The freedoms I have
Sometimes I forget
that privileges and conveniences I have by reason of birth and location, taking
many things for granted that many others desire to see, if they can beyond, the
next hour.
The life I have
today I cherish, the health I have has been a constant blessing - each day I
desire the world is a better place for all people, sadly, for some, each day is
a worse hell than the day before.
I have no answers
to many of these problems, but I hope for the few I meet, I can seed a word of
hope, some encouragement and maybe more to brighten them up towards the things
they face.
Justified to do justice
Yet, I have watched
as people secure in the sense of who they think they are from their religion,
their status, their morality, their identity or their beliefs of superiority bray
like an irate mob to consume those who are different.
They have found an
easy outlet of convenience, justified in their words and deeds to act in the
stead of God and culture to remove from their communities those that do not
conform.
The hatred dripping from their fangs like vampires after a feast of bloody abandon, they have whipped up a frenzy of hysteria; we must protect our values from corruption, but the corruption they perceive has always been part of our humanity, from the time there was the opportunity between people to find affection and express that affection as intimately as they dare to care.
Difference and diversity
Before the law that
instructs about whether things we right or wrong, we existed almost oblivious
of each other yet enjoyed the brotherhood and neighbourliness of our humanity
until knowledge came of how different we were.
Some celebrated and
embraced our diversity, others exploited and exacerbated our differences, the
former was the selfless act of love in the mould of the Good Samaritan, and the
latter was the selfish act of hatred giving scope for unimaginable evil.
Yet, we are allowed
the courage of our convictions to take the easy path of convenience and follow
the crowd of thoughts that would ostracise the other to belong to the many.
We have schooled
ourselves to not acquiesce, groomed ourselves never to tolerate, and decided we
cannot accommodate those that are to our thinking different, bad, dangerous, evil,
degenerate, repulsive, hell-bound and condemned.
A fellow human being
Such is the homosexual
to many of us, a fellow human being, who should if we had our way never be
fellow, nor dare to be human for their being does not deserve to walk the
streets we walk.
But think on this
matter; in any population on the face of the earth and the diversity that each
unit when compartmentalised might contain, anything from 1% to 10% or more
would be so radically different from us – shall we treat them like dogs for
their status, their race, their tribe, their handicap, their sexuality, their
speech, their beliefs, their views, their culture, their lifestyles, their
origin, their mix, their loves, their hates and much else?
Then think on this,
if you belonged to any minority where the tyranny of the majority reigned
supreme to blackmail, to persecute, to bully, to prosecute, to excoriate, to
condemn, to lynch and to put to death.
That is the
unbearable existence of the gay African (a fellow human being) in their hostile
communities; anything up to and possible more than 80 million* Africans who
have always lived in Africa and hardly been exposed to influences outside
Africa are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual or intersexual, they have
nowhere to go but to live in Africa, where they belong, by birth and by right.
*[The 80 million
figure is an estimate of possibly 8% of the total population not being heterosexual.
More references appear below the blog.]
Worst examples of leadership
The purpose of
leadership in the face of vulnerable minorities is not to accentuate the
differences amongst the people they lead that would persecute the few, but to
demonstrate the magnanimous virtues of maturity, to offer all the protections
of the law possible and to moderate all their expressed views and actions to
minorities amongst them.
This is the failure
of leadership we have witnessed in politics and governance being demonstrated
in pandering to populist demagoguery, for the truth is that homosexuals have
always been amongst us in Africa until someone found some political gain in
pointing fingers at them.
The almost 80 million
African homosexuals are not going to disappear overnight because some law has
been promulgated to the glee and satisfaction of the majority.
What are you doing?
The lynching of
homosexuals in streets near you, where you have given your support to depriving
your own fellow citizen and countryman of life by your words, your actions or
your silence would not eliminate them.
By God, if
sexuality were a matter of choice like one could change clothes, homosexuals
would definitely wear different clothes from what they wear now to conform and
be assimilated into your norm.
For all those that debate and contend that homosexuality is a choice and a lifestyle, if you walked a long hard mile in the shoes of a homosexual, your choice and lifestyle would be that of a heterosexual but we have enough science to prove that homosexuality is as set as the colour of your skin – you can tone or tan your skin, but you cannot change your race.
Address your humanity
As we acquiesce to
the 21st Century extermination of the African homosexual, each one
of almost 80 million of them, the lives lost in World War I which we celebrate
the centenary of this year and those lost in World War II combined, along with
the gruesome evil of the Holocaust, would not begin to number close to the task
of ridding ourselves of this homosexual menace.
This is not about
the West, this is about our own, our own people, fellow human beings, their
lives, their livelihoods, their existence, their pursuit of happiness, all
quietly seeking to fulfil their potential in their own countries, provinces,
states and communities, like any other person born into this world desires,
given the opportunity.
If you for a moment
were homosexual, what would you do?
Address your
humanity and with that see the humanity in others.
Thank you.
Other readings