Today is World AIDS Day, and I wanted to highlight this issue. 33.4 million people live with HIV worldwide, and there were 2.7 million new cases in 2008. What can you do about this? You can donate to and help great organizations like GlobeMed and FACE AIDS which are mobilizing college students across the U.S. for global health. You can educate yourself on the issue. You can start today.
But what does that massive statistic, 33.4 MILLION, actually mean? In the U.S. today, it means you can probably get anti-retroviral drugs and possibly live a decent life. There are solutions to AIDS, after all.
In Uganda? It means you might be sentenced to death by the government. Yeah, that’s right. Uganda’s Parliament is currently passing an Anti-Homosexuality Bill, which states that any person who is convicted of gay sex is liable to life imprisonment. But if the person is also HIV positive, the penalty is death under the label “aggravated homosexuality.” The bill also proposes a three-year sentence for anyone who is aware of homosexuality and fails to report it to the police within 24 hours, and a seven-year sentence for anyone who defends the rights of gays and lesbians!
How can this be allowed to happen? How can a person be condemned to death simply because of their sexual orientation? How can people be so callous? How can such a blatant and discriminatory human rights violation become institutionalized, passed into law in a democratic manner? It reminds me how much more there is to change, to fight towards. Even worse are is some of the comments I read below the article and received via Twitter from people who support this horrible law:
“It’s interesting how Britain and Canada are fighting a bill that will be made into law through parliament. Uganda is free to do whatever it wants as long as it’s done in a democratic and transparent manner. Western morals cannot be inpossed on an independent African country. Being uncomfortable with other peoples way of doing things is probably the cause of all this.”
“The Government of Canada & that of Britain and indeed the whole West has no right(No locus standi)to dictate or impose its decadent liberal ideals to the government and the people of the sovereign state of Uganda. The people of Uganda have the exclusive right to decide what is acceptable in their country…The ugandan government must be allowed to whether being Gay is acceptable to its society or Not.”
“I have to agree with Uganda, the country has a massive health problem and they are taking positive steps to deal with it.”
“The so-called liberals in the West are always trying to impose their notions on Africa. Uganda has been the most successful African country in reducing AIDS, this awful disease that the West exported to Africa as part of their foreign aid packet.”
On Twitter, I got these horrible comments:
“Uganda is very right. We need less insanity. Every society must have standards. We cant have a society where male is on male and female on female. Even coackroches, dogs, chimps and mosquitoes dont have male jump on males. US standard is not UG standard. People hate Americans when they see others’ view as village or national and their view is “universal.” Don’t talk about dignity. There is no dignity in homosexuality.“
I am so shocked by some of these horrible comments, and it is a testament to how far we have to go in the world in terms of tolerance and equality. Look, the U.S. and the U.K. are not “forcing” their “liberal values” upon Uganda. I don’t care what the individual man or woman in Uganda thinks. It is very likely that most people in Uganda are homophobic – it is simply not culturally acceptable there yet. But that is NOT THE POINT. The point is that the majority is enforcing their opinions on the entire country and thus are violating the rights of a minority – HIV positive gay people. Democracy is not about the rule of the majority, but the rights and freedoms of the minorities. Democracy requires liberalism, and this is certainly illiberal. I am not trying to impose my Western values on a Ugandan. I’m just saying that everyone deserves to live a life of dignity despite their sexual orientation. I’m saying the majority of Ugandans are fine to hold their beliefs but they should not try to translate these beliefs into policy. The apartheid was legal. Segregation in the U.S. was legal. Slavery was legal! Just because these policies were legal and supported by the majority at the time does not mean they were right, or just. Moreover, this is absolutely not a good way to “fight HIV” because in Uganda much HIV/AIDS is not transmitted via the gay community as it is. That’s just another excuse for discrimination.
There are so many stereotypes about gay people, and they suffer so much – physically, emotionally – in many developing countries where homosexuality is considered a sin, immoral, a deviance from the norm, or absolutely shameful. While we are fighting for the rights to gay marriage in the U.S. we must also keep in mind that gay people across the world are much more marginalized, and even killed for simply being who they are – a person trying to find love, happiness, and meaning in the world. This is an absolute injustice and using the “imposition of Western values on non-Western cultures” is just an excuse to cover up true prejudice and bigotry and try to shift the blame back to the “West” for everything.
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