Homosexuality in Uganda

Guest post today, from fellow blogger Sora Ryu! Check out her blog, and a couple of my guest posts there, at www.writingsofryu.com.

As you know, a friend recently sent me a link to Dartmouth professor Jeff Sharlet's interview with Fresh Air on NPR regarding Uganda's Anti-Gay Bill. From there I read the excerpt from his article in Harper's Magazine entitled "Straight Man's Burden." I was particularly angered and saddened by the account of what happened to Juliet Mukasa. It is my strongest desire for a girl to never be trapped alone in such a homophobic, fanatic atmosphere and to never endure such a horrific abuse as a "corrective" gang rape. I wrote a blog post documenting my response in order to raise awareness on this issue.

The plight of gays in Uganda as well as the rest of Africa is an issue that needs more attention. Africa's Christian communities are being radicalized by scions from the right in America. In his most recent article in The Advocate Professor Sharlet reports:

"Antigay Americans are losing the culture war, so they’re exporting hatred to Uganda, Zimbabwe, and Nigeria — where their fervor is so welcome it threatens to sweep the entire continent."

These anti-gay scions are pastors and missionaries funded and encouraged by a secretive fundamentalist Christian society referred to as The Family or The Fellowship which tries to pull political strings in America and export their bigotry to Africa, the "ground zero" of their "spiritual warfare." Professor Sharlet who is an expert on The Family and has written a book on their underground exploits was the go-to person when The Family was forced to expose themselves and backpedal from their discriminatory views when the Ugandan Anti-Gay Bill first came to light.

However, although the media spotlight may have swung from this controversial bill, human rights activist cannot afford to forget it allow it to pass. The purveyors of "God-led government" are just as crazy and determined as Netanyahu's "irrational" and "apocalyptic" characterization of the imams in Iran:

"For the Moral Majority, then the Christian Coalition, then Focus on the Family, and now the more chaotic Christian nationalism of the Tea Party (“a new Great Awakening,” crows South Carolina’s DeMint), it’s not so much a question as it is a warning.

“We warn everybody that the future king is coming,” said David Coe, a leader of the Family. “Not just of this country or that, but of the world.” "

The real warning is not the end of the world but that if rational people sit back and turn a blind eye the righteous right of America and Africa - who among other things believe " it’s “the gays” who are attempting genocide: “They are a threat to our existence,” he [a Ugandan politician] told me [Sharlet]" and a host of other outlandish "schemes" perpetuated by a "gay city under Lake Victoria" - will attempt to kill off the gay population in Africa. While talking to a Ugandan missionary working for Faithful Servants International Ministries Sharlet noted this exchange:

"“What do you make of this Anti-Homosexuality Bill?” I asked. It was one of the hottest debates in the country, and a rare occasion when Uganda made international news. Said to be inspired by Americans, the bill would make homosexuality a crime punishable by death or life in prison. But Tommy heard only the word “homosexuality.”

“I do not believe in homosexuality!” he said, rearing up with indignation as if I’d just put a hand on his knee. “Absolutely not!” He crossed his arms over his burly chest.

“Of course,” I said, “of course.”

Teresa rubbed his shoulder. “Shh,” she said. “I don’t think that’s what he meant.”

I explained that I was interested in their view of the death penalty for homosexuality. Tommy shook his head. Tough one.

“Well, I’m totally against killing them. Because some of them can be saved, and changed. But the thing is, you can’t force them to stop. It’s been tried! But it don’t work.” He shook his head over the problem on all sides — the homosexuals, themselves, and his Ugandan friends, so on fire for the gospel that they’d gone too far in an antigay crusade. That’s how it is with Ugandans, he explained. They’re a bighearted people, but they get ahead of themselves sometimes. That’s where Americans could help.

“What they need,” Tommy proposed, “is a special place, like, for people doing homosexual things to learn different. A camp, like.”

“Keep them all in one place?” I asked.

“Yes. I think that’s what we have to try,” he said. “Because the thing is, the Bible says we can’t kill them. And we can’t put them in prison because that’d be like putting a normal fella in a whorehouse!” Teresa chuckled with her husband. A camp in which to concentrate the offenders — that was the compassionate solution."

Did you hear that? The most "compassion solution" for the gays is a concentration camp. When the Anti-Gay Bill in Uganda was drawn up, it was written to inspire similar bills throughout Africa. If this bill passes there will be a genocide. And the blood will be on our hands.

As Professor Sharlet notes the American right did not pull the trigger, but they certainly handed the Ugandan fundamentalists the gun. The fault will also fall on those who sat back and allowed the transcontinental bigots to have their way.

This issue is important and it deserves more attention. That is why this story graces the cover of the September issue of The Advocate. If you want to help out and spread awareness check out Four African LGBT Organizations Worth Supporting.

Other Human Rights Issues that Deserve More Press

The Atrocity of Rape in Congo Continues | Women's Interviews

"Rwandan and Congolese rebels systematically gang-raping nearly 200 woman and even infants over the span of a few days near a UN peacekeepers base earlier this month...The scale and pervasiveness of rape as a means of control in places like the Congo is astonishing and truly sickening. We cannot let stories like this desensitize us to what is happening."

Rape is being used as weapon of war and this is truly horrific. The UN was too slow and their peacekeeping troops failed to prevent the tragedy. More needs to be done by the UN and African governments to address what happens to people in corners of the world often overlooked and forgotten. Such war crimes shouldn't be allowed to happen to innocent civilians. No woman deserves to be raped.

Also no person deserves what happened to this woman:

"a Saudi couple brutally hammered 24 nails into their Sri Lankan maid’s hands, legs and forehead after she complained about the work load. It is frightening and deeply saddening to think that such human atrocities are happening all over the world."

The Daily Femme has been documenting the cruel and degrading treatment of the mostly female foreign domestic workers who suffer in places like the Middle East. More of the media needs to take up these forgotten women's cause and without silly, demeaning headlines like "and you thought your workday was hard."

Finally we cannot forget about the reformist Green Movement in Iran and what they have endured for free elections:

"The protests, which had started over election fraud, had grown into huge demonstrations against the Islamic regime, the largest in Iran since Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini overthrew the Shah, in 1979. But in the weeks that followed, Iran’s ultimate political authority, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, endorsed Ahmadinejad’s victory and condemned the protests; riot police and Basij, armed with knives and guns, were sent into the streets to attack the protesters. Between forty and eighty people were killed, Mousavi’s nephew among them, and thousands were arrested.

In show trials held in August, more than a hundred detainees were paraded in court, many of them thin and pale and clearly terrified; according to Amnesty International, many detainees had been beaten, tortured, and raped by guards and interrogators, often at secret detention centers. Several “confessed” to an improbable range of political crimes, including treason. Since then, most have been released on bail, including the Iranian-Canadian Newsweek correspondent Maziar Bahari, who fled the country. But hundreds of others have been sentenced to harsh prison terms, and at least five sentenced to death. Two have already been hanged for the crime of moharebeh—warring against God."

This comes from a New Yorker article I already mentioned but one that I feel needs more attention.

Even though I have expressed that an American or Israeli bombing of Iranian nuclear sites would be a bad idea for international relations I do not support President Ahmadinejad's repressive regime. His opponents in the 2009 elections supported full rights for women and do not share their president's view of the Holocaust (Ahmadinejad believes it never happened). However their movement to retake Iran from it's Supreme Leader has been forgotten by the West and even President Obama has distanced himself.

“They were wrong,” my friend said. “And their leaders misunderestimated—to paraphrase your former President Bush—just how savage the regime could be.” Adopting a mocking tone of voice, he added, “ ‘What, you thought that with your vote you’d get change? That you actually had a choice?’ ” A friend of his had been detained and released after agreeing to sign a statement of repentance. “His interrogator told him, ‘This time you have no choice. You either submit or I’ll ram this stick up your ass. That’s your choice.’ ”

Understandably, the Green Movement is virtually silent in Iran now. There has been no accounting for the human rights violations and lost of dignity the reformists had to undergo. They live without democracy and in fear.

If sanctions and diplomacy do not work and bombing Iran will mean WWIII, President Obama's administration should speaks words of inspiration to the Green Movement, encouraging them to take back their country. The time for stepping over Ahmadinejad's toes is over. If we want an Iran we can negotiate with and do not have to bomb, the time for regime change is now.

It is repressive regimes like the ones in Iran and Uganda that do not care about human rights and perpetuate human suffering.

- Ryu