I am honored to oblige, and it is with utmost respect and admiration that I share this document here:
TITLE
OF SESSION: MORAL CONFLICTS AND LIBERTY: GAY PERSECUTION IN UGANDA AND HOW THEY CAN BE
LIBERATED.
PRESENTER: FRANCIS MWINE
This paper is
published under the responsibility of Krysler Thematic and think tank group,
where the presenter is the founding member and Chairperson, affiliated to
Twagalane Association.
Comments on this
paper are invited.
Please contact
the author and presenter at EMAIL: frankmwine22@yahoo.com
Dear ladies and
gentlemen, distinguished guests, protocol observed;
First and
foremost, I want to convey my gratitude to Anne Cormack, Gillian Harvey, Rev. Pat
Bumgartner and Martin Pendergast, for all their courageous efforts they
ploughed in towards my participation to this Conference.
I am going to make my presentation very precise in the framework
below;
a) Trajectory of Homosexuality in
Uganda and key highlights of the Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Bill;
b)
Reasons why the Uganda
Anti-Homosexual Bill should be opposed;
c)
Assessment of the Human Rights
for Gays;
d)
Recommendation and Conclusion;
a.
Trajectory of Homosexuality in Uganda and key highlights of the
Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Bill;
Let me begin
with a short true life story;
I was in a tram
in Antwerp, Belgium on the 20th of April, this year when my high school friend
back in Uganda, but now living in Brussels entered. I was gleeful yet
embarrassed; one part of me wanted to greet her, the other to take cover. She
is a successful banker in Brussels married to a celebrated female architect.
With the
proposed Anti-homosexual bill in Uganda, I was wondering whether she knew that
if she ever stepped back home in Uganda, together with her partner they would
face the gallows.
And supposedly
if she chose to continue to lead her lifestyle in Belgium, and the Ugandan government
got wind of it, she would be extradited and sentenced to death and me the
friend in any event that I returned home and did not report her to the police then,
I would have to serve three years in jail faced with hard labour.
Since I arrived
in Europe, I have been confronted with persistent questions about Uganda’s
kill-the-gays bill at academic institutions that I have been to, functions name
it.
The proposed
Uganda, Anti-Homosexuality Bill on 13 October 2009 that would, if enacted,
broaden the criminalisation of homosexuality by introducing death penalty for
people who have previous convictions, are HIV positive, or engage in same sex
acts with people under 18 years of age (age of sex consent in Uganda), has
generated a lot of attention far and wide in the public domain.
The bill also
includes provisions for Ugandans who engage in same-sex sexual relations in the
diaspora, may be extradited for punishment back to Uganda, and includes
penalties for individuals, companies, organisations that support LGBT rights,
to mention a few.
This bill will
be the most draconian law in history if enacted. We are all created equal and endowed by our
creator with certain unalienable rights such as life, liberty and sexuality to
mention a few, thus homosexuals deserve the same equality.
+
Digging deep
into the historical trajectories of culture and sexual practices in many
Ugandan communities, homosexuality existed far back before colonisation.
The effronteries
that shape homophobia in Uganda and therefore shaped the anti-gay bill, is that
the anti-homosexuality domain argues that it is un-African may be un-Ugandan if
I were to use the term. But they do not highlight any specific traditional and
cultural countenances against gays in any particular pre-colonial African
society.
Instead, they
bask to Christianity a religion that is not African and is indeed against many
African traditions. Since we had our own traditional religious beliefs.
Uganda as a
country boasts of over 100 cultures. None of these Anti-Homosexual cultural
fundamentalists even knows the traditions of any pre-colonial Ugandan society
in significant detail. So their claims are without any scintilla of evidence.
On the contrary
studies show that homosexuality existed in pre-colonial Uganda attracting
differing levels of opinion. One such study was by Prof. Tibamanya Mwene
Mushanga showing that homosexuality was practised and tolerated among the
Bahima in pre-colonial Ankole, which is located South Western Uganda.
Although, many
Ugandan communities do not have any local vocabulary for the word
homosexuality. This suggests that it existed to some less degree and most
probably the society did not take a moral position on it.
The most
important point to consider is that, pre-colonial Africa was not hostile to
homosexuality. Instead, this hostility began with the introduction of
Christianity and colonial rule.
b. Reasons as to why the
Ugandan Anti-Homosexual Bill should be Opposed.
The majority of
Ugandans possibly don’t understand that cultural preconceptions can be used as
a moral insult against any group arbitrarily. For example, sections of white
society today still believe that black people are animals like donkeys; that
inter racial sex is akin to bestiality (I don’t want to sound as a racist, apologies
to any it may hurt, but its true).
It was an act of
considerable courage that Barack Obama’s mother married a black man in 1960;
equally a difficult choice for her white parents to accept it.
In Dreams from my Father,
Obama says his fellow kids then, but white used to laugh at his mother for the
choice of her father. When his grandfather complained to their parents, they
would answer: “Well, you ought to tell
your daughter how to behave herself. White people here don’t marry niggers.”
In my last three
years research about homosexuality, I have learnt from the prejudice against
homosexuals in Uganda not to be hostile to racists because they are also
victims of culture. It is in this through being objective to the subject that
that I have been trying to conceptualise my answers to this befuddling
question.
A friend of
mine, a Professor of history in America, once asked me with curiosity, who Hon.
David Bahati (the Ugandan legislator who proposed the bill) was. He likened him
to Adolf Hitler; a man who stoked anti Semitic, anti gay and anti black hatred.
I perpetually
find myself in a very unmanageable situation of explicating how good the
anti-homosexual people advance their reasoning that they are trying to protect
Ugandan (or Christian) culture from adulteration. This is the highest promotion
of extreme injustice to mankind.
To me they are
like the senator, the President, the congressman in America who for many years
rejected inter racial marriage on grounds that “it is against our culture”; the
male chauvinist in Togo still refusing his daughters to go to school in the
name of tradition; the parent in Pakistan who marries off his 12-year-old
daughter to a 50-year-old man in the name of culture; the religious cleric in
Saudi Arabia who, in the name of religion, orders the stoning to death of a
girl for premarital sex; the old woman in Kenya who mutilates the genitals of a
young girl in the name of custom.
It seems most
evil is not always promoted by evil people. A close reading of the crimes of
Hitler and the Nazis shows that actually they were following an established
European tradition. People of European descent had committed genocides against
native populations in America and Africa. Religion (or culture) and science
were always at hand to provide justification for mass slaughter.
Sven Lindquist’s
book, Exterminate all the Brutes, is
a refreshing and insightful account of the role of religion, tradition and
science in promoting European genocides.
Many Ugandans
choose to bury their heads in the sand of cultural bigotry, Stone Age customs
and archaic religious dogmas to persecute gays. Unfortunately, reality and
science tell a different story; being gay is as normal as being a heterosexual.
Yet what is
intriguing is the similarity of the basis of argument by either side in the gay
debate in Uganda. The anti gay campaigners argue that homosexuality is an alien
lifestyle to our country; that it is being promoted by people from the West
using money. The pro gay campaigners in Europe argue that the anti gay movement
in Uganda is promoted and financed by right wing religious groups in Europe and
America.
One side denies
the domestic origins of homosexuality; the other, the local basis of hostility
towards it. This is one way Africa is always denied initiative; events in our
continent are seen as instigated from elsewhere as if we are a passive and idle
people suffering from too much inertia; initiative in Africa is a sign of
forces from outside.
Gays in Uganda
like everywhere else in the world grow up only to realise that they are
sexually attracted to people of the same sex. They do not need any money or
propaganda from the West to have those feelings.
Equally, anti
homosexual feelings are born of ignorance and prejudice that is entirely local.
Anti gay Ugandans do not need right wing money or propaganda to be hostile to
homosexuality. If external influences play a role at all, it is insignificant
and secondary.
Most debates
everywhere tend to fall into this false and misleading pitfall; rather than
debate the objective content of the argument, people focus on the subjective
motivations of the participants.
Another
true-life story;
When I was about
six years old in primary school in Uganda of course, I had a friend of the same
age and sex, with whom we went to school with. Truly with no knowledge about
sex then, this friend had only male peers. The same trend continued in high
school, in a mixed sex boarding school and now at the age of 28 years, he is a
self confessed gay and an accomplished doctor but cannot find any form of
employment because of his sexuality. Imagine at the age of six years this poor
kid didn’t need any monetary incentives to be gay.
The majority of
elucidated Ugandans are afraid to openly challenge the anti-homosexuality
group’s bigotry and Nazi-like campaign against homosexuals for fear of being
misunderstood as either being gay or having been bribed by rich gays in the
West.
If there was a
referendum to exterminate all gays in Uganda, I think even my grandmother a strong
Christian, deep in the village, would vote yes in the name of religion and
culture.
On hearing the
news from a pal of mine about my inability for not attending this conference,
she rang to say that her divine prayers were answered as she could not imagine
her favourite grandson’s ideology on homosexuality.
Yet the pillar
of Christianity is to Love one another as you love yourself. This is an example
of how debate on homosexuality is being done out of prejudice and ignorance.
The
anti-homosexual coalition in Uganda is not using God but the state to
promulgate draconian laws. God did not bestow judgment of sin on humankind. He
kept it as his preserve, possibly knowing that humans would abuse it. The state
should not be used to enforce God’s will.
Besides, there
are many Christians who do not believe that the Bible prohibits homosexuality.
This is because Christianity, like all other religions and cultures, is subject
to different interpretations.
These
differences cannot be settled by human beings. The Supreme Court of religion is
God. It is therefore wrong to pass legislation based on one interpretation of
one religion’s values and impose them on others. This takes away the rights of
non-believers or people of different religious interpretation.
In both biblical
teachings and in evolutionary science, procreation is the engine of life,
another point made by the anti-homosexual group. Therefore, I appreciate why
many Ugandan societies have traditionally been hostile to homosexuality. The
existence of species depends on procreation.
Every
evolutionary biologist will tell you that species that had high survival
abilities but poor reproductive capacity became extinct. So it is reproduction
that keeps us replenished.
But this also
poses a vital evolutionary puzzle. If homosexuality threatens life, evolution
would have biologically, socially and psychologically eliminated it.
Homosexuals would cause their own extinction since they would be unable to pass
on their gene.
Research shows
that every human society has homosexuals to the tune of 5% to 10% of the
population. Homosexuality is also found in 537 species of vertebrate mammals.
And since many
oppose homosexuality because it undermines procreation, a legitimate point-oh
yes.
But there are
many heterosexual couples who choose not to have children. The Pope and the
entire hierarchy of the Catholic Church is celibate. There are many women who
are sterile and men who are impotent. There are millions of birth control
programmes in the world. All this has not caused the extinction of humanity.
So homosexuality
is as old as life. From ancient Greece to the Roman Empire, homosexuality has
been recurrent. How can something that threatens life survive for this long?
The great Greek
thinker, Aristotle, also thought that it evolved to check over- population.
Modern evolutionary psychologists and biologists have developed several
theories to explain it. But the debate and research continues. The good news is
that there are enough heterosexuals who want to have children to sustain life.
c.
Assessment of Gay Human Rights and Way Forward.
Today, with all
the economic, social and political crises facing Uganda, homosexuals present a
convenient group to point fingers at as the “biggest threat” or the “real
problem” to society.
The
re-criminalisation of homosexuality is meant to distract the attention of
Ugandans from the real issues that harm us. It conveniently diverts the
attention of the millions of Ugandans who have been walking the streets for
years with their college certificates and no jobs on offer.
Homosexuals have
nothing to do with the hundreds of thousands of families that sleep without a
meal or the thousands of children who die unnecessarily every day from
preventable or treatable diseases such as malaria, diarrhoea, measles,
pneumonia, etc.
Homosexuals are
not the ones responsible for the lack of drugs and supplies at primary health
care centres.
Social Implications;
You may think
that this bill targets only homosexual individuals. However, homosexuality
is defined in such a broad fashion as to include “touching another person with
the intention of committing the act of homosexuality.” This is a
provision highly prone to abuse and puts all citizens (both hetero and
homosexuals) at great risk. Such a provision would make it very
easy for a person to witch-hunt or bring false accusations against their
enemies simply to “destroy” their reputations and cause scandal.
Moreover, the
bill imposes a stiff fine and term of imprisonment for up to three years for
any person in authority over a homosexual who fails to report the offender
within 24 hours of acquiring such knowledge.
Hence the bill
requires family members to “spy” on one another. This provision obviously
does not strengthen the family unit in the manner that Hon. Bahati claims his
bill wants to do, but rather promotes the breaking up of the family.
This provision
further threatens relationships beyond family members. What do I
mean? If a gay person talks to his priest or his doctor in confidence,
seeking advice, the bill requires that such person breaches their trust and
confidentiality with the gay individual and immediately hands them over to the
police within 24 hours. Failure to do so draws the risk of arrest to
themselves.
Or a mother who
is trying to come to terms with her child’s sexual orientation may be dragged
to police cells for not turning in her child to the authorities. The same
fate would befall teachers, priests, local councilors, counselors, doctors,
landlords, elders, employers, MPs, lawyers, etc.
Furthermore, if
your job is in any way related to human rights activism, advocacy, education
and training, research, capacity building, and related issues this bill should
be a cause for serious alarm.
In a very
undemocratic and unconstitutional fashion, the bill seeks to silence human
rights activists, academics, students, donors and non-governmental
organizations. If passed into law it will stifle the space of civil
society.
The bill also
undermines the pivotal role of the media to report freely on any issue. The
point I am trying to make is that we are all potential victims of this
draconian bill.
Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr. told us many years ago, “Power at its best is love implementing
the demands of justice, and justice at its best is love correcting everything
that stands against love.” Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights instructs us: “All Human Beings are Born Free and Equal in Dignity and
Rights.”
The Legal Implications of
the Bill;
The Anti-Homosexuality
bill has a total of 18 clauses. 12 of these 18 clauses (i.e., 67%) are
not new at all as they simply replicate what we already have on our law
books.
So the first
point I want to highlight is that Parliament has been given a bill two-thirds
of whose content duplicates existing laws.
So, let us
examine the content of the remaining 6 clauses that introduce new legal
provisions.
Clauses 6
provides for the recognition of the right to privacy and confidentiality for
the victim of homosexual assaults. This is a procedural issue that no one
can dispute and it can easily be inserted in the Penal Code provisions that
criminalize rape and aggravated defilement.
Nevertheless,
the remaining 5 clauses are extremely problematic from a legal point of view.
They violate Uganda’s constitution and many other regional and international
instruments that Uganda has ratified.
The
interpretation section (Clause 1) replicates several definitions that are
provided for elsewhere. Its novel provisions lie in the attempt to define
homosexuality and its related activities. I have already alluded to the
potential danger that Ugandans face in the threatening and broad fashion that
the bill defines a “homosexual act.”
Clause 13 which
attempts to outlaw the “Promotion of Homosexuality” is very problematic as it
introduces widespread censorship and undermines fundamental freedoms such as
the rights to free speech, expression, association and assembly.
Under this
provision an unscrupulous person aspiring to unseat a member of parliament can
easily send the incumbent MP unsolicited material via e-mail or text messaging,
implicating the latter as one “promoting homosexuality.” After being
framed in that way, it will be very difficult for the victim to shake free of
the “stigma.”
Secondly, by
criminalizing the “funding and sponsoring of homosexuality and related
activities,” the bill deals a major blow to Uganda’s public health policies and
efforts.
Take for
example, the Most At Risk Populations’ Initiative (MARPI) introduced by the
Ministry of Health in 2008, which targets specific populations in a
comprehensive manner to curb the HIV/AIDS scourge.
If this bill
becomes law, health practitioners as well as those that have put money into
this exemplary initiative will automatically be liable to imprisonment for
seven years!
The clause
further undermines civil society activities by threatening the fundamental
rights of NGOs and the use of intimidating tactics to shackle their directors
and managers.
Clause 14 introduces
the crime of “Failure to Disclose the Offence” of homosexuality. As I
have noted above, under this provision any person in authority is obliged to
report a homosexual to the relevant authorities within 24 hours of acquiring
such knowledge.
Not only does this infringe on the right to
privacy but it is practically unenforceable. It dangerously opens up room
for potential abuse, blackmail, witch-hunting, etc. Do we really want to
move sexual acts between consenting adults into the public realm?
Clause 16
relates to extra-territorial jurisdiction, and basically confers authority on
Ugandan law enforcers to arrest and charge a Ugandan citizen or permanent
resident who engages in homosexual activities outside the borders of
Uganda. This law enforcement model is normally used in international
crimes such as money laundering, terrorism, etc. The Ugandan Penal Code
already provides for crimes that call for extra-territoriality. All these
touch on the security of the state e.g., treason, terrorism and war mongering
(see S.4 of the PCA).
Recommendation and
Conclusion:
A particular
problem with Ugandan society is its low levels of openness. As evolutionary
psychologist Geoffrey Miller has written, openness to experience implies
curiosity, novelty seeking, broad-mindedness, interest in culture, ideas and
aesthetics.
Our society
exhibits low levels of openness partly because of the influence of
tradition.But as our society modernises and urbanises, a new cultural
sophistication is consolidating.
For example, in the current debate on Bahati’s
bill, the most virulent anti-gay crusaders are largely (although not entirely)
from rural areas, born in peasant families, are less travelled and are not
widely read. So they lack exposure to diversity. The opposite applies to most
of the people who are tolerant of gays.
It is easy to
tell open-minded people; they tend to seek complexity and novelty, they readily
accept innovations and changes – and as Miller writes, they prefer grand new
visions to mundane, predictable ruts.
People who are
low on openness tend to seek simplicity and predictability; they resist change
and respect tradition. They are often more conservative, close-minded,
conventional and authoritarian.
They follow the
established cults as did their grand parents. Even in heterosexual
relationships, they reject creative acts that increase intimacy. In the name of
tradition, they support female genital mutilation, practice polygamy, beat
their wives and want to decide for their children.
Sex is a very
important element in our lives that cannot be limited to simplistic reasoning.
It would be very dangerous for the sate to visit people’s bedrooms at night to
monitor whether sex is practised through the legalised style. For example,
should the government investigate whether couple X, practise oral sex or couple
Y, masturbates. If this was to be done then, it would put us on a slippery sex
satisfaction slope.
The Ugandan
education system adds to the problem. At home, children are taught to obey
their parents without question. In school, Students are taught to respect every
opinion in a book or from the teacher instead of questioning it.
I belong to a
community of cattle keepers, whose daily food rations are milk, yoghurt and
meat with a few supplements from our neighbouring agricultural based
communities. It was a taboo to eat fish, grasshoppers and chicken in my past
cultural norms, reason being that if you ate them your cows will die, very
archaic, since cows are seen as a source of pride and measure of wealth, I
wonder what my Hindu friend, Alok, in India would say about me.
Since I have
travelled around the world and I have been confronted with many challenging
cultures, I have learnt how narrow minded how some of my cultural beliefs are.
I have been
served snails and lizards in Nigeria, Rats in Zambia, Pig brains in Hungary,
and I would not be surprised if I were to be served dog meat in South Korea.
Any peasant from my community would tell you how primitive these people are who
eat these foods, many would not come to terms with me, to cope requires open
mindness.
Finally, while
chatting with a senior legislator back in Uganda, actually the one who proposed
this bill, he said, “he would not wish his son to marry my son, and then he is
invited for the wedding”, dear Hon. Friend, I wish you the best, but it is
always better to prepare for the worst as well.
Four decades
back, it was scandalous for women to wear mini skirts and trousers, when it
happened there was an outcry from male chauvinists that our culture was going
to the dogs, but now its okay and they look pretty in the outfit.
When black
people demanded equal rights, white people spoke of an apocalypse, read the New York Times of July 5, 1950, when
Jack Johnson (black) knocked out Jim Jeffries (white), in the World boxing
title challenge. Cultural change is difficult but inevitable.
The biggest
threat is war, and we should instead see all the efforts of the anti-homosexual
groups channelled to campaigns against nuclear arms proliferation, the other
danger is climate change caused by human activity through industrial expansion
and human pressure.
The challenging
problems in Uganda are corruption that has killed health care systems and other
social amenities, shortage of social housing, abusive partners who engage in
domestic violence whether physical, sexual or emotional, sexual predators that
breach the trust placed in them as fathers, teachers, religious leaders,
doctors, uncles and sexually exploit young girls and boys, rapists and child molesters
who pounce on unsuspecting family members, lack of social education finance
support structures.
I am aware that I am swimming against the tide
presenting on this topic. But I feel strongly that keeping silent in the face
of injustice, especially one promoted through culture, is a worse option to the
advancement of justice for mankind.
I understand
that well intentioned people like these anti gay promoters, can promote extreme
injustices because of the influence of culture and tradition.
Uganda needs
courageous people to challenge injustices against homosexuals perpetuated
through culture and religion.
I present this
paper in honour of those white people, the abolitionists, who, against the
ridicule and harassment of their peers and at great personal risk opposed
slavery and discrimination against black people.
It pains me that
black people who have been victims of discrimination due to cultural
stereotyping are the ones most virulently hostile to homosexuals. The chains of
culture can be tough.
Together we can
create change, like the words of Margaret Meade, “Never doubt that a small group of people can change the world, indeed
it’s the only thing that ever has”
Thank
You.
______________________________________________________________
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Wow, Christina, you rock, so wonderful. Thanks
ReplyDeleteWow, Christina, you rock, so wonderful. Thanks
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