Uganda Took the First Step, Now Its Our Turn.

Today a huge step was taken in Ugandan rights.  It’s one of those cases where we didn’t so much make new ground, but took back some ground taken from us or rightfully said taken from them.  By Them I mean Ugandan members of the LGBT community.  This isn’t our success.  There are those of us around the world who have spoken out for an end to this law.  We said how barbaric it was, and we fought its enactment before it went into law.  I won’t deny this, but there is something more to this story. 

Uganda wasn’t the origin of the jail the gays bill.  Anti-gay laws in Africa didn’t exist until England took over swaths of the continent.  Only after Queen Victoria conquered the many countries did laws banning gay sex come to pass.  Before that the evidence shows that there was little concern over if a man was gay.  Queen Victoria had trouble even believing in the existence of lesbians so lesbian sex wasn’t a crime.  That actually took American influence. 

Granted, it was evangelical church’s American influence, but it is still western values being pushed on people.  They basically bribed them into following their ways by offering people aid with the intention of converting them to their religion.  Suddenly, people who never cared one way or another about gays were learning about, “the evils of homosexuality.”  When you live in a village with a poor quality of life, it is going to be hard not to be influenced by the people who come in and give these things that are needed.  When a church has helped build a well, or helped create a school they always did it with a bible in hand ready to tell the people to convert to their faith. 

This is western influence.  In my opinion this is western blackmail.  I wonder what would have happened to those schools if no one had been willing to convert.  I’m not saying that people in Uganda and other countries don’t hold responsibility for what has happened.  They did listen.  But we didn’t pay attention to what was going on.  We allowed people like Scott Lively to go to Africa and spread his hate unchallenged.  And that is our fault.  We have a hand in this.  The US and the UK both have a hand in this.

In the last year or so I’ve said this in different ways in different forums and if there is a response it is to say it isn’t their problem.  One woman said she was sick of having to clean up after their messes and even said they should go to Iran because, in her words, they needed to grow up.  Well, I’d say it isn’t African nations that need to grow up.  Over the last two hundred or so years different white nations have gone to African nations and systematically deconstructed the native cultures.

We went into these and many other countries and took over strong and stable regions raping their land, taking their people, enslaving them, sometimes getting them addicted to drugs, all for the sake of profit, and all under the guise of bettering the savages.  Well, it’s about damned time we cleaned up our messes.  We need to help restore the original cultures and value systems whenever possible.  We owe the LGBT members of these nations a safe place to escape not just to give them refuge, but to help educate a new generation. 

While we do that we need to work to help the people within the country overthrow dictators who are using LGBT members as scape goats for the evil they are doing.  We need to help bring the damage they are doing to light, and help promote unconditional and sustainable aid.  Don’t just build a well; help bring real balanced education to the schools.  Help them rediscover the cultures taken away by Apartheid influence. 

More than anything I believe we can take the tactics of the Anti-gay churches and turn them on their head.  Help bring sustainable industry to areas that have a more positive view of their LGBT members.  Stop punishing anti-gay nations, and start rewarding those whose Anti-gay attitudes are less intense.  At first it may be communities that say, hurt fewer LGBT community members, but over time some might see that those members of their community help make things better.

Maybe some of my ideas are bigger than we can manage, I honestly don’t know.  But what I do know is what we are doing doesn’t work.  We have tried punishing them.  We’ve tried laying blame elsewhere.  So let’s look at the lies being told and see the truth that lies underneath.  We did force western culture on African nations.  That did happen.  We’ve done it time and time again.  When we were done we looked down on them and said see how offal you are.  So now it’s time for us to say no, it wasn’t you.  This started with us.  You made this first huge step, now let us help you take it further.  Let us clean up our mess for once.