Is homophobia on the rise in the Commonwealth’s African member states?
Posted by ZoeWare - 21/01/10 at 09:01 am
Recent months have seen the issue of homosexuality being widely debated in various African member states of the Commonwealth. Uganda’s proposed ‘Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009’, calling for the execution of ‘repeat homosexual offenders’, has been internationally condemned. Late last year, Rwanda came close to criminalising homosexuality for the first time when its penal code was being revised. Meanwhile, an engaged gay couple in Malawi were recently arrested and charged with ‘unnatural offences’. Is homophobia a real problem in the African Commonwealth, thus contradicting the high human-rights standards the association is supposed to uphold?
Below is a moving testimony from John, a Ugandan gay man:
Uganda is one of the African countries which treats its gay people worse than it treats even animals. Your family can disown you and they call you all sorts of names and sometimes the family can see you as curse. The police cannot protect you; even when you try to explain no- one listens. The only thing that can help here is money, which can make the police listen, but for how long? That’s the question. The public is also against gay people and this makes it hard as you have no-one to talk to and this makes the situation worse as you feel the whole world is against you. The government does not take any notice if you are alive or not, and they think you are worse than a pig, as they phrase it. When you are in prison you are beaten up by the prison officers and inmates. They can do all sorts of things and if you are a lesbian, they can let men rape you and if you are a gay man they push things inside you saying that this is what you want.
Gay people in Uganda are not allowed medical treatment and no one wants to help you as they think you can pass it on. Young gay people find it hard as they may not be allowed to go to school, their families disown them and there is no one to help; even if there is someone to help, they are scared because they will put their own life in danger. It’s hard to get a job in Uganda when you are gay, because no- one wants to employ you and, even if you have the money to start your own business, still no- one will come to get anything from you. To sum up, gay life in Uganda is so hard and as time goes on it becomes harder. I wish the Ugandan people could really understand that this is not something you copy from someone. I have never had any problems with anyone, and I have helped many people in need, but no- one can see that side of me because, when they know I’m gay, no one wants to know me any more. I wish I could change but I cannot, so I have to live in fear, with no family, just an isolated life. Hopefully one day the Ugandan people will open their eyes if they find a gay person in their families.
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January 22nd, 2010 at 5:29 pm
I do not think homophobia is on the rise. What we are witnessing are signs of progress from a society that would not entertain any discussion on homosexuality to one that has opened up.
As we travel, read, see and experience a different world we become less and less conservative. The anti homosexuality bill has given us the opportunity to talk about homosexuality and get educated on the different aspects of it. Being able to talk about it is a plus.
About the story from John, I live in Uganda and I think its wrong to portray the Ugandan society in such a way. Does he mean that all gay people in Uganda have no families, are not employed, do not get any medical attention, have no businesses, get mistreated by police and inmates? Is that really true? I understand that as a community we are yet to fully understand and totally welcome homosexuality but we are not that hostile and have never been.
January 22nd, 2010 at 8:08 pm
This article sounds like one persons experience, not one that has been done with research and study.
Their is not that much difference in a lot of societies, and developing ones are more conservative than the more developed, however the reader should consider that not even the all the developed countries are that welcoming to those that are considered different, and change can only happen over time, and by the will of the majority.
January 23rd, 2010 at 10:17 am
To me this story from John is very right and I strongly support it on one ground. There are two categories of gays in Uganda, those who are out and known to the community and those that live a closed life so those that happen to be identified by the community or their families will suffer all those tragedies and those that prefer a cocoon life will obviously live happily in their cocoons. i used to live happily but one day I confessed to my parents that I was gay I started experiencing all the punishments of being one.So I wish we can have our people taught and learn how to treat gays as fellow human beings in Uganda
February 3rd, 2010 at 12:41 pm
This is a very complicated subject. Human rights is of paramount importance but there are some rights which kill the very fundamental moral principles of life.
The issue becomes more complicated when we are in the world where religion and all other social values co-exist. Human rights will allow all these to co-exist but the things we allow to co-exist are not symbiotic and sometimes one hardly tolerates the other.
By the end of the day it depends on who rules and who is in control and what are the values and beliefs of those in control.If those formulating human rights guidelines were/are guided by religous values and beliefs, which the human rights allow to co-exist, one would agree with me that some rights would be at very serious discretion. And it is a very big challenge if the one judging such a case in a court has religious values and beliefs but is judging using laws and guidelines which are not fully in support of his values and beliefs.
At the very end of it all, the basis of our powers is what determines which values will take lead in the end. Based on my religious principles, values and beliefs; some of the human rights exists because the world is mainly controlled by the devil. If we were to look critically at the human rights, they were supposed to foster the liberty which the creator himself wanted man and woman to enjoy on earth. That liberty has limits and that is why human rights have limits too.
If one critically analyses what other human rights and fundamental moral principles of life the gay rights torture, one would then justify whether it is proper to advocate for such or not.
In the real sense, what ever we do; it is spiritual war in the name of balancing which rights to include in the laws,sometimes mixing things which are immiscible.
In conclusion, we can allow our human rights to allow everything co-exist but the one to be taken by the majority depends on the beliefs and values of the majority and how religion and spirituality preaches for and against such rights.
February 3rd, 2010 at 3:52 pm
Homophobia is not on the rise, but society and people are coming to a time when there is need for balance of issues or a balance of risks if i may borrow that line.
I add to what Collen says above,….
‘The issue becomes more complicated when we are in the world where religion and all other social values co-exist. Human rights will allow all these to co-exist but the things we allow to co-exist are not symbiotic and sometimes one hardly tolerates the other…
we see this not in Uganda and developing world only persay, but comes in various forms in developed nations as well..when you synthesize issues surrounding the Isarael/palestine, terrorist and Islam…you find it is values/beliefs VS human rights,
to some us who are religious,..the family is the foundation of Mankind.. May be we shall come to understand the issue of homosexuality, as Uganda is now progressing to an open society where such issues are discussed, whereas in the past such rare orientations would be suffocated/treated as animal vices to be culled from society, but am happy Uganda’s moved to debate.
From johns experience, I do not agree that one can not copy gay from another person..it is still debatable, as in poor societies, money can influence anything.
February 4th, 2010 at 3:14 am
Treating gays as anything less than fully equal makes no sense to me. We shouldn’t treat a black person better or worse than a white person just because of the color of their skin. We shouldn’t treat a muslim man better or worse than a jewish or christian man just because of the way that they pray. We shouldn’t treat a woman better or worse than a man because of the anatomy of her body.
And we shouldn’t treat a gay person better or worse than a straight person, just for who they love.
That’s my opinion. And it is sad to see that so much hatred breeds so much misunderstanding which breeds so much hurt which breeds so much hatred.
February 5th, 2010 at 3:35 am
It seems to me that some governments consider themselves above God. I say this because God is neither male nor female. In fact, it is only here on earth that there are physical bodies and two sexes, and that for very definite reasons, the foremost being to allow souls to gain experience on earth from the perspective of both male and female.
Some people are born gay, and that is also part of the Divine plan. One reason why this happens is that their soul requires or desires that type of experience, as part of its growth. Another is that people who have had several lives as a female, and then take incarnation as a male, could well end up being effeminate and gay. The same phenomenon applies to masculine women. (Yes, believe it or not, our souls do take repeated incarnations on earth, although some people cannot get their minds to cross that hurdle.) Then there is also the law of cause and effect to consider. What you sow, you reap. Condemn or ridicule a gay person, and you will end up gay yourself in a future life, and be on the receiving end of the same treatment that you deal out now. That could possibly also be a reason why some people are born gay, but not necessarily. In any event, that cycle must stop.
As Shakespeare said, ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’
The problem is that much of humanity is ignorant of the two most fundamental laws of nature, namely the law of rebirth and the law of cause and effect.