Black and white photo of Canaan Banana, a Black man with short hair receding. He smiles at the camera. He is wearing a suit and tie.
“Is this God a national God? Is he not a universal God? Is he not God of justice and mercy?” – Canaan Banana
Content note for sexual assault
Headlines were recently made when Netflix removed the “LGBTQ” tag from its series on Jeffrey Dahmer, after significant backlash from customers. As one viewer lamented, while it is "technically true" that serial killer Dahmer was gay, "this is not the representation we're looking for." Which begs the question, how are we meant to remember those who make queer history for criminal, immoral, or perceivably evil actions? As queer people–a people so often villainized throughout history based on the identity alone–our tendency now is to look for the role models, promote the do-gooders, and disassociate ourselves from the iniquitous, more controversial queers of the past. Constantly assuring the masses that we are not bad people because of our gender identity or sexual orientation, we eagerly tout our queer heroes while shoving the so-called queer villains of history under the rug. And while we know that one’s queerness and moral compass are not necessarily conjoined criteria, when it comes to a sinful queer figure, what often follows is an exploration of one’s relation to and effect on the other.
Such an exploration is perhaps pertinent when it comes to the life and legacy of Canaan Banana, the oft-derided and frequently forgotten first president of Zimbabwe. For what does it mean to be born into a country known for violent homophobia, and to come of age and work as a public figure there all while grappling with your own same-sex attraction? What kind of damage to the psyche can that have on someone queer and what kind of actions can that trauma incite in someone desperate to find acceptance or simply just another like-minded person amidst his peers? The story of Canaan Banana is therefore a complex one, a man whose accomplishments as a minister, professor, civil rights activist and world leader became tarnished, if not completely overshadowed, by the accusations of sodomy and sexual assault that plagued him later in life and rendered him a shameful figure left to be forgotten about in his own mother country.
Canaan Sodindo Banana was born on March 5, 1936 in Essexvale, in what is present-day Esigodini, a village in the Matabeleland South Province of what was formerly Southern Rhodesia and is currently Zimbabwe. Born to an Ndebele mother and a Basotho father who had emigrated from Lesotho, Banana was first educated at a local mission school and completed his secondary education at Tegwani High School in the town of Plumtree. He then studied at a teacher training institute before earning a diploma in theology at Epworth Theological College in Salisbury (today Harare), the capital and most populous city of Zimbabwe.
Banana met and married Janet Mbuyazwe in 1961, and a year later was ordained a United Methodist minister. Together, Janet and Canaan had four children, three sons and a daughter. Between 1963 and 1966, Canaan worked as a minister and school administrator before he was elected Chairman of the Bulawayo Council of Churches in 1969, a position he held for two years. From 1970 to 1973, Banana chaired the Southern Africa Content Group, working for the All Africa Conference of Churches and serving as a member of the Advisory Committee of the World Council of Churches. It is during this pivotal time that he became involved in anti-colonial politics, when he began to embrace Black liberation theology and criticize the Rhodesian government, which in 1965, under the leadership of Ian Smith, had declared the country independent under white-minority rule. Banana’s early activism included publishing his own version of the Lord’s Prayer, a central Christian prayer taught by Jesus, where he rewrote the text to incorporate words encouraging Africans to resist white supremacy, with lines such as, “Teach us to demand our share of the gold/And forgive us our docility.”
From the pulpit, Banana began denouncing Rhodesia’s white minority regime, and soon published the book The Gospel According to the Ghetto, a controversial work that featured his personalized Lord’s Prayer and opened with “Our Father who art in the Ghetto/Degraded is your name.” By 1971, the British government struck a deal with Smith, providing for a transition to “majority rule'' in exchange for an end to sanctions against Rhodesia. In response to this action, Banana formed the United African National Council (UANC) alongside fellow Methodist cleric Abel Muzorewa, which vocally opposed the settlement and quickly grew into a prominent national political party.
The UANC stood out from other political parties at the time in its adamant rejection to violence. Unlike the other similarly aligned parties, Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) and Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU), UANC did not participate with guerrilla forces in the Rhodesian Bush War, also called the Zimbabwe War of Independence, a civil conflict which had endured in the region since 1964. As a result of its more moderate approach, UANC emerged to become the only legal Black political party in Rhodesia, and Banana was elected its vice president in 1971, a role he served for two years.
Though Banana and the UANC stayed clear of violence, they still encountered persecution from the government and after several UANC leaders were arrested, Banana fled the country with his wife and children. Banana first headed to Botswana and then to Japan, before moving to the U.S., where he settled in Washington, D.C. from 1973 to 1975. While in D.C., he studied at Wesley Theological Seminary and received a Master's, while also remotely serving as the UANC representative to the U.S. and the United Nations.
Believing things had calmed down after the tumultuous late ‘60s and early ‘70s, Banana returned to Rhodesia in 1975 but was arrested immediately, charged with having left the country without a passport. He was briefly imprisoned, but was released in 1976 and kept under house arrest. During this time, Banana abandoned Muzorewa and the UANC and joined ZANU, which was dedicated to overthrowing Ian Smith and now being led by the revolutionary and left-wing nationalist politician, Robert Mugabe. In 1979, Banana accompanied Mugabe to London to attend the Lancaster House Conference, which resulted in Zimbabwe’s independence as a majority-rule democracy. Signed on December 21st, 1979, the Lancaster House Agreement officially ended the Rhodesian Bush War, allowing Rhodesia to achieve internationally recognized independence and become Zimbabwe.
Seen as a long standing-ally to Mugabe–who would become the country’s first prime minister–Canaan Banana became Zimbabwe’s first president and first Black head of government under the country’s new parliament-based constitution. Banana’s link by birth to the minority Ndebele people also helped him be considered a natural choice for the position. Lesser known was the fact that the post had already been offered to and turned down by Joshua Nkomo, the main opposition leader, who felt that the position of the Zimbabwean presidency would carry no real power.
Canaan Banana took office on April 18th, 1980, and during his presidency used his platform to attack churches for their approach to the liberation struggle. In 1980, he called for a radical transformation of the Christian message, suggesting the Bible be rewritten to feel more relevant to people living in post-colonial societies. He would subsequently pen The Case For a New Bible, in which he wrote: “Little did I know my suggestion to rewrite the Bible would light the fires that are burning with such intensity. The fires have reached such high intensity that they are almost unquenchable. Nor should they be quenched.”
As president, Banana for the most part found difficulty commanding respect. In fact, one of the most notable laws he passed early into his presidency forbade citizens from making jokes about his name. Zimbabweans had taken pleasure riffing on their leader’s fruity surname. One such joke involved Queen Elizabeth asking Banana when he visited London whether he had arrived alone or in a bunch. Meanwhile, as more time passed, Nkomo’s prophecy about the presidency came true, and Banana’s role as a political leader would largely be seen as a mere ceremonial post.
On December 31, 1987, Banana stepped down from the presidency so that Mugabe, who had worked behind the scenes to reform the presidency from a ceremonial position into an executive one, could succeed him. Though it would seem he was being deposed, at the time Banana retired on favorable terms, receiving a tax-free pension for life, lifetime immunity from import duties, and allowances for a vehicle, two security guards, and a secretary. Banana himself transitioned to become head of the religious department at the University of Zimbabwe, as well as a diplomat for the Organization of African Unity, an intergovernmental organization working to eradicate colonialism from the African continent. In 1988, he played a pivotal role in unifying ZANU and ZAPU, brokering a merger that formed the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), which to date remains the country’s ruling political party.
Though still politically active to an extent, Banana seemed destined to recede into a quiet professorial life at the University of Zimbabwe, teaching classics, religious studies, and philosophy. For almost a decade, Banana remained out of the spotlight until 1997 when everything changed. Suddenly, Banana’s name was thrust into all of the major headlines after he was arrested in Zimbabwe on charges of sodomy. News media outlets again ribbed on the former president’s name, with headlines such as “Man raped by Banana” and “Banana forced officer to have sex”.
At the time, Banana’s former bodyguard, Jefta Dube, was on trial for murder, accused of shooting dead a fellow officer named Patrick Mashiri. During the trial, it was revealed that Mashiri had been taunting Dube about being “Banana’s homosexual wife”, which led to the ultimate altercation and shooting. From details that unraveled in the trial, the state prosecutor then issued charges that Banana had misused his power as president and used his rank to coerce numerous men in subservient positions to accept sexual advances inside the presidential palace. Within a year, Banana was accused of eleven charges of sodomy, attempted sodomy, and indecent assault.
Banana denied the charges, admitting that homosexuality was “deviant, abominable and wrong” and that the allegations made against him were lies and part of a plot intended to destroy his political career. While released on bail, Banana fled Zimbabwe, sparking a manhunt, and headed to South Africa to avoid imprisonment. There, he met with Nelson Mandela, who convinced him to face the ruling, and Banana subsequently returned to Zimbabwe in December of 1998.
What followed was a harrowing seventeen-day trial during which numerous witnesses comprised of former presidential gardeners, cooks, and bodyguards, relayed stories of Banana’s abuse. According to their testimonies, Banana invited them to his library to play cards, have drinks, and listen to music. He would then insist on teaching them to dance, whereupon he would proposition or grope them. One witness claimed to have fled out a window, another to have shouted loud enough for the first lady to appear. Jefta Dube himself testified that he was pressured into becoming the President’s sex slave from 1984 to 1986. The trial also revealed that several of Zimbabwe’s top politicians, including Mugabe–himself quite vocally anti-homosexual having once called gays “worse than pigs and dogs”–knew of Banana’s actions and turned the other way.
During the trial, Banana again fled, this time to Botswana, where he asked for political asylum and went into hiding before a conviction was read. Banana ultimately returned to court, and on January 18, 1999, was found guilty and sentenced to ten years in jail. Curiously, however, Banana served only six months in prison and was released on good behavior in January 2001, while the balance nine years of his sentence were suspended. Though Banana seemingly got off easy, the auxiliary damages were already in motion. As a result of his sentence, Banana lost the right to ordain ministry for the rest of his life. Meanwhile, in 2000, Banana’s wife Janet separated from him and sought political asylum in Britain. According to an interview with her, Janet had known about her husband’s ‘disposition’, but chose to keep quiet, all while grappling with the matter internally: “Before we moved out of the State House, my husband’s bodyguard gave me some startling news. He told me, ‘Canaan is gay’. I was shocked…For a long time, I questioned myself: why. Why? Eventually, after searching my soul I began to think, it’s his life - maybe I should accept it.” But acceptance by others was not something Canaan Banana would find easily. Banana also immediately lost his job at the university and was removed from his position at the Organization for African Unity. Though free from literal prison, everything in Banana’s life had been stripped from him, and if that weren’t enough to silence him, in 2002 Banana mysteriously fell victim to illness.
Canaan Banana died of cancer on November 10, 2003 at the age of 67, only a couple years after his prison release. The circumstances surrounding his death are puzzling, but according to The Guardian, Banana had traveled to South Africa to receive treatment for cancer, only to shortly thereafter pass away at Charing Cross Hospital. By the end of the month, Banana’s body was returned to Zimbabwe, where he was buried without receiving the full honors traditionally reserved for former heads of state. According to Nathan Shamuyarira, the Information Minister of Zimbabwe at the time, Zimbabwe “could not afford Banana hero status as a matter of principle.”
The latter years of Banana’s life seem to play out like a cinematic drama, with facts dizzyingly unfolding one after another that raise more questions than they do answers. It may be difficult to gauge truths from orchestrated fictions, but what we do know from the gathered testimonies of many of Banana’s former employees, and perhaps more importantly, from the candid interview with his wife Janet, is that Canaan Banana was a man who struggled throughout his lifetime with his attraction to men. Banana endured this struggle all while serving as the figurehead of a country that was simultaneously carrying out campaigns against LGBT rights. Certainly, the acts that Banana was found guilty of committing during his presidency were wrong and immoral, but the surrounding framework makes Banana’s predicament much more convoluted and his downfall is one ultimately teeming with misfortune. Upon Banana’s death, President Mugabe, despite his own homophobic views, called the former president “a rare gift to the nation” in a radio address, and declared that Banana “joins a proud list of makers of our nation.” A nice touch indeed, though Mugabe’s earnestness is questionable. For by the end of his own life, Canaan Banana was devastated by the disaster that Zimbabwe had become in Mugabe's hands, and had been rendered powerless to do anything about it.
REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING
Disclaimer: some of the sources may contain triggering material
Banana, Canaan S. The Case For A New Bible. North Haven, Professor Canaan S Banana, 1991.
Kraft, Scott. “Zimbabwe Moves to Limit Whites’ Role: Legislation Prepared to End a Guarantee of Parliament Seats.” LA Times, 1987, June 24. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-06-24-mn-6348-story.html
Lentz, Harris M. Heads of States and Governments Since 1945. Abingdon, Routledge, 1994.
McNeil Jr., Donald G. “Zimbabwe’s Ex-President Convicted of Sodomy.” The New York Times, 1998, November 27. https://www.nytimes.com/1998/11/27/world/zimbabwe-s-ex-president-convicted-of-sodomy.html
Meldrum, Andrew. “Canaan Banana, President Jailed In Sex Scandal, Dies.” The Guardian, 2003, November 10. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/nov/11/zimbabwe.andrewmeldrum
Meldrum, Andrew. “The Rev Canaan Banana.” The Guardian, 2003, November 11. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2003/nov/12/guardianobituaries.zimbabwe
Taylor, Rebecca. “They Say That Power Corrupts- and it Does.” The Guardian, 2002, January 22. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/jan/23/zimbabwe.features11