Of Human Rights, Science and Politics

Warning: the article you are about to read might be illegal- at least as far as the new law in Uganda is concerned

I will start with the basis of President Museveni’s signing of the Anti-homosexuality bill into law, as presented in the text of his statement, which came into my email box. Here is an important excerpt, word for word:

“The studies that were done on identical twins in Sweden showed that 34% – 39% were homosexual on account of nature and 66% were homosexual on account of nurture. Therefore, even in those studies, nurture was more significant than nature. Can somebody be homosexual purely by nature without nurture? The answer is: “No”. No study has shown that. Since nurture is the main cause of homosexuality, then society can do something about it to discourage the trends. That is why I have agreed to sign the Bill.”- President Museveni.

A little confusing, isn’t it? Well, feel free to go over it again and again before you proceed.

This reminds me of a story I was told, as a kid- and which I came to read about when I grew up- of a man that walked the earth almost 2000 years ago.  This man, the story goes, went from place to place, talking about peace and love and performing other wondrous acts like feeding the hungry, healing the sick and bringing the dead back to life. But that did not please some people, who did not like the following he was commanding. One day, an order was issued, upon fabricated indictments, and the man was arraigned before a judge by an irate mob. The judge listened to the charges and interrogated the man, but saw no wrong that the man had committed. It is also said that on that day, the judge was supposed to release one incarcerated man from prison. When the judge asked whether he should set the said man before him free, in the place of the hardcore criminal, the mob shouted,

“Crucify him,” they shouted, referring to the good gentleman. “Set the criminal free! Down with this man!”

Overwhelmed by the noise of the mob, the judge, much respected for his judicious consideration of issues, capitulated, thus granting their wish. He had yielded to mob demands and sacrificed a good man for a criminal instead.

And so it came to pass, more than 2000 years later, that when a well-respected head of state that commands immense respect among his peers was asked whether he would set the gay minority free and create space in the prisons for the corrupt public officials, the mob shouted, “Lock them all away. Let’s stay with our corrupt. We will give you another term in office.”

Tantalized by the smell of another term in office from afar, he smiled, rubbed his palms in anticipation, and declared a big, unprecedented state spectacle, to be broadcast live on television across the country. It wasn’t too hard to imagine what this was all about. And when all the cameras and recorders were rolling, he declared, as the world watched, “studies in Sweden showed 34%- 39% of homosexuality in identical twins was by nature, but since that is a minority, it means no one can be homosexual by nature! I don’t care what the rest of the world thinks with their human rights things. I will lock the gay people away! It’s what my people want.”

Disclaimer: the quotations in the anecdote above are not a verbatim representation of what is found in any book you might be familiar with. For the quotes attributed to the said head of state, only the first quoted excerpt is a verbatim representation of his statement.

Interested in knowing why the ordinary folks support the new law, I posted this on my Facebook Timeline:

“State one reason why you support the new ‪#‎Antigay Act or why you don’t support it. I’ll include your views in my blog- put only your own, best-reasoned views forward, not what you have been told. Please, keep your posts free of hate expressions and F words. If you can’t resist the temptation to drop the F word or expressions of hate, don’t post”

Here’s a sample of the responses:

• 
  Chris Higenyi Do you mind gauging our intellect on something else. We are insulted enough that the West wants us to be “reasonable”
• Kennedy Makmot I totally dont support the anti gay law as passed. I believe no body has the right to police what 2adults do in their bed room. Two with this law, we are becoming a mob, three it affects me directly when i dont report homosexuals im definately heading …See More
• Karungi Daphne I do not support the #AntiGay Act because gays have human rights too and i feel as long as they do not solicit sex from underage children and it is consenting then it is their right.We should not shove our beliefs down a minority throat just because we are scared of something different from our mental confines.
• Joshua Mmali Chris Higenyi, unfortunately, this is the issue I put forth, and you don’t have to like it. My being in the West doesn’t make me a part of the West. Secondly, I’m not gauging your intellect, I’m only asking you to state a well-reasoned point in support of your prejudice (at least judging from your posts). Lastly, human rights are not a Western thing- I don’t know how so difficult that is to understand.
• Chris Higenyi “Well-reasoned” is effectively setting standards. Whose standards?

Joshua Mmali Mine, Chris Higenyi. Don’t you find it tiresome to engage in debate with people who pursue lines of argument that do not reflect independent, informed thinking? The beauty of setting standards on this is that I’ll get the best views, because before anyone posts, they’ll endeavour to think  … so yeah, bring your best views on.

Chris Higenyi A man whose prejudices insofar as homosexuality is concerned has set standards,LOL. So Mr. Mmali, i’m pleased that it has been signed into law because it will protect my a son. At least i mind being reasonable to him not you. Allow me let you get down to work. You know too well which side of your bread is buttered.

Mish NseReko Is our security guaranteed when we express our views?

Joshua Mmali Oh Chris Higenyi, come on, bro. You can do better than make a personal attack when called upon to reason. Your very erudite expression of views does seem to contradict what you just posted. Luckily, today I’m off, so I don’t have to worry about earning…See More

Nsereko Simon Peter Rock The West….the West, there to destroy!! Kozi is polygamy legal in Europe and America!? Why legislate about people’s desire to hv as many partners as thy want, it’s their right. Arizona lawmakers hv recently passed an anti-gay bill, eehh I hv just remembered the state of Arizona is actually in Uganda.

Joshua Mmali Mish NseReko, I don’t know security from whom, but guess your security is guaranteed on my wall. hehehe

Joshua Mmali Nsereko Simon Peter Rock, you would have to understand the context of making bigamy(or polygamy) illegal before you start defending it. But that would take us so many years back in history. Do you have another reason- in response to the question I posed?

McMot McMot Matthew I dont know what is in that bill but I wonder which rights have been trampled over considering i heard the president say if they do their thing in the bedroom no one will come looking for them. In Uganda the gays live in fear and it is comfortable for…See More

Giovanni Pamba Joshua Mmali, if M7 just signed that bill to spite the west!!!… then it is a really sad situation….he did not need to have consulted anyone or set up any committees in the first place…it was a waste of tax payers money, the west’s position on the subject has been the same even before this bill came to parliament…

Chris Higenyi My apologies for the personal attack Mr. Mmali, it’s not my disposition. As for my son,don’t make me keep him away from his “liberal” Uncle just in case he is made to appreciate being gay. *nopunintended*.

Charles Orwoth Americans are following Uganda’s example already i can see: http://edition.cnn.com/2014/02/21/us/arizona-anti-gay-bill/

Wapakhabulo Wonyanyanbulo Comrades…..our Bududa boy Joshua Mmali is not gay… He is just a human rights activists… someone who loves humanity

Joshua Mmali Apology accepted, Chris Higenyi. Your unintended pun is indeed funny- it made me chuckle

29 minutes ago · Like · 2

These comments, though not fully representative, can tell you a thing or two about why people look at homosexuality in Uganda the way they do. If there is anything that has been learnt, it is the prejudice with which they approach it. For some, instead of submitting well-reasoned responses, it was easier to attack me, portraying something that is very disturbing: that either some people don’t like to be intellectually challenged on their long-held beliefs, or they are afraid to think for themselves.

The president’s signing of the bill was largely informed by the skewed conclusions from a report by a group of scientists (medical experts and experts in psychology) whom he had commissioned to enlighten him about the scientific basis for homosexuality. The subject of that report has been extensively tackled by scientists, including Professor Ogenga Latigo, a former Member of (the 8^th) Parliament who, writing before the bill was signed into law, said he has been silent because of “President Museveni’s initial bold and objective stand on the bill, and his demand for scientific justification.”

He goes on to write:

“By taking the science path, one expected the president to invite scientific arguments both for and against the bill. Regrettably, in spite of a brilliant article by the much respected lawyer, Peter Muliira, on the lack of scientific, legal and real bases for enacting this law (See: Homosexuality is regarded as a genetical condition, Daily Monitor, January 28) and in spite of facts and caution by many, the president has now agreed to sign the bill into law, based on the biased views of Drs. Kenneth Omona, Chris Byaromunsi and others, all NRM legislators.

Deeply concerned by the gross misrepresentation of the science of homosexuality by these medical doctors and about key issues that we have not considered, and given that President Museveni may not have signed the bill into law yet, I am compelled to make this last ditch appeal to the president to return the bill to Parliament for reconsideration.”

You can read the full article here: http://www.observer.ug/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=30308&catid=37&Itemid=66

And so now, the Act has received widespread condemnation, including from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, who denounced the law saying

“Disapproval of homosexuality by some can never justify violating the fundamental human rights of others,” Pillay said. “This law will institutionalise discrimination and is likely to encourage harassment and violence against individuals on the basis of their sexual orientation. It is formulated so broadly that it may lead to abuse of power and accusations against anyone, not just LGBT people.”

Pillay stressed that Uganda is obliged, both by its own constitution and by international law, to respect the rights of all individuals and to protect them from discrimination and violence.

“This law violates a host of fundamental human rights, including the right to freedom from discrimination, to privacy, freedom of association, peaceful assembly, opinion and expression and equality before the law – all of which are enshrined in Uganda’s own constitution and in the international treaties it has ratified,” Pillay said.

And other organisations that are concerned about the issue of human rights, like Human Rights Watch who in their statement said:

President Museveni’s signing of the Anti-Homosexuality bill into law is a deeply worrying infringement on the human rights of all Ugandans. The law, signed by Museveni in Kampala on February 24, 2014, increases penalties for some forms of consensual same-sex conduct between adults; curtails constitutionally protected rights to privacy, family life, and equality; and violates internationally protected rights to freedom of association and expression.

“President Museveni has dealt a dramatic blow to freedom of expression and association in Uganda by signing the Anti-Homosexuality bill,” said Maria Burnett, senior Africa researcher. “Attacking basic rights and criminalizing the expression of divergent views doesn’t bode well for anyone. This is yet another troubling sign of disregard for fundamental human rights in Uganda.”

See full report: http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/02/24/uganda-law-rolls-back-basic-rights

One last thing, though: Some people are quick to cite what members of the House of Representatives in Arizona have done, by passing a discriminatory law, which is hurting gay people in their rights campaign. See below

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/02/21/us/arizona-anti-gay-bill/

I would say this: two wrongs = two wrongs. One does not justify the commission of the other.

 

Conclusion

Well, I have no conclusion; I would rather let you draw your own conclusions from this:

“The studies that were done on identical twins in Sweden showed that 34% – 39% were homosexual on account of nature and 66% were homosexual on account of nurture. Therefore, even in those studies, nurture was more significant than nature. Can somebody be homosexual purely by nature without nurture? The answer is: “No”. No study has shown that. Since nurture is the main cause of homosexuality, then society can do something about it to discourage the trends. That is why I have agreed to sign the Bill.”- President Museveni.

Uganda Antigay Bill: Of prejudice, human rights and what’s right

When the dictatorship of the majority threatens the rights of the minority, it is time to emerge from the citadel of passive observation and stand with the minority. For many years, white supremacists believed that people of a darker skin complexion were not quite human, and there was no way they would have equal rights with them. It was unimaginable, for them, to think of black and right in the same sentence. For that very reason, slavery and slave trade- one of the most disgraceful acts of man- lasted more than four centuries, subjecting more than 15 million men, women and children to the horrendous experiences that characterised that man-made tragedy.

In their bigoted minds, the racial supremacists believed it was a kind of abomination for the whites to sit at the same table with black people. To them, it was against the will of God to have such equality of rights. That the majority of white people believed and practiced these despicable acts of discrimination did not make them right. In families on plantations, there were men, women and children who watched the violence being meted out on the African slaves with muted pain. They couldn’t dare to speak out against the slave masters, for in that same society, women faced subjugation from the male chauvinists who gave them a drubbing if they did as much as raise a finger against their cruelty on the slaves. A few white people, like Abraham Lincoln, refused to believe in this perversion of the truth upon which racial supremacy was premised, and when the moment came, they chose to be on the right side of history, and stood with the sons and daughters of the slaves in the push to abolish those acts.

The same can be said of the civil rights movement of later years, and apartheid. Today, memories of what made the whole world so fond of Nelson Mandela (with the exception of a few people, who have the right to not feel the same way the rest of us do about Nelson Mandela) are still fresh. Educated and employed, he did not choose to stay quiet in the comfort of his job and look on as the apartheid regime subjected black South Africans and other people of colour to deprivation and persecution. When he had the right moment, he spoke out for what was right. After 27 years in prison, Mandela was presented with an opportunity to exact revenge on his persecutors, but he didn’t! He chose, instead, to stand for what is right, and in doing so, shamed his jailers, giving them a lesson that has come to define his lasting legacy. He opposed white supremacy as he did black supremacy.

In a number of traditional African societies and other societies in other parts of the world, the birth of a girl child was, instead of being greeted with joy and ululation that is characteristic of African celebration, received with grief. The same happened with twins in some societies, who even suffered the cruelty of death because people believed, wrongly, that they were taboo babies. Someone did stand up against this, and the practice has been banished from the earth, at least as far as my knowledge can tell me.

For many years, growing up in rural Kenya and Uganda, I was made to understand that homosexuality was not quite regarded in the same way as heterosexuality, and people who were thought to be having same sex relations were frowned upon. People spoke about them in low voices, pointing fingers, but only went thus far. I later noticed the same thing when a boy and a girl started having a heterosexual relationship, or when a married man or woman had an affair out of their matrimonial precincts, which made me realise that where sexual relations were involved, people would always gossip. None of the men who were talked about these rural places had made any contact with the world outside the villages they lived in. To me, that invalidates the argument oft fronted by the proponents of the antigay bill that homosexuality is alien to Africa. In secondary school (a boys only school), we heard rumours of boys who had same sex relations, yet there was no internet then or the massive amount of pornographic material that we have today for them to learn this supposedly ‘alien’ practice from. But I came to believe, from hearing people talk against it, that homosexuality was a bad thing. At that time, I didn’t even know a law existed against it. As an adult, I came to hear a lot of negative talk about homosexuality, but didn’t hear anyone encouraging violence against people in homosexual relationships.

As a high school teacher, I saw young boys and girls exhibiting characteristics that we thought were, (if I may use this phrase, at the risk of being accused of generalisation), typical of what we noticed with many gay people. Once these kids were grown up and out of school, I would later learn that they, indeed, fell under the LGBT group and were not at all inclined to people of the opposite sex. No one had coerced or enticed them to become gay. That, to me, was enough proof that there are indeed people who are born gay, and the narrative that it is an entirely taught thing that can be unlearned gets invalidated by that experience with my students.

One of my best friends, whom I have known since I was a teenager, is gay. For many years, I believed he was straight, like me, until I started noticing that he was keeping company of gay people. As we sat out one day, drinking, his friends joined us, and later invited us to go with them to another place. Before we entered this new place, he called me aside and told me, in a whisper, “by the way, I just want to warn you that this place is dominated by a gay clientele. If you are uncomfortable with it, we can leave these guys and go to the pub next door.” I could see that my friend wanted to go into this place with his gay friends, yet he valued my friendship with him as well and respected my heterosexual orientation. I said, well, going into that pub isn’t going to make me gay, so I went in. Indeed I had a few disconcerting moments with gay guys making advances at me (colloquially expressed as ‘hitting on me’), but I categorically stated my sexual orientation, as my friend told them, sternly, I was straight and that they had to respect it and leave me alone. Later that night, as we went home in a shared taxicab, my friend asked me, “Josh, what do you think of me when you learn that I keep the company of these gay friends, and that today we went to this pub with many gay guys?” I told him I only thought of him as my friend, and whether I started harbouring suspicions that he was gay or not, it wouldn’t change how I viewed him. With the confidence emanating from that response, my friend opened up and told me he was bisexual, though sometimes he felt he was just outright gay, and that the inclination towards women was more to do with wanting to please his family than what he really was.

Without going into what else we discussed, that, together with what I had seen with boys in my secondary school and the students that I taught, changed my attitude completely. The only thing, I realised, that I had learned was my unfounded discomfort with gay people, which made me indifferent to their plight. There has been a law, from the colonial days, that criminalised homosexuality as ‘sexual acts against the order of nature,’ just as there is one against sex trade or what is commonly known as prostitution. However, I have not heard of a single person who has been successfully prosecuted for these acts. We could argue that the new bill, though prescribing harsher penalties like life imprisonment, does not criminalise homosexuality anew. What it does instead, I dread to predict, is incite a hitherto indifferent public into acts of hate and discrimination against the gay community.

I must make this clear: if any gay person commits sexual offences against minors, they must be treated the same way a straight person commits sexual offences against a minor, be it a boy or girl. The alleged recruitment of minors, which the supporters state as the reason for proposing this law, remains just that: an allegation. If there is evidence, that can be proven beyond reasonable doubt, I will be here again apologizing for that. What we must recognise, as a society, is that we can’t let personal prejudices infringe the rights of other people.

I have heard the proponents of the antigay bill say that gay people should not have rights. There is everything wrong with such declarations, as they are in direct violation of universal human rights declarations that Uganda has acceded to. Indeed today, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a statement to that effect, emphasising, “the provisions of this bill stand in clear violation of the rights to liberty, privacy, non-discrimination and freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association protected by the Constitution of Uganda, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights that Uganda has ratified, and by the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

The Government has a legal obligation to prevent discrimination and cannot withhold basic rights from certain individuals because the majority disapproves of them. All people, including LGBT individuals, have the same human rights and are entitled to full protection by the State.”

 See http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=46839&Cr=homosexual&Cr1=#.Ur3qftJDsfh

Simply put: the prejudices we hold against things we do not like should not make us believe that we are right. There can be no better right than the protection of human rights of all individuals, whether we like what they do (unless it harms others or deprives others of their rights) or not. We have to make a clear distinction between belief and reason, for quite often, one begins where the other stops. Reason, not belief, is what is requied when it comes to protection of human rights.