Some more on Africa. Or should that be “Moron Africa”? Ignorant, brainwashed, and closed-minded.

I ranted about homophobia on that continent last August, in particular on the persecution of Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza in Malawi and the idiotic myth that same-sex attraction is an import from the decadent West. The situation is much worse in Uganda, where MP David Bahati has introduced a bill that would make homosexual acts punishable by life imprisonment and by death if the offender is HIV+, has sex with someone under 18, or is convicted a second time. (Where would he reoffend? In prison?) It contains provisions for extraditing Ugandans who engage in same-sex relations abroad and would even make it a crime not to report homosexuals – or even suspected homosexuals– to the authorities. At the same time, certain tabloids, such as Rolling Stone (a Ugandan publication, not the rock ’n roll magazine) are busy outing gays and lesbians, who then lose their jobs, are disowned by their families, and get bashed in the streets. When gay activist David Kato was bludgeoned to death this past January, the Ugandan government identified him as the victim of a robbery. Homosexuals in Uganda face not just that good old run-of-mill homophobia, but a calculated campaign of government-sponsored genocide.

Sound bad? It’s horrific, appalling, unbearably painful. See for yourselves. British DJ and gay non-activist Scott Mills went to Uganda to see for himself, and the experience made an activist of him. In February, BBC3 aired the videotaped document of what he found as a one-hour report called “The World’s Worst Place to Be Gay”. You can view it in four segments (  1  2  3 & 4 ) on YouTube.  

Paul Walsh posted the links on my fellow-editor Nigel Puerasch’s Google group.  It was still on YouTube as of 1 April, and I hope it stays there. Everyone should watch it. What you will see goes far beyond prejudice; it bears witness to shockingly intense hatred. A class of people who have proven themselves time and time again to be valuable members of society are seen not just as inferior, unnatural or even depraved, but as a scourge, as carriers of an infectious disease, the right hand that offends, a cancer that must be excised if humanity is to survive, the same self-righteous call for genocide that Hitler aimed at the Jews.

I am certain I am incapable of such hatred. Anger, yes, but not hatred. Many things make my blood boil – corporate greed, intolerance, the destruction of the environment (a graver threat to human survival than two guys shacking up), to name just three. I hate what the Tea Party is doing and everything it stands for, but that is not the same thing as hating people.

I know, of course, that there are individuals who hate and that all too often they come together and hate with a passion, but to see nearly an entire continent seething with it terrifies me, as it should terrify every being capable of intelligent thought. And yet those people consumed by hate are convinced their hatred is an intelligent thought!

It’s no secret who brought that hatred to Africa. It was the Christian missionaries with their Pharisaic message of “Hate the sin, love the sinner”. No, it was not hatred they brought. No one needs to be taught how to hate, only what to hate and whom to hate. The missionaries merely provided a target on which to focus hatred, and the hatred has fed on that target, grown fat, and spread like an epidemic. The target could have been anyone or anything. Homophobia is but one manifestation of a larger evil.

Homosexuality is not a contagion. Hatred is, and from the dawn of human history it has shown itself to be more destructive than any force Nature can unleash without our help. We must combat hatred and defeat it, but I would never call for a genocidal crusade against people who hate. I’m not suggesting we hate the hatred and love the haters; I most emphatically do not love them. But there are other alternatives to hate than love.

Combat hatred and defeat it. Defeat it, not annihilate it. Although basically an optimist (albeit a cynical one), I don’t believe it possible to eliminate hatred from the human heart. Christ tried, and all we got was a “loving” Church in whose teachings all too many of the faithful find justification for their hated.

I’m afraid hatred will be with us forever. I should like to believe, however, that we have some hope of neutralizing it.

 

 

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