QBits

British government should take responsibility for colonial sodomy laws, says Human Rights Watch

And many of these countries did, historically, recognize sex/gender categories outside the dualist binary of Western discourse. Sadly, we see the same thing happening now in many African countries as evangelicals convince their congregations that ‘homosexuality’ as a Western import.

Ii cannot be said enough: homosexuality is not a Western import, but homophobia is.

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Human Rights Watch deputy director, Asia, tells Gay Star News that the UK government should publicly denounce anti-gay laws that were set up by the British empire

14 December 2012| By Anna Leach

Phil Robertson, deputy director, Asia, Human Rights Watch

The British government should do more to persuade ex-colonies to repeal anti-gay laws, Phil Robertson the deputy director of the Asia division of Human Rights Watch told Gay Star News yesterday.

Former British colonies Singapore, Malaysia, Burma, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and other countries in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean still carry Section 377 or similar versions of the British-empire-era law that criminalizes gay sex.

‘The British government has a fair amount to answer for,’ said Robertson. ‘They should be actively trying to persuade governments to take these laws of the books. This is part of a colonial inheritance.’

Robertson added that the British government should make a public statement denouncing the anti-gay laws, like United Nations Secretary-General Ban-Ki Moon did earlier this week.

The anti-gay law is particularly protected by the Malaysian government, where Human Rights Watch is working to protect LGBT people in the face of frequent homophobic statements from politicians.

‘We’ve had some very interesting arguments in Malaysia,’ said Robertson. ‘We’ve tried to say, “why are you enforcing an old British law?” And they’ve argued back saying “no it’s not a British law, we had a law like that before the British law”. They were trying to out-British the British with homophobic attitudes. It was really surreal.’

As well as the discrimination against gay people that it encourages, the law is a unjust in Malaysia because it is selectively enforced.

‘The number of cases were this law has been used you could probably count on one or two hands but it’s been used twice on the opposition leader,’ said Robertson, adding that the acquittal of Malaysia opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim of sodomy earlier this year was a proud moment for justice in the country.

The former British colony that is most likely to repeal its anti-gay law in the near-future is Singapore, where two men are currently mounting a constitutional challenge to the law.

If the challenge is successful, Robertson said it could bring about positive changes in the southeast Asia region. ‘Despite being a small country Singapore does have significant influence,’ he said.

Robertson added that the intergovernmental organization of former British empire states, the Commonwealth of Nations, should also do more to encourage the repeal of the anti-gay laws. They should ‘set out a timeline for member states to abolish them,’ he said.

Read the full interview with Phil Robertson here.

UGANDAN DOCUMENTARY ON GAY LOVE IN PRE-COLONIAL AFRICA

As has been stated before ‘homosexuality is not a western import, homophobia is.’

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Gay rights activists in Uganda have launched a new documentary tracing gay love in pre-colonial Ugandan society.

Kabaka Mwanga II, widely believed to have been gay ruled Buganda from 1884 to 1897

The documentary, Gay Love in Pre-colonial Africa: The Untold Story of Ugandan Martyrs was premiered in Kampala last week ahead of the June 3 public holiday to commemorate the burning to death of Ugandan martyrs.

The Ugandan martyrs were burnt to death between 1885 and 1887 on the orders of Buganda Kingdom’s historical king (Kabaka), Daniel Mwanga for denying him gay sex when they converted to Christianity.

Buganda kingdom which survives into modern day and commands significant influence in today’s Uganda is located in the centre of the country around the current capital, Kampala.

It is ruled by Kings called Kabakas and has a history back to more than 700 years of powerful existence in the Great Lakes Region.

The current Kabaka Ronald Mutebi II has on several occasions been encouraged by anti gay forces to support the passing of the infamous Anti Homosexuality Bill 2009, but to no avail.

The film by UhspaUganda interviewed people from inside the Kabaka Mwanga palace, where traces of tolerance to homosexuals is still preserved today. It is the first to film from inside courtyards of former Kabakas pertaining to finding traces of gay love.

UhspaUganda director, Kikonyogo Kivumbi said at the first screening that the film will add a new persepective to gay rights demands in Uganda.

In sharp contrast to anti gay sentiments that homosexuality is a western imposition on Africa, Men and Women in same sex relationships made traditional conventants referred to as okutta omukago (making covenants) to cement their gay and MSM relationships. They would make love during hunting expeditions, and were never persecuted.

The documentary, of which copies are now out for sale, will be screened across the country and at various film festivals. It also profiles gay love in various communities in Uganda.

No traces of killing or persecuting homosexuals have been profiled, although anti gay elements in Uganda have been arguing that homosexuality is unAfrican.

In another study conducted by independent researchers from Makerere University’s department of Religious Studies due for publishing next month, Ales Nkabahoona also notes in the film that there was indeed gay relations in precolonial Ugandan society. His study is based on study carried out in 22 districts across Uganda.

India’s attorney-general blames Victorian Britain for anti-gay laws

Surprising admission from the Indian government. Too many once colonized cultures still pretend homosex did not exist historically and are a Western import. Of course, the colonizers may have left, but the fundamentalist churches remained…

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by Balaji Ravichandran
24 March 2012, 9:28pm

The federal government of India has had an apparent change of heart about gay sex

In an apparent change of heart from the position it adopted three years ago, the Indian government has said that homosexuality was tolerated in pre-colonial India, and it was only the British who imposed their Victorian values of morality on what was a largely liberal land.

India’s chielf law officer GE Vahanvati told the Supreme Court that it was only in Britain that homosexuals “were widely despised and buggery was a capital crime until 1961,” quoting from a book on the British Raj by Lawrence James.

The statment, made on behalf of the federal government, further added that “for many British onlookers, Indian erotic act was a revelation of practices which were all but unheard of in their homeland, or condemned as deviant and depraved. There was group sex, oral sex, sex in every conceivable position, buggery and masturbation.”

Yet, only a month ago, the Additional Solicitor General PP Malhotra had submitted to the Court that gay sex was “highly immoral and against social order and there is high chance of spreading of diseases through such acts.” India’s Home Ministry quickly retracted the statement, however, calling it a “miscommunication,” when there appeared to be an immediate and widespread backlash to the comments, and for which it received a rebuke from the Supreme Court.

Furthermore, the government had, in the original case which overturned the ban on gay sex, opposed the decriminalisation, on the grounds that public opinion was overwhelmingly against it. But, the Delhi High Court in 2009 overturned the ban, saying it was a “violation of fundamental rights” and an “antithesis of the right to equality.”

The current appeal in the Supreme Court was launched by an astrologer and a yoga guru, both of whom want the ban reinstated, and has the backing of all the major religious groups in the country.