Slow news: Ugandan newspaper starts outing locals

[orcenio]

[

Giles Muhame, editor of the two-month-old Rolling Stone paper, denied that he had been inciting violence by publishing the names next to a headline which read “Hang them”.

](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-11608241)If not violence, just the hell what **was **he trying to incite?!

[Nametag]

Advertising?

[Kyla]

Well, it does sound like he was trying to incite violence, but it’s POSSIBLE he was also trying to make money. I spent last summer in India, and while I was there, the Supreme Court ruled that the law against homosexuality was unconstitutional. Pretty much all of the newspaper articles about it at the time mentioned that the law was almost never actually enforced anyway, and that it was mainly used by police to get known gay men to pay bribes. Like, “pay us or we’ll actually this law”.

So it seems possible that it was part of an extortion scheme as well.

[Ludovic]

Why do you say accept eating the poo poo?

[Czarcasm]

@Ludovic

Why do you say accept eating the poo poo?

WTF?

[Try2B_Comprehensive]

Survivor: Uganda?

[Ludovic]

@Czarcasm

WTF?

I’m at work but if you Youtube “Eat da poo poo”, you’ll find two links: a clip of the Ugandan anti-homosexuality movement’s outrageous claims about what homosexuals typically do, and the Autotune remix of same. They’re both pretty funny, but would be outright hilarious if it weren’t so dangerous in that context

[Rhythmdvl]

@Kyla

Like, “pay us or we’ll actually this law”.

I actually your dog.

[Czarcasm]

@Rhythmdvl

I actually your dog.

You his mistake rather succinctly.

[Ludovic]

@Rhythmdvl

I actually your dog.

Is that bad?

[Polycarp]

@Ludovic

Is that bad?

You a verb, shame on you!

[Ludovic]

I accidentally a verb, my bad.

[John_Mace]

Welcome to the 14th century, Ugandan style. Heard about this on NPR the other day. Disgusting. Many of those people are in fear of physical harm, possibly death.

I’d like to the person who was responsible for this.

[even_sven]

I don’t know about Uganda, but in Cameroon homosexuality was a lot more complicated than it is here. In order to fight things like this, it is useful to understand where it is coming from.

In Cameroon, people really, honesty, with all their hearts believed that homosexuality involved being a part of a secret money-making cult that required cannibalism. ideally of a young family member, to join.

The origin is likely that when homosexuality first came to public attention, it was rich young men in the capital that were able to practice homosexuality openly. Regular people- often desperately poor despite their hard work- saw this and could not understand where all this money was coming from. Since normal people have little chance of advancement, they figure the super-rich must be doing witchcraft to ge that way. This all gets mixed up and the idea that gay people are members of these cults has become widespread. Of course shrewd politicians looking to discredit opponents used these beliefs to their advantages.

It is such a real belief that a friend of mine, who was coming to terms with the fact that she had been sexually attracted to women her entire life- still had trouble accepting that some people are just gay without being members of cannibal cults.

I’m not defending the way Uganda treats homosexuality or saying it’s okay for them to act like this. But I think there is probably a similar reason for such virulent hatred, and if you want to fight the problem instead of just engaging in RO, it’s a good idea to look at why people believe what they do.

[elucidator]

Uganda. Did they build the whole goddam country on top of an Indian burial mound, or something?

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

The Empire of Kitara, actually.

[Nancarrow]

@John_Mace

I’d like to the person who was responsible for this.

Whoever wrote that headline should be vigorously with a pineapple, then forcibly into a garbage compactor.

[Acsenray]

@even_sven

In Cameroon, people really, honesty, with all their hearts believed that homosexuality involved being a part of a secret money-making cult that required cannibalism. ideally of a young family member, to join. …

It is such a real belief that a friend of mine, who was coming to terms with the fact that she had been sexually attracted to women her entire life- still had trouble accepting that some people are just gay without being members of cannibal cults.

This interested me enough to look for more information and I found this –

Peter Geschiere, “Homosexuality in Cameroon: Identity and Persecution”:

…

The rapid explosion of this witchhunt was striking because until that time homosexuality had hardly been an important issue in Cameroon. In most local cultures the phenomenon had received little attention. Of course, it is difficult to generalise on this point because cultural variation is remarkably large in this country, even by African standards. So there are regional differences in attitudes towards homosexual patterns. In large parts of the South of the country, from where most of the elite group comes, homosexuality was seen as an abomination. Typical, for example, is that in the woodlands of South Cameroon homosexuality is associated with witchcraft, a very effective way to place same-gender sexuality outside of the order.

In this part of Cameroon - for instance amongst the Beti, the ethnic block that constitutes president Biya’s mainstay - excited stories circulate among the people about nightly gatherings of witches that often go hand in hand with references to sexual escapades. The central motive of witches is cannibalism. At these gatherings they would present their accomplices with relatives to ‘eat’ them; in daily life the victim would fall ill and certainly die unless the nganga (healer) who can ‘see’ the witches, will ‘fall upon them ’, and force them to break their spell. But that central motive of eating and cannibalism is often linked to unnatural forms of sexuality that would equally mark these nocturnal meetings: during such orgies men would do ‘it’ with men and ‘even’ women with women. The consequence is that insinuations concerning somebody’s gay inclinations are immediately associated with occult practices, which no doubt facilitated the equation with a secret society such as the freemasons when this was introduced under colonial rule. The provocative filles libres in Yaoundé will still sneeringly ask a potential customer who rejects their advances, ‘Tu es donc un franc-maçon?’ (‘Are you a “freemason”?’).

In these societies travesty is also associated with the world of the occult. In practice, any nganga (healers) are cross-dressers; especially the healers who mark their healing sessions by ecstatic dancing expressly combine male and female attributes. But this does not mean necessarily that they indulge in gay practices.

[sqweels]

@even_sven

The origin is likely that when homosexuality first came to public attention, it was rich young men in the capital that were able to practice homosexuality openly. Regular people- often desperately poor despite their hard work- saw this and could not understand where all this money was coming from. Since normal people have little chance of advancement, they figure the super-rich must be doing witchcraft to ge that way. This all gets mixed up and the idea that gay people are members of these cults has become widespread. Of course shrewd politicians looking to discredit opponents used these beliefs to their advantages.

Somehow, this doesn’t sound all that foreign.

[Captain_Midnight]

I know an African kid from Burundi who claims that Kampala is a fun town. But he is not a boy fucker, so I can’t tell you about that.