Part 1: “Questions of a Queer Reading History”
Part 2: “A Natural thing”
Script & Direction: Zackie Achmat, 1999
Producer: Jack Lewis
Length: 52 minutes per episode
Queer history?! The histories of lesbian and gay people in South Africa have been confined to an “invisible archive”. Apostles of Civilised Vice is a history of same-sex desire which investigates lesbian and gay experience and personalities from colonial times to the present. Between 1910 and 1933 thousands of men were convicted of sodomy and “unnatural offences”. The majority of those tried, convicted and imprisoned were black. For over two centuries of South African history, lesbian and gay stories have been silenced, depriving contemporary queer life of a history. Apostles of Civilised Vice gives voice to gays and lesbians silenced by colonial rule and apartheid laws that criminalised and marginalised same sex desire.
With: Peter Krummeck, John Trengove, Denver Vraagom, Ashley Brownlee, Andre Odendaal, Denise Newman, Shirley Johnstone, Mark Hoeben.
PROGRAMME OUTLINE
PART 1:
“Questions of a Queer Reading History”
From obscure reports and archives we reclaim the experience of men whose lives were shattered through the sodomy laws from colonial times until they were declared unconstitutional in 1998. The story relates the experience of a white confectioner and coloured cook who were jailed for sodomy in 1902.
The complex and vexed tradition surrounding same sex desire in the notorious 28 Gang in – and out – of prison is investigated through the re-enactment of the statement made to Warder Paskin by the founder of the gang, Nongoloza Mathebula in 1912.
The movement in the 1930s towards seeing gay desire as an illness that could be treated and even cured is related through the careers and writings of the Johannesburg psychiatrist Dr. Louis Freed as well as Dr. Louis Leipoldt who was decades ahead of his time in his views on homosexuality.
These scenes from queer history are supported by extraordinary interviews with a diverse range of lesbian and gay people including Alison Khumalo, Joe Garmeson, Phumzile Mtetwa, Theresa Raisenberg and Kevan Botha.
PART 2:
“A Natural thing”
Dr. Louis Leipoldt, Ethelreda Lewis, the missionary Henri Juno, and William Plomer meet for a tea party in which colonial views of gay desire on the mine compounds is discussed. Ethelreda expresses the view that black migrant workers had become “apostles of civilised vice!” who spread “the disease of the white man over the face of wild Africa”. The notion that homosexuality is ‘un-African’ turns out to be an idea inspired by colonial missionaries!
Contemporary interviews with Phule Hlohlongwane and friends, gay men working on the Free State gold fields today, help present a new view of the mine compounds – on the one hand instruments of labour repression, on the other, spaces in which men could express their desires. Alison Khumalo relates his experience of gay love and marriage in Durban in the 1940s, 50s and 60s.
The emergence of indigenous gay culture in South Africa, prior to the modern movement for gay equality which dates from the late 1960s in America is documented in Cape Town’s District Six, where Kewpie, doyen of District Six drag queens, relates her recollections of the ‘moffie konserte’. In a dream like sequence we learn how the ‘girls’ used to hop onto the back of a “lorry” to advertise the concerts. They would wend their way through the streets of Cape Town with Dinah Goliath playing the piano.
The 1960s were dark years of repression in South Africa. In 1968, the apartheid government attempted to make all gay men into criminals through the notorious “Immorality Act”. The Nationalist Inquisition into gay and lesbian life was sparked by a police raid on a large gay party in Forest Town, Johannesburg. In response the Law Reform Committee was formed by Joe Garmeson and others — the first organised resistance by gays and lesbians in South Africa. The story is told through photographs and interviews with Joe, and Cyril Chevitz (one of the hosts of the Forest Town party). Although short lived, this was the first political stirring of gay and lesbian people in South Africa that was to lead to the events behind the inclusion of ‘sexual orientation’ in the Equality Clause of the constitution of South Africa.
The New Africa Theatre Company under the direction of Fatima Dike and Dumile Magodla re-created scenes from gang life and the mine compounds. Performances by After Nines, the Gauteng based lesbian and gay drama group are also included.
Research
Throughout the docie-drama the dialogue is drawn from extensive original research by Zackie Achmat . Dialogue has been drawn from original documents and the editing style acknowledges and reinforces the textual sources from which the drama segments were derived.
Support and Commissioning
The programme has been jointly commissioned by SABC Educational TV and was broadcast on SABC 3 in November 1999. Apostles of Civilised Vice was also supported by the Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology.
Suitability
Anyone interested in history, gay and lesbian studies and South Africa will find Apostles of Civilised Vice stimulating, challenging and revealing!
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