Around the Corner: An update on LGBT rights in Uganda

By Gwen on Tuesday, August 31, 2010 - 16:58

A few days ago, a link went around in my Twitter stream to a story about gay life in Uganda. Or it was more of an interview, really.

In any case, it was an excerpt of something I couldn’t get hold of without paying for it and since I only get a certain amount of scholarship and already have to pay for tons of other things, I was doubting whether I would read it or not. Usually with excerpts of things I become curious for the rest, which I’d rather prevent. However, I did read it in the end and I’m glad I did.

You never really know what it’s like to live in another country, or another part of your country, until you have. Because most of us probably have never lived in Uganda, let alone anywhere in Africa, we can’t really have any idea of what it’s like to live there as a gay person. Sure, we saw the articles about the anti-gay bill, we saw the talk about death penalty, but we were behind our computers and it was all happening on-screen just like anything else.

When I had just started to come out, there was the Prop 8 case in California. Having lived fairly sheltered in fairly open-minded Holland, I was outraged. I had no idea these things could happen and at some points I had to stop trying to find out about the latest developments because it was hurting me so much. Recently, Prop 8 has been overturned by judge Warren and although I did get the e-mails and Twitter status updates saying marriage wouldn’t be possible until, what was it, 2011, there was none of the emotion I felt when I first got introduced to the phenomenon of anti-gay politics. I’ve gotten used to it, which is why it’s sometimes good to read a personal interview with a gay Ugandan man who’s on the run for the authorities.

“I call myself ‘Blessed,’” he explained, “because that’s what I am, so fortunate to be born like this.”

Like this: gay, and so in love with the world that even in jail he forgot about the bars.

In Jeff Sharlet’s article, you get pulled into Blessed’s world, who’s a twenty-year-old already without a place to live and without a lot of hope for improvement in the future. On the other hand, the article makes you realize you don’t have a clue what life could be like. I’m nineteen – I could have been like Blessed. In comparison to him, my hope that I won’t have to show a group of first year students around Amsterdam who will be making stupid ‘that’s so gay’-remarks seems rather petty.

So what has been happening in Uganda? There is a member of parliament called David Bahati, who has proposed an anti-gay bill, which I wrote about in December. What it comes down to is up to seven years of prison for anyone aware of the homosexuality of someone around them who fails to report it, imprisonment for life for people ‘convicted’ of homosexuality and possible death penalty for hiv-positive people.

After the news broke, Rachel Maddow reported that the bill had strong links with a fundamentally Christian group in the United States called the Fellowship (also known as the Family). David Bahati himself is a member of the Family. When Jeff Sharlet visited Uganda after an invitation from Bahati, with whom he had several dinners in a restaurant and who he visited at his house, Bahati told him “the Bill is the Fellowship. This is what we do.” Sharlet said so in an interview he did with American radio station NPR.