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.

 

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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.

~~~

~~~

‘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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