Uganda and other problems

Few people outside Uganda might ever have heard the name David Bahati or Rebecca Kadaga were it not for the former's "Kill the Gays" bill. And that bill might never have been drafted were it not for the money of American "Evangelical Christians" who showed up in Kampala in 2009 to deliver a 3 day workshop where they convinced Ugandan Christians of the existence of a sinister plot involving foreign homosexuals infiltrating Uganda preying on young people, offering them laptops and other indulgences in return for (homo)sexual favours. It is not known how much money Bahati has received to "sponsor" his bill. Though the American Evangelists:Scott Lively, Caleb Lee and Don Schmeierer [you have blood on your hands!] claim to be shocked that the bill actually calls for the death penalty. But there has already been death as a result of their interference. David Kato was bludgeoned to death at his home in January 2011 after a Ugandan newspaper printed a "Hang the Gays" headline complete with the photographs of known and 'suspected' gays and lesbians. David's murder slowed the passage of Bahati's bill and raised international awareness of  what was happening in Uganada. A film based on David Kato's life and the struggle for LGBT rights in Uganda "Call me Kuchu" is about to be released.

Ms Kadaga is the Speaker of the Ugandan parliament. She recently returned from Canada where she responded to criticism of the rabid homophobia rampant in her country by calling the Canadians 'Arrogant and Ignorant'. She returned intent on venting her fury on the estimated 500,000 LGBT Ugandans by ensuring Bahati's hateful bill, that might have sunk permanently under the weight of international indignation is enacted by the end of this year. Bahati and Kadaga and Uganda's fundamentalist (so-called) Christians speak of "Western Perversion" conveniently ignoring the fact that anti gay laws were inherited from their British colonial rulers. There is much tribal history to suggest that same sex relationships were an accepted part of everyday lives all over the African continent before European interference.

Unsurprisingly, UK has become a destination for LGBT Africans seeking asylum from homophobic countries like Uganda (and most of the continent sadly). In 2010, David Cameron promised that “Those Africans seeking asylum on the basis of sexual orientation and at real risk of persecution in their home countries should be allowed to stay in the UK.” Sadly; this has proved to be just another meaningless sound-bite to convince the unwary that the Tories are no longer the "nasty party". The UK Border Agency continues to send LGBT asylum seekers to Uganda and other unashamedly homophobic countries claiming from their viewpoint in some parallel universe that the risk of harm is minimal or advising the deported to "be discrete" or, refusing to accept that they're actually Gay as in the case of a Nigerian man Olalekan M Ayelokun (Ola) who was recently repatriated to Nigeria after a judge refused to believe him to be Gay despite the testimony of friends and male lovers- because (in part) he is a masculine man- after all: everyone knows that all gay men are effeminate "nancy-boys"!

I think UK is foolish not to accept these people! The racist idea that they're here to sponge off the state is not proved in practice: given the opportunity; they want to make the positive contributions they were denied in their own countries. It pains and angers me that UK Border Agency claims to be "protecting" the country from people who need our help in order to enable them to help us to become all we could be as a country! It pains and angers me deeply that so few LGBT people in UK seem to be bothered enough to even comment. LGBT asylum-seekers are put into detention centres where they are abused by other asylum seekers possibly in an expression of their own frustrations and given especially poor treatment by staff. It is an ugly truth of human nature that the oppressed often seek those they can oppress if only so they won't feel they're at the very bottom of the heap. 

If ever I come into money, I pledge to make as positive and as practical a contribution as I can to supporting LGBT people of colour arriving in this country seeking asylum and to encourage or shame my countrymen to do the same.