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Is homosexuality really a 'white' thing?

The shadow of a conservative, fearful past is rising to drag moral progress backward.

Uganda dove head-first into the Dark Ages when a bill was signed last Monday (24 Feb), that will impose harsh sentences for homosexual acts, including sentences of life imprisonment.

The Ugandan president, speaking fluent Internet comment troll, told CNN:

“They're disgusting. What sort of people are they? I never knew what they were doing. I've been told recently that what they do is terrible. Disgusting. But I was ready to ignore that if there was proof that that's how he is born, abnormal. But now the proof is not there.”

Quite. This is clearly a person and a system of thought that is interested in “proof”. Not to mention viewing homosexuality as a disorder that can be “excused”, like a mental illness.

The Gay Problem is slowly being "solved" on other places, too: Russia is flirting with it, via assertions of gay-free Olympic cities (with gay nightclubs); India pressed its cataract eyeball to its colonial past, to dig up a homophobic law it could implement.

Any global assessment of state-sponsored homophobia, however, will tell you that the African continent is the most homophobic of all.

As with all justifications for homophobia I've encountered, reasoning is used as cover for fearful bigotry.

In this case, we have the added poison of cultural relativism, propped up on the rickety pillars of colonial history, where sits a crown of shame - those who now wear it feel forced to give in to charges of racism, of “Western values” (like human rights).

President Yoweri Museveni urged Western countries not to intefere with African ones, bringing up some poor patchwork of a property called African values. Because, of course, all Africans think alike, have the same values, and want to see no other kinds of engagement with their society.

In reply to pointing out that it is Africans, in, you know, Africa who want to be treated as persons- not be discriminated against because of who they love- many reply by saying “homosexuality is a Western invention”.

Aside from pointing to other animals who engage in homosexual behaviour in the wild, the claim has been thoroughly debunked many times.

As fellow South African Eusebius McKaiser pointed out, in 2012:

Colonialists are often accused of bringing homosexuality to Africa. Yet they never get attributed with a likelier anthropological truth: introducing penal codes to the continent that outlaw gay sex. An irony that bypasses homophobic leaders such as Zimbabwe’s president, Robert Mugabe, is that anti-sodomy laws on their countries’ statute books were first designed and implemented by the former colonial powers now accused of exporting homosexuality. Should former colonial masters not rather be accused of teaching Africa how to codify homophobia?

Indeed, as Michael Mumisa points out: “It is homophobia, not homosexuality, that is alien to traditional African culture”.

But why should we care what’s “traditional” to any culture as a reason to ignore the suffering of innocent people? Why should we let bigots determine morality?

Consider, too, that Uganda has asserted it’s up to women to police how others respond to them- the so-called “miniskirt bill” makes it wrong to wear “revealing” clothes, resulting in women being attacked and forced to undress.

President Museveni seems to have a much higher opinion of the West’s view of homosexuality than, for example, America- where equal marriage still isn’t on the books in some states.

Universal condemnation
Regardless, we make our voices heard in “the West”, in the "East", in Africa- wherever bigotry resides, takes root and births itself into law.

The question isn’t why should we make our voices heard, protest, not remain silent and critical; it’s why shouldn’t we?

I’m not gay, not a woman, not part of most groups that face oppression, stigma or admonishment. Yet, to say it is only the responsibility of these groups to defend themselves against bigots is, perhaps, to side with the bigots. Silence sometimes is as much a “side” in battles between bigotry and freedom as placard-wielding.

No one is forcing you to march, to petition, but at least a measure of compassion is better than ignoring or dismissal.

But conveying compassion only goes so far: as a non-member of an oppressed group, there is still some measure of things we can do and, due to identity alone, we are less vulnerable- therefore we might have some measure of moral duty to take stands.

For example, men are sometimes better placed to call out other men for sexism than women. People who are not gay are probably better placed to call our homophobia than gay people.

When one man sees another conveying disappointment at something because it’s sexist; when one heterosexual man criticises another heterosexual man for the latter’s homophobic views, these might cut deeper because it’s like watching some aspect of yourself not align.

If it’s just “another woman getting upset”, sexists will probably ignore it. But if even other men are conveying you’re wrong, you might stand up and listen; you might think maybe it’s not just women “being hypersensitive/hysterical/feminazis”.

This is different to saying you know more than women or gays about their oppression (indeed, this is why I don’t call myself a feminist, as Ally Fogg highlights)- it just means in one kind of way, you’re more protected and have less to lose by taking on those, probably, like you.

I am reminded of when Jack Holland told other men he was writing a book on misogyny, they would convey surprise a fellow man was writing it.

“Why not?” he replied. “It was invented by men.”
While it shouldn’t matter whether I am pointing out bigotry or whether it’s my gay friends, it unfortunately sometimes does. Ideally, arguments should be able to hold water on their own; but bigotry doesn’t exist on argument; it’s not structured on reason but reaction.

Thus, packaging proper argument into an identity the bigots aren’t by definition targeting can be an important part of the cause. This is politics, not philosophy.

That’s why you should care about what’s happening in Uganda and why we shouldn’t let anyone say we must be silent because we don’t know Africa. Ignoring that Africans themselves, like me, are calling homophobia horrific, we shouldn’t let bigots dictate the standard of engagement.

That we are not affected is exactly sometimes why we have a moral duty to speak out: whether on the oppression of gay Ugandans or Saudi Arabian women. Yes, people usually only react when it affects them in some tangible way- but that’s not a reason, that’s description. 

We can do better- all of us. Taking our cues from those who know more, like those who are targets, we can learn to take on sexist slurs, homophobic values, and so on that we encounter.

For more on Tauriq visit his blog, the Guardian and the New Statesman.

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