Selective memories do not serve a community

Herman Lategan's remembering of his queer past and his experience of young queers today are not a reflection of reality.

- By Karin Tan and Kgomotso Kgasi

Pride supporters during the Cape Town Pride Parade on 1 March. The annual parade marks the end of a month-long Pride Festival celebrating diversity, promoting inclusion and raising awareness.

(Photo: Brenton Geach/Gallo Images)

Setting aside any gripes we at the GALA Queer Archive may have with Herman Lategan linking to our materials while questioning our efficacy, we feel that his concerns about “memoricide” are unfounded.

The complexity of LGBTQIA+ Pride events in Johannesburg reflect the complexity of the queer community and how we engage with remembering our history.

Neither of us were at that first Pride in 1990. Simon Nkoli led that march and we, alongside so many others, sit among the proliferation of his work. He did not work alone, though. Alongside him were other activists such as Bev Ditsie, Phybia Dlamini, Justice Edwin Cameron and Donné Rundle - activists who are still alive, who remember Nkoli and who activate his legacy in spaces with young people.

We wrote this response to Lategan on the night the Wits Law Students Council and Wits Activate hosted a Queer Lawyers Night with Cameron as the keynote speaker. Earlier that day, Rosebank College in Braamfontein hosted its own Pride event. Two events, then, held within a square kilometre from the GALA office. The forgetting he mourns is not as total as he imagines.

The Johannesburg Pride taking place on 25 October might not look like that first Johannesburg Pride in 1990, but it offers a space to engage with queerness in ways that were unimaginable in the past. We deserve the opportunity to celebrate, have fun and get messy.

There are also many Pride events slated to occur all over the country. Some might be small in numbers, but they are impactful for the groups they serve and they showcase the growing visibility and mobilisation of the contemporary queer community.