Weird, Queer Mood; Uganda, Ugandans on the World Bank

 

The World Bank released a statement. To dear Uganda; sorry, but our values and the values enshrined in the Anti-Homosexuality Act, 2023 are at war. We pause future aid.

Frankly, I am caught off guard.

Not by the fact that the World Bank would react like so. They are an important international institution. Quite vulnerable to politics and activism. Of course they do have values. And of course the Anti-Homosexuality Act 2023, Uganda’s beloved legislation of death and imprisonment to the homosexual…, it is weird out there bad.

Yet, believe it or not, Ugandans feel that they have been beset and bothered and are being set upon by the World Bank. How dare they!!!!

I understand, on a daily basis, that Ugandans, in Uganda, have a deep lack of understanding of who and what I am as a kuchu. It is sort of always in the background, that they think me less than human and evil and a demon. I hear it on radios and tvs and literally everywhere.
Yet, there is a part of me to which that chorus is water on a duck’s back. Always running off, never sticking. I am kuchu, and mature enough to know that that is no big deal.

Not so to my fellow Ugandans.
The Anti-Homosexuality Act 2023 is taken, and I have been told again and again and again by self righteous Ugandans, it is a measure of the Will of Ugandans in Uganda. It is their right, and right to have me in prison for life and on death row, simply because I am an evil homosexual.

They, fellow Ugandans, believe that.

And they are always supremely surprised that the rest of the world doesn’t believe so. That the world around actually condemns them for that act of great morality, the Anti-Homosexuality Act 2023.

So, the President, apparently receiving the news late, pens his frustration on good old paper with ink. Odd…, maybe the old man hasn’t moved on to more modern means. The resulting missive he posts on twitter, (forgive, he posts on ‘X’). An X post indeed.
I haven’t read it…, I get depressed by our apparent lack of understanding of the realities of life. All I thought was…, now, those notes will be great in a Presidential library years and years from now! Weird reaction!
His message, summarised, was Uganda will develop, with or without the World Bank. Sour grapes, I think…, but, I am one of the very bad homosexuals.

‘Bobi Wine’ Kyaggulanyi, beleaguered president of the biggest party in opposition, was chagrined. The World Bank should care about Uganda’s other human rights transgressions. Not only about the homosexual genocide inherent in the Anti-Homosexuality Act 2023, Bobi Wine whines and whinges.

Weird reaction, as expected…, we are Ugandans.

From parliament, a necessary re-adjustment of the budget. World Bank monies were presumed…,
Which really shows how clueless Ugandan politicos and leadership is.

I can get that Museveni was blindsided, Archbishop Kaziimba mounted a blitzkrieg targeting parliament, Speaker Among had her own political irons in the fire and poor Asumaani Basalirwa is simply a stupid pawn…
But, once the deed was done, all of the results were predictable. An international game of chess, and Ugandan leaders are playing strictly to the local audience, blithely forgetting the world is NOT ‘Uganda the Village’.

Basalirwa is crying that it is ‘unfair’, his beautiful Anti-Homosexuality Act is being taken out of context. This naïve dude then repeats that we should rely on ‘The Arabs’.
Such leaders we have. Not a clue to the realities of international economics, finance, politics. He believes ‘the Arabs’ will hand Uganda development aid because he Basalirwa is a Moslem… And that is the pawn that presented the Anti-Homosexuality Bill in Uganda’s parliament?
Yet, to be accurate, the members of Parliament are more than 500. To my knowledge, only 2 seemed to have dissented from actualising the ‘Will of the People’.

Besides ‘adjusting’ the budget for this financial year, the politicians are of course whipping up the homophobia.
Expected. As in, who is to blame? Of course it is us, the very, very bad, evil and demonic homosexuals. We are to blame, clearly, in the eyes of all right thinking Ugandans.

LGBTQ+ activists have taken a muted victory lap.
Of course they are. And, I don’t blame us. We are very many things, but we are not angels. Our country has written into the law of the land Life imprisonment and Death to us, simply because we are who we are. Yes, LGBTQ+ activists in Uganda are really angry. My anger has been spilling out now and again here…, but I am just one.

Yet, though they campaigned for the World Bank to suspend the loaning, I am not a believer in our supposed demonic super powers as kuchus; crediting their lobbying with the results is simply an abuse of my thinking and capacity at logic.

One would think that independent media and newspapers in Uganda would be more discerning. But, this is Uganda. One would be very wrong.
On the subject of homosexuality, in Uganda, that is the National Prejudice. Sanity is the first thing out of the window of the debate room. The rest is fevered emotional, emotive reaction.

But…, and an important but, many Ugandans believe that it is our lobbying that has caused the World Bank to suspend loans.
Clueless Ugandans. I marvel again, that ‘Homosexuality and Homosexuals’ as we are called, are the National Prejudice. Yank on that chain, and Ugandans bark and predictably go into convulsions. Thinking and thought and logic are suspended, until the haze settles.

It is ‘Uganda The Village’, indeed. Our very own thinking bubble rejecting any thought to the contrary; demonic, as in literal demon possessed we are. However free the internet is, however open knowledge is, it has to be taken in, it has to be processed. It has to be understood.
And Ugandans are unable to think clearly, because the subject is Homosexuality, our National Prejudice!

True, many Ugandans blame Kuchu activists simply because a scapegoat is desperately needed. That is the pragmatic politics, and we are a uniquely visible invisible scapegoat. A predictable misstep was done by the leaders, they have to explain why a move that they were warned from the start was quite predictable is now taking them by surprise, indeed.

I mean, how many times were they warned that this was going to happen? And those warning were rubbished as ‘pro-homosexual’, and the righteous Speaker Among told all how we could all do without the aid?

Yes, the mood in Uganda is queer weird. Quite predictably so.

 

gug

Uganda & Ghana- Kuchus and HIV in Africa (2); The Failure of Africa’s Medics & Health Care Workers (3)

  

Continued from the previous post: Kuchus and HIV in Africa (2); The Failure of Africa’s Medics & Health Care Workers (2)

Uganda has actually had some great results with HIV prevention and care. It is deservedly praised…, as was lavishly commented on by the UNAIDS/PEPFAR/Global Fund joint statement.
Although the statement was taken quite negatively in Uganda, I think it was quite a ‘sucking up’ in many ways. The flattery, even evidence based, is quite a lot. Maybe Winnie Byanyima, knowing the Ugandan psyche thought it better to upload with lots of diplomatic nice talk to cushion the bite in the message…

If it was that, well, it was a dud.
Ugandans are quite consistent, and human. We embrace our prejudices with fervour and our prejudice to ‘homosexuality’  is the mother of all prejudices.Our doctors as detailed are also prejudiced. They are Ugandans!

But, we still expect better of them. A laughing stork Uganda demands people to blame. The medics are very convenient here…!
The Director General of Uganda AIDS Commission did explain the issue, though the article in the Daily Monitor relegated him to an after-thought. I guess it was more profitable for the paper to fan the flames of ‘Uganda is being bullied’!

Explains Dr Nelson Musoba, DG of UAC;

 

““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?’”

 

Egg on our collective face as Ugandans. The conveniently reviled Americans were trying to protect our prize HIV/AIDS programme? The statement said so. It is our bad faith that read nefarious ‘colonialism’, ‘blackmail’, in their words. Prejudice twists clear thinking. Uganda collectively was a great example there.

But this begs the question, with Dr Nelson Musoba, Director General of Uganda AIDS Commission (UAC) knowing these probable effects of the Anti-Homosexuality Act 2023 on HIV programming, why wasn’t the Parliament of Uganda and the President of Uganda in the know? This is established science, this day and age of the HIV pandemic surely? It wasn’t ‘the Americans’ duty to inform our in-country experts.
Rumour was, Speaker of Parliament was so rushed to pass the bill UAC was not invited to the party. But, a lot of organisations came out detailing the probable effects of the proposed law. All that fell ‘on deaf ears’ in Uganda. No appeal to sanity could have stopped us passing the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, 2023.

Why did it fall to the US ambassador in Uganda to actually secure a promise from the President that the health services would not be subject to the Reporting mandate in the Anti-Homosexuality Act, 2023?
It is ridiculous when the conveniently reviled Americans seem to care more about our people than we do. It is shameful, and that shame tracks back to Uganda’s medics and health care workers, the Ministry of Health and the Uganda AIDS Commission.

The American envoy to Uganda actually commented this about Dr Jane Aceng, which makes me wonder what Uganda’s Minister of Health, a medical doctor, has been saying behind closed doors.

 

“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.”

 

That is a loaded statement, particularly coming from a diplomat.

The same challenges are happening in Ghana. But, in their case, though there are medics and health workers who don’t understand, it seems the Ghana AIDS Commission has come out against the anti-homosexuality bill in Ghana.
And, for that temerity, Members of Parliament in Ghana are condemning the Ghana AIDS Commission.
I think that that is better than in Uganda where the Ministry of Health seem both ignorant and unwilling to state facts. The doctors responsibility is to state the facts, part of that responsibility for the power we hand to our medics and health workers.

In Ghana, the anti-homosexuality bill in parliament aims to stop or reduce HIV/AIDS programming to Ghanaian Kuchus. Why? Because HIV programming is actually ‘promotion of homosexuality’.
The bills in our parliaments, plural, aim to stop the heinous ‘promotion of homosexuality’.

If true, and Ghanaian MPs are refusing to listen to the Ghana AIDS Commission…, well, please don’t blame ‘the Americans’ for our own ignorance, and failure to be educated because of prejudice. We are sovereign in that.

It is the member of the clan who should point out that the elder didn’t wash face in the morning. Not to wait for a guest or visitor.
Yeah, and as an African, I am pointing out to my dear leaders and elders-, your are walking around naked, with unwashed faces. You are embarrassing us, please!

 

gug

Calling out the Ugandan Catholic Church’s Hypocritical Silence…

 

And, it is not poor old gug. Someone else, some other people noted the deafening silence from the Uganda Catholic Church Fathers who are still ‘waiting for the entire bill’ to be presented to them.

Here are Archbishop Ssemogerere’s own parsed words…

 

“the Catholic Church in Uganda will come up with one position after analysing and discussing the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, 2023, which Parliament passed on March 21.
“Regarding what has come out of Parliament once we have the entire Bill, as Fathers of the Catholic Church we will come together to discuss that Bill and give the position of the Catholic Church in Uganda.””

 

Let me check that time line. February to March 21^st 2023 was the whole brouhaha in the country. The Catholic Bishops were silent…
The Bill was sent to the President. The President sent it back with comments two months later. The bill was revised and sent back to the President. The President signed it.

Ahem, the bill became an Act, without the powerful Catholic Church’s input? 5 good months of this year, 2023 of our lord in silence?
Hypocrisy…, dear Holy Fathers. But that would be lying hypocrisy, isn’t it?

I noted it.

But, some more influential and much more knowledgeable people have also noted the glaring, deafening silence, over the last 5 months. The Catholic Church in Uganda has been Deaf. Dumb. and Blind.

How powerful is the Catholic Church in Uganda?
Oh, it actually is very, very powerful. And, it is Catholic faithful that have been at the helm of passing the Anti-Homosexuality Act, 2023. Speaker Anita Among, and MP Charles Ochen, a former Catholic priest was one of the movers on the bill at first reading…
But, how really powerful is the powerful Catholic Church in Uganda? Someone pointedly points that out.

 

“the Catholic Church’s influential role in Uganda, with nearly 40% of Ugandans identifying as Catholic. Catholic bishops, considered moral leaders by millions, hold a unique position of influence and could potentially shift the narrative around this inhumane legislation. . .”

 

And, another nexus of power, were the Catholic Bishops to come out against the Anti-Homosexuality Act, they would have the reigning Pontiff at their back. Pope Francis is solidly against the criminalisation of sexuality. He has said so, repeatedly. Last time as recently as February 2023 on a trip to DRC and South Sudan.
And, for reasons that I fail to understand, Pope Francis has sway with the populace in Uganda, the lay Catholics. At least that is my poor observation. But, I am not a believer, and I am not a Catholic, so I might be really mistaken.

And, Why the F*** would the Catholic Church come out against the Anti-Homosexuality Act 2023?
Because it is against their teaching in quite a number of things. The Death Penalty. Criminalising behaviour that they see as just sin. Teaching to nurture and not to punish…., apparently it is spelt out in the Catechism or something like that.

 

“The Catechism of the Catholic Church denounces both the death penalty (n. 2306) and “unjust discrimination” against people with lesbian and gay people (n.2358).”

 

That is the kind of page and verse that I wouldn’t be able to quote.
Now, with an institution as centralised as the Catholic Church, having the Pope and the Church’s teaching in my corner would mean that I am on solid ground..,

But, in reading around, I have come to understand the apparent constraints on the power of the Pope. He has some powerful enemies. Particularly in the US. Conservatives, they are apparently called. So, the pressure on the Catholic Bishops in Uganda is not clear cut, nor is it going to bring a powerful sermon from Rubaga Cathedral, wonder of wonders, condemning the Anti-Homosexuality Act, 2023.
But, it is intriguing, that Catholic Dogma and the Pontiff are on this side of the question.

It is even interesting that an American Catholic Bishop (anti-Biden.., and Conservative apparently, Americans are really weird…) took a swipe at President Biden, but wouldn’t go as far as going against Catholic doctrine.

 

“the Church’s teaching against the death penalty is clear. The Church also clearly teaches that, while homosexual acts are gravely sinful, homosexual people must be ‘accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity’ and that ‘Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.'””

 

So, even Uganda’s Catholic Bishops conservative pals in America have a line beyond which Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act 2023 has strayed?!

Very interesting.
But, ultimately, the Catholic Bishops of Uganda unreservedly support the Anti-Homosexuality Act, 2023. They are not going to come out and challenge it. Not at all. The silence serves their purpose. They are as homophobic as most Ugandans and to hell with the Catechism’s specific teaching. (Hey, why shouldn’t I also indulge my honest anger a little bit? Just a tiny little bit, like calling out their hypocrisy!)That is the language they understand and I am unamused enough to tell truth unadorned.

Without parsing language at all, this quote below is the essence of what the Catholic Bishops of Uganda believe about homosexuality. This was not a slip of the tongue, a problem with language. This was a reflection of what most if not all Ugandans believe is the Uganda Catholic Church’s position on homosexuality.  This is the truth, unadorned.

 

“Bishop Sanctus Lino Wanok of Lira, Uganda, called homosexuality “not human” in an Ash Wednesday homily”

 

How would that square with the Catholic Church Catechism…, this unbeliever wonders.
Yeah, we do have great examples of ‘Un-Christ-like Christians’.

 

gug

My sexuality? Our sexual orientations? They don’t matter much.

 

If you ask fellow Ugandans and Africans, my sexuality as an LGBTQ+ African is of burning concern. A Clear and Present Danger: of people killing concern.

I got into a random discussion with someone. I intimated he was gay. He protested. I said I didn’t care. (Shrug, I didn’t care. There was no reason for me to care. It was irrelevant.)
He continued insisting he was straight. I told him it just doesn’t matter to me whether a random person on the internet is gay or straight. Of course it matters to them. But, it doesn’t matter to me.

A weird moment of insight. Truly weird.
So, I slept with a man last night. Today, I will sleep with a woman. Those are random facts of my days. Why do they matter to you? Why would they matter to you? A sober question to yourself: why does it matter?

The sex was great. There is extra bounce in my step today. And I will feel the night-after-buzz all day long. But, that’s none of you concern, is it?
Maybe you didn’t have any sex last night. And you are a little jealous. We can laugh about that, and go our different ways.

Is that weird?

It is the politicians who care. And they care for political reasons.

Speaker Anita Among minds, because passing the Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2023 in Uganda’s parliament is a poke in President Museveni’s eye. And increases her popularity. She can shout that the big bad American homosexuals denied her a US visa.
It matters to her for pragmatic political reasons.

President Museveni minds. Being virulently anti-gay is politically popular in Uganda. Elections are years away, but, a good politician takes any political advantage.

Do not discount politics in religion.

Pentecostal Pastor Bujjingo is thinking about hitting Pastor Kayanja’s popularity.

The Anglican Communion is having convulsions and breaking apart. [The reason given is my sexuality]
The Archbishop of the Church of Uganda, Anglican Primate is eager to prove he is the biggest, baddest wolf leading the break away faction. He instigated the Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2023 in Uganda. He has been begging the President to sign it into law. A ‘Christian’ praying for life imprisonment and death for other…, but thats politics!

And the Catholic Church in Uganda? They don’t agree with Pope Francis washing the feet of [sinners] homosexuals in Rome. If their silence on the Anti-Homosexuality Act 2023 puts them closer to hard line Catholic Bishops in America, well.., that is how the political winds are blowing in the Catholic Church.

My sex and sexuality?
It doesn’t really matter to these politicians. I am marvellous and fantastic.., but not that marvellous and important. It is politics.

Sobering insight. I was developing this huge ego. In the sober light of day, it doesn’t matter much. Sigh…!

 

gug