5.1 Homophobic Africa?
5.1.2 Uganda
If homophobia in Zimbabwe has been characterised by Mugabe’s infamous outbursts, Uganda might be best known for the homophobic sermons of Pastor “Eat Da Poo-Poo” Ssempa and MP David Bahati’s introduction of the “Kill the gays” bill in 2009 (Unitarian Universalist UN Office, 2010;
Kaoma, 2013:75). At independence in 1962 Uganda retained the British colonial laws prohibiting
“carnal knowledge against the laws of nature”, yet there was little evidence of prosecutions (Tamale, 2013:37). Nevertheless, in 2005 the constitution was amended to confirm that marriage was between persons of the opposite sex despite no demands for same-sex unions. However, it was the introduction of Bahati’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill (AHB) in 2009, which initially sought to impose the death penalty, that caught international attention (Altman and Symons, 2016:15).
These additional, discriminatory laws were preceded by broader attempts to reinforce moral behaviour, including the establishment in 1999 of the Ministry of Ethics and Integrity to police the private lives of Ugandans (Tamale, 2011). As in Zimbabwe, Tamale (2011) suggested this surveillance was to divert public attention towards moral deviants in minority communities and away from corruption and malfeasance in public offices including the Presidency. Indeed, in Uganda, even the Equal Opportunities Commission Act, 2007, (EOCA 2007) introduced expressly to protect the rights of minorities, prevents investigations into:
“(d) any matter involving behaviour which is considered to be—
(i) immoral and socially harmful, or
(ii) unacceptable, by the majority of the cultural and social communities in Uganda”
(Section 15(6)d in Equal Opportunities Commission Act [Uganda], 2007).
This legislation effectively defeated key tenets of democracy and equalities. If there was any doubt this clause was specifically included to maintain hegemonic heteronormativity the following
73 argument by the Minister of Gender, Labour and Social Development, Syda Bbumba, from the parliamentary debate on the amendments to the bill, was clear “[i]t is very important that we include that clause. This is because the homosexuals and the like have managed to forge their way into other countries by identifying with minorities” (Parliament National Assembly (Uganda), 2006:20). The timing of this legislation coincided with the passing of the Civil Union Act (2006) in South Africa. Further analysis of the debate demonstrated they also sought to define sex as “the natural state of being male or female” on the grounds that South Africans had recently allowed same-sex marriage (Parliament National Assembly (Uganda), 2006:4).
International responses to the tabling of the AHB in 2009 included the UK threatening to withhold development aid (Osogo Ambani, 2017:44). In a private cabinet meeting, President Museveni, faced with this international backlash and perhaps remembering the international outrage for homophobic comments he made in 1999, ordered the bill dropped declaring it “a sensitive foreign policy issue”; a quote so widely published that it had to be deliberate to placate the international donors (Ssebaggala, 2011:106; Nuñez-Mietz and García Iommi, 2016). The AHB subsequently stalled for a while, but public homophobic discourse continued. Thoreson noted that in Uganda this social discourse became a particularly vociferous “militaristic rhetoric of combat and warfare” against the immoral homosexuals who were a threat to both Ugandan independence and the safety of children they were alleged to recruit (2014:29-30).
Indeed, in 2019 the Ugandan security minister General Elly Tumwine suggested the LGBT movement was part of a terrorist organisation intent on fostering global anarchy (Kivumbi, 2019). Meanwhile, Pastor Ssempa, the self-appointed chairman of the National Task Force against homosexuality in Uganda, would terrify his congregants by playing gay pornographic videos and graphically41 describing his understanding of gay male sex during sermons (“Uganda cleric shows gay porn film…”, 2010; Unitarian Universalist UN Office, 2010; Thomas, 2014). In 2010 the front cover of a short-lived local tabloid, Rolling Stone, under the headline “Hang them”, outed 100 alleged LGBT Ugandans (Kintu, 2017:134; “Uganda's President Yoweri…”, 2012). In response, Ugandan LGBTI activists became more prominent and challenged the claim that they were un-African by denouncing the role of American evangelical religious organisations in promoting the AHB (Nyanzi, 2013a; Kaoma, 2018;
Rao, 2020:3).
The AHB, reduced to a maximum prison term of 14 years, eventually returned to parliament in 2014 and shortly before signing it into new law, Museveni, who in 2012 had admitted that homosexuality was part of Uganda’s history in reference to the suspected homosexuality of the last pre-colonial King of Buganda, Kabaka Mwanga, asked the Ministry of Health to convene a panel of experts to report on whether homosexuality was natural, healthy and unalterable (“Uganda's President Yoweri…”, 2012; Rao, 2015). The completed report confirmed this and additionally advised that
“[h]omosexuality existed in Africa way before the coming of the white man” (Uganda: Scientific statement from the Ministry of Health on homosexuality, 2014). The report was then allegedly
41 Ssempa’s sermons, given their graphic nature, would now breach the AHA 2014 (Thomas, 2014).
74 falsified to allow Museveni to sign the bill into law (De Waal, 2014). During the press conference for the presidential signing of the AHA 2014, Museveni stated:
“It seems the topic of homosexuals was provoked by the arrogant and careless Western groups that are fond of coming into our schools and recruiting young children in homosexuality and lesbianism…no study has shown that you can be homosexual purely by nature” (Kuchu Times, 2020).
Ugandan academic, Stella Nyanzi, has been especially critical of the AHA, noting that it had intended to “protect the traditional family”, yet it left out a range of traditional Ugandan families, which include polygamy and polyandry among others42 (2013b:953). Nyanzi concluded that the justification for the AHA “lay in myopic imaginings of a homogenous African-ness” (2013b:952). Others have challenged the Ugandan claim that sexual and gender minorities were un-African and an import from the West and suggested instead that the “flaunting” of sexuality was the un-African problem (Ssebaggala, 2011:106; Namwase, Jjuuko and Nyarango, 2017:5); the disgusted responses to Pastor Ssempa’s sermons might have suggested this has some merit although they were particularly graphic (Unitarian Universalist UN Office, 2010). In response to the promulgation of the AHA, the World Bank, Norway, Denmark and Sweden individually announced the suspension of over $100 million in aid and loans for Ugandan development, a move that Ugandan LGBTI activists mainly supported (Rao, 2020:136).
Analysis of the reasons for this rise in homophobia in Uganda has explored several themes. Kaoma (2018) focused on the prominent role of American evangelical churches in promoting both homophobia and the AHB and the wider impacts of globalisation on a developing country. Thoreson noted this too, but also the rise in protests against weakening economic conditions that intensified around the 2011 national election (2014:29-30). This point concurred with Uganda legal academic, Oloka-Onyango (2014), who posited that the act, viewed within the context of several contemporaneous new acts43, was intended to consolidate Museveni’s autocratic dictatorship in the face of growing opposition to his leadership within his own party. Nuñez-Mietz and García Iommi (2016) determined that the backlash to SOGI rights was most likely precipitated by international SOGI advocacy. For although they acknowledged that moves against SOGI rights were spearheaded by religious figures with extensive assistance from US religious organisations, Museveni’s initial desire to bury the AHB, following the international backlash, was suddenly abandoned in favour of anti-neo imperialist rhetoric, which sought to legitimise Museveni’s power though his defence of Ugandan values and culture (Nuñez-Mietz and García Iommi, 2016:205-206).
Rao agreed arguing that the homophobic rhetoric tapped into a history of elite collaboration with colonial powers, which during colonisation changed the way people thought about non-normative sexualities. These heteronormative ideas had subsequently been adopted as a valuable expression of Ugandan agency and decolonisation (Rao, 2014a:175). He further suggested that in attempting to
42 Nyanzi listed “polygamy, polygyny polyandry, monogamy, bigamy, cohabitation, sororate, levirate, widow-inheritance, exogamous, endogamous, virilocal and matrilocal marriage types” (Nyanzi, 2013b:953).
43 Including The Public Order and Management Act and The Anti-Pornography Act (Oloka-Onyango, 2014).
75 understand and combat the discrimination, scholars and activists oversimplified the historic and current realities of Ugandan society and, in agreement with Nuñez-Mietz and García Iommi, the Western obsession with African homophobia may have been a driver behind the AHB as an anti neocolonial show of strength by a beleaguered President demonstrably protecting Ugandan cultural values (Rao, 2020). This point was supported by an anecdote from Tamale highlighting the uncertainty of declaring Museveni’s government homophobic; “I was recently asked to assist the Ministry of Health in integrating issues of same-sex sexuality into the national HIV/AIDS policy”
(Tamale, 2013:43).