I am feeling grumpy.

Last night there was no electricity for most of the evening. The customary ‘load shedding’. I decided to sleep, and wake up at eleven when there was a ‘beep’ of electricity. It is switched on for only one hour. That’s why we call it a beep, me and my lover.

Anyway, I wanted to spend some time working, and I woke up to do that, researching the history of homosexuality in Africa. It was for the website, GayUganda. I was struck by the fact that there is very little information. Very little information about homosexuality in Uganda, and in Africa as a whole. It is true that South Africa wrote the most liberal constitution in the whole world, the first to make constitutional protection on grounds of sexual orientation. But that is like the shining exception on all the continent. We are all assaulted by the notion that ‘homosexuality is un-African’. And that statement is stupid.

There are many things which do not tie up with that.

First of all is the fact that homosexuality is like a universal phenomenon in the history of mankind and of all communities. It may have been tolerated or condemned, but the fact is that there have always been a few exceptional men or women in any community who had an attraction that was sexual in nature, (or not) for those of the same sex. To say that it does not happen to Africans is to deny the force of logic.

But that argument touches me in another way. To say that we are un-African because we are homosexual is something which seeks to emasculate me. Someone thinks that I and my lover are so bad that we do not belong. Because of our sexual orientation. It is absurd, but very true.

They say that it is western, and forget that the very laws which criminalise the act of love came from the British Colonialist. And that the condemnation came from Christianity, which is a very new religion in Africa.

I am an African. As a child I remember my father struggling to make sure that I learn the genealogy, my forefathers. I had about 10 names to learn, who beget who, and because I was not very good at cramming, I dreaded it. But that experience was instructional. I was a child of Africans, of my tribe, for 10 generations, generations well before the coming of the Arabs, and the white man. None of my ‘Jajja’s was a mzungu. Yet someone says that I am not African! It is an insult.

But there is more evidence out there. Granted that for the most part, we Africans, and Ugandans have an oral tradition of history. And that nothing was in part written down. Some of the initial white visitors did observe some of the customs. And they come up with a picture of tolerance, rather than condemnation. The homosexuals were there in Africa. But they were tolerated. They were accepted. They had a social space. They had a function. They had a role.

Yet the most striking story that I came to read was that of Buganda.

Buganda is a very long lasting kingdom, a rich history of more than 700 years. When the first white man came to ‘discover’ the source of the Nile (bet my ancestors may have something derogatory to say to that), he told of this ruler of a strong kingdom who was a demi-god in the eyes of his people. A virtual absolute ruler the like of whom he had not seen. And he had the resources of a people at his beck and call.

It was Kabaka (King) Muteesa 1. He invited white missionaries (that is according to the white man. Can you imagine a despotic ruler doing that kind of thing? To invite virtual conquerors to his kingdom?)

Anyway, it is the white man who wrote the letter. And the missionaries came. There were two lots. Soon, Kabaka Muteesa 1 died. And he was succeded by his son, a youth called Kabaka Mwanga. He had inherited his father’s absolute powers. But he was yet to consolidate it, and he found that he made a mistake in allowing the missionaries to start making converts. And they did.

Now, the thing is that Kabaka Mwanga was gay. And he used to have sex with some of his pages. (Bet you they could never have said no!)

Anyway, the converts started saying no to the young king. He was infuriated. They told him that their new religion rejected those practices. The near absolute ruler ordered them killed. They were beheaded, castrated, burnt and killed. They had defied the authority of the king. Thus was the story of the Uganda Christian Martyrs, which in today’s Uganda is honoured in a public holiday on 3^rd June.

This story is told on http://www.buganda.com/martyrs.htm

What is striking is what is not said, but implied. Something which I was struck by. This is phenomenal. I was looking for stories about Africa and homosexuality, and here was one that I knew and had not thought about! It is a matter of fact that I first read about it from Pastor Sempa’s article, a leading ‘homophobe’ who was riling against ‘state sponsored homosexuality’.

What Sempa had failed to pick up was phenomenal. And it is this.

1. Homosexuality, and the practice, was in Buganda before even the coming of the white men!
2. It was a practice at the Royal Court of Buganda.
3. It was actually tolerated.
   
   The king was homosexual, and the outrage then was the fact that the Christian converts had rejected his advances.

Now, I have heard about Shaka the Zulu, but the meaning of the above story is something that I will always ponder about. There was homosexuality in Buganda. There was homosexuality in Uganda. What was new was the intolerance of the practice. What came with the white man was the idea that it was ‘bad’ for a man to have sex with another man!

This, I must say, is liberating for me the gay Ugandan.

Granted, the Christians won. They re-wrote the history. But they will not deny the facts, especially after they have been so talked about. To hell with those who want to deny me my heritage because I am gay.

I am gay, and I am an African. And I am a human being.

They have re-written our history to exclude me and to persecute me and my family on the grounds that our culture did not allow this. But theirs is the untruths. I am on the side of truth! It is exhilarating, empowering to a gay Ugandan.

And that is what I am. Gay, Ugandan, homosexual.

gug