Spot the Difference

Nazi Germany, and Uganda today...

You know what, I live and work and stay in Uganda. It is home to me. And, there is nothing like home... But this comparison was chilling to me. I picked it up from here.

The whole article is worth reading. For me as a gay Ugandan who has lived these days of the 'Anti-Gay' Crusade, it was chilling that I just have to go back into my memory of the last couple of years to find parallels between what is happening now, in Uganda. And what happened the last century.

Bloody chilling. And frightening. To me.

Here it is.
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On June 28, 1935, the Ministry of Justice revised Paragraph 175. The revisions provided a legal basis for extending Nazi persecution of homosexuals. Ministry officials expanded the category of “criminally indecent activities between men” to include any act that could be construed as homosexual. The courts later decided that even intent or thought sufficed.
On October 26, 1936, Himmler formed within the Security Police the Reich Central Office for Combating Abortion and Homosexuality. Josef Meisinger, executed in 1947 for his brutality in occupied Poland, led the new office. The police had powers to hold in protective custody or preventive arrest those deemed dangerous to Germany’s moral fiber, jailing indefinitely–without trial–anyone they chose. In addition, homosexual prisoners just released from jail were immediately re-arrested and sent to concentration camps if the police thought it likely that they would continue to engage in homosexual acts.
From 1937 to 1939, the peak years of the Nazi persecution of homosexuals, the police increasingly raided homosexual meeting places, seized address books, and created networks of informers and undercover agents to identify and arrest suspected homosexuals. On April 4, 1938, the Gestapo issued a directive indicating that men convicted of homosexuality could be incarcerated in concentration camps.

and, to continue

 This speech was given by Josef Meissinger, Head of the Reich Central Office for Combating Abortion and Homosexuality.
In Uganda, who would give it, but the Rt. Honourable Nsaba Buturo, PhD, Minister of Ethics and Integrity? Just read it, and tell me whether any of the sentiments expressed in this speech have not, over the years, been repeated by Nsaba Buturo, thought for thought.

If one is really to appreciate the hidden danger of homosexuality, it is no longer enough to consider it as before from a narrowly criminal viewpoint. Because it is now so enormously widespread, it has actually developed into a phenomenon of the most far-reaching consequence for the survival of the nation and state. For this reason, however, homosexuality can no longer be regarded simply from the viewpoint of criminal investigation; it has become a problem with political importance. This being so, it cannot be the task of the police to investigate homosexuality scientifically. At the most it can take account of scientific conclusions in its work. Their task is to ascertain homosexual trends and their damaging effects, so as to avert the danger that this phenomenon represents for nation and state. No one says to the police: you shouldn’t arrest this thief because he might have acquired kleptomania. Similarly, once we have recognized that a homosexual is an enemy of the state, we shan’t ask the police—and much less the Political Police—whether he has acquired his vice or whether he was born with it. I should mention here that experience has shown beyond doubt that only a vanishingly small number of homosexuals have a truly homosexual inclination, that most of them by far have been quite normally active at one time or another and then turned to this area simply because they were sated with life’s pleasures or for various other reasons such as fear of venereal diseases. I should also say that, with firm education and order, and regulated labor, a great number of homosexuals who have come to the attention of the authorities have been taught to become useful members of the national community.
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On the one hand, I want to laugh. It is incredulous. Strains credulity.

But, I look at the bill. And I am chilled. The aim is clear, however hopeless you may try to laugh it off. To eliminate homosexuality from Uganda.

It is no joke. It is no mistake that the only two punishments suggested for the homosexual Ugandan are life time imprisonment, and Death. If, God forbid, it passes, and they start implementing the cleansing of homosexuals from Uganda... how far away are we from Concentration Camps for homosexuals? The justification will be that, with a population of 31 millions and growing, and, having at least half a million homosexuals on death row or life imprisonment, a special place is necessary for them. To hold them until they die.

Are you laughing?

Sadly, one Religious leader in Uganda, the Mufti, leader of all Ugandan moslems suggested just such a thing. An island in lake Victoria. That we homosexuals should be marrooned there. Till our deaths. In that way, since we dont reproduce, Uganda would be rid of us.

No. It was no slip of the tongue. The Mufti repeated his proposal 3 (yes, three times). Once in the presence of the President of Uganda.

Here is a link to the posts about this on this blog. And you can follow the link to the newspaper articles of the day.

I wish this was all a just a bad dream. It is too fantastic to happen, isnt it?
A friend from Burundi told me, those Tutsi in Rwanda who understood the genocidal intent of their country mates and were cowardly enough to get out of the country are the ones who survived. So were the Jews in Nazi Germany.

But I cannot believe it, can I? Really? In this day and age???

Sigh. I just have to listen to Ssempa's voice as it rose in conviction on Premier Radio in Britain. Its incredible. But not impossible.


gug