Things I dare not write about

They are many, and interesting. Some strange, some too personal. For some I cannot get the language to give them justice.

For some it is just being prudent.

I am gay. That in Uganda is enough of a black mark. Too much of one for me to blog about politics.

Being gay does not make me a-political. Just prudently silent. The blog is hosted somewhere in the Americas. But a few do know who I am. And of course, with the myriad ‘security’ organisations in Uganda, I would be a fool to assume that my authorship is unknown.

Yet my self censorship sometimes goes a bit too far.

There is this interesting political discussion that is going on.

A member of parliament. (There I go again, self censoring.) My member of parliament has thrown a gauntlet at his Excellency the president. (I am not sure, but calling him anything but that may be ‘seditious’ according to the law of the country. But I can call Bush a fool, without risking arrest. At least I think so.)

Anyway, MP Kamya has done the unthinkable. Called the president out on things which are widely rumoured, but wisely un-said. The sectarian divisions in the country, the question of his parentage- err., whether or not he is Ugandan by birth. It seems to be a very sticky point with him.

The old man (senile, from the strangeness of some of his decisions, including this one), has reacted with anger. And has vowed to take her to court.

Beti Olive Namisango Kamya. My member of parliament, because I happen to live here at this moment.

She is a courageous woman. Women in Uganda really began their emancipation with the current president’s tenure. She was one of the pioneers. A firebrand politician. Had to give up her job when she was dissatisfied with the politics. Joined the opposition party.

She is re-known for the fierceness of her courage, the fact that she will say what needs to be said. And she is good at organising.

In Uganda, being in the opposition, is like saying you are in rebellion to the government. The police arrest you on any pretext, you find yourself fighting useless cases in the courts, and you may suddenly find that you have ‘raped’ someone. Serious. Ask the political leader of the opposition.

(Good thing I can say that I am gay. Would be ridiculous to be accused of raping a woman and my defence is, well, I am gay! Not in Uganda)

I have carefully not read the ongoing fracas. Too frustrating. The birth order of the president is nothing to me. His ethnicity is not worth a bowl of spit. He is an African, as is the lady. Fighting about it in the papers is ripping glaring holes in the façade of our unity. The ethnic problems that have gripped Kenya are too superficially buried in Uganda. They are waiting for the smallest touch of the trigger, and we shall be wrapped in more fierce flames than are burning in Kenya at the moment.

Strange to put it like so.

Yet, though I see that clearly, it is a fact that I can do next to nothing. Egos are involved. Monumental egos. The president is fighting a war of public opinion which was lost years ago. And he is becoming increasingly unreasonable in some decisions.

God help Uganda.

©GayUganda

Women of Africa

I am gay. A gay African man. Living and working in Africa. Not hoping to make a change there, because to me, this broad and diverse continent is home.

Yet however much I rant and rave at the lot of me and mine, there are somethings that still bother my mind worse. That are worse abuses of justice, though some would have me dead because I am gay.

I am proud. Proud to be a man, an African man.

That pride was instilled in me as I grew, when I learnt that a ‘girl’ should not do a thing better than me. When my failure at a ‘manly’ task was compared to a woman's effort. I was always told that I am not a woman. That being a woman, or being likened to a girl was the worst thing that could happen to me.

I was lucky. My father believed that the girls should also study. So they studied, and are doing well. Yet I still see the servitude and slavery that the African woman suffers.

Statistics are horrible. 70% of Ugandan women have suffered domestic violence in the previous 12 months! Some to death are battered. Something too horrible to think about. Yet society, custom, church and mosque, and many other things, bind the woman to a hell on earth.

My mother, brave woman, she broke out of it. My mother-in-law still struggles.

My heart bleeds for the women of Africa. This is to them.

WOMEN OF AFRICA

I can never be an African woman:

the job’s too hard,

requirements too stringent.

Wake ’n early morning,

maybe marital duties or not-

escape the bed;

children prepare for school to go,

before breakfast and cleaning

for master o' house.

Baby cries, breast in need;

then onto the back while,

I scrubs and cleans and polish and dusts.

Maybe breakfast for me, family long flown,

before the hoe I take for hours’ long stint

baby on back, riding this horse.

Back for lunch; the prep that is-

afore younger children from school return.

Lunch done, tea to come,

and washing and brushing and sitting babies.

Dinner’s major meal, early prep to do

afore master returns, tired long day.

His shoes removes I, on my knees I greet-

a beer he sips, with none for me.

Dinner’s done, children to bed-

marital duties undone, but not before I sleep.

Sometimes, at times, often, works too heavy;

Master, my man the fists he uses-

pummel bag I play, with kicks extra.

Mothers! Women of Africa!

How you toil and break!

Beasts of burden taught,

Camels, donkeys; slavers too.

Women of Africa! Beast o’ Burden

Your work’s too hard!

Never would I an African woman be;

The works too hard- I am too weak,

I's an African man proud, your biggest burden;

too weak ‘n fragile to carry your toil.

©GayUganda 28 Oct. 07

True, the poem is not too good. But it says something there. A good day.

gug