The Power of A Story

 

Most Kuchus (LGBTQ+ Africans) on the continent relate to this strongly. We have been accused, heavily and with deep passion, of targeting children ‘recruiting children to homosexuality’. That was the Church of Uganda Anglican Archbishop’s 2022 Christmas message. Anti-LGBTQ+ advocates preach of our legendary perversity. Politicians shed crocodile tears. Apparently we have recruitment centres in schools!
Its infuriating. Most kuchus know it is simply untrue. Reputed allies are disturbed by the possibility. I commented on Rev Gideon Byamugisha’s fear here once. Anti-gay activists repeatedly harp on it, a dishonesty I will hold to their feet. They are liars. Many know they are. It is simply impossible to believe the likes of Martin Ssempa don’t know that most kuchus are not paedophiles. That he harps on it is a simple sign of his capacity at lying. Oh, I once blogged about Ssempa and his lies…, He has mastered the Art of the Big Lie. And if that demonises kuchus, that is well and good. Yes, I know.., he is a Pentecostal Pastor.

Back to the power of a story, or anecdote.

As opposed to a statistic, a story is something that an audience hears, understands and relates to. Real people, in real circumstances, doing real things, good or bad. A story communicates very well, to a wide audience.

I remember watching tv during the early days of CORVID-19; A press conference, President Trump and Dr Fauci.
The President was advocating for some weird treatment; chloroquine, or bleach as a cure. And Fauci stands up, quite bravely, contradicting His Excellency. What His Excellency had stated was not true: He had told a story, an anecdote, of a treatment curing corvid. But that was a story of one person, one patient, one individual. "n is equal to one”, said Fauci, puzzling us all.
You don’t make decisions from an anecdote; they might help you understand what is happening, but you need a bigger and better sample size of thousands or millions, instead of one.

What does that have to do with kuchus and LGBTQ+ individuals and ‘recruiting’ of children in Africa, what we are blamed for?
Very simple. The anti-gay people are picking and choosing anecdotal information, pointing to show what the ‘dreaded homosexuals’ are; and coming for your children.

Remember Ssempa in 2012-14 showing gay porn in church and other public spaces. Gross, XXX pics and movies of extreme sex; that that’s how we (‘homosexuals’) had sex! Which kuchu would dare contradict the ‘man of god’? He was the expert, the Anti-Gay Saint of Uganda, expert on homosexual sex.

The press in Uganda and Africa does the same. Stories on ‘homosexuality’ or ‘sodomy’ sell papers. The more lurid, sensational (and fabricated, pushed by anti-gay activists), the better. A straight line to silent, bewildered kuchus.

Here is one such story.
Of ‘defilement’ Ugandanese term for sex with an under-age person. A child (under 18, Uganda). The child is the 'victim’.
It is not a pretty story. A 19 year old man allegedly had penetrative anal sex of a 2 year old male child; neighbour’s child. The lurid details.

Almost as an afterthought, the following statement ends the report.

~~~

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‘Defilement’ cases in Uganda are almost exclusively of male perpetrators. That report of is 12,780 cases of heterosexual ‘defilement’, with the rest being of male victims, and thus presumed ‘homosexual defilement’. And this is from the Police Annual Crime report for the calendar period 2022.

From that report springs out the factoid, small but significant. Most of the reported cases of sex with under-aged, children, were heterosexual in nature.
My calculator of those figures shows that heterosexual ‘defilement’ cases of 2022 reported by Uganda Police in their annual report were actually 98% of the total. The presumed ‘homosexual defilement’ cases were 2% of the total number of reported cases of defilement.

So, the lurid story in that article ’19 year old detained over sodomy’ represents 2% of cases of defilement occurring in Uganda over a calendar year.

This article, useful in demonising ‘homosexuals’ in Uganda, represented 2% of cases.
Instead of a wave of ‘homosexual recruitment of your children’, what is happening is in fact ‘heterosexual recruitment’ of the said children.

That is the power of the ‘anecdote’ in the minds of the masses.
The story can be cherry picked, not representative of reality on the ground, can be picked to mask the real story, hiding what should be obvious in plain sight and might be a distraction. That is what happened with Fauci and Trump above. That is  what is happening in Uganda.

It is sad, on very many levels.

We are an insignificant, demonised and stigmatised minority. Prejudice by the majority is a heavy blanket muting us. Even our cries of ‘that’s a lie’ are not heard.
The politicians say we are the ones lying. The pastors and sheikhs and bishops all say we are the ones lying. We don’t even have a place and space to say we are not lying. That would be ‘Promotion of Homosexuality’.

But, the facts and figures don’t lie.
We are accused of ‘homosexual recruitment’ of Ugandan children. In actual fact, ‘heterosexual recruitment’ of Ugandan children is occurring. Instead of what is happening in 98% of cases being discussed and solutions sought, anecdotes from 2% of case reports are blown up and out of proportion, and used to bay for our blood, in the literal sense.
Sleight of hand, yes. Quite effective, true. Doesn’t solve the problem; only masks the issues and scapegoats a minority. Yeah; Ugandan, and African style.

 

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Improper Human Rights: Ghana and Uganda

Tongue in cheek, that title.
There is this organisation in Ghana a promoter of ‘Proper Human Rights’. Apparently its promotion of proper human rights includes support of the anti-LGBTQ+ bill currently in Ghana’s parliament.
And Stephen Kaziimba, Archbishop of the Church of Uganda, Anglican also had an interesting argument. As he whipped the Anti-Homosexuality Act, 2023 he intimated that the LGBTQ+ agenda had corrupted ‘proper human rights’

Sarcasm over the top? No.
Dr Justine Appiah Kubi is an executive member of the Coalition for Proper Human Sexual Rights and Family Values,  He supports the Ghana anti-homosexuality bill,  the ‘Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill, 2022’;.
A proud Ghanaian, he lauds the Ghanaian bill for being not as intolerant as the Ugandan law…, and bearing the beneficence and tolerance of Ghanaian culture.
(I am Ugandan…, I would agree as to Ugandan intolerance, if I didn’t know that at the moment there are reports of Ghanaian Kuchus being viciously attacked, stabbed in broad day light, on the streets of Accra, and Ghanaian twitterati championing the ‘straightening’.)

Says Justine Appiah Kubi;

“.., the bill is tolerant enough to ensure that no harm befalls individuals in the queer community, although Ghanaians might not condone LGBT and its activities.

This level of tolerance, Dr. Appiah-Kubi emphasised, is reflective of the Ghanaian culture.

Additionally, he described the bill as a good one, explaining that, “the spirit of the bill wasn’t necessarily to really hurt people who are into homosexuality, but really to prevent these absurd, LGBT things that are coming to nations and using political strategies, using UN, using the other CSOs” to champion their agenda.”

 

What do I know about Human Rights?

Actually I know very little. Surface stuff. It is human rights. Concerns human beings. And rights being what we believe human beings are supposedly entitled to. And rights imply responsibilities.

What does the Ghana’s anti-LGBTQ+ bill actually state? I posted what could be gathered from the media on Ghana’s bill.

 

·         Identifying as LGBT is criminalised. 3 years in prison.

·         Advocacy is criminalised. 10 years in prison
Campaigning for LGBT rights, dissemination of information

·         Conversion therapy (from LGBTQ to straight sexual orientation!) is validated.

·         limits provision of health services to the LGBTQ+ community. Including HIV services.

·         encourages citizens to report neighbours that are homosexual.

 

Last time looked into the mirror, I was a human being.
We are human beings, and as such, human rights do concern us. Personally, I would think that that is hard to parse.
Stephen Kaziimba, Archbishop is not convinced.

Here is what the Archbishop of the Church of Uganda, Anglican, Dr Steven Kaziimba Mugalu had to say, on at least 3 occasions, when he was whipping up pressure on the President to sign the bill into law.

 

“Homosexuality is currently a challenge because it is being forced on us by foreign actors against our will, against our culture, and against our religious beliefs. They disguise themselves as human rights activists but are corrupting real human rights by adding LGBTQI+ to their agenda,” he said.
the pre-Easter message from the Archbishop.

 

““They disguise themselves as “human rights activists,” but are corrupting real human rights by adding LGBTQI+ to their agenda.”
That was the Easter Sunday summon, 2023

 

“being forced on us by outside, foreign actors against our will, against our culture, and against our religious beliefs. They disguise themselves as “human rights activists,” but are corrupting real human rights by adding LGBTQ to their agenda.”
lavish thanks to the President for signing the Bill into law.

 

So, what is the promotion of human rights with the exclusion of LGBTQ+ rights?
Now, that is the true head scratching moment.
Are Kuchus human? Are African LGBTQ+ people actual living human beings? Are they worth inclusion in the conversation about basic, inviolable rights that other human beings, other Africans, are entitled to?

Not rhetorical.
Ghanaian industrialist, William Mensah-Ansah was quite confused and confusing about the issue.
How do you protect individual human rights without recognising that LGBTQ+ Africans are actually individuals whose rights have to be protected? He was confused, but advocates a common African position in the African Charter for African nations around the exclusion of rights for Kuchus. LGBTQ+ Africans.

Are Kuchus, LGBTQ+ Africans human enough to be included in the Human Rights that the rest of African human beings should enjoy? A profound question, because, in the African, Ugandan and Ghanaian and other context, LGBTQ+ rights are so ‘foreign’ that they cannot even think of rights for the homosexual. We have been thoroughly dehumanised, in their eyes. No longer human, it is okay to kill us, legally in the eyes of the law. Because we are inhuman.

Rhetorical flourishes those? I really, really wish it was so. But, my dear brothers and sisters, my fellow Africans, do not really think the LGBTQ+ human being is human, even our African-ness is debatable.

 

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The (Much Maligned) ‘Americans’

 

Ask someone on the streets of Kampala about the premier foreign supporters of homosexuality and the most probable answer will be ‘the Americans’.

Who are these dastardly ‘Americans’?
That answer has lots of nuances which a poor Ugandan will most likely not even understand. They just know that the name of ‘the enemy’ is ‘the Americans’; -that was no slip of the tongue from the doctor.
And, it is not only in Uganda. In Tanzania, Zambia, Ghana, Zimbabwe, it is ‘the Americans’ who are reportedly eager to press the poor African to embrace homosexuality.
It bothers me, a lot. . We are invisible! We kuchus, we the African LGBTQ+ individuals,  are not even counted as ‘promoting homosexuality’, except as agents of ‘The Americans’.  We are just the proximal cancer, the ‘cancer’ that is already here and has to be removed…, tut tut tut!

The question is also nuanced, because it is Americans who have come to Africa and told us that ‘the Americans’ are pushing a ‘homosexual agenda’.
Oh yes, the American Far Right is also American! (Check out the reporting on one such conference in Uganda)

For some reason, maybe because they come in with Bibles and talk about ‘African Sovereignty’ and talk about ‘the Americans’, we simply don’t equate those Americans with ‘the Americans’. Quite confusing…

The dastardly, bad and evil ‘Americans’ supposedly control the world, the UN system, and promote homosexuality. They are apparently characterised by President Biden and Vice-President Kamara Harris. The current administration of course.
So, who are the others, the ‘good Americans’, intent on telling us poor, ignorant Africans about the dangers from the ‘bad Americans?’

Trying to figure out the ins and outs of America’s Cultural Wars as exported to Africa…,
I am really laughing and crying and kind of feeling deeply ashamed. We are literally pawns in a forever war. We are a battle on the side, our leaders colluding in something they don’t understand at all, but are passionate and very, very willing front line warriors.

No, I am not, and I will not be apologising to my people.

I am one individual, a very poor person. I don’t have the facilities of the State. I just have an internet connection, and I read what is publicly available on the internet.
Why shouldn’t the President of the Republic of Uganda have good intelligence of what is happening in his backyard? Why doesn’t he know of what is happening with his allies the US government? Why should President Museveni be a pawn in a game that he should be very, very aware that it has been ongoing for years?

The Presidency, the State of Uganda is not one person. It is a pool of the intelligence of the nation, of all those working there.
And then of course there is the Parliament of Uganda. The MPs; Asumani Basalirwa and the others, the Speaker of the Parliament of Uganda are all willing dupes and pawns, frontline soldiers in this war. The American Cultural Wars.

It is quite disturbing to realise that even if the State in Uganda is apparently clueless, the Church of Uganda, Anglican and its Archbishop (Stephen Kaziimba), is actually quite clued in. Archbishop Kaziimba is playing on the world stage, and he knows it. So are the very, very silent Catholic Bishops. They know, and have picked a side. How can the State of Uganda claim and act ignorance?

Why does the State and other public actors like Parliament in Uganda seem to be personally unaware of the body politic of the whole wide world?
Why are they playing into the stereotype of the poor, ‘put-upon-on’, ignorant African? This is not ‘rocket science’. This is knowledge of the world.
Asuumani Basalirwa claimed to the BBC that he didn’t know because he was a Moslem, and the missionaries are Christians. Lies, on top of the bullshit. He should be even more ashamed because he is playing pawn for ‘Christian Fundamentalists’, from his point of view.

Truly, truly, Uganda is a Village.
It doesn’t help that Ghana is also acting clueless, Ugandan style. And of course so are the other nations of Africa. Believing that ‘some Americans’ come to Africa to teach us about our own ‘Sovereignty’ to fight their own government, simply for the good of old Africa.

 

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US Funding, for HIV Programs in Uganda

When the Anti-Homosexuality Act, 2023 was signed into law in Uganda, the heads of Uganda’s international partners in the fight against HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS, PEPFAR, Global Fund) came out with a statement telling Uganda that was a bad move.
UNAIDS and its partners have always advocated for decriminalisation of same sex sexuality one of the major ways of HIV prevention. That is historical fact, so the statement should not have been a surprise.

In Uganda, the public sphere went amok.
‘The Americans’ were threatening to kill poor innocent Ugandans simply to spread and promote homosexuality. Cries of ‘blackmail’ and ‘bring it on’ were heard from Ugandan leaders, influencers and other concerned Ugandans. Our ‘sovereignty’ was defined under attack, our dependency on foreign aid decried and lambasted. Quite a lot was said-, quite a lot which should not have been said.

So, why should the HIV prevention efforts of Uganda be affected?

Simply because of the law. The Anti-Homosexuality Act; 2023.

The US spends almost half a billion dollars annually on a comprehensive HIV/AIDS prevention and care programme in Uganda. This is distinctly different from the military aid that is also under attack. These monies go on HIV/AIDS prevention and care, including some 1,2 Million Ugandans on life saving and life prolonging drugs.

Inevitably, since LGBTQ+ individuals are a key vulnerable population in HIV, there are programmes and clinics that focus on the LGBTQ+ population for prevention and care.

According to the text of the Anti-Homosexuality Act, 2023 as written; there is a Reporting mandate, and more that would impact HIV/AIDS programming.

·         HIV/AIDS prevention and care for ‘homosexuals’ is ‘Promotion of Homosexuality’, and was clearly defined in the law as such.

·         In that case, funders for the ‘promotion of homosexuality’ were criminalised.
Since USAID and PEPFAR (the American government) fund those clinics and organisations, USAID, PEPFAR and the American Government are clearly breaking the law of Uganda, and ‘promoting homosexuality’ by funding HIV/AIDS prevention and care in Uganda.

·         Organisations that work with homosexuals in HIV/AIDS are also very clearly ‘promoting homosexuality’ and are criminalised in Uganda, according to the Anti-Homosexuality Act.

·         Landlords who house the above organisations are also quite clearly criminalised in the Anti-Homosexuality Act, 2023 of Uganda.

·         In another part of the Act, good Ugandans are encouraged to report the known ‘homosexual’ to Police.
The reporting mandate excluded lawyers, but it doesn’t exclude health care workers who include HIV/AIDS care workers, doctors to other extension workers.

Clearly, the law was a problem.
The American Ambassador to Uganda took it upon herself to have some discussions with relevant government people. Besides the real investment in funding over multiple decades of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, a lot of people could die, simply because there is a law against the ‘promotion of homosexuality’.

In the flying accusations of blackmail, telling the Americans to fuck off, with the Ministry of Health denying a problem as per its spokesperson, and other medics coming out and seeing nefarious reasons, aka, ‘promotion of homosexuality, the head of Uganda AIDS Commission had a blunt assessment

 

““they are just taking precautions and saying for communities that may be discriminated, ‘What steps do we want to put in place to ensure that they continue accessing treatment to ensure that they continue to access treatment?’”

 

Apparently, the Minister of Health, A medical doctor, was unhelpful on the concerns of ‘the Americans’, to the point that the American envoy’s assessment of her was brutal and blunt. Maybe she is more concerned for the spiritual safety of Ugandans than their physical health…, am just saying. Here is the American envoy’s assessment of Minister of Health Dr Ruth Aceng;

 

“She reportedly took issue with Health Minister Jane Aceng, who was not in the meeting, saying her disposition on the matter of homosexuality was likely to reverse years of gains in healthcare and particularly HIV/Aids treatment, largely supported by development partners.”

 

The American envoy then took it up with the President. Apparently the discussions were a little more fruitful.
The President made an announcement, medics and health care workers were not going to have to report known homosexuals. And of course it was a tacit green light to continue HIV/AIDS programming with the evil and dastardly, bad homosexuals, who happen to be citizens of Uganda.

So, the whole fracas ended up being partly resolved.
The US government and its organisations are not going to be hauled to Ugandan courts for ‘promotion of homosexuality’. The partner organisations in Uganda are not going to be defunded, nor are they going to be prosecuted, nor will they be forced to report their homosexual clients.

Turns out ‘the Americans’ were actually looking out for our people, Ugandans…!

What a shame? Err, we are fanatics and zealots in Uganda, on matters of homosexuality. We don’t get ashamed. We don’t even feel it, nor admit to that nefarious emotion. We are fighters, and winners, against homosexuals and homosexuality.

I doubt that that saga ends there. This is Uganda. Keep tuned in!

 

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