Much Ado About Nothing: The Gay Hullabaloo

Uganda media crackled with emotional excitement:  Kadaga, Canadian Minister in Gay Row ;  Kadaga Gets Kudos for Defending Country. While many hailed the Madam Speaker of the Uganda Parliament, I have a contrarian opinion that her hysterical defense of Uganda government's stance on gay rights was a waste of energy. The lady was probably venting her frustration for having been undermined back home by her president who pushed approval of a rejected minister through a quisling of a deputy speaker suffering from a bout of the Stockholm Syndrome.


Gay issues, judged from the hundreds of online comments, get the juices of Ugandans boiling. You could probably get only about thirty or so comments on Dr. Besigye being hauled to a dingy dirty little police cell. Amazing priority, if you ask me.

My first encounter with the reality of gayness was with a girlfriend at school. As soon as a particular student nun walked in, my then girlfriend would light up. She finally revealed to me that she was in fact gay. At first I was taken aback but came around to live with it. It was not a statement of failing to satisfy her.  I am quite a stud and gave the goods to high praises from her! I would even lend her my car so that she could go visit the nun at her convent. Unfortunately for my friend, the nun threw cold water over her overture.

To say that gayness is unAfrican is a false premise and a statistical mambo jumbo.  And it is a travesty to see Ms Kadaga attempting shamelessly to ride on the wave of her  supposed heroism: Speaker Kadaga Promises to Revive Shelved Gay Bill  That is what her boss wants her  to be fighting for innocuous  peripheral  issues rather than putting his balls on fire in the  substantive erosion of the legislative powers by the executive.

There are gay people among Africans just as there are brilliant and upright people as well as  imbeciles, murderers, child-molesters, dictators and what have you. Africa cannot be the exception to gayness just as Africa cannot be the exception for economic and human progress. That African gays are coming out of the closet is a testament to their ability to put a name to what they had been feeling all along.

There are more serious issues that face Uganda. Clamping down on the sexual natures of some members of Uganda society is a diversion. Real men and women should tackle the distortions caused by the one-man rule.

It is More Than Just About Investors and Consumers

A tell-tale dark clouds hanged over the venue for the national fête to the 50 years of "freedom" from our colonial masters as the chief cheerleader pronounced his ambtious plan to catapult the nation to a first-world state.  Key to this latest farce, per The Monitor, is yet another of Museveni's New 10-Point Plan. And the impetus behind all this is "the sovereign" power of "the investor" and "the consumer," so says the master tactician. Whatever happened to the last one as he emerged from the bush? The wonks have often called him to task on the original ten. But the man on-the-move has often answered with more vacuous gimmicks after gimmicks because they sell. The population likes such simplistic one-liners as " Let them get rich," coupled with strategic brown envelops.


Of course, the naked policy of "..sovereign players" as being "..the investor and the consumer" is code for the wild-wild winners-take-all free enterprise. Certainly free enterprise is a good thing, but the so-called investors have to be taken with a jaundice eye. Left alone to run wild, they will soon undermine the "sovereignty" of the consumers. If the wild-wild west prescription were the sine qua non of a free, just and prosperous nation, some western countries would not be having hangovers from the investor-consumer sovereignty orgies of the last two decades. The Spaniards are lining for soup kitchen. The Greeks are.., ah, well, you know the story.

Many Ugandans believe that we were created by a God in the form and faculties that we have today. Evolution tells us something else. Part of our human awareness is said to have evolved over thousands, if not millions of years. The higher brain, the locus of self-awareness that we have, likely came about because of the need to associate and build community in the caves to the present day. The results of alienation and dysfunctional societies are testimonies to what can become in the failure to adhere to the laws of association and community.            
The swashbuckling lone-wolf essence of the "sovereign investor," therefore, runs contrary to our evolutionary survival imperatives. While we tout the progress made in the last twenty five years with the sovereign investor as the captain, we must not forget the gaps in infrastructure, service deliveries and the millions who are burdened by lack of means to satisfy basic needs. A responsible government would fill these gaping gaps in  a balanced way, while concurrently cultivating a culture of fairness and justice for all. Such a government would lead the way to discourage crass consumerism, a consequence of the "sovereign consumer" run amok
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In the end, it is about community, and unrestrained dance of the sovereign investor and the consumer will not take us home.

Is the God Business Any Help?

This is not an attempt to rain on the parade of those who think the 50th anniversary of  Uganda's Independence is of significance.  But please don't pull  wool over people's eyes by playing the God card. First, there was the grandiose overstatement of Uganda-is-God-s-Nation , courtesy of New Vision. Then in the same paper there was a report of Museveni-Dedicates-Uganda-to-God  even as his goons were armed to the teeth around the home of his nemesis, Dr. Besigye, in a cynical attempt to prevent him from practicing his God-given right.

Dr. Besigye in Police Cell

       Photo By Handout . / Reuters/Reuters                                 

Let us take a bird's eye-view of Uganda's history to determine  if she is indeed God's nation. At the close of the nineteen century a manic King roasted little boys to death. Was he punished for it? No. If you want the genesis of impunity and lack of accountability in leaders, look no further. Now, with fanfares we celebrate the boys as martyrs and no mention is ever made of the heinous crime of that dictator of the fledgling soon-to-be Uganda nation.

Leapfrog to the sixties to the advent of what was to become independence from Britain. You see the same ungodly intrigues play out. In the elections for Independence the whole of Buganda was disenfranchised because of the selfish acts of a cabal of a faction of God's in fear of another who might water down its power. The same religiosity of the previous century was playing itself out again. It had nothing to do with God, but with privilege. The cabal miscalculated it was better off joining hands with a despised Northerner rather than let its people have a choice at the polls, the outcome of which it might not control. This was to be the beginning of the witch's elixir that continues to poison this nation: The Kingdom partner was not getting what it wanted and created a crisis. The Northerner partner responded harshly and the King escaped for dear life that was to end far from the glitterati of pomp-and-circumstances of his birthright. Northerners soon became synonymous with cruel animals as the Northerner ex-partner over-reached himself and was soon displaced by another Northerner of dubious sanity. You could probably hear laughter of glee as the insane Northerner butchered fellow northerners who were credited with causing "pain" to the Kingdom. Did I hear the insane Northerner soon turned his venom on just about anybody regardless of region of origin?

In the witch's brew anything can emerge. The President-for-Life soon overplayed his luck and was deposed. You would think that the people's prayer was heard and things might turn the corner for the suffering nation. After playing with unimaginative characters at the wheel, the ignominious Northerner ex-partner made a come-back which was not to last for long. An ambitious and cunning man sized up the situation and went to the bush to wage a war of attrition. Soon the ex-partner was chased out by a tribal faction of his own coalition. No sooner had the clueless tribal faction warmed the seat of power than the cunning man outmaneuvered and chased them out of town. Liberation!

The cunning man has had a good run for himself and his cronies. Many came from nothing to unimaginable wealth. Now, he really needs to pray. But the population need not be numbed into sleep in the hope of a God who has had mixed results with the fate of the nation. The only thing that matters is action. If you don't act, you don't get other than by statistical chance,  however much you pray. God helps those who help themselves.

http://www.newvision.co.ug/news/636196-Uganda-is-God-s-Nation.html
http://www.newvision.co.ug/news/636210-Museveni-Dedicates-Uganda-to-God.html