Unfortunately Ugandans view lgbt stuff as neo colonialism. Most Africans are rather religious and traditional. If not Christian they are Muslims; both of which are none native to Africa and homophobic. Its hard to see how they will change their minds unless they come to the conclusion on their own.
Viewing accepting and supporting people that are different as (neo-)colonialism is just dumb. They deserve to be seen as equal and live a happy life there as much as anywhere else. Being African doesn’t excuse you for being an asshole.
Alright, I’ll admit this is a plan for a story I’m writing to help define who the bad guys are:
They hate the neighboring country, and homosexuality. They use puritanical thinking to frame the latter as an evil invention of the former; “The men there are so fowl and heartless, they hate all forms of femininity, and prefer to bond with other demons like themselves. The women feel forced to find love with each other.”
I’m starting to get curious if any one particular country might feel offended at my story when I someday write it.
Funny that you bring that up. Most of Africa and West Asia got colonized when Victorian England was at its prudest point. They "civilized“ the “savages” and taught them their Victorian moral values. This has a lasting influence until today. While you consider yourself civilized and educated and those others are the backwards ideas, in reality while your ancestors were living off their wealth they had the capacity to think about luxury like human rights (I’m sorry, it shouldn’t be a luxury, but it is), while the colonized were busy trying to survive.
I wonder if the West having this new wave of anti-queer reaction will short-circuit this cycle. Hard to claim we are agents of neocolonialism and imperialism when the US is attacking trans people and is on the cusp of rolling back gay marriage rights.
That’d be… nice… but no. When it come to homophobia, people hate what they don’t understand and then come up with reasons to justify it, not the other way around.
Hate has a material basis, it’s not just something that emerges organically from human nature. The ruling class needs to maximize the reproduction of labor so it invented and promoted queer hate as a way to remove one of those obstacles. Its material basis is actually very similar to anti-abortion and anti-contraception and anti-feminist politics.
Doctrine and religion are always changing based on historical forces, so if the historical winds are blowing against “lgbt=colonialism” then this will have effects on religion and doctrine. The contradiction will need to be resolved somehow.
I’m talking about contradictions that can arise between religion and politics.
If their religion says to be charitable to the poor, but their politics say to starve the poor, they’ll starve the poor. If their religion says to love their neighbor, but their politics tells them to hate their neighbor, they’ll hate their neighbor. When there’s a contradiction between religion and politics, they’ll choose politics and then work backwards from there to justify it religiously.
I get what your saying, but I’m adding that even independently of that they follow abrahamic religions and that is homophobic. On one hand there is a niew of neo colonialism and on the other you might be asking them to be more secular. Both are very steep and somewhat independent hills.
Abrahamic religion isn’t set in stone, it’s capable of reform and has even done so in other historical contexts. This doesn’t even require secularism, all it requires is that they read their books in a different way for different interpretations.
But secularism isn’t impossible. As the colonizers become less secular and more religious, the historical currents begin to push against religion among the colonized. Perhaps less so among Muslims because they can deflect the contradictions onto sectarianism against the Christian colonizers, but African Christians will have to reconcile the contradiction between their anti-colonialism and worshiping the god of religious colonizers.
Unfortunately Ugandans view lgbt stuff as neo colonialism. Most Africans are rather religious and traditional. If not Christian they are Muslims; both of which are none native to Africa and homophobic. Its hard to see how they will change their minds unless they come to the conclusion on their own.
Viewing accepting and supporting people that are different as (neo-)colonialism is just dumb. They deserve to be seen as equal and live a happy life there as much as anywhere else. Being African doesn’t excuse you for being an asshole.
Alright, I’ll admit this is a plan for a story I’m writing to help define who the bad guys are:
They hate the neighboring country, and homosexuality. They use puritanical thinking to frame the latter as an evil invention of the former; “The men there are so fowl and heartless, they hate all forms of femininity, and prefer to bond with other demons like themselves. The women feel forced to find love with each other.”
I’m starting to get curious if any one particular country might feel offended at my story when I someday write it.
Funny that you bring that up. Most of Africa and West Asia got colonized when Victorian England was at its prudest point. They "civilized“ the “savages” and taught them their Victorian moral values. This has a lasting influence until today. While you consider yourself civilized and educated and those others are the backwards ideas, in reality while your ancestors were living off their wealth they had the capacity to think about luxury like human rights (I’m sorry, it shouldn’t be a luxury, but it is), while the colonized were busy trying to survive.
Still are unfortunately
I wonder if the West having this new wave of anti-queer reaction will short-circuit this cycle. Hard to claim we are agents of neocolonialism and imperialism when the US is attacking trans people and is on the cusp of rolling back gay marriage rights.
That’d be… nice… but no. When it come to homophobia, people hate what they don’t understand and then come up with reasons to justify it, not the other way around.
Misanthropy tbh
Hate has a material basis, it’s not just something that emerges organically from human nature. The ruling class needs to maximize the reproduction of labor so it invented and promoted queer hate as a way to remove one of those obstacles. Its material basis is actually very similar to anti-abortion and anti-contraception and anti-feminist politics.
Maybe, but they view their religion as native, not foreign. And those have built in homophobia in the doctrine.
Doctrine and religion are always changing based on historical forces, so if the historical winds are blowing against “lgbt=colonialism” then this will have effects on religion and doctrine. The contradiction will need to be resolved somehow.
Contradiction with religious folk is often boiled down to “if I don’t believe the contradiction exists then it must not exist!”
Source: whenever anyone brings up contradictions in the Bible
I’m talking about contradictions that can arise between religion and politics.
If their religion says to be charitable to the poor, but their politics say to starve the poor, they’ll starve the poor. If their religion says to love their neighbor, but their politics tells them to hate their neighbor, they’ll hate their neighbor. When there’s a contradiction between religion and politics, they’ll choose politics and then work backwards from there to justify it religiously.
I get what your saying, but I’m adding that even independently of that they follow abrahamic religions and that is homophobic. On one hand there is a niew of neo colonialism and on the other you might be asking them to be more secular. Both are very steep and somewhat independent hills.
Abrahamic religion isn’t set in stone, it’s capable of reform and has even done so in other historical contexts. This doesn’t even require secularism, all it requires is that they read their books in a different way for different interpretations.
But secularism isn’t impossible. As the colonizers become less secular and more religious, the historical currents begin to push against religion among the colonized. Perhaps less so among Muslims because they can deflect the contradictions onto sectarianism against the Christian colonizers, but African Christians will have to reconcile the contradiction between their anti-colonialism and worshiping the god of religious colonizers.
Or they’ll convert to Islam. It’s hard to say.
But there are lots of ways this can play out.
Fair enough. Just that coming from a fundie place I think the cognitive backflips might hold. Tho I hope you’re right 🙂