If we Africans are to develop as Africans in an African society, such development will have to follow the route which all other successfully developing societies, outside the West, have followed. Africans will have to trust their own genius and adapt modern, Western rationality and secularism, into an overwhelmingly African socio-cultural base.

Africans for centuries lived predominantly in harmony with the members of their societies who were preferentially same-sex inclined. We must seek to remain faithful to ourselves, speak for ourselves and act single-mindedly in our enlightened self-interest. We must detatch ourselves from such alien notions as homophobia, which have been reinforced in our conscoiusness by religious beliefs that are alien to our societies and therefore our continent. The Christian matyrs of Buganda are heralded today, but hardly anything is said of the fact that their objection to the Kabaka's sexual advances was based on their then new-found Christian (and therefore alien) religion.

The main reason why we remain stalled in underdevelopment and reconstructed colonialism is that, we have too easily accepted the ideas and idiosyncrasies of the Western world and the Middle East (in the case of our Islamic brethren). And in our resulting confusion, uncertainty and disunity in all spheres of social life, we are blinkered in our strategic vision. Besides, our awareness of ourselves as a group is fettered.

What I don't understand is why we cannot now come to terms with the fact that homophobia is wrong, following the example of the very same people (the Western world), from whom we acquired it in the first place. Before the arrival of Europeans on our shores, our ancestors had the wisdom to appreciate that nature in its diverity created each person as an individual, and that it was inevitable that there would be those whose sexual proclivities would differ from those of the majority. We seem to have become stuck with archaic ideas which were sold to our great, great grandfathers by aspiring missionaries and colonialists, about 2 centuries ago, but we have now failed and/or refused to note that the descendants of those very missionaries have since discarded such ignorant ideas, and moved on. Just as our ancestors made the horrid mistake of buying the Europeans' puritanistic homophobia, we are in our times making an even bigger mistake in not accepting that we have been wrong about homosexuality, and that the time has come to make amends.
--Bunjo

Uuuuugh.
Tough one to answer. We didn't know it was wrong, now we have embraced that it is wrong, and are preaching how wrong it is to our former teachers! Sounds familiar?

But a puzzling fact. Do you think our leaders are just taking advantage of the chance to curve themselves a niche as 'leaders' on the international scene? I think that Akinola, and Orombi have got a lot of international kudos for the preaching of homophobia.
A friend interviewed Dr (Bishop) Ssenyonjo recently, and came back saying that the old gentleman has a good grasp of sexuality. That is something which I have not been able to sense of Akinola and the rest. They simply do not know the basics of sexuality, apart from heterosexual is right and all the rest sin. Period.
Anyway, way to go for us to reject homophobia. And it is our leaders who are making it such a big deal. Otherwise most people on the street, it is nothing.

gug