Uganda. Uganda. Uganda.

So it continues. The long saga of systemic genocide of my queer brothers and sisters has found itself in the law of another nation. Now, in the fiercely Christianized State of Uganda, the criminalization of homosexuality is, unfortunately, something to be expected. I mean, the African continent, in its unconscious (and arguably futile) attempt to appear more civil in the gaze of the Euro-American master States have enthusiastically internalized the former colonial mores that abhorred same-gender sexual relations and are now more committed to that cause than the nations that inspired such an ignorant attitude.



History review: The White Man came to Africa. The White Man immediately establishes himself as superior and wiser through physical and (more detrimental) epistemic violence. The African tribes (now haphazardly reorganized into constructed nations by the White Man) now look to the White Man as the ultimate example of how to be human and take his teachings as the law of God Himself; The White Man's dress, his language, his societal conceptions, his hair texture, his practices and his beliefs must now become the dress, language, societal coneptions, etc. of the Black natives if they are ever to be humanized like the White Man is (which is a goal they can only approach but never reach as prescribed by the terms of humanity as set by the White Man). The White Man says that homosexuality is a filthy abomination, a sickness, the cause of disease and calamity, the sexuality of savages... the African Natives take his word and pursue actions to rectify it with the utmost ferver in desperate persuit of the goal to be culturally Whiter.



These patterns of meaning production and cultural appropriation are not simply the origin story for the fiercely anti-homosexual politics that has become a trademark of the African nation-state, these patterns are being revisited TODAY (right now) behind the flag of Christ.



Fundamentalist Christian missionaries from America, (the not-so new visage of the White Man) have continued to pour these horror stories of the homosexual into the ears of the Ugandans. Child molesters, AIDS proliferators, God-forsaken they call us. The homosexual has become the new face of the Devil in the imagination of the Ugandans--regardless of the intent of the missionaries who minister to them. What many of these more ignorant Bible carriers fail to realize is the way historically constructed narratives about their race magnify the impact of their words ...how their words carry a different result in a Western mega-church borne of an Anglo tradition from the result of the same words in a nation with a tradition of subordination to the Anglo colonial project.



Rachel Maddow, political pundit and advocate for unmitigated Human Rights across all social locations tackled these questions in a segment entitled "Uganda be Kidding Me." In this clip, (which I watch everytime with relish), she attempts to highlight to her guest the ways in which he almost directly incites the inception of this "Kill the Gays Bill" despite his claims that he cannot be held responsible.



http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#34337416



The above segment is just one of a handful of interviews Maddow conducts in investigation of this frightening turn of events. Fortunately, she has the sense of responsibility to pursue interrogations of those who contributed in any way to the inception of this bill, thus exposing the true nature of the origin rising anti-homosexual sentiment in Africa.

I must note that as she exposed the direct link of American Christian activists to the atmosphere of heterosexism in Africa, my anger flared violently. Is this what happens when the precious and beautiful Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, is placed in the hands of greedy, capitalist, priveleged and prejudiced straight, white American men? These educated, first-world and supposedly compassionate people are guilty of INCREASING the violence and hate in the "third world" rather than working to decrease it.

I suppose, given the history of colonial relations between the colonized Africans and the colonizing white men, my surprise in unwarranted. What else would they do?

--TAHS