Uganda

[rm]

(here and not LfT, because I'm just ranty)

So you know what happens if we manage to stop the Ugandan LGBT death penalty law (which got tabled and then they extended the legislative session to deal with it again)? They get laws instead that only put LGBT people in prison for 7 years to life, and gay people there keep getting murdered in crimes the police will, at best, ignore.

I am, like many people in the US, so fucking engaged with the equal marriage rights things and the DADT thing and DoMA thing and I spend a lot of time thinking about how close we are, so goddamn close, closer than I ever thought we'd be (so close it means we're going to get there) to being treated like everyone else.

HOWEVER, our country may be large and full of worthy fights, but it's not even remotely the whole world. So are so much more irrelevant than we think. And for as many nations are ahead of us on LGBT rights, so so so so many are behind us. And in a world of airplanes and transnational companies, where we can go anywhere and do everything, it is really, really shit when we act like the rest of our people don't exist.

I don't have an answer. I don't know what we can do about Uganda other than sign petitions and urge our elected officials to speak out against the situation there. But people, do not kid yourselves that this is not about you, or that avoiding the death penalty is enough of a victory for anyone to be comfortable with.

Comments

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, I think the only thing we can really do is put our own house in order and make sure that every human being is free to love and marry whom they choose, free to be who they are (so long as they're not injuring others)

Uganda is equal parts scary and enraging but ultimately out of our control. Which sucks, but I don't see how that's changeable in the near future.

Like you, I have no answers

[hllangel]

What really sickens me about this particular bill (aside from the fact that it even exists) is the extensive involvement of American fundamentalist groups, spending ages implanting the idea that we're wrong and deserve to be punished just for who we are. They're losing here and so they took the fight abroad, carrying the worst parts of us out there.

[deconglee.livejournal.com]

It's so huge -- the problems in Uganda. And complicated. The homophobia there is so culturally rooted in colonialism, but with myths that have been incorporated into their current culture.

I used to write a lot about Uganda, the AHB and the crazy bad oil deals. It actually got to be very overwhelming, to the point where I kind of keep my distance now. But there are some people doing some amazing work there now, and if I had a few pennies, that's where they'd go.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

In reading & watching various media and looking at sites like gapminder, what I have seen is that the lives of people on majority of the planet are improving in most ways at a relatively rapid rate. The only exceptions are a few obvious and relatively isolated hell-holes like Afghanistan, Pakistan, & North Korea and almost the entirety of Sub-Saharan Africa. The reason that the nations in Sub-Saharan Africa are such a wretched mess compared to almost all of the rest of the nations of the world is exceedingly clear (mostly having to do with the absolute worst excesses of late Victorian and early 20th century colonialism happening there), but the answers are not.

I'm not proud of this fact, but when I think about the world, I mentally and emotionally place the nations of Sub-Saharan Africa in the same category as North Korea - places we really don't have a hope of helping at the present moment. My guess is that in 20 years most of the population of the planet will have something very closely approaching first world rights and advantages and Sub-Saharan Africa will still be a wretched mess (although hopefully less of one).

[macadamanaity.livejournal.com]

The issue with the AHB that worries me the most, in actuality, isn't the death penalty so much as the absolute restriction it would have on queer organizing. Ugandan LGBT people have a very robust and active civil society presence and work in coalition with other sectors of the progressive civil society there, to some success in recent years (e.g. one trans man successfully sued the government when they raided his house, arrested him and his friend, and abused them physically). If the AHB passes, they all have to go more underground than they already are and allies face even more personal risk for helping them. The death penalty stuff is scary--and if it passes it likely won't include those provisions--but the other parts of the bill are what really scare me. Those abroad can't 'save' LGBT Ugandans, but we can try to make sure they're in a position to continue to help themselves. /rant