… reviewed by Sebe Nkosi

PAVING FORWARD (2011)

Main character: Nosipho Mahola

Featuring:

Beverley Palesa Ditsie (Artist/ Activist) first lesbian to come out in Soweto

Mosiuoa G.P. Lekota (COPE President)

Paddy Nhlapo (Social Activist)

Delmas Treason Trialists (Archive)

Simon Nkoli (LGBTI Activist)

Edwin Cameron (Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa)

The unveiling of David Kato s tombstone (Ugandan gay rights activist) murdered for standing up for gay rights in his country

The funeral of Noxolo Nogwaza (raped, stoned and murdered in Tsakane, 2011 April)

The Wits pride, 26 September 2011

The New Age poster

The Spring African Reporter

Story line:

Nosipho is a single parent of 4 children, she is a lesbian catholic woman who is respected at her church (Emmanuel Cathedral). Growing up Nosipho feared for woman who where played by man and wondered about their intensions and always felt she could treat them better. She met the father of her kids in a way that most couples meet and felt like he was forced to love her, and she never fell in love with him. She is in love with a woman called ‘Sne’ and they separated cause they couldn’t get a place to live together. She is frustrated by her children who don’t accept that she is lesbian and feel she’s hurting them by doing so.

Review:

The documentary does not focus on Nosipho’s story, it is more about the homosexual movement in South Africa than about her struggles and it leaves you with so many questions of how will she deal with the kids that don’t want her to be open about her sexuality? What is it that they find so hard to accept that their mom is homosexual?
Have her kids met Sne?, Surely if they have met the woman who has their mothers face light up like that when she talks about her would make them more accepting yes?, will she ever find a way to make things work with Sne?, who is Sne?
So her Catholic church is ok with her sexuality? Do they even know? How did she come out of the closet?

Quotes:

“If people want to be happy why should we deny them that right?, cause people will never be happy unless they can enjoy the same rights that I enjoy, when we say in the constitution equal rights. If I have the right to choose who will be my partner for life, then everyone has the right to do so”.
– Mosiuoa G.P. Lekota

“Mawuthi mama,Impilo yam’isaqhubeka usho ukuthini”.Nosipho’s child

“Guy’s coming to me saying, ’we will teach you, you are a woman’, people coming to my mom and said, stop her, she’ll influence everybody else”.
– Beverley Palesa Ditsie

“I’ve just been to Uganda, those activists are fighting for their lives”.
– Beverley Palesa Ditsie

“In South Africa I fought for their liberation…So when I came home I had the same momentum-I tried to liberate my own community”.
– David Kato

“Mina abafuni ndibe nomuntu engimthandayo, bona benza into abayithandayo…phi-endlini yam”. – Nosipho Mahola

“Ngentoyenzayo uvisa thina ubuhlungu”. Nosipho’s son

“We come a very long way, however for me the struggle needs to continue…we need to take back that role of ensuring that those rights are not trampled upon”.
– Paddy Nhlapo

I’m living in a country with some of the best constitutions that say I’m free as a woman…but when I get raped and attacked out there, where’s that constitution”.
– Beverley Palesa Ditsie

“Pride is no longer a march it’s a pride parade…they are celebrating, they have every reason to celebrate”. – Beverley Palesa Ditsie

“Where I’m sitting I’m living a kind of suitable middle class lifestyle, and yes I feel a little bit safer cause I don’t leave in the township no more…but how many of my township sisters are being murdered right now?.  Beverley Palesa Ditsie

“Andiyi ndawo ndiyaqhubeka nobutabane lobo ening’biza ngabo”. Nosipho Mahola

“I remember one day at a clinic and there was this feminine guy and everyone was laughing at him and my mom said to me ‘istabane’…and I said mmm, what does that mean”.
– Beverley Palesa Ditsie

“It is quite a phenomenon especially coming from a black culture, because due to ignorance and also there’s lots of denial of the reality”.
– Paddy Nhlapo

“The fact that I was gay, people started telling me them that….if she’s gay you can’t trust her, that I was gonna make moves on them”.
– Beverley Palesa Ditsie

“Simon’s presents within the movement was very instrumental that there was a face,
human person behind these claims that we were pushing”…talking about Simon Nhlapo.
– Beverley Palesa Ditsie

“I would put in a broad set, our constitution promised equality …it hasn’t delivered yet, it promised dignity…it hasn’t delivered yet. The constitution is a process…that’s something that the constitution does even when we criticize it for not being as strong as it should be, but I think the constitution is the most important and promising and powerful instrument to achieve those ends in our society”.
– Edwin Cameron

“The question is whether we consider great when so many people are suffering discrimination because of being gay and lesbian”.
– Edwin Cameron

“The whole country will be looking at this homosexual issue and say….Oh yeah, take away these gay rights cause they are not part of our tradition, we should be fighting for the right to have a better hospital…those are things we actually, all of us should be fighting for, you know, It’s a diversion, taking away my homosexual right is not gonna give you better education”.
– Beverley Palesa Ditsie

“we should not have a place in our society for people who approach life with ignorance that got ideas of centuries gone by…we must not allow such a backward element to lead society”.
– Mosiuoa G.P. Lekota

“We can start in our own heads and in our own hearts to change for the better, to understand better, to be more accepting, to be more open, to be less prejudice, that the process that gave us hope when we had apartheid, it’s the process that gives us hope even now for everyone in South Africa”.
– Edwin Cameron

“Why should I leave a lie, it’s either I fight for who and what I am or I remain in silence”.
– Paddy Nhlapo

‘And uba mhlambi ndena okuwrong emhlabeni, Unkulunkulu owaziyo, andifuni ozongqanda…ndiyaqhubeka ngempilo yami and ndonwabile ngempilo yami qhithi”.
– Nosipho Mahola