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it's 4:30 am in the morning. you are up—to—date on the headlines. now on bbc news: hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk, i'm stephen sackur. can you's supreme court is deciding whether to decriminalise homosexuality. it will be felt keenly across africa, were dozens of countries have anti—gay legislation. binyavanga wainaina has just died aged 48. hardtalk spoke to him after he went public of his homosexuality. he was at the centre of the africa wide debate about freedom, identity and culture. i asked him wide debate about freedom, identity and culture. iasked him if wide debate about freedom, identity and culture. i asked him if his sta nce and culture. i asked him if his stance was changing hearts and minds —— stand.

binyavanga wainaina, welcome to hardtalk. thank you, stephen. just a few weeks ago, you took a very momentous decision to come out as 93v, momentous decision to come out as gay, why? i am turning 43. it must have been more than your birthday. you knew it was going to change your life? i came back home a couple of yea rs life? i came back home a couple of years ago permanently too subtle. i was fascinated in the last three

yea rs was fascinated in the last three years at the rate of change of things on the continent. there's just a lot going on. a lot of freedoms, a lot of threats, a lot of violence, a lot of economic growth. and for me, most personally, a lot of creativity. for the last ten yea rs of creativity. for the last ten years i've worked with writers across the continent in nigeria, kenya, zimbabwe, iwork across the continent in nigeria, kenya, zimbabwe, i work with talent asa kenya, zimbabwe, i work with talent as a publisher and general noisemaker and rally of things. —— rally of things and i seen a change. going for broke, but you must have known that it would cause a huge stir and it would cause to you personally a degree of trouble. not yet. there was going to be a storm.

my gamble was that the younger generation of africans, the vast majority, in the digital generation, are different. i have lived and travelled around this continent for the last eight years and i know many of them pretty intimately. i was confident in an embrace of support and a lot of good, bracing conversations. did you feel different because of it? you are still the same person, you've just announced to the world what you are and what you have pretty much always been. do you feel different? i was struck by something you said a few weeks ago. "my whole queer life i have avoided the present tense", and now the implication is that you are living in the present in a way that you have never able to before. my dad died two years ago.

it struck me — he was the ceo of a public company. he was 26, and he grew the company. he retired with money and a good house. that's the value i sit with. all of my life i have been saying that i am waiting to grow up to decide to be what i want to be, for country and my continent. that is my present tense. you speak of your father, even in a short burst, with real affection and respect. oh, yes. why could you not tell your father and, indeed, your mother that you were gay? you kept putting it in the future tense. i did not trust their love in me. because i didn't test it out. each time they had to die before i had to say: i will ask them. i could not even say that they would not accept it because they have never given me the slightest indication. and i am quite a bohemian who has

given them trouble in my life. you do not think that they probably did know? that you were homosexual? my mother, for sure. my father, it is hard to guess. you are now very open about the life you've led. you say that you are sure that even as a child of 5 or 6 years old you knew that you were different. i think so, yes. i did not know what sex was until i was 14 but he knew that there was this thing, this certain pull to men that i had to hide from everybody. i had to hide it from my sister, i couldn't explain it. you have to hide it yourself? i had to hide it separately and have a separate place in my imagination to deal with it and not act on it outside of that.

is it true that you could not really use the word gay in connection with yourself until you were in your late 30s? yes. you are a prominent kenyan writer and creative and get it seems —— and yet, as we talk about this you have been unable to be true to yourself. maybe your writing has missed out something essential about you pretty much all of your life? yes. does that mean we have to look back on your work until now and say ‘there is something missing in all of this?‘ a body of work itself evolves with you. so, for me, i do not see it as a hindsight thing, taking out all of these lost chapters. what was there was true to something, and it will survive on its own in the ecosystem of writing, the book.

people get annoyed and say that they are returning the book, you lied! bizarrely, you have written a memoir which now we can all say misses out the most essential thing about who you are. the first memoir was also about language, developing language as a child. i like to play with a lot of stuff. i don't know. you do not sign up to this kind of truth telling as a writer. and i don't mean ‘revelation.’ i am a literary writer. you don't sign up for it unless you know that it could be completely inconsequential and you are able to move on. i will not be crying tears because people wonder if they should put the book in the dustbin. i still think it's a great book and i was reading it three days ago and i was thinking, oh, dear, everything in it is gay! without being explicit. yes. let's move from the personal

to the public and political. you have become a very significant public figure in kenya and maybe across africa as well because you're one of the most prominent africans who has come out. do you embrace that public role? hmm. there are going to be some inconveniences clearly, but yes. i mean, i did it. i was going to write a book about being gay, even three years ago. the timing of this chapter was a political act. i was sick and tired of what is going on. the new law in nigeria really, really got to me in a very personal way. a friend of mine died a year ago of aids. he was so young and too ashamed to even tell doctors to test him. because he'd have to explain. that stuff's mediaeval and i'm sick of it. i am sick of having 15th century conversations. well, you say you are sick of it, but it raises questions about your own security.

you're based in kenya, where the constitution is a grey area as to whether homosexuality is legal or not. you could read the constitution either way. but in nigeria the laws have been toughened up again. very long prison terms await practicing homosexuals. and frankly, in parts of nigeria, under sharia law, you could face lashing or stoning. yes. so, what about your own personal security? there are many things that could get you stoned or lashed in some african countries. would you go to nigeria today? i will wait and see. ifiam if i am invited by the literati, i would go. i will deflect this to you, we are experiencing the most exciting and the most dangerous time in recent history of this continent. right? i want to be here for it.

and the risks to everybody, boko haram, growth, huge buildings, in the opening up of the territory, are risks that are going to happen. will i be all flappy about it and say no? no. i was at the airport in nairobi and for the first time really was a bit nervous. i thought someone may have seen me on tv. i signed four autographs with airport security staff and had a long chat with one of the policeman there. it's not to say that there's no homophobia, but you do not do these things unless you know what your environment is ready for. and so far, the response for me has been incredible. yeah. you talk about the extremes and the pressures that come from groups like boko haram and others, but the point is that it is not the extremes that are pursuing an anti—gay agenda. if one looks at countries like uganda or nigeria, for example, mainstream politicians

are making political hay with an anti—gay agenda. and ijust wonder why do you think that is the case in today's african nations? two things. i have been very, very vocal in the last few weeks about the pentecostal church. i speak specifically about the movement that arrived in the 80s. i call them ‘the alabama'. they came... you mean a bunch of protestant missionaries from the us? yes. from the south. they are responsible, but we are responsible for our own continent. but you have had a fever of a very specific brand of pentecostalism. there was one before. that one came in the 80s and 90s.

i was part of it, it was what killed my mother, partly when she refused diabetes medication. as the continent's economy started dropping, people came under the umbrella of the dictators in africa. the president was sitting there with them telling people to remove the demon of homosexuality, the demon cancer, demon of everything. those churches took control of themselves and are now in every street corner, ten of them, 50 of them. as economies have stabilised, as you have got a growing middle class in this continent, right, it is time to be confident enough to start to speak out about the oxygen that these people take from larger freedoms. but, hang on, there is something odd about that argument. that, in essence, the surge of anti—gay legislation and sentiment is somehow the product of an external influence from a us—based church. it doesn't seem to reflect reality. no, i agree. look at the president of uganda.

i interviewed him about this very subject. he did not talk to me about the influence on him of american missionaries. he talked specifically about african values, african culture and tradition, which in his view told him and his people that homosexuality is abnormal. to use a word that he uses. well, put it like this. that view is generated by the entry point of american missionaries influencing many people in this continent. we do not want to talk about blaming america. we ta ke we take responsibility for our own things. are you really taking responsibility? you are a writer and cultural figure and a proud african. yes. there are elements of pan—africanism to your cultural view. yes, certainly. fine. maybe, you are seeking to blame the anti—gay agenda on outsiders because it allows you to go easy on internal african factors?

my personal concerns are horeally w as as a continent we people, as a continent, have allowed ourselves to import certain kinds of ideas and not even domesticate them for our own good. we know — my grandparents on both sides were founder members of catholic and anglican churches, right? i'm a product of that system, a product of great schools, a product of all of that. we are also a product of an extremely conservative anglican movement that is still stranded in 1920. you cannot blame the coloniser anymore. you have to put the bullet points that the british gave you and pound them up again and say you people have become the very hard and brittle centre of establishment, at a time when this continent needs change. as you speak to me, i cannot help reflect on the words of one evangelical american pastor who has done a lot of work in uganda,

the kind of person you would be blaming for fostering this anti—gay climate, and he has responded to words such as yours, saying, look, i don't have any special powers to influence, and it is racist to suggest that africans have no will of their own to produce public policies to suit their own values. but put it like this. the anglicans and the catholics, especially in uganda and nigeria, it is not even colonialism anymore. the conservative elements that are dominant are so powerful right now for those churches that they are imposing their will on the anglican church in the uk. they have the parishioners, and they can pursue their conservative agenda. but what you have on the continent is a battle between a younger generation and an older generation that wants to keep its establishment power in play. and this is the best way that jonathan goodluck can partner with the crazy pentecostals and the crazy imams

to create fear at a time when he can't deliver electricity to his own people. it's the desperate move of a desperate president. you seem to think you can take the conservatism of a man like the archbishop in nigeria, and indeed the imams who claim to speak for boko haram, and you can also take people like museveni, who talk about specifically african values and you tar them all with this brush. we all went to school. we should receive a bibliography. these movements have been pounding on about homosexuality in africa forever. what you people have been doing is pounding out these bullet points for too long a time. what we can say is your church has been increasingly anti—diversity in the most diverse society on the earth. so it's not true, then. just a final thought on this cultural argument. when the catholic cardinal

from ghana said african traditional systems protect or have protected the population against the tendency that is homosexuality, any affair between two of the same sex, these are not countenanced in africa. that this cultural taboo, that tradition has always been there, are you saying that is wrong? that is why i talk about the anglican church and catholic church as the most conservative in the world. he is talking about traditional african systems putting a taboo on homosexuality. is that right or wrong? it is wrong — it is wrong, because the church is more interested in clamping down on diversity. when homosexually comes up, or abortion, or any other subject, they go crazy. but when the subject comes up how have you protestants allowed people

from crazy churches to come across this continent for demon—removal across this continent... i was there when the catholic church was saying to their parishioners in my hometown to go to these giant rallies where people were told to vote anti—democracy. i was in kenya when the churches united to have our constitution not passed, right, because of these foreign forces, and so and and so forth. these are retrogressive forces on this continent. you have certainly said that clearly. let me flip the argument about outside interventions in this particular issue around. and let me talk now about the words of british prime minister david cameron in 2011. when he specifically looked at the trend towards anti—gay legislation in countries like nigeria, uganda, and he said from now on we're going to tie the aid and assistance we give to africa to respect for human rights, including respect for the rights of gay africans. do you welcome that, or not? let me say, i am very tolerant,

but i tend to the no. even though you've told me about the surge of anti—gay feeling and how it is eroding the rights of people such as yourself when outsiders, let's say in the west, come and say we have a view here and we want to defend human rights? you do not like that? as africans, we have to start having these conversations in a bold way between ourselves. i do not think the results have been very good over the last five years in the prism of a halfway conversation between england and africa. there are questions about people in need. people i know at this point... this question is about human rights. does the west or international outsiders have a right to tell africans when they think africans are infringing basic human rights? traditional africans should be able to interact, for example, me as a gay man, with any organisations to advance common interest.

my problem with this of course is, with our experience on the continent, is if you open a little window, people who want to control you come back. but it isn't about control, but respect for universal values. this is a similar issue philosophically to your approach to the international criminal court. as a kenyan, you have obviously thought long and hard about whether the hague has the right to try your current president, uhuru kenyatta, and vice president for alleged crimes committed in the aftermath of the 2007 election in which there was terrible ethnic violence. you decided the international court has no right. i said it had a right. i did not want it to have a right. i did not want further entry of other people's power over oui’ own sovereignty. i'm not the only person, very many people are torn about this idea.

for me, it is the preference of this being fought in a place that is political is more important. people have written about it in the new york times recently. what's the preference, right? to some degree, kenya is a growing concern as a country. it's not the congo, right? how far do we allow our own systems to collapse or implode because of the icc? how far do you say... you said at the beginning of this interview there was a new africa, a hurricane passing across the continent, and we are proud and we are confident of where we are going. if you are proud and confident, why do not welcome these universal values, whether they be applied by outsiders or insiders? why don't you just recognise these are values that you aspire to? if we are talking about universal values, blair would be at the icc as we speak. let's put it like this. the questions are tentative.

there's one part of me that wants to see the uhuru kenyatta in court. i want to see the facts unfold. there is no doubt about it. but you blink like this, the ivory coast has hiccups, and the french are back inside like this, running everything again. mali and so forth. we have to watch these things. we do have these relationships. that relationship is well documented between the west and africa and it continues. this gets to the nub of the conversation. it seems to me on one hand, you say we are a new africa and not the generation that fought the liberation wars anymore. we're post—postcolonial. but on another level, you're full of the suspicion, mistrust and resentment that fuelled the generation of mugabe and others. put it like this — we are not a new africa. we are beginning to be a new africa. we have not arrived. we are setting off on a tentative, dangerous, thrilling, amazing journey, which i want to be a part of.

you want to make it on your own. the moment you think you know something, you have to shift around. those are good adventures. the only thing i do not want is to be sitting there and watching the water drop. that is all we did for 20 years. but if i may end this way, do you want to make this journey on your own, as africans on your own? is that what you want? we would like to make it with better partnerships. let's put it like that. we have to end there. thank you so much for being on hardtalk. hello there. the next couple of days are looking fairly dry for most of us, with some warm spells of sunshine,

but things are turning more unsettled and gradually cooler as we move through the bank holiday weekend. today, though, was a largely dry one, with some warm spells of sunshine around, particularly across england and wales, and these are the sorts of temperatures we're beginning the day on. now, we've got more cloud and rain across the north—east of scotland. that's because of this area of low pressure which is slowly pushing towards scandinavia. and this front‘s going to bring some thicker cloud towards the south—west of the country, perhaps bringing the odd spot of rain to the far south—west of england later on. thicker cloud for western parts of wales and for northern ireland, but much of the country having a nice day again. a little bit of fair weather cloud, plenty of sunshine around, and highs of 23 degrees in the south—east. but cooler, wetter and breezier for the north—east of scotland, so temperatures here at best around the mid—teens celsius. as we head on into friday, this area of low pressure begins to fill and pull away, so conditions gradually improve here, but we've got this feature running into northern ireland first thing on friday.

it'll bring thick cloud, a few showers, and then it'll move across the irish sea into parts of england and wales to bring thicker cloud and a few showers into the afternoon, maybe the odd heavy one mixed in. slightly better day for the north—east of scotland — not quite as breezy and not as much rain. in the sunshine, it shouldn't feel too bad, but again in central and southern england, we should see the low 20s celsius. now, on into the first part of the weekend, the bank holiday weekend, we've got this feature slowly edging into the north—west of the country, but for most of us, we're in between weather systems. it's going to be another largely dry day, with light winds. variable cloud building up into the afternoon. the best of the sunshine again across the south—east, but then later in the day, we'll start to see thicker cloud for northern ireland and western scotland, with rain arriving here. again, another warm one in the sunshine further south, 21 celsius or so, but generally the mid to upper teens celsius further north. then this feature really gets its act together. it pushes in across our shores during sunday, so a very different—feeling day for many of us, although east anglia and the south—east will escape, stay dry, with some sunny spells throughout the day, although cloud

will tend to build up. but further north, you can see central and northern areas much wetter, a few heavy bursts of rain in there, breezier too, persistent rain for western scotland. going to feel a little cooler here. but again, the high teens and low 20s in the south—east. so the bank holiday weekend is looking mixed. we're starting with quite a bit of dry and sunny weather, but then it turns wetter from sunday onwards, and gradually turning cooler as that front moves through. certainly on bank holiday monday all that'll be noticeable. but you can see next week it looks very cooler and more unsettled, with rain or showers at times, but also a bit of sunshine.

this is the briefing. i'm maryam moshiri. our top story: final days for theresa may as british prime minister, made worse by the resignation of a cabinet minister who says she can't support her latest brexit plan. i'm karin giannone, live outside the indian parliament. votes are being counted in the country's huge election. is prime minister narendra modi on course for a second term? president trump marches out of a meeting with top democrats, saying he can't work with them anymore after they accuse him of a cover up. grounded! but for how long? aviation authorities from all over the world meet in texas to discuss the flight ban for the boeing 737 max.