I'm going to touch on a few things the documentary brought up that left me wondering if they actually expected any Ugandans to watch it.
1. Gays are discriminated against in the employment field
where in Uganda do the job application forms have a box where you have to tick your sexual orientation??? If anything most of the time there is no paper work involved unless you work in an office. Shopkeepers, drivers and various other job opportunities no one asks you about who you slept with last night as they offer you the job so why would you even bother to bring it up if you really want the job. People leave details out that might affect their chances of getting a job, so why don't you. What makes you think you deserve special treatment??? Remember This Is Africa.
And then one of the gays he interviewed was confident enough to say "We don't even have blankets" with a look that was searching for pity, ignoring the fact that all the beds in the room were covered with blankets, This was a grown man possibly in his mid 20s talking about how they don't even have blankets, and yet before this little dramatic showing they had just been at a bar the previous night drinking beer and playing pool, can afford to buy beer but cant afford a blanket???
And who exactly was he trying to blame for this situation? the anti-gay Ugandans??? where do we factor in in all this?
2. Gays are forced to live in slums.
If this "journalist" had any journalistic chops he would know the greater percentage of the people in Kampala live in slums, are we to believe they're all gay??? This is where most of the people in Kampala living below the poverty line are forced to live because they can not afford anything better. Fast forward to the gay woman who was living in the house with a gated fence, glass windows, burglar proof which Scott Mills said verbatim "...Its like a prison, you see with the gate and the glass and the walls, the bars on the windows..." it was almost amusing. That just showed how ignorant he really was about Uganda and didn't bother doing any research emphasising the point that he really has no journalistic credibility, but i digress
So this woman living in the gated area, i thought all gays in Uganda were forced to live in slums... And she said where she lives people mind their own business, so such areas do exist in Uganda huh... but i thought it was the worst place to be gay... And how does she make the rent for this place? A job... i thought Ugandans didn't employ gays...
Then there was all the dramatics, its pure comedy if you can ignore the fact that he is working really hard to make your country look bad.
On the drive to the gay womans residence lol, they're driving on a clear main road and the driver is telling Mills to duck, people might see him and know he's gay and this would put the woman in danger lol lol lol. Then as he got out of the van at the womans gated residence, he was still ducking lol, really!?!?!
There is also the bit where, after Steven Bahati ended the interview the driver great instincts that he has, i think he should be a spy or something, sensed something was wrong and that after all this Bahati apparently sent police to the hotel he thought they were staying at to "seize the tapes and arrest us". okay...
where did bahati even get an idea of where they were staying to send the police and how do you know it was to seize the tapes. Its like he was playing fill in the blanks the whole documentary.
We cant say whether or not Bahati tried to have them arrested but lets try and break this down, where did Bahati a mere MP get the clout that gives him the permission to have BBC representatives arrested not to mention of British nationality. A politician would know the political repercussions of doing that so are we to assume David Bahati is really that stupid???
And to top it all off, the people Mills interviewed, are those the only ugandans he could find??? I am an Anti-gay Ugandan myself and I do not agree with anything they said so how come no one with my line of thinking was interviewed? Is he trying to tell us that outside of downtown there are no ugandans, he went to Makerere and he couldn't find anyone else to interview there besides The Onion editor which by the way is a tabloid and anything they print is to be taken with a grain of salt, no students, no lecturers, no professors, nothing?? He conveniently failed to find any educated minds to interview in the whole city but managed to find various illiterate ones.
He then went ahead to refer to Ugandan newspapers publishing anti gay articles and again refers to Red Pepper and The Onion, what kind of journalist is this who can't even tell the difference between an actual newspaper and a Tabloid?
Mills went on to bring up the churches of Uganda but didn't bother to interview any head of the churches he was so eager to mention are against homosexuality. His Grace the most Revd Henry Luke Orombi the Archbishop of Uganda would be the man to speak for the Anglicans (about 36% of the Ug pop.) and His grace Archbishop Cyprian Kizito Lwanga for the Catholics (about 41%) so why was Mills interviewing a random pastor, Solomon Male, no offence but till that interview I had never heard of him and as a Ugandan i would like someone I know to represent me and or my opinion.
This being my blog im going to take this as an opportunity to say I am anti-gay BUT I do not want the gay people to be killed for being gay, what I want is for them to fully appreciate where they are and act accordingly. Stop flaunting your homosexuality in a place where you know full well it's frowned upon. This Is Africa, the modernised parts of it are built on religious doctrines, the Bible and Quran are against homosexuality, the illiterate parts believe in the natural order of things, most people are still not even comfortable with a girl in a tight fitting dress, so what makes you think they'll be quick to condone same sex relationships?
I do agree entirely with the imprisonment preferably for life of any homosexual found preying on young impressionable minds, to a non Ugandan this might seem like a random situation but this actually does happen a lot in our boarding schools. I also support the death penalty for any sodomisers of teenagers.
In so many other countries homosexuals cant even dare to appear in a documentary confidently declaring they're gay and continue to live in that country. In most muslim countries they don't even talk about homosexuals and this is not because its accepted, In Jamaica for example a famous musician who is anti-gay, Buju Banton released a song titled Boom Bye-Bye which decrees that gays "haffi dead" ("have to die") and there are so many other anti gay songs that are very popular in Jamaica, in Zimbabwe Mugabe, The president, declared that Homosexuals must be killed, in South Africa the first nation to outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation, there have been 31 lesbian murders since 1998 and only one conviction with estimates of about 10 corrective rapes per week in just Capetown and Uganda is the worst place to be gay???
C'mon SON!!! GTFOHWTBS
Saw this today and i thought i should add it because it validates the argument the churches of Uganda have been making for any of those who are in doubt and also emphasises why we as Ugandans should not give up our fight against homosexuality in our nation because there is a real solution, GOD.
3 comments:
I hear you. He didn't know the first about what he was talking about.I don't condone the death of homosexuals either and I honestly don't give much thought to the act so i'm rather indifferent and I believe that no man has the right to take the life of another especially if the said act of conflict does not bring direct harm to the said other, but the gay society needs to stop flaunting their shyt around. We don't go around singing about our "heretrosexualness". They need to realize that whatever happens to then is most likely brought on by them, themselves. A bunch of dudes making out in public...?? Come on! Yeah, i'd like to add son, but i guess it will be infringement on your trademark...lol. Great piece. Its a really good read.
@spiralx i would like to think i was as objective and honest as i could have been but being human i believe there is always room for bias.
to your 1st comment about attracting viewers, i can understand that if this was a fictional production, by all means get carried away with whatever you use to attract viewers but this is a documentary, i was under the impression documentaries are meant to present the cold hard facts and people who watch them do so looking for the facts, If you want viewers in large numbers make a movie about it, give it a fancy title, at least then we'll understand the embellishment of the facts.
Gays are also routinely sacked in other countries all over the world, whats your point?? All i said was they should keep it to themselves knowing the general take on the sexual orientation situation.
Being thrown out by family members also happens else where in the world, whether or not he helped them build the house is not relevant in this situation, just because you did something great doesn't mean people will forget their moral and christian values. Stealing from the rich and giving to the poor doesn't change the fact that you have committed a crime.
The thing is "This Is Africa" is actually a very good point, if you have ever been to Africa you would know this. The greater percentage of it is illiterate, so what you call stupidity, i call ignorance and illiteracy, an explanation for most of the "kill them all" interviews you keep seeing in the documentary, the same reason why the pastor Mills talked to, who I am not giving any credibility speaking for the church, i will for being educated, did not mention anything about killing gays
You need to understand that as much as the regime we are under, isn't loved by all, it has not done much to influence the anti gay campaign in Uganda. As far as keeping the people ignorant goes, there are no restrictions on the internet, television, telephones and efforts have been made to ensure all the young go to school so how are they keeping us ignorant? Uganda isn't a dictatorship, not really, the government doesn't speak and we have to follow,this is a campaign by the people.
As for Bahati's intellect, having not read the bill or anything else by his hand, I am unable to judge it so i shall not touch on that
listen!!! really??
kudos for writing this piece, it was a good read and the parts about the dramatics (ducking, burglar proofing equaling prison, thinking onion publication was worth a mention/interview and the like)were pretty overdone and showed a lack of education about the country he was going to.
but still it was a well intentioned show/documentary bringing to light an issue of marginalization. The bad treatment/criminalization of gayism in Uganda is wrong and should be condemned - excuse me if i may have misunderstood you but 'they should keep it to themselves'? really? and they are flaunting their 'gayness' really? it seems to me that you are saying ..... if a right-handed person lives in a country with a majority of lefties ... they should not write in public. that is who they are, they do not pick and choose to be gay on Monday and straight on Tuesday. a group of men kissing? yes, why not the only reason it is leaving a bad taste in your mouth is because you need to break free of the societal constructs of sexuality,race and so on. @victor yes you do go around singing about your heterosexuality...look at everything you do with a woman and yet nobody looks at you twice then think about two dudes doing the same - wouldn't you call that singing about their homosexuality? justifying homophobia with illiteracy really? wow i wish i had the time to go on .....recharging
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