My Identity; Gay and Ugandan.

A couple of days ago, I came across an article about a project in Mukono district. A dutch man had started a poverty alleviation project. He was giving out goats and pigs to poor villagers, looking after the animals, and generally interesting the villagers in a viable income generating project. He was also asking, demanding, that the villagers, each of the participants in the project, takes his name legally. The name is Hornsleth.

I have been following this news kind of half heartedly. What made me take note was the fact that Minister Nsaba Buturo, for Ethics and Integrity, had put his foot into the project. He wanted it stopped. And the reason he did want it stopped was because Hornsleth is 'gay, a pervert, and mad.'

This assesment fired me up. I know that the Minister, a born again Christian, literally thinks that there is nothing as bad as being gay. He believes it is the limit of moral corruption. He will go out of his way to stand against it. He has used his influence before, in the banning of the Vagina Monologues when he was Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting. He has a literal passion in hating anything that seems to be connected with homosexuality. I do not know the reason why. But I know that he goes out of his way to be a homophobic voice. It was no wonder to me that finding out that Hornsleth is gay would be enough to make him blacklist the project.

I checked the news clippings. Apparently, there is no contest that the project is doing a lot of good, materially speaking. Infact the poor villagers were going out of their way to protect a man who others in rarefied atmosphere in the city and press were doing their best to condemn. I was also unhappy. Why in hell would they do such a thing? Why would the government try to stop such a project?

Then I looked at the website. Hornsleth's Website.

I realy felt bad, reading up the reason for the name change. The artist was going out of his way to give aid. But he was also going to change the names of the people. To show that aid did have strings attached. So, he had formed the project, all in the name of art. And because of that he would go and give the villagers things, and they would have to change their names. They would adopt his name in exchange for the pigs and goats and other animals. All in the name of art.

I was almost crying with anger.

I am gay. And I am a Ugandan.

Why I am doing what I am doing now, blogging and setting up the website is because of the fact that I am convinced that people like Nsaba Buturo are intent on stealing from me one or the other of those parts of my identity. They will have me either gay and non-Ugandan or non-African, or a Ugandan and not gay. And here was a gay man who was stealing from some poor, illiterate african people their very  pride and identity, simply in the name of art.

For some time I could not realy think about the fact that he is doing some good. Correction, he is improving the lot of many villagers who would not have had anything. But the cost is horrendous. He is stealing their very identity, so that he can prove a point.

What is in a name? Correction, what is in an African name?

From my name, one will know my ethnic group, and my clan. From my name, one will know from which clan I cannot get a marital partner, because of our traditions of incest. My name actually means something. It is not a piece of word or sound, like the western names. It means something. Something that at first was robbed from me by the adoption of a 'religious' name. And later, this!!!! Our names traditionally were earned. We earned the name that we used.

I was so disturbed that I wrote to him, telling him something that I felt from the bottom of my heart. I told him 'You have dishonoured us.' In reply he asked whether I had given 300 animals. I said I am too poor to do that. But what he did was unconscionable. He had dishonoured us as Ugandans. To him, our identity is for sale. And he came to buy it.

Why does this concern this blog?

The simple reason is that what I do is about my identity. It is about me. It is about what I am.

I am doing what I can so that my identity as a gay man is not swamped by Nsaba Buturo and co's imperviousness to knowledge. But at the same time I cannot and will not let my identity as a Ugandan, as an African be swamped by the fact that I am needy.

Oh yes, I am needy. Very needy. For me, for my people, for my cause, for my continent. But the price which literally tears into my identity and pride as an African and Ugandan is beyond me.

We Africans are so poor we have nothing but our pride and identity. When that is taken away, what remains?

gug