibian and we are here and we are queer,” Titus says.

“Ultimately, I think that people forget that this is a human rights issue. We can’t say we have human rights and we protect human dignity if we are discriminating against people for who they choose to love, for how they choose to express themselves and how they choose to dress.”

At home of Transgender, Intersex and Androgynous Movement of Namibia national coordinator Deyonce Naris in Otjomuise, the metric used to discriminate against LGBTQI+ people melts away in the sun.

Children flock to the trans woman’s home for a hug, a meal, for help with homework or for company when their parents are indisposed, and love Naris like a mother.

As it draws to a close, Namibia Pride Week brings the children Naris selflessly looks after colouring books, crayons, sweets and toys, and it is heartening to see the moment before society teaches these children hate.

“We are not just out here for the queers, we are here for all human beings,” says Naris before returning to The Brewers Market to help put the finishing touches on Windhoek’s new rainbow-coloured landmark.

“We are spreading love.”