Really? Museveni to donor nations:
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni on Friday urged international donors not to let concerns for gay rights affect development aid, saying homosexuals also needed roads, power and trains.
“Before anyone gives me a lecture about homosexuals and their rights, first talk about railways,” Museveni told delegates at the end of a regional meeting in Kampala attended by five other African presidents.
“Homosexuals also need electricity, homosexuals also need roads, homosexuals also need railways,” Museveni said to applause.
Hard to use all of those modern conveniences if you are in jail, Yoweri. Although maybe Museveni is right. If the Bahati bill passes, gays will need electricity in jails, and roads and railways to take them there.
As ridiculous as Museveni’s rhetoric is, it does raise a challenge to those who want hang gays or herd them into Uganda’s prisons. Gays are citizens of Uganda as are non-gays. When Museveni says they need basic services, he is right, even as he is oblivious to the reasons why Western nations are threatening to target aid to specific projects. They know gays need those things and they want them to be able to use them freely without fear of death or jail.
*gasp*
he missed the point again… or pretended to miss the point, again.
i’m so shocked :-/
Maazi NXO wrote:
Like Polygamy, you mean?
Maazi does more on this blog to further the cause of gay people in Uganda, and everywhere, than he knows
Yes, Jayhuck – ‘Maazi’ and Co. have been most helpful, to be sure. They show just how nasty the ‘anti-gay brigade’ is, and thus help to strengthen support for this human rights campaign.
I talk to one or two UG politicos (other than ‘Maazi’) from time to time, and a sense of embarrassment concerning the Bahati Bill is definitely there. (No, ‘Maazi’, I am not going to tell you who they are!) Of course, like ‘Maazi’, they are not exactly thrilled about recent pronouncements from the US and UK Governments (I can understand that – noone likes it when their country is criticized), but they cannot deny that these governments ‘have a point’ … just as I (a Briton) cannot deny that the Government of France ‘has a point’ when it points to key flaws in the British economy.
Anteros is actually rather wise to challenge the ever-verbose ‘Maazi NCO (Opposition) MP’ to ‘Put Up or Shut Up’. Obviously ‘Shut Up’ would be preferable all round: after all, what has Uganda got to lose by quietly dropping the Bahati Bill? Nothing at all, in any material sense – and one suspects that that clever, crafty fellow M7 is beginning to understand this.
Just one small point: banning child sacrifice was once considered ‘counter-cultural’ in some quarters … but that does not make it a bad idea!
(This is response to another little ‘gem’ from our intrepid Ugandan MP: “Gayism is just … counter-cultural …“)
(By ‘it’ I mean ‘banning child sacrifice’, of course! Just thought I ought to clarify that!!!)
Here’s a well-argued appraisal of Nigeria’s gay-bashing Bill: http://jurist.org/hotline/2011/12/damian-ugwu-nigerian-marriage.php
(Obviously, not legitimizing ‘gay marriage’ is one thing; criminalizing individuals or groups that promote the human rights for LGB persons is quite another. After all, people in this country are perfectly entitled, if they so choose, to campaign for the legalization of, for example. Furthermore, people are not criminalized for ‘unofficial’ polygamous arrangements – in fact, they are really quite common here in London.)
Please insert the word ‘polygamy’ at the end of line 4 of para. 2 above!
if i’m not mistaken, even lgbti rights defenders in uganda seem unimpressed with both donors and government for using lgbti rights and bahati’s bill respectively to play their political games.
all of us are sick of the bill’s pending status (except those benefiting from its pending status, of course) – they know the consequences of passing it and the consequences of discarding it but they deliberately keep it in the pipeline to maximize on the power they think that the bill’s pending status gives them… the opportunity to score points with the fundamentalist electorate by amusing ugandans with hopeless rhetoric and righteous indignation as they turn it into an all-consuming bitter disagreement between “poor black pious panafricanist freedom fighters” and “rich white sinful neocolonialist oppressors” …keeping ugandans captivated by appealing to an opportunistically defined sense of nationalism/patriotism/loyalty while the big goons go about their looting, plundering and mismanagement… it’s called “bahati-ism” and it must stop.
they need to be challenged into passing or discarding the bill so that we can get relief and see an end to all this maddening bahati-ism. they cannot and will not pass it both because of their selfish interests in keeping the bill’s status as “pending”, and because of reasons beyond their control – not just the loss of aid and goodwill, but the country is literally collapsing and parliament is too preoccupied with trying to be seen doing something about the country’s imminent collapse for it to pass bahati’s bill… which is why we hear the big man clumsily turning things around by lecturing donors rather than our parliament about setting sensible priorities.
if they pass the bill – and that’s a big if …most ugandan “politicians” are just too short sighted to know what’s good for them beyond “kati nfunira wa?” (what’s in it for me right now?) and they clearly couldn’t care less about what’s good for the country …managing the bill’s implementation will be a nightmare as demonstrated by the rival pastors’ never-ending fiasco.
pass it… we don’t need aid, right?
pass it and feel good about the huge difference the bill will make in the lives of ugandans whose major concern is poverty. but know that passing it won’t be the end of the story – laws are repealed all the time and this one, given its extreme and impractical nature coupled with its redundancy (there are already laws against homosexuality), bahati’s bill would not be difficult to repeal if passed into law… and repealing it would further assist lgbti rights in uganda by drawing attention to the unjust nature of already existing discriminatory laws which will then become easier to repeal… but bahati’s bill would need to be passed for it to be repealed. so yeah… pass it.
or discard it… you can always find a new national distraction (like the “sugar crisis” that dominated the media and parliament for months) to keep ugandans entertained while you go about doing what you do best… just know that the clock is ticking for you leeches and your bahati-ist cheerleaders – removing term limits doesn’t mean that the plundering will never be stopped.
the plundering will be stopped and decriminalization is fast on its way… bahati has greatly accelerated the process by introducing this useful bill.
pass it.
The Constitutional Court would probably throw it out if it were passed. The Ugandan Judiciary has made some ‘good calls’ in recent times.
I say ‘discard it’. Complete waste of time … just makes UG look like ‘Iran-in-drag’!
“Iraq in drag!” haha! you’ve just made my day, Richard!
We do our best to make our friends’ day!
How about ‘North Korea in fishnet tights’?! What d’ya reckon, anteros?
omg! omg! my sides hurt!
Perhaps you mean Iraq in Blackface.
Oh wait, that might be seen as offensive and racist – even if more appropriate. I’d certainly say it would be highly offensive..
But it’s still socially acceptable to make jokes about “Trannies”.
No, I’m not offended, A little saddened perhaps, but I realise there was no malice behind it. It’s what Trans and Intersex people call “cis-privilege”. It never occured to you what you were doing, any more than someone in 1911 would think about the racism in the term “that’s mighty white of you”.
We now return you to our original program.
i learn new things every day.
while no offence was intended, i apologize zoe.
i wouldnt laugh at blackface because it may be a bit extreme and offensive, but i’d laugh just as hard at the thought of bahati in tight jeans or museveni in gangsta gear (there were hilarious photos floating around cyberspace after his campaign rap song went viral)… and i chuckled when i saw photos of obama in traditional african attire. i’d laugh if i saw the only nun i know wearing a mini skirt.
is it possible for a country to be in drag? i think drag may mean different things to different people – which means i got some reading to do. wasn’t richard poking fun at the countries that act like they got a carrot stuck in the wrong place for being so rigid and boring? …and not at people in fishnet stockings or in drag? whatever the case, i’m sorry for laughing.
still thinking …cis-privilege, heteronormativity, patriarchy…
i’m sorry Zoe, really.
It’s satire, Zoe. That’s all.
No reference to transgendered, transsexual or intersex persons, or to male or female homosexual persons, was made … and none was intended. The point was entirely politically, and to do with ‘badly disguised’ – as opposed to ‘naked’ – totalitarianism.
I regret that you were offended, but do not offer an apology.
Ah, sorry, Zoe – I see you were not actually offended, merely ‘saddened’. I apologize for my mistake on that point.
With respect, I do think your little homily on ‘cis-privelege’ was something of an overreaction. I’m not exactly in the ‘sexual mainstream’ myself, and have transgendered friends who I know would find such pithy aphorisms highly entertaining. Furthermore, having a laugh about things that could be seen to pertain to ones’ self is a wonderful way of breaking down hostility on the part of others. I’ve often in the past ‘camped it up’ in the company of African friends and, as their laughter increased, whatever hostility there might have been subsided.
No reference to transgendered, transsexual or intersex persons, or to male or female homosexual persons, was made … and none was intended.
Intent is not magic. It doesn’t magically shield people from the unintended consequences of your words or actions.
With respect, I do think your little homily on ‘cis-privelege’ was something of an overreaction.
You made a joke without considering how it might affect those for whom being trans* is a harsh reality and something that is often mocked. How is that not an act of privilege?
I’m not exactly in the ‘sexual mainstream’ myself,
Being gay/bi does not make one immune from being thoughtless when it comes to trans* issues.
..have transgendered friends who I know would find such pithy aphorisms highly entertaining.
Good for your friends. Zoe doesn’t share that view. Why are your friends’ feelings about such humor more valid than hers?
Furthermore, having a laugh about things that could be seen to pertain to ones’ self is a wonderful way of breaking down hostility on the part of others.
Are you trans*? No? In that case, you’re not having a laugh about things that could be seen to pertain to yourself. You’re having a laugh about things that could pertain to someone else. Telling someone else to “lighten up” over your joke at their expense (again, whether that was your intent or not) is quite invalidating and inconsiderate.
But I wasn’t talking about trans* people. I was making a comment about political systems.
It was not making a joke at Zoe’s or anyone else’s expense. If she saw it that way, then I regret that. Nor was I telling her or anyone else to ‘lighten up’; I was making a serious point.
(Well, I suppose I was making a joke at ‘Maazi NCO’s’ expense, come to think of it …)
I will say that I have enormous respect for Zoe, who makes consummately erudite and superbly researched contributions to this blog.
I’ve also taken a look at your blog, Jarred: it is most interesting, informative and well-written.
But I’m not ‘backing down’ re. my little political aphorism; when I blog on issues such the uniquely vile Bahati Bill (and its most vile feature, apart from the savage discrimination it seeks to legitimize, is its viciously intrusive and totalitarian nature), I tend to be a bit of a political ‘street-fighter’ … and I think that approach (which involves quirky humour from time to time) has its place. In other contexts, is has even got a few ‘positive results’.
Anteros, you are really good in imagining things. Continue day-dreaming
It is rather comical how you lot fight and hussle to be categorized and identified by pseudo-ethnic identities like “Tranny”, “Gay”, “Bi-sexual”, “Lesbian” or whatever tickles your crazy minds. Uganda will never recognize all these silly identities and that will be backed by law when we come round it later on within the lifespan of this parliamentary session.
Intersex persons have nothing to fear since their genetic phyisological condition is well understood in most African nations to be natural and no legislation shall ever be passed or even debated against them. Hermaphroditism has been with us in Africa for a long time and that is fine. However, gayism will NEVER be accorded the same tolerance. It is a deviant, unAfrican and transparently insane behaviour.
‘Maazi NCO MP’
I can assure that, whatever minor disagreements you may witness on this blog, we are all under no illusion when it comes to who is ‘the common enemy’!
The claim that ‘intersex persons have nothing to fear’ in places like Uganda is derisory, as Zoe has clearly indicated in earlier contributions.
May I also point out to you that the terms ‘intersex’ and ‘hermaphrodite’ are not synonymous. And what, pray, is ‘hermaphroditism’? We are not talking about any ‘ism’ – we are talking about a term that describes the biological identity of a human being. (I have a sneeking suspicion that, the moment a hermaphrodite person or an intersex person engages in a sexual relationship, bahati-type responses will suddenly come into play, even if you are sensible enough to say that they shouldn’t.)
You clearly have no understanding whatsoever of transgenderedness, which often has a clearly evident biological basis.
Furthermore, there are indications that same-sex orientation also has a ‘biological basis’. You can choose to ignore these indications if you wish, but that does not make you right. And even if it cannot be proven that they do, you are not able to prove that they don’t!
Additionally, even if there were no biological basis for same-sex orientation, the fact that you support proposals to punish gay people for activities that straight people can participate in with impunity puts you firmly ‘in the wrong’ when it comes to any credible concept of ‘fairness’.
Anteros is quite right to point out that some LGB/T/I activists in UG are not happy with the recent policy announcement from the UK Government.
As I’ve suggested before, I too have reservations with the ‘announcement’ part, although I think the policy of reallocating aid away from repressive governments and towards ‘project support’ is the best one available under the circumstances.
maazi, clearly you have never heard or read about the experiences of intersex ugandans… there’s a book available, newspaper articles have been written (most of them very misleading in their use of terminology – lazy journalism is nothing special in uganda), and at least one television interview has been screened (the interviewer’s angle was mostly a combination of cheap pity and insensitive fascination rather than educational) … all telling a very different story to your claims, mr. self-proclaimed africa guru.
yeah, sure… “later on within the lifespan of this parliamentary session”… yay. sounds more promising than ever. we cant wait. how many more sleeps?
what ever happened to all the burning urgency since october 2009 and the claims that our multi-tasking parliament can easily handle all national issues concurrently and “gayism” being a top priority as a “growing cancer” and “creeping evil” to be addressed immediately by the unanimously anti-gay parliament (supported by the president and 99.9% of ugandans and all their religious and cultural leaders and the nationwide marching national task force against homosexuality) before the invisible rich white gay recruiters use billions in foreign currency, ipods and laptops to turn all ugandan children into pedophilic homosexuals within weeks? i see you’ve been slowing down the pace quite a bit, mr. “it’s coming soon”? wassa matta!? …parliament lost the bill-passing rubber stamp handed down by the british colonialists? what are we gonna hear after the 9th parliament closes, “before the second coming”?
since the bill’s indefinitely pending status is evidently central to bahati-ism, perhaps i’m not as good as imagining things as you claim.
oops! how could i forget that the entire national task force against homosexuality is in court and on its way to jail for making up gay stories about those who chose not to join them in stirring up an anti-gay storm. could that be where all the steam disappeared – somewhere between court and jail?
more accurately… the national task force against homosexuality is in court on its way to jail for snooping around people’s offices and giving young boys petty cash and cheap mobile phones as gifts in exchange for making up gay stories and lying to the police, all in an attempt to bring down those who wouldn’t join them in their anti-gay crusades. oh, and buturo got fired for being a useless anti-gay-obsessed oaf. meaning bahati’s probably kinda lonely in pushing the bill… is that what happened to all the urgency and the 99.9% of ugandans?
Anteros
Your entertaining narrative above might not contain all the facts, but it captures beautifully the atmosphere of confusion and farce that now surrounds Bahati’s infamous ‘tar baby’.
So just what might be going on? I think it’s rather more confused (and farcical) than even Anteros believes.
First, those ‘pastors’ …
Solomon Mmale has always disliked the Bahati Bill; his view (and here he is surely correct) is that it was, from the get-go, thoroughly counter-productive relative to his, and others’, ‘anti-gay aims’. He agrees with Anteros, but for very different reasons, of course. Then there’s poor old Ssempa: he screams ‘poo poo’ on the one hand but has decidedly cold feet when it comes to the Bill’s genocidal intent (it was reported that he actually wanted to reduce the penalties in the Bill to a level well below those stipulated by Penal Code 145). Robert Kayanja himself is not averse to the occasional anti-gay outburst, though the timing of the last one may have more to do with the current court case than with what he actually believes (and practises?). The ‘pastor saga’, while a matter of interest in its own right, is something of a sideshow to Bahati’s pantomime.
Now the Government …
My understanding is that the line at the Ugandan Ministry of Internal Affairs (one of the ministries charged with implementing the provisions of the Bill were it ever to be enacted) is that the Bill is ‘on the shelf’; i.e. it’s still very much around, but perhaps about as welcome as Banquo’s Ghost – precisely because its implementation would be a complete nightmare, for all sorts of reasons. On a wider level, there’s the open question about might happen to general budget support, and at just the moment when tax revenues fall (people in prison can’t pay tax – although a little-mentioned aspect of the Bill does involve the confiscation of assets … an echo of the Nazi confiscation of Jewish assets in the 1930s and 1940s, perhaps) and the court and/or prison systems might require a sudden and dramatic expansion programme! Would the Chinese play Santa, and step in with a pile of jingling cash? Maybe … but then again, why should they? After all, it would not have been their fault that the Ugandan Budget had suddenly developed some rather unsightly holes. Very understandably, they have just said something to the EU along the lines of “you created your current financial mess; why on earth should we sort it out?” And the EU is China’s largest trading partner by some considerable margin.
And so to the ‘sovereign Parliament’ (as our resident MP like to call it) …
We must not forget that the ‘political cycle’ in Uganda has reached a rather delicate stage. Confidence in politicians generally among Uganda’s growing and well-informed (partly owing to the relatively free press in UG) intelligentsia has hit an all-time low; the Big Man’s hold on power is looking a little shaky and a credible ‘exit strategy’ for him is nowhere to be seen. Manoeuvring and intrigue are the order of the day, and the Bahati Bill’s most likely role just now is one element of the power struggle that is underway. It could even be suggested that the Bill is one ‘lever’ that those who want a change of government might pull, although just at the moment other such ‘levers’ appear to offer a greater prospect of bringing about the kind of destabilization that some MPs would like to see. (The current power struggle notwithstanding, there are of course several ‘genuine’ issues with which the UG Parliament is seeking to resolve.) With regard specifically to the Bill, much will depend on which way Madame Speaker jumps (the shelf on which it sits is currently in her Committee, I think).
What a weird composite picture emerges! A bill that was supposed to unite the 99.9% against the 2 – 4% (making a rather Orwellian total of 101.9 – 103.9%!) is proving a source of division amongst even those who like its general objectives.
What a mess!
Okay, I am in hurry… So I will keep it brief. I have read your long essay which is a botched attempt at punditry from a thousand miles away. You sit in your arm-chair in London thousands of miles away, read Ugandan media reports and then use your perception to build up the realities you want to see. Gayism is already dead in the water and the Bahati Bill will be debated and passed at the appropriate time.
The pastors who are in court are not Ugandan MPs so what the hell are you talking about ??? These pastors in court were already being investigated by the Police for allegedly framing another pastor long before MP David Bahati submitted the original verson of his bill in October 2009. The court trial of Ssempa and co has absolutely nothing to do with Bahati Bill and will not affect the ability of Ugandan Parliament to debate and pass it into law. Keep day-dreaming…
Gay Propaganda !!! Gayism is not an ethnic or racial identity. It is a deviant sexual behaviour not comparable in anyway to the dignified Jewish people. Stop trying to connect Jewish people with sexual deviance. Nobody in Ugandan parliament buys that trash propaganda
***Okay… I am back to doing more serious things for my people*****
‘Maazi’ sounds a little ‘animated’! Has one hit a ‘raw nerve’ perhaps?
He does like repeating himself, doesn’t he (I wonder if has ‘Gay propaganda’, ‘gayism’, ‘unAfrican’, ‘sex deviant’ etc in a Word document, so that he can just Copy+Paste)? He sounds more and more like a small child who refuses to eat his rice pudding: “I will have my bill, I will, I WILL!“, cf. “I won’t eat my rice pudding, I won’t, I WON’T!”
And then there’s “… my people.” (How deeply moving!) Meet MP Maazenevi, everyone!
Well, maybe he will get his bill … along with some other things he wasn’t bargaining for besides: repression has a very nasty habit of ‘spreading’.
well, whatever happened to the incredibly vocal and visible marching national task force against homosexuality headed by ssempa and his troubled friends who all happen to be in the media now, because of their lying and cheating ways? might they be a little too busy pleading for mercy or an out-of-court settlement to be laying hands on bahati while standing in prayer with their muslim partners in crime and boring us with their televised lies about “recruitment” without presenting a shred of credible evidence and their lies about uganda not having laws to protect boys from pedophiles while conflating homosexuality with pedophilia (ssempa eventually unceremoniously admitted it was a lie) and their porno lies about what all homosexuals (don’t) do in the privacy of their bedrooms and supporting tabloids that published the identities of lgbti ugandans calling for them to be killed… maybe they gave up after realising that their best efforts at getting the bill passed were worthless? one wonders what keeps maazi’s anti-gay clock ticking if he isn’t a deluded day dreamer.
Well, I think – though I don’t know – ‘the screechers’ (the ones who were making lots of noise with all their lies and hate speech) have been told to ‘put a sock in it’. Bad for UG’s image.
As for the ‘Rolling Stone’: well … some fairly major changes there, I’ve heard. Not at all what it once was, I gather.
Anteros : Do you like my ‘Maazeveni’ gag?! (I am rather proud of that … I know: pride’s a sin!)
@ Zoe, Jarred
I will offer an unreserved apology for yesterday.
I can assure you both that nothing was further from my mind than upsetting trans* people, or indeed people like myself who are ‘not entirely certain’ of the ‘absolute nature’ of their sex identity (though I don’t have a ‘label’ that seems to express that uncertainty on my part).
I do so for two reasons:-
1. I have a tendency to be rather ‘abrasive’ from time to time (though I try to make sure that it is always ‘in a good cause’), and
2. The priority is (as Zoe would say) to ‘get back to the programme’, and unmask every possible aspect of the utter lunacy of vile turpitudes such as Bahati’s ‘Slaughter’ Bill.
love it! …especially the way it made me wonder for a moment before crackin up at the thought of museveni or a mini-museveni going on and on about “gayism” and recycling the same mumbo jumbo while hiding behind “Maazi”
‘Maazeveni’ and Museveni are very much not the same thing, I can assure you! ‘Maazeveni’ might even rather enjoy the idea that passing the Bill could prove less than ‘convenient’ for Museveni (hence my earlier comment).
Developments in the ‘pastor wars’ case: http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/-/688334/1292696/-/bfm2yjz/-/index.html
(There is a typo – I assume – in the report: “Buganda Road Chief Magistrate Vincent Mugabo stayed the trial to allow investigations into allegations that Grade One Magistrate John Patrick Wekesa has been handling the case unprofessionally and with impartiality.” Says it all, doesn’t it?
)
(An impartial jurist! How shocking!)
@Richard Willmer:
Accepted with grateful thanks of course, but I’ll keep it in reserve for when you do something you should apologise for. This didn’t qualify.
It doesn’t sweat the small stuff, nor get distracted with inconsequential trifles. All I had to do was mention my point, not belabour it. Let others fundamental goodness take it from there.
For you are you know. Fundamentally good – as your apology shows.
I guess that’s the difference between organised religion and my own beliefs. I think most people are in general pretty good. Flawed, ignorant, prone to lashing out in fear, very very imperfect (I know I am), but not too bad all told. Organised religion seems to take the opposite view, that all people without exception are fundamentally nasty and irresponsible, requiring dire threats of eternal damnation to keep the lid on.. Children, not adults.
Some are, no doubt, but most people are not. If they were, we’d require a hundred times more police than we do – today’s society couldn’t function.
So, Zoe and Jarred — how do you feel about Monty Python doing cross-dressing just for larfs?
Thanks, Zoe.
(What you suggest about the ‘fundamental goodness’ of creation is actually there in that deeply truthful poetry that is Genesis Chapter 1, isn’t it?)
Throbert
The point is that I created a distraction from the ‘programme’ by ‘showing off’ – that was perhaps the real ‘sin’ in this case. (As we all agree, this Uganda situation is – quite literally – deadly serious: I was trying to make a point through ‘pithy humour’, and it misfired; and when challenged, I should simply have said what anteros did: namely ‘sorry’. That a highly intelligent guy like ‘Maazi NCO’ cannot understand why so many people are so angry and concerned is profoundly alarming, although he may just be ‘spouting a party line’ that he doesn’t really believe himself, hence his continual repetition of certain words and phrases. It happens often in ‘totalitarian contexts’, doesn’t?)
Going back to the ‘programme’ …
Part of what drives people like ‘Maazi NCO’ in their homophobic demagogery is a desire to ‘get at mzungu‘. That’s very understandable, given the historical realities. However, they choose to do so by bashing their own people. The Bahati Bill is inter alia a classic example of ‘cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face’.
(In the end, if Ugandans persecute Ugandans, it won’t affect the vast majority of mzungus. It will simply make Uganda a worse place to be.)
As acceptable and harmless in 1971 as Amos’n'Andy were in 1931. It’s now 2011.
Another Hitler-Bahati parallel: Nazi propaganda often used falsely to portray Jewish men as a threat to young ‘Aryan’ girls; much anti-gay propaganda in UG falsely portrays gay people as a threat to children.
(This parellel cannot possibly be dismissed using some kind of ‘ethnicity’ argument; the essential common factor is the falsehood.)
Another Hitler-Bahati parallel: Nazi propaganda often used falsely to portray Jewish men as a threat to young ‘Aryan’ girls; much anti-gay propaganda in UG falsely portrays
The previous post is a mistake. This is the correction:
This is just gay propaganda as usual. There is absolutely no basis for comparing the dignified Jewish people with sexual deviance. Absolutely no basis. This is just false equivalency.
No, no, no…. you are wrong. This is a classic example of getting rid of a localized cancerous tumor before it mestasises, spreads and infects all the organs of a human body
Your first post was no mistake, ‘Maa7i’! (Couldn’t have put it better myself, except that you didn’t quite complete your sentence!)
Your reference to ‘cancerous tumor’ represents the use of another example of hitlerian language designed to promote hatred against a minority group. Even Museveni has wisely stopped using such inflammatory invective and now admits that ‘homosexuality’ is no ‘western import’, but ‘an African reality’ (just as it is an American, European, Asia and Antipodean reality).
Anyway, you completely missed the point of my post.
The comparison I offered had nothing to do with ethnicity. The point was this: just as the Nazis lied about Jews, so Bahati and his cronies lie about gays. Both sets of lies had/have the same purpose: to justify repression and/or murder.
There are some interesting ‘subtexts’ in this article: http://allafrica.com/stories/201112221057.html
Here’s another interesting article: http://www.salon.com/2011/12/22/religious_leaders_battle_african_homophobia/singleton/
From the article: “… is one of a small but growing group of African religious leaders who have taken great personal and professional hits for supporting LGBT rights. For their efforts, they have faced violence, professional alienation and social ostricization. Yet these straight men and women, primarily Christian clergy, continue to criticize the intensifying vitriol and violence against gay Africans.“
Jamacia, the new Uganda?
Full page ad by Exodus in the Sunday edition of Trinidad’s leading newspaper.
“That Jamaican advertisement was followed up by a symposium Dec. 10 organized by the Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship and attended by many leading Jamaicans, including two judges of Jamaica’s Supreme Court and the Attorney General, and with American and British Christianist speakers. ”
http://sdgln.com/news/2011/12/22/widely-discredited-ex-gay-movement-exported-caribbean
Side note, I no longer see block quote or italics or bold as editing options. I no longer see any editing options. Does anybody else have this problem?
buturo made a televised press statement today… his statement was not about gender based violence, corruption, child sexual abuse, human sacrifice, tribalism or anything else you’d hope to hear in a press statement from a former minister of ethics and integrity. his press statement was a plea to fight homosexuality. wow. who knows, he might just get the bill passed during his forced early retirement… surely he has more sway on bahati’s bill after losing his parliamentary seat and getting fired from his job as minister of ethics and integrity?
reminds me a bit of christmas 2009 when all news bulletins and newspapers were completely dominated by the national debate on bahati’s bill… according to maazi, our parliament is yet to debate the bill… quite a stale debate if you ask me. maybe the parliamentary debate on the bill hasn’t yet received clearance from parliament’s current affairs committee which is still processing more pressing issues from 2008?
So a bunch of “african religious leaders” who spend their time touring United States and Europe are making a difference ???? C’mon !!! More like they are enjoying being the centre of attention in the Western world. Nobody in our neck of the woods listens to these Western NGO-controlled “religious leaders”. These “leaders” may be superstars in the Western world and Gay Planet, but over here nobody takes them seriously.
On a lighter note, the Nigerians took a break from commenting on their same-sex marriage prohibition bill to say wonderful things about the electric car built in our own Makarere University
http://allafrica.com/stories/201112160937.html
the way some people go on about “the western world”… you’d think these complainants were humanoid aliens from another galaxy with an inferiority complex from hell – a species straight outta men in black.
buturo has again proved the point that ugandan politicians need to set better priorities for the country… maybe they will copy notes from the donor nations that received a lecture from museveni on setting better priorities.
‘Maazi NCO’
People take them seriously enough to firebomb their homes and threaten them with violence.
I notice that you have condemned neither the violence shown against peaceful dissenters nor the lies told by Bahati. Does this mean that you approve of these things? (And if you do approve, it may well be time for us to take the political opposition in UG rather less seriously than we currently do.)
Bahati Bill mentioned in this report: http://eastafricanewspost.com/index.php/east-africa-politics/489-uganda-legislators-plan-busy-christmas
Big irony: mentioned along with it is the Prevention of Torture Bill … so it looks like both pro- and anti-torture bills are on the menu for next February!
SG.
The Jamaica situation is tragic. My husband grew up there. We visited some years ago and found a wonderful island. Flying fish skittering ahead of the ship. Magical light on Port Royale, once known as the San Francisco of its day: a place where gay men could live openly. Where the pirate tradition allowed for gay romance and marriage. Noel Coward lived on the island. Errol Flynn built the first 1st world hotel. No one had any trouble dealing with gay people till the Americans arrived. First the IMF stripped the local farmers of their means of livelihood by insisting that all food be imported and then the evangelicals used their ‘outreach’ as a fund-raiser in the States to fund their McMansions and private jets.
It’s a beautiful island. With an extraordinary history. When we were there we attended a revival that combined African and Anglican elements into a unique ritual: hundreds of women chanting, making a coil into a central space where, perhaps, a sacrificial animal would have been. The island was a refuge for sephardic Jews expelled from Spain and Portugal in the 1600s. My husband is a Jew. One of my husband’s oldest friends is a woman whose father was a great man locally. I went with her up to the Cockpit Country but we couldn’t get there, the roads stopped, she didn’t dare, I didn’t push. And the people are so beautiful, graceful and generous.
If you don’t know, Africans in Jamaica mounted a very successful rebellion that secured for them a portion of the island known as the Cockpits. On the north coast. The insurgents were led by a woman known as Nanny (a term of respect) and their HQ was known as Nannytown. It still exists. The Maroons, as they are known, are quite distinct from other Jamaicans.
Now the rich and dynamic history of Jamaica is trampled upon by American evangelicals.
Maazi NCO wrote:
Is that a direct quote from Mein Kampf or just a paraphrase?
We’ve heard your words before, Maazi. Auf Deutsch anyway.
Denn denken Sie nicht, daß Sie eine Krankheit bekämpfen können, ohne nicht den Erreger zu töten, ohne den Bazillus zu vernichten, und denken Sie nicht, daß Sie die Rassentuberkulose bekämpfen können, ohne zu sorgen, daß das Volk frei wird von dem Erreger der Rassentuberkulose. Das Wirken des Judentums wird neimals vergehen, und die Vergiftung des Volkes nicht enden, solange nicht der Erreger, der Juden, aus unserer Mitte entfernt ist.’ Jäckel/Kuhn (eds.), Hitler, Aufzeichnungen, No. 129 (BAB, NS 11/28).
@ Zoe
Another point that really interests me is that, given that he is an opposition politician, why ‘Maazi’ is not absolutely appalled by the perpetration of violence against people who are engaging in peaceful (and perfectly legal – at least as long as the Bahati Bill remains ‘on the shelf’, and maybe thereafter as well**) dissent.
**These (straight) clergy are not ‘promoting’ anything; they are peacefully opposing violence and hate speech.
Thank you for those quotes. The point is made most forcibly.
(Sorry about the bad syntax in line 1: an extra ‘that’ got in there. But I think the meaning is clear.)
Zoe,
Ugandans (and by extension, most Africans) are immune to this kind of gay propaganda. I have already told your friend Richard that such propagandist attempts to create false equivalence between the dignified Jewish people and sexual deviance will not be accepted here in our own neck of the woods.
Like other forms of sexually deviant behaviours, gayism will never be granted space here to grow and bloom. No amount of pro-gay propaganda will change that. You can scream Nazi, Nazi, Nazi….from morning till night, but gayism will remain prohibited, shunned by society and legislated against throughout Africa.
What violence??? The one cooked up by the domestic puppets of the Euro-American Gay Propagandist Lobby??? Gayism is deviant, abhorrent and transparently insane behaviour. This behaviour does violence to African culture and can do more violent damage to public health since gay sex is the most efficient way of spreading HIV/AIDS disease.
Playing politics with HIV again, I see. HIV is essentially a heterosexual problem in Uganda.
Driving groups of people ‘underground’, and driving away foreign aid, NGOs and charities, could do terrible things to ‘public health’ in Uganda.
I see that ‘Maazi’ appears to think that violence and criminal damage are OK, as long as it is directed at people he doesn’t agree with. More ‘unAfrican non-values’ from that allegedly quintessential African, ‘Maazi NCO’? (Most Africans I now would not like to be associated with the idea that it is OK to burn down people’s houses because those people say something with which one might not entirely agree.)
WT. Maazi should be blocked. I didn’t think so before but now I do. To allow him to post here looks to me like vanity on your part. Revelling in your broadmindedness. If he were writing about Jews in the same terms you would not permit his filth on your personal site. Don’t think that in 10 years this won’t come back to haunt you.
Did we all see the fine op ed by Frank Mugisha in the New York Times? No? . There you go. I hope that works. I can never make a good link here. Otherwise google
Uganda law: English.
Uganda religion: English.
Uganda language: duh.
Uganda economy: created by investments from Europe and the US.
Uganda society: created by charity from the West.
Maazi, you don’t get it.
It wasn’t that the extermination of Jews was wrong merely because they were Jews. It’s that extermination camps are wrong.
I think I see now how Rwanda came about. It’s not that you have objections to genocide – you cheer it when a political, religious, ethic or other group you don’t approve of is being exterminated.
What perverse education system produced such as you? Intelligent, articulate, and in this area, a moral vacuum? The kind of people who ran the State Research Bureau?
@ Stephen
I think that many of UG’s current problems, including the kind ‘bahitlerite thinking’ espoused by ‘Maazi’, can be traced back to damage caused by colonialism.
Richard, you may be correct but Uganda got its independence in 1962 – that’s a long time ago and while colonialism may have affected the country profoundly (for example many of our outdated inherited laws), I think that as an old country Uganda needs to take full responsibility for its current issues. There are countries that were more affected by colonialism and others that got their independence after Uganda that have moved on and made the kind of progress Uganda would need a miracle to achieve. I get irked when I hear Ugandans moaning about colonialism when the country relies on infrastructure from the colonial era which it has failed to maintain, and then they claim that aid is a tool of neocolonialism as though there were heaps of aid-free achievements for Uganda to brag about. Looking at Uganda today, it hurts when one compares what is with what could be and what should be… and then there’s all the hype about oil as if oil will automatically solve governance issues while the country wastes months focusing on anti-homosexuality and sugar as priorities, meanwhile shady oil deals are signed and corruption hits new peaks every day at the expense of what belongs to taxpayers – the most basic being infrastructure, health care, and education. In my humble opinion, increasing fundamentalism in its different forms (mainly religious, “cultural”, and political) is more to blame for the persistence of Uganda’s issues than colonialism.
Does anyone know *why* Maazi NCO is so full of hate for sexual minorities? The way he writes is so *unreal* is the only word I can come up with. It appears that he is fully consumed with hatred, where does it come from? Why the hatred?
Surely he is educated and can see plenty of perfectly, I don’t know what is a good word, *decent* public figures who are a sexual minority. Isn’t the Prime Minister of Belgium gay? There are to many out sexual minorities for him to not have noticed. His hatred can’t be coming from ignorance, so where does it come from? It is a mystery to me how anyone can hate another person like that and not even know the person.
StraightGrandmother, that’s an example of the fundamentalism I mentioned – it’s raw intolerance – Uganda has so much diversity, but maazi’s intolerance towards homosexuals is nothing special in Uganda… just as there is growing intolerance towards religious minorities (i’ve heard fundamentalist christians – a growing majority in Uganda – saying really hateful stuff about muslims, hindus, baha’is, catholics, atheists and others, even on radio and television) and between ethnic groups (most Ugandans will say hateful stuff about those of a different ethnicity, both between and within tribes) and between political groups (they say hateful stuff about each othe all the time, we see riots and unreasonable crackdowns as a result)… they say hateful and insensitive stuff about people living with hiv, people living with disabilities, people living with mental illness, people of asian descent… women get more than their fair share of hate, especially feminists, sex workers, those that “dress less”… basically, any Ugandan who falls into some kind of minority or disenfranchised group know the kind of hate they experience every day. Many of those who suffer some form of intolerance often respond by hating another less powerful group rather than working towards equality. Many Ugandans speak about sex workers and homosexuals as though they were sub-human or demonoid. Even though fundamentalism is growing fast and seems to pose a serious threat to the country’s future, more Ugandans are learning to appreciate the value of tolerance towards each other.
Aah !! You are trying to mimic your Republican party friend Newt Gringich who claimed that Palestinians are invented people !!! Let me tell you Ugandans were not invented by anybody. : D
Nope !! I don’t recognize anything called “sexual minorities”. I am also dead-set against legalizing drug use and prostitution in Uganda as is the case in Netherlands. Does that mean I hate prostitutes and drug addicts? Gayism is a sex crime in Uganda and the law must be respected and reviewed whenever parliament sees fit
How is this relevant to Uganda? Perhaps, I should say hurray !!! that Belgium now has a national government after more than 12 months of in-fighting among that nation’s political elite. Perhaps, Anteros should move to Belgium. May be he will get to be the first gay King of Belgium? eh?
Anyway, this piece of information on the sodomy-loving Prime Minister is irrelevant to Ugandans in particular and Africans in general. Who cares if the Belgians decide to appoint a necrophiliac, gay sex practitioner or bestialist as their leader? This is a matter for Belgians and Belgians alone. Nothing to do with us !!!
@Anteros—
Nope !! Most Ugandans say that gayism and prostitution are crimes and those who engage in them are not only spreading diseases around, they are also doing violence to the law of the land.
Oh yes, how can I forget….Before colonialism, Africa was one happy “country of gayism lovers”. Africans embraced and promoted gayism with songs and folklore until the evil super-smart European colonialists brainwashed the Africans to hate gayism. Oh yes….wonderful history (according to gay sex propagandists)..
@Stephen—-
You are funny guy. You just got off practically calling us an “invented people” like your best friend Newt Gringich and then have effrontery to call for my censorship? You must understand that I know your type very well. Gayism will never be allowed to take root in Uganda. All your powers of blackmail, intimidation and censorship which you and your gay lobbyist friends regularly apply on your fellow compatriots who disagree with gayism in USA is “frustratingly useless” over here in Uganda. Regardless of whether Doc Warren accepts your gay command or not, the sovereign parliament of Uganda will never allow you and your foreign government backers to exercise veto power over us. No that will never happen. Not while we are in positions of authority over here.
Gay propaganda….There are some tensions among the ethnicities, races and different religions, but things are certainly better than they were decades ago and we now have Ugandan asians who have run for parliament as independents or political party politicians and have won those elections based on ballots cast by Black African Ugandans. Gayism is nobody’s identity in Uganda. If you want to have gayism as a fully recognized and protected pseudo-ethnic identity then move to United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa or Europe.
Just about anything that ‘Maazi’ doesn’t agree with is blithely dismissed as ‘gay propaganda’. Even when his own words are quoted, but he wishes that he hadn’t been, it’s ‘gay propaganda’ (I will cite once again the time he was trying to deceive people about the true nature of the Bahati Bill when he said this in December 2009: “[c]ontrary to Western media propaganda, [g]ays who keep their heads down and do their stuff privately will be left alone …”).
And I do think Stephen has a point: on the whole, ‘Maazi’ has nothing new to say (it’s basically just the same old nasty rhetoric churned out time and again).
It is also highly distasteful that he should be allowed to continue to threaten and insult people like Anteros from behind a pseudonym. Obviously, as long as his invective on this blog is not likely to promote hatred (and its self-defeating nature makes that unlikely in my view), I defend his ‘right’ to behave in such a cowardly and dishonest manner; but others’ sensibilities are important as well.
I wish to modify my comment above: please remove the words “be allowed to” in line 1 of para. 2 above. (What is ‘highly distasteful’ is ‘Maazi’s’ behaviour, and not that he ‘be allowed to’ behave in this way; my original form of words implies distasteful actions on Warren’s part – a notion I did NOT mean to convey.)
Richard—You, Stephen, Jay Huck, Tim Kincaid and the rest of your gay crew (including the pseudonymous “Anteros”) also have nothing new to contribute to the discourse. All of you regurgitate the same gay propaganda lines, blackmail and threats over and over and over again. Each time you hope it will produce a different outcome. The fact is simple—Uganda is a sovereign country and no foreign nation or lobby group will get to exercise veto power over its parliament. It is quite simple. Nothing you lot say will change that. Gayism will never be allowed to take root in our neck of the woods.
That’s a matter of opinion, ‘Maazi’.
Noone on this page has ever threatened to cause you harm. All we’ve really done is pointed out when you’ve lied or threatened someone else.
We don’t make crass generalizations about Ugandans; rather we highlight the savagery of particular individuals, usually citing evidence (often the aforementioned individuals’ own words) for our contentions.
Regarding what happens next with Bahati’s Murder Bill: I suspect much will depend on how the current power struggle between the Parliament and the Executive plays out. Given the international implications of Bahati’s proposed killing spree, it is hardly surprising that many other countries are taking a close interest.
Our position is essentially ‘defensive’; you are the aggressor.
Who’s blackmailing you, by the way – and why?
According to this news report:
http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/-/688334/1298194/-/bfi0yuz/-/index.html
President Museveni has summoned all NRM MPs to a two-week long retreat at the National Leadership Institute, Kyankwanzi.
“generating consensus on contentious issues in parliament”… that couldn’t be referring to passing bahati’s bill, could it? i mean, if parliament has been unanimously bent on passing bahati’s bill urgently since it was introduced in October 2009 then surely it doesn’t qualify as a “contentious issue” deserving attention at an NRM caucus?
There are strong reservations about the Bahati Bill within the NRM (I know of at least one member of the NRM NEC who is staunchly opposed to the Bill in its entirety); at least two leading opposition politicians are strongly against the Bill, and would much prefer law enforcements agencies to deal with genuine crimes (such as murder, rape, robbery and child abuse), rather than wasting time and resources hounding people in consensual same-sex relationships.
I suspect that the President himself has come to see the Bill as being ‘more trouble than it’s worth’. He’s no fan of ‘gay rights’, to be sure, but there’s a huge difference between ‘not approving’ of consensual same-sex relationships (and thus not legislating for things like ‘gay marriage’) and what is being proposed by the bahatite extremists.
It cannot be pointed out too often that ‘the West’s’ line on all this is not that places like Uganda should embrace things like ‘gay marriage’ and ‘gay adoption’; rather it is essentially about not penalizing and/or persecuting gay people simply because they are gay. The advent of the Bahati Bill has resulted in a much stronger line by the US, the EU and others on the issues both of decriminalization of consensual sexual relations and of the murder and abuse of gay people by violent and criminal elements in those societies where such murder and abuse regularly takes place, especially when those ‘elements’ are sanctioned by the state.