Kenya Day 2
Lady cooking dinner under election posters
We got into an interesting discussion with our driver. Joseph is a great guy and, most salient on African roads, a great driver. He asked me if I was a Christian. I told him flat out that I didn’t believe in anything. I usually try to hold back, but maybe I was too tired to care.
He asked why, and I told him: The Abrahamic God is a despot. He let’s children die. He punishes his faithful followers with poverty and suffering and astonishingly still demands tribute. Paradoxically, the people that don’t believe in Him live relatively bountiful lives. I told him that I respect and do not think badly of people who choose to believe, but I, personally, have serious problems with religion. We can coexist peacefully.
Joseph struggled to come up with some reason why, pointing out that it is the spiritual failings of the children’s parents that cause infant death. We discussed the subject further, and it expanded into a political discussion of the nature of foreign aid and development.
“Africa is behind because our ancestors weren’t faithful. The white people came to give us the message of Christ, but it was too late. It will take us 100 years to develop.”
Of course, I jokingly replied that the white man came because he want to enslave Africans to act as farming tools and steal African gold.
This brought up some important issues. It’s a pretty sad state of affairs to assume that one’s continent is in disarray because people 300 years ago had made the mistake of practicing indigenous religions (as opposed to a foreign import). It’s worse that white people, in their exploitative glory, are seen as saviors and not the raw opportunists they were (are).
It’s even worse to think that common Africans are stuck in a state of self-loathing simply for not being born European. Western contributions to the world cannot be denied, but it’s fantasy to believe that the world couldn’t live without us. I don’t think that Joseph is particularly set in his views and was likely merely making enjoyable conversation, but the statement was revealing.
It is now almost cliche to talk of the evils of aid and the creation of the problems of dependence. If foreign governments are so motivated, they can simply stop sending money. There are other ways of helping Africa’s economies to grow (ending US/European farm subsidies is one). An issue of identity, however, is a much more difficult problem to solve. If one of the African economies joins the top ranks of the world, as I think one will in the next 50 years (it might be even Kenya), we may, perhaps, see significant change.
British Man Faces Prison For Staging Theater Play on Homosexuality
While public acceptance of homosexuality and gay rights is rapidly improving in the United States, the debate rages in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Uganda is now famous for the introduction of a bill which sought to criminalize homosexuality. Some offenders would be punished with death. Though the Amendment never got passed, American Evangelistic Christians were implicated in inspiring the bill, presumably feeling that the damage they do domestically isn’t enough.
Now, David Cecil, a UK born theater producer living in Kampala faces a two year prison sentence for the awful crime of putting on a play dealing with homosexual themes.
From Xindex:
On 13 September, he was arrested in Kampala and held in detention for three days. Eventually released on bail, he now faces two years in jail or deportation on a charge of “disobeying lawful orders” after refusing to let the authorities suspend and review his play the River and the Mountain.
The play, which tells the story of a successful gay businessman who is murdered by his employees when he comes out, was always likely to cause controversy in Uganda.
Issues of homosexuality in Sub-Saharan Africa are as fascinating as they are repulsive. From the story of Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza, the two men who attempted to marry in Malawi and were sentenced to 14 years in prison (they were later freed) to the horrible death of David Kato, a Ugandan gay rights activist who was publicly outed and bludgeoned to death in his home, the debate over gay rights in Africa as as contentious as it is dangerous.
Nearly all SSA countries have some law criminalizing homosexuality. Many of these laws are left over from the old colonial governments. The Brits have moved on, but have left their an awful, awful legacy. Now, ironically, the debate centers around what some people see as a heavy handed attempt by western countries to impose a dangerous morality.
Of course, I am always shocked to hear people rage about the damage homosexuality causes in SSA, while the HIV epidemic, fueled by heterosexual sex devastates the continent. Politicians, of course, have little to lose by alienating a small and defenseless population. Screaming about condom use, concurrent sexual relationships and prostitution might cost votes.
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