𝗘𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗼𝗺𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗜𝗿𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗕𝗶𝗴𝗼𝘁𝗿𝘆

Uganda has recently legalized extreme persecution of LGBTQ+ people. People of non-heterosexual dispositions now make love with state sanctioned murder threat looming over their heads. The Ugandan state seeks to eradicate LGBTQ+ people from the face of the earth. This is a flagrant, futile, outdated, time and resources wasting exercise rooted in ignorance in the face of the most enlightened time in the history of humanity, the 21^st Century. Pathetic.

Enlightened, liberated, forward-looking, resourceful, valuable people of the world know that sexuality isn’t a matter of choice but an inherent state of being. As but an extension of the infinite totality of being human in its as infinite expressive forms, sexuality is exuded and played out from the core of a person’s essence as encoded in the person’s unique genetic makeup.

Sexuality is permanent. Sexuality is not acquired. Sexuality is not a disease; it cannot be cured, neither medically nor magically, nor by any other outlandish method. If God made man in her own image, God is then the queenpin of sexuality. Use of God’s prayers to 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘵 homosexuals is tantamount to asking God to annihilate herself. Herein lies invalidation of the existence of an omnibenevolent, all-loving God. Amen!

Sexuality is not an attitude; it is not a lifestyle. Sexuality is what it is: it is it – a constant. It is the unidirectional, one-track express train towards the orgasmic peak experience that, in a perfect world, those in love aspire to achieve as a consummation of their oneness in love in all the possible constellations of love matchings humans are capable of as to their diverse intrinsic sexual orientations. 

Every person’s unique genetic makeup is in turn an extrapolation of the human genome. The human genome is the unalterable existential thread that binds humanity together in its diversity of physical and physiological attributes. That’s how you can love who you love; and, where applicable, you can reproduce with whom you will, regardless of race, status, colour, or creed.

Don’t come to me with the 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘪𝘯 𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦, 𝘦𝘭𝘦𝘱𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘥𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘤𝘰𝘱𝘶𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘨𝘪𝘳𝘢𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘴 crap talk. Of course, these animals are of incompatible breeds. They aren’t genetically wired to be sexually stimulative of one another, to begin with.

Depending on the ever-abundant factors affecting the lives of the sources and quality of human reproductive material, i.e., sperms and eggs, the outcome from fertilization to birth (assuming a problem-free pregnancy, and survival of the birthing agony), a child, can be anything of manifestations of being human. For example, the child can, amongst a myriad of other possibilities, be 

1. Wholesome and healthy
2. 𝘐𝘮𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘦𝘤𝘵, 𝘢𝘣𝘯𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘭, and/ sickly. I.e., have physical, and physiological incongruities reflected in all kinds and extents of physical handicaps and mental or cognitive incapacities, if not inadequacies  
3. Distinctly male or female as to the construction of relevant reproductive organs; hormonally steered
4. 𝘔𝘢𝘭𝘦 –𝘧𝘦𝘮𝘢𝘭𝘦 –𝘪𝘯 –𝘰𝘯𝘦. I.e., intersex  
5. Reproductive or barren upon attainment of sexual reproduction maturity age
6. Sexually active or celibate   
7. Heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, and much more in the human sexuality expression spectrum.     

It ought to be a no-brainer that LGBTQ+ people are human just like everyone else. They have the right to live; just like everyone else. They have feelings; just like everyone else.

From an ethico-moral standpoint, show me an immoral LGBTQ+ person, I’ll show many more amoral heterosexuals. By the numbers, heterosexuals are by far responsible for the worst human-to-human and human-to-nature atrocities ever.

I’m convinced that the world would be a better place for all were people of the world allowed to love mutually consensually who they love of their psychosocial maturity equals. That means that, bearing high the flag of 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦-𝘪𝘴-𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦, 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦-𝘸𝘩𝘰-𝘺𝘰𝘶-𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦, you don’t go around sexually abusing children. You don’t go around taking sexual advantage of the weak and vulnerable. You don’t go around defiling animals.

AVAAZ E-MAIL: UGANDAN LGBTQ+ LAMENT

On June 4, 2023, I received an e-mail from the global campaign network, Avaaz. This was on behalf of an anonymized Ugandan LGBTQ+ rights activist asking for moral and financial support. I’ll print the e-mail in full:

ALERT: BRUTAL ANTI-GAY LAW SIGNED — FINAL CALL TO HELP!

WARNING: This email has descriptions of sexual violence that may be upsetting.

Dear Avaaz members,

I write from Uganda, where a vicious ‘anti-gay’ law was just signed into existence — and gay people are being hunted like animals. 

Days ago, neighbours castrated a transgender person with a kitchen knife. We couldn’t go to the police as we’d be arrested — and had to search for a friendly doctor, as most wouldn’t help us.

We’re being fired from work, rejected by family, evicted, beaten, raped… and worse.

I’m appealing for your support. Please.

This could be our last call for help. Under this new law, everything we do, including sending this email and raising funds, will soon become illegal. But right now, before the law is implemented, there’s still a narrow window when LGBTQ+ groups can receive support — and your donation could help save lives.

You’d fund safe houses where people can hide, along with emergency medical care, legal support, and trauma counselling. We urgently need more safe houses, as we constantly have to run when angry mobs arrive.

We’re being flooded with frantic calls for help, but without more funds we can only help a tiny fraction of people. I’m heartbroken, and don’t know where else to turn.

And it’s all because of who and how we love. In the face of unimaginable cruelty and violence, please stand up for our right to Love. Donate what you can now:

I’LL DONATE KR30

I’LL DONATE KR50

I’LL DONATE KR90

I’LL DONATE KR180

I’LL DONATE KR360

OTHER AMOUNT

The new law effectively makes it impossible to exist as an LGBTQ+ person in Uganda.

I could get a life sentence for kissing my partner, and be executed for repeated homosexual ‘offences’. Renting to gay people is now illegal — and I could serve 20 years in jail just for sending this email.

They call us “ungodly” filth, but we aren’t the ones inflicting unimaginable cruelty on already vulnerable people. I know girls who’ve been raped by family members to ‘cure’ their ‘lesbian disease’.

That’s why safe houses are so critically important– providing a place of sanctuary in a country burning with hatred. With your help, we could:

• Fund dozens of new safe houses and emergency shelters across the country;
• Provide emergency health care and legal support for those who’ve been arrested — and meals for people in jail; 
• Help fund the development of a new legal case to challenge the law in court; and
• Power emergency response campaigns, like this one, to defend communities facing discrimination, assault, and war around the world. 

Every penny raised will support LGBTQ+ people in Uganda, and power Avaaz’s emergency response work around the world. By donating, you won’t just be helping in Uganda — you’ll be ensuring this crucial capacity is maintained for others like me, facing unimaginable terror.

Gay, straight, lesbian, transgender — we all just want to live and love in peace. I don’t know when that day will come, but it is not today, and our fight for love must go on. Wherever you are in the world, please stand with us. Donate what you can now.

I’ve been part of the Avaaz community for years. I’ve seen the difference it makes when we come together fast for those in need. Now it’s my community being attacked — me and my people need this movement’s help. With hope and the deepest of gratitude, ****** and the whole team at Avaaz Note: As the anti-gay law has just been signed, the consequences for an email like this could be deadly — in many ways, they already are. For that reason, names have been removed and photos are anonymous. PS. This might be your first donation to our movement ever. But what a first donation! Did you know that Avaaz relies entirely on small donations from members like you? That’s why we’re fully independent, nimble and effective. Join the over 1 million people who’ve donated to make Avaaz a real force for good in the world.

𝗗𝗢𝗘𝗦 𝗔𝗡𝗧𝗜-𝗟𝗚𝗕𝗧𝗤+ 𝗛𝗔𝗩𝗘 𝗔𝗡𝗬 𝗘𝗖𝗢𝗡𝗢𝗠𝗜𝗖 𝗥𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡𝗔𝗟𝗘?

Now, I ask a rhetorical but serious question with profound socio-economic analysis implications:

Can Uganda, or any other tyrannical anti-LGBTQ+ country, for that matter, provide statistics showing any value-added number to the country’s annual GDP accruing from the persecution of LGBTQ+ people in all its extents?

Well, in Norway, for example, one of the country’s most important conglomerates is Orkla. “Orkla ASA is a Norwegian conglomerate operating in the Nordic region, Eastern Europe, Asia and the US. At present, Orkla operates in the branded consumer goods, aluminium solutions and financial investment sectors. Orkla ASA is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange and its head office is in Oslo, Norway. As of 31 December 2021, Orkla had 21,423 employees. The Group’s turnover in 2021 totalled NOK 50.4 billion,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orkla_ASA 

Orkla’s Majority Shareholder is Stein Erik Hagen, 66 years old. As at June 25, 2023, he’s worth US$2.1 billion, making him the 1468^th wealthiest man in the world; number 6 in Norway as at February 24, 2023. Stein Erik Hagen is gay. Culturally sophisticated, he is a renowned international art collector, and philanthropist.     

Norway’s GDP in 2021 was US$482.17 billion. Population number stood at 5.4 million then. That’s against Uganda’s population of 45.8 million people, and GDP of only US$40.5 billion in the same time period.

Norway’s highest standard of living in the world is powered by people in all walks of life, including, in all national production, service, and leadership strata. Norwegian LGBTQ+ people are/ have been, amongst others, Government Ministers, Bishops of the Church of Norway, and many more in the commanding hights of the economy. Much as it is a generational global trend, the Norwegian arts and culture industries are teeming with LGBTQ+ people. I have yet to see Norway come even anywhere near to going under. In the meantime, the country just keeps on growing on and on as a world economic and geopolitics force.

The biggest brands in the global fashion, design, and cosmetics industries are a trove of some of the biggest creative talents in the world, some of the most influential of whom are LGBTQ+ people living with pride. Their enterprises are global economic giants to reckon with; creating hundreds of thousands of jobs across the world, and paying billions of dollars of value-added GDP revenues in various countries.  One of the greatest flesh and bone human brains to ever walk on our planet earth is Leonardo Da Vinci. His phenomenal interdisciplinary work in the sciences, mathematics, art, and philosophy permeates all aspects of our modern life. The man was gay.

So, Uganda and your fellow tyrannical anti-LGBTQ+ countries in the world, what are your value-added numbers to your respective countries’ annual GDPs accruing from the persecution of LGBTQ+ people in all its extents?

It is globally demonstrable that persecution of LGBTQ+ people deprives society of vital workforce resources across the board. LGBTQ+ persecution is clearly counterintuitive to equitable national economic growth; which is even more glaring in poor countries like Uganda.

The like-minded oil-rich, religio-conservative Gulf states have managed to harness their ultra-wealth to overrun all local and international resistance and critic against their atrocious anti-LGBTQ+ practices. However, these societies could attain even higher standards of living and more credible and durable geopolitics influence had they allowed their citizens to unleash their full human potential, free to mutually love who they love of their contemporaries.  

And in Ukraine, the country’s LGBTQ+ people are together with their fellow in-action citizens fighting side-by-side against Putin’s imperialistic invasion of their country. Because they, indeed, are people like any heterosexual, LGBTQ+s are also capable of killing other beings. Violence and murder aren’t the prerogative of mad heterosexuals with potentially dubious sexualhabits camouflaged in their irrational hatred for LGBTQ+’s. Like in all Human Rights struggles, when push comes to shove and the oppressed finally pick up weapons of war and fight back, the latter wins. Wake up, bigots, and smell the coffee!

On June 16, 2023, Presidents Cyril Ramaphosa and Hakainde Hichilema, of South Africa and Zambia respectively, led an African peace mission to Ukraine and Russia. I’ll leave discussion of the merits or demerits of this trip for another time.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni chickened out at the last minute because of the escalation of Putin’s attacks on Kiev. Putin even launched another attack on Kiev whilst the African delegation was in town, defiantly breaching and giving a blatant ’𝘧 ’ to International Relations protocols.

The aggressor was simply making a point that he could have the 𝘴𝘮𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘺𝘦𝘳𝘴 African delegation sent back to their respective countries in body bags, if he wanted to. The Africans recovered from the shock, talked with Zelensky, and went on to check on Putin the following day, anyway; wagging their little tails like poodles. Progressive South Africans look at Ramaphosa with dismay. That’s Mzansi for you fo sho; myopic, parochial, outdated-communists’ bootlickers.

Real men persevere even in the most ominous of circumstances. Real men may be as gay as those fighting in the Ukraine army against the Russian invasion. A warrior is a warrior regardless of who of sexual maturity equal and sexual orientation they love.

Real men and women know that once they become a head of state, death comes with the territory; they automatically assume tyrannical or constitutional prerogatives to terminate or redeem life, according to prevailing circumstances. They also embrace the reality that they can under variable circumstances get killed on the job on any day.

How much of a 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭 𝘮𝘢𝘯  is LGBTQ+ loathing Museveni, who got scared ‘s’less out of thechances of getting caught up and dying in the Putin-made killing fields in Ukraine, I wonder? With no guts to face up to his national sovereignty leadership equals, he goes after soft targets, the LGBTQ+ community of Uganda. Coward. Loser.     

South Africa legalized same sex marriage in 2006. Although there are still unofficial, yet potent obstacles here and there, the LGBTQ+ community thrives in the country. LGBTQ+ personalities feature prominently in all spheres of South African econo-socio-politico life. And their influence grows by the day. After 9 (o’clock, pm), hetero-married South African gay men exit their closets for their true loves outside.

Despite its governance challenges, South Africa remains a haven for Africans running away from their dysfunctional, war-torn anti-LGBTQ+ countries, including Uganda itself. South Africa remains an African economic powerhouse providing sustainable entrepreneurial opportunities for African immigrants from the latter countries, Afro-xenophobia violence issues notwithstanding. 

What’s funny about Uganda in this context is that I first came across the words 𝘩𝘰𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘦𝘹𝘶𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺 and 𝘩𝘰𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘦𝘹𝘶𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘮 in an article in Drum Magazine in 1972/3. Fifty years ago, in Welkom, my hometown in South Africa!

If I recall, the article was about how Ugandan men would meet up at local Sunday afternoon football matches in their villages. Some men would, then, pair up and disappear into the nearby bushes to engage in 𝘩𝘰𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘦𝘹𝘶𝘢𝘭 activities, the article reported. It was a given that many a girl would go down with their boyfriends as well. Of course.  

At age 12/13 then, this thing about homosexuality and homosexualism confused me a bit. I then ventured to ask an older friend to explain for me. Buti-Gabriel was in ‘JC’/ Grade 10 at that time; he sure would know these things, I reasoned. He told me that homosexualism is when men sleep together like we sleep with our women.  

“They do it slightly different, but that’s basically it: having sex together man-to-man,” Buti-Gabriel said. He further reminded me that we already knew how lonely men living in the then ‘Men Only’ hostels in Welkom’s gold mines had sex with one another in the absence of women. Aha, oh, yes, of course!

These womanless men came from the entire Southern African hinterland, as well as remote-lying, extremely poverty-stricken parts of South Africa. The guy said this in as matter-of-factly, and as ever cool as he was as a person and older brother that I had grown to be very fond of. I’ve had a laid-back attitude towards homosexualism since then.

A life-long 𝘐 ’𝘮–𝘢–𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳–𝘯𝘰𝘵–𝘢–𝘧𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘦𝘳, Buti-Gabriel taught me how to be a gentleman to girls, and subsequently to women in my grown-up age. We remained great friends until he died in 2016. I miss him dearly. MHSRIEP!

Prior to the intriguing homosexuality and homosexualism mystery in Uganda as I’ve related above, there had already been an especially edifying association imprinted in my mind about the country. One of the earliest hymns that I recall singing at my childhood school between 1965-69, St. Rose (Catholic) Primary School, Peka, Lesotho, was about the Martyrs of Uganda: 𝘈 𝘳𝘦 𝘳𝘰𝘬𝘦𝘯𝘨 𝘣𝘢 𝘜𝘨𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘢 / “Let’s Praise Ugandans”.

Brutal Idi Amin’s entry on the Ugandan presidential scene, 1971 to 1979, shook the heavenly picture I had held in my head for the country of the great martyrs. I recalled the latter, forty-five of them, being held in the highest reverence in the Lesotho-South African Catholic Church community that I knew then.   

Yoweri Museveni has been in power since 1986. He has taken the Ugandan murderous persecution plague to the next level.        

As regards Zambia, the LGBTQ+ plus struggle is still hard, yes. However, I’ll make a sweeping statement and postulate that woke, Zambian middle-class youth growing up and grooving in the Lusaka party scene in the late 1970s to the late 1980s (I haven’t lived in Lusaka since 1988) will attest to the existence of a flourishing gay subculture in the city and the environs at that time. I can’t imagine it having been any different in the Copperbelt urban centres such as Kitwe and Ndola.

I also can’t imagine the Zambian gay scene as having diminished with the years. We had public secret gays as schoolmates and teachers, as relatives, including work colleagues.

I had just recently graduated from the University of Zambia in 1986 when, in one of my then business hustles in Lusaka, I got to strike a South Africa-Zambia commercial goods import deal with a super wealthy, fine-looking gentleman who, I thought, could probably leave an Afro-American movie star kissing his shoe heels. I got highly rewarded for the deal upon its closure.

After a business meeting that went late into the night one day, this man, we call him Mr Dukes, invited me for a snack and drink at his home in one of Lusaka’s finest neighbourhoods. His house so overwhelmed me with its beauty and raw manifestation of opulence that my immediate reaction was to make the comment, “All the hottest girls of Lusaka would be in trouble if I had a house like this one, Mr Dukes!”
He curtly replied, “Hot girls are the least of my troubles, Mr Chilembo!”

Serving efficiently prepared bacon-and-cheese sandwiches and tea, he stated, “I live alone here. I don’t need women in my life.”
We ate in silence. Outside of business talks, I wouldn’t know how to start any meaningful personal conversations with Mr Dukes after that incident.

Nearly three decades would go before a mutual acquaintance would reveal to me that Mr Dukes was gay, and that he had had a harem of young men that he sexually exploited at will. Inviting me to his house may have been a trap, but, sadly for the man, my mind was on the things I’d do with girls in his awesome house. Besides, he admired me for my Karate prowess and the local rock stardom I had already begun to enjoy in Lusaka. He really couldn’t impose himself on me. I learned that Mr Dukes died in yet another one of those gruesome road traffic accidents involving huge, luxury cars driven at high speeds on Zambian pothole-laden roads twenty years ago.    

My feeling is that Zambia will soon legalize Gay Rights protection in the country. The country is on a path to economic recovery at a relatively better pace by far as compared to, say, Zimbabwe, where gays are “worse than dogs and pigs”, according to projecting Robert Mugabe, the late and former dictatorial president.  

The point I want to make about South Africa (land of my birth) and Zambia (my fatherland) vis-à-vis the LGBTQ+ condition is that tolerance liberates positive energy in society. Tolerance inspires and sustains creativity. Tolerance unleashes productive empowerment across the board in society. This is a crucial element of overall national development and growth. The case of Norway as I’ve outlined above is a perfect example of how this works. And, Norway is but one of the LGBTQ+ tolerant countries with the highest standards of living in the world.

The fear that the LGBTQ+s want to take over the world is unwarranted. Unlike religion, no one is converted to LGBTQ+ existence. You are either gay, lesbian, bisexual, etc., or not. If conditions become such that more and more LGBTQ+ people come out as time goes on, what the heck? That’s the way of the world.      

LGBTQ+ people of Uganda and the world, stand up and fight for your rights. You are not alone. We all suffer together. Freedom doesn’t come cheap. Absolutely ALL Africans ought to know this fact.

So, LGBTQ+ contradicts African cultural values? In what way is murder an African cultural values defence mechanism, then? Well, with effective brutality untold, Arab and, subsequently European invaders, applied relentless murder as a tool for imperial-colonialism imposition and sustenance. African has been left generationally culturally and cognitively raped and screwed.

Killing one’s own people for them exercising expressions of an emotion as fundamental of being human as can be, love, does not make post-colonial Africa any better than the primitive former imperial-colonial masters.

As the human genome carrying entities, Africans are essentially not different from any other people on earth. In varying degrees according to location on the planet, and exposures to multitudes of natural and artificial variants that enable humanity to adapt or die in given situations, Africans face the same existential challenges and joys as anybody else. Therefore, the spectrum of sexual orientations manifestations amongst Europeans or Asians is not in any way divergent from that found amongst Africans or people of any other racial classification, the latter being a curse to humanity.

Therefore, insisting upon the narrative that LGBTQ+ism is un-African is as banal as it is downright lacking in cognitive development maturity. Unadulterated stupidity oblivious to the ever-growing abundance of contemporary human knowledge database. Human love sentiment is truth constant in time and space; much as is the human need for liberty, equality, and solidarity. That underpinning the universal concept of Human Rights.  

Whereas the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was drafted without any African representation, the universality of Human Rights principles validity cannot exclude Africa. The assumption being that Africans are part of humanity. Much of Africa still under the Euro colonial yoke in 1948, no African country had the requisite political national sovereignty to be considered as worthy of participation in the process then. Independent Africa would eventually come out with its AFRCAN CHARTER ON HUMAN AND PEOPLES RIGHTS in subsequent years; adopted in 1981, and ratified in 1986.

𝗨𝗡𝗜𝗩𝗘𝗥𝗦𝗔𝗟 𝗗𝗘𝗖𝗟𝗔𝗥𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡 𝗢𝗙 𝗛𝗨𝗠𝗔𝗡 𝗥𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗧𝗦

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a milestone document in the history of human rights. Drafted by representatives with different legal and cultural backgrounds from all regions of the world, the Declaration was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on 10 December 1948 (General Assembly resolution 217 A) as a common standard of achievements for all peoples and all nations. It sets out, for the first time, fundamental human rights to be universally protected and it has been translated into over 500 languages. The UDHR is widely recognized as having inspired, and paved the way for, the adoption of more than seventy human rights treaties, applied today on a permanent basis at global and regional levels (all containing references to it in their preambles). 

ARTICLE 1 of the UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS reads as follows:

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

ARTICLE 19 of AFRCAN CHARTER ON HUMAN AND PEOPLES RIGHTS agrees by saying, “All peoples shall be equal; they shall enjoy the same respect and shall have the same rights. Nothing shall justify the domination of a people by another.”

ARTICLE 3 of the UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS says:

Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

ARTICLE 20 of AFRCAN CHARTER ON HUMAN AND PEOPLES RIGHTS agrees. It says, “All peoples shall have the right to existence. They shall have the unquestionable and inalienable right to self-determination. They shall freely determine their political status and shall pursue their economic and social development according to the policy they have freely chosen.”

ARTICLE 5 of THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS SAYS:

No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

ARTICLE 24 of AFRCAN CHARTER ON HUMAN AND PEOPLES RIGHTS adds that “All peoples shall have the right to a general satisfactory environment favourable to their development.” 

ARTICLE 6

Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.

ARTICLE 7

All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.

ARTICLE 9

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

ARTICLE 12

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

ARTICLE 19

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

ARTICLE 27

1. Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.

𝗢𝗦𝗟𝗢 𝗣𝗥𝗜𝗗𝗘 𝗣𝗔𝗥𝗔𝗗𝗘 2023

Oslo’s PRIDE PARADE 2023 was held on Saturday, July 01. It was a massive, happy, incident-free event attended by a record 90 000+ people; a rare event putting the beauty and love of Oslo’s human diversity in world display without fear or favour. Norway’s national television transmitted the event live. The huge turnout was defiant of the possible terror attack threat similar to that carried out outside the London Pub in central Oslo, June 25, 2022.

It’s Monday, July 03, 2023 as I write this section of the essay. I’ll bet my last penny that the USA risks yet another day of shooting massacres across the nation on July the 4^th than Norway shall any day soon endure satanic fires for being pro-LGBTQ+s right to exist happy and free in the country.

On Monday night, June 07, 2010, I reluctantly agreed to join a diverse group of some friends of mine for a beer at the London Pub, Oslo. I have never been into partying on weekdays, a fact my close friends know well. However, on this one night, my friends applied all the tools of the charm to get me to come along with them. We had to celebrate the final exams success of Greg, a younger, super talented jazz singer from Cape Town, South Africa. Ok.

All went well at the pub until I noticed that time was fast approaching midnight. I really had to go. A long working day was awaiting me ahead.
“Oh, no, no, no, please, Simon, just wait another few minutes and we shall all leave this place together as a group and then go our separate ways home,” cried Beya.
“Argh, man, ok! You guys are impossible!” yours truly.

In the ensuing laughter amidst group amicable comments/ inside jokes like, “Black Jew Simon just thinks money, money, money. He doesn’t have a social life!”, the DJ suddenly plays full blast Stevie Wonder’s iconic Happy Birthday song. Before I knew it, I had been yanked onto the dance floor, and this group of between 20-30 men were singing along and dancing all around me. These men were all gay. That was the most wonderful surprise and kick-off moment for the subsequent series of parties marking my 50^th birthday, which fell on June 08, 2010. A truly moving experience that I cherish to this day.

After the dance, a Champagne bottle was popped. For a moment I found myself sitting alone, as if my friends had made a quick dash and left me without any good-byes. Argh, just as well, I thought. I was set to go away, anyway. Suddenly, an unfamiliar, exuberantly perfumed, finely attired, beautiful young man sits next to me on the right, and makes as if to want to snuggle with me. As I turn to look at him, he looks me deep in the eyes and says, “But, Simon, you ARE hetero, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am,” yours truly.

The disappointment wave emanating from the boy was palpable. As he apologetically and cautiously pulled away from me, a surge of paternal care cut through me, and the flirt in me woke up. So, I reached out, gently grabbed his hands, and pecked his left cheek, saying, “Yes, I am heterosexual, but I love you for that!”

In Norwegian, “𝘋𝘶, 𝘚𝘪𝘮𝘰𝘯, 𝘥𝘶 𝘌𝘙 𝘩𝘦𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘰, 𝘪𝘬𝘬𝘦 𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘵?”
“𝘑𝘰, 𝘫𝘦𝘨 𝘦𝘳 𝘩𝘦𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘰. 𝘔𝘦𝘯 𝘫𝘦𝘨 𝘦𝘭𝘴𝘬𝘦𝘳 𝘥𝘦𝘨 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘥𝘦𝘵!” yours truly/ “… But I love you all the same!”

After my words and moves, I have never seen anybody waltzing away from me onto a dance floor in as glamorous and as joyful mood as that young man. Numerous eyes were on him. I hoped he’d find someone to love him then. That made me happy. I rose and quietly left the pub with the thought that, had that situation involved a girl, and I was in the mood, I’d have gotten laid that night.

The terror attack tragedy outside the London Pub last year upset me at least as much as it did anybody else. Oslo gay groove house London Pub is a viable business entity. Public records show that it was registered in 2007. It’s 2022 revenue was NOK 35 million, over twice as much as the previous year. During the said financial year, there were twenty-six employees. With outsourcing of security and other auxiliary services, there’ll be even more people earning a living working here.

The gay joint, London Pub is 50-50 owned by two gentlemen, Avni Fetisi and Selassie Desta G E G. I have reason to believe that the latter is of Ethiopian origin. And, last time I checked, Ethiopia was an African country. Just saying. Whilst living in South Africa as a child sometime in the late 1960s, my father once reminded a𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 overbearing White car salesman that “My money is NOT black!”

Money knows no gender, no sexuality, no skin colour. Money just loves good business. If money makers are fair, they’ll pay their workers well regardless of non-professional considerations such as gender, sexuality, race, and all. Hopefully.

Violence against LGBTQ+ people and institutions will never succeed in ridding the world of people who love outside the narrow heterosexual stream. Launching surprise attacks on unarmed, peaceful people is a sign of sheer cowardice; idiocy supreme.

Real men fight men of their own sizes in real, bloody battles. At any one time, there are scores of wars played out in the world for trigger happy fools to go and play their silly, fake-manhood games. Prigozjin and his Wagner Group has room for soldiers of fortune he can use to feed the Putin-created meat grinder in Ukraine, for 𝘙𝘶𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘢𝘯 & 𝘊𝘩𝘪𝘱𝘴 on South African oligarch’ State Capture braai coal flames. Check out Sudan too, if not the perennial DRC bloodbath.

It boggles my mind that a so-called man can run away from genocidal conditions in his country of origin – Iran, Pakistan, and others; find protection in Norway. Thrive. Grow up into a big and supposedly strong man. Is, or gets unhappy about the liberal, globally uplifting Norwegian way of life. Then decides to play the devil’s executor role and kill innocent people in/ of Norway; shooting them as if they were dummy targets in a shooting range.

There is no courage in fleeing from the fight for liberty in the land of your birth. There is no honour in killing your innocent, new landsmen only seeking to love who they love in the free world.

From the point of view of harnessing and growing a productive manpower resources base vis-à-vis attainment of sustainable national developmental goals, there can be no bright economic future for Uganda in its use of state resources to persecute the LGBTQ+ community in the country.

As Uganda is not alone in this counter-progress tendency in Africa, I really do not see the continent coming out of the Africa Screwed. Africa Raped quagmire I mention in one of my earlier talks.

Africa’s future is doomed. All for leaders caught up in the 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘸𝘦 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 syndrome. The techno-socio-economic future of the world is shaped by forward-looking, problem-solving leaders. These apply contemporary tools available and relevant today, addressing needs for a successful push into the future of ever so rapidly changing and growing understanding of the workings of nature.

As I use the expression, the 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘸𝘦 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 syndrome refers to the inclination towards reliance on knowledge that may have prevailed once upon a time when society was high and mighty during, say, the Stone Age. Useless.

When progressive countries of the world are investing heavily inArtificial Intelligence (AI) Research and Development (R&D), Uganda is applying scarce resources in the hunt for Who’s sleeping with who? At the same time Dead Aid keeps flowing into the country. Morbid.  

𝗜𝗡 𝗖𝗢𝗡𝗖𝗟𝗨𝗦𝗜𝗢𝗡

I’ll happily engage with anybody that reaches out on this topic. Do write your comments below. But I am not in any way interested in any crap talk about God and religion. 𝘑𝘦𝘦𝘦𝘻𝘻𝘶𝘻𝘻𝘻, God is the most divisive, most lethal of man’s responsibility escapism creations. Religion is a weapon of death in the name of God. Religious texts are murder prescriptions.

Neither am I interested in “𝘐𝘵’𝘴 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦” reasoning. The moment I hear expressions like, “𝘈𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘥𝘰𝘦𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘮𝘪𝘵 𝘩𝘰𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘦𝘹𝘶𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺!” I see insular, static cultures oblivious to, or dismissive of local or global societal paradigm shifts with time. These insular, static cultures inhibit growth of curious, innovative minds. The latter being capable of, and ever willing to explore new frontiers of knowledge in efforts to find solutions to existential challenges facing society on all fronts.

Spearheaded by the ruling elites, parochial, conservative African cultures kill liberated human beings’ creative potential. Myths intended to create perpetual fear and uncertainty in people’s lives are applied as effective oppressive tools, much like the holy scriptures in organized religions.

Bring me science of consistent, universally applicable, infinitely testable principles that effectively contribute to mankind’s efforts in the never-ending pursuit of bettering the quality of life for all on earth. I have no time for Conspiracy Theories bs-talk. Show me numbers. That’s all that interests me in this topic here.

This here is my voice. The voice of an independent, free spirit with no fear for the unknown, or peddlers of untruths and negative endeavours to the detriment of society. I speak for myself, reflecting the workings of my one-man intellectual and creative powerhouse.

I represent no particular interest groups anywhere. Neither do I speak on behalf of any special influential individual. I neither receive nor solicit any monies from any individual or groups, as a motivation to be their mouthpiece or speak favourably about them. Nobody owns me. No one owns my brains. I owe nobody no favours.

My take on the LGBTQ+ rights violations in Uganda and elsewhere is founded on universal Human Rights tenets. I neither hate nor disrespect the people of Uganda. My reaction is against appalling, out-of-tune-with-the-times, power abusive, oppressive, leadership. If the latter is fronted by Yoweri Museveni in Uganda, the heat shall be on him by default; it comes with the territory. I’ll lash out at any regressive national leader, be they Zuma, Mugabe, Putin, Trump, or whoever.

Purely from a Human Rights standpoint, I feel very, very strongly about the LGBTQ+ right to exist case. If I could have just one cause to fight for in my life, this would be it. As a matter of a deep-felt principle, persecution of LGBTQ+ people the world over touches the core of my injustices-against-humanity sensitivities in a profound way. This is a struggle for freedom. Any struggle for freedom is my struggle.  

My pro-LGBTQ+ right to life is humanist, and is as solid as a rock. Those of my so-called relatives, friends, and other social relations across the board wishing to cancel me for my views on the LGBTQ+ question and other ludicrously controversial issues such as a woman’s rightto access abortion as she deems fit according to her life circumstances, may do so now. The time has come for hypocrites and cowards to stay clear. Good riddance.

It is okay to have differences of opinions on anything. In fact, it is absolutely natural that people all over the world will have certain commonly shared instinctually broadly and/ or narrowly defined proclivities according to their respective individual neuroendocrine systems’ wirings. The latter being a function of both inheritance and infinite, known, and unknown immediate and distant environmental factors of short or lasting terms.

But it is not okay to hate. It is not okay to, by all means possible, actively work to exterminate people labelled as 𝘥𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘢𝘯𝘵 and 𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘴 by those individuals or collectives wielding societal power. 

For as long as I can breathe, I’ll speak and write for justice and fairness. I’ll stand for the weak and vulnerable. Amongst other motivations, I do this for our children for them to not be afraid of the future, no matter how weird and unconventional they might be viewed to be, and treated as adults. I have this vision that, given the superior knowledge and courage we impart in our children today, theirs will be a better world for all tomorrow.

The MAGA movement bans and burns books, curtails liberatory education for enlightenment provision for American children today. I shudder to think about how primitive the future world would be would MAGA ever dominate fully the American society. That would also spell hell on earth for American LGBTQ+s. And mine will be one of the loudest resistance voices. You ain’t heard nothing yet. The biggest global freedom storms are yet to come. To the oppressed, the persecuted of the world: 𝖳𝖧𝖤 𝖥𝖴𝖳𝖴𝖱𝖤 𝖨𝖲 𝖡𝖱𝖨𝖦𝖧𝖳. Believe me.    

SIMON CHILEMBO
OSLO
NORWAY
July 03, 2023