It is a myth from the colonial era that homosexuality is typically "African". Rather, the new bill in Uganda is the result of the British queen's homophobia.
(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
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KAMPALA, UGANDA. There are strong links between Africa's colonial history and today's resistance to gays in Uganda.
Today's Penal Code in Uganda, section 120, states that "deliberately going against the laws of nature" is punished with maximum punishment, ie imprisonment for life.
These are laws that criminalize homosexuals. These laws are never used against heterosexuals, although heterosexuals also have anal sex, which is referred to as "deliberately going against the laws of nature".
Several in Uganda believe that the current legislation is too weak to deal with gays, so now tougher laws are being introduced against gays and their "allies" at home and abroad. The Anti-Homosexuality Act of autumn 2009 has raised eyebrows not only in Uganda, but worldwide. Many people, organizations and authorities have strongly condemned the law and demanded that it be withdrawn.
On October 14, a member of the government proposed National Resistance Movement a tougher law for stronger criminalization of gays. The main reason for the new law is to protect "the traditional African family", consisting of man, woman and children.
British heritage
The new law will affect homosexuals – and it will use long-term imprisonment to punish everything from sexual stimulation to "touching another person with the intention of committing homosexual acts". The law also punishes "outspoken homosexuality", including activity referred to as "serial crimes". Those who are also HIV-positive risk the death penalty.
These laws force many gays to live behind a mask here in Uganda. Those who are still in the closet have lived a double life due to the harsh laws we have inherited from the British colonial masters (1888-1962).
Many have been tortured, harassed, arrested and sexually harassed by society and the police. Gays have committed suicide due to loneliness, insults at school and workplaces. And many have low working capacity due to psychological torture, while others have been forced into marriage on the basis of culture and stereotypes. Many have fallen into the underworld of dope to escape the lives they have been forced to live.
The proposed law will drive these people further behind the mask, since the alternative is imprisonment for homosexuality, or the death penalty for repeated homosexual acts, which is described as a serial crime.
Live in peace
In 2004, a 15-year-old lesbian student was beaten to write a love letter to a student. Later she returned to the dormitory and committed suicide due to the humiliation of teachers and students. But no one from the authorities has condemned the incident.
In 2006, another lesbian student was beaten by the principal, and again the authorities were silent. All of these incidents were broadcast on radio and in newspapers across the country, but the perpetrators were never held accountable.
How many more lesbians, gays and transgender people will end their lives for fear of revelation or imprisonment?
For many years, the government and people of Uganda have denied the existence of sexual minorities in the country. When they come out and show their faces in public, they have to pay the price for the revelation. We have decided to speak out to the nation, we have chosen to say that we exist in Uganda, and that we must live our lives in peace.
When we held our first historic press conference, the motto was: "LET US LIVE IN PEACE."
The legacy of the past
Many conservatives go around claiming that "homosexuality is un-African". But before the missionaries and colonists came to Uganda, many tribes practiced homosexuality. That is why we have direct translations of homosexuality in our dialects.
In Luganda, gays are "okulya abisiyaga", while bisexuals are called "omuliro gwokya birri". Where do these dialects come from if homosexuality did not exist in Uganda or Africa?
In Swahili, homosexuals are called "shoga", in the South African language Zulu they are called "istabane". All of these languages are African, as evidenced by the fact that our ancestors coined these words to denote homosexuals. The ancestors I'm talking about here lived over 500 years ago. Among the Langi people, in northern Uganda, male "mudoko dako" were treated as women, and they could marry men.
Non-sexual marriage between two women to deal with social and economic problems has also existed in several African cultures, such as Nandi in Kenya, Igbo in Nigeria, Nuer in Sudan and Kuria in Tanzania.
This shows that many same-sex relationships, sexual or non-sexual, existed in Africa long before Europeans arrived. Our King Buganda Kabaka Mwanga II (1868-1903) was gay. There is a lot of talk about this in Uganda, especially on June 3 every year, when the famous Ugandan martyr is celebrated.
When Europeans and Britons came to Uganda, homosexuality was made a crime after the importation of Christianity. King Mwanga II then decided to kill all the 24 young men he used to have sex with. These young boys were told by the missionaries that God did not like homosexuals. They had to stop their relationship with the king, otherwise they would be destroyed, such as the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. The men then decided to end their relationship with the king.
Denied queen visit
This short story shows that if the missionaries had not imported the laws that criminalized homosexuality, then we would not have such laws. The British imported a religion (Christianity) which is used to condemn homosexuals. And they imported laws into the Ugandan penal code, rules that have since been removed in their own countries.
In 2007, in preparation for the meeting between the heads of state of the British Commonwealth, which was held in Uganda, members of parliament asked all Ugandans to use this meeting to send out a strong message that homosexuals are not wanted in Uganda.
We have long wanted to communicate to Queen Elizabeth of Great Britain that she is part of the cause of our suffering. The reason is the laws that the British imported to Uganda.
We wanted to let her know what legacy she has left us. But we were denied by the security people.
In sum, Ugandans can say: We are stuck between a colonial legacy and a denial of gays in Africa. We are still faced with discrimination and harassment.
Kasha Jacqueline is the founder and director of "Freedom and Roam Uganda", the only organization for lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people in Uganda. She is a new columnist in Ny Time.
The Without Borders column is run in honor of the regime-critical Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya (1958-2006). She wrote for Ny Tid, as the only newspaper outside Russia, from February 10, 2006 until she was killed outside her home in Moscow on October 7, 2006.
