Since 2009, an anti-homosexuality bill has made its way back and forth in the courts of Uganda. This bill threatens people in same-sex relationships with life imprisonment and threatens those who might know a homosexual with their own three-year imprisonment if they refuse to turn in said homosexual. In the original bill brought the Ugandan parliament, a death sentence was also imposed on any “aggressive homosexual,” terminology that is ever-so wrought with confusion and vagueness.
In 2013, the bill and continues to bounce back and forth. Supported by over 85% of the public, whose devout Christianity certainly plays a part, each new year brings the threat of its passing. As for now, pressure from the world outside of Uganda plays a huge part in the bill’s oppression. This is not to say that the rest of the world is openly condoning homosexuality. The divide in our own country (though winnowing) shows that this issue is not one that has been quickly accepted. However, it does assert that much of the rest of the world – at least a majority of the UN – see Uganda’s draconian measures to suffocate homosexuality as an abject violation of human rights.
Call Me Kuchu is a documentary set in Uganda in 2010, in the heart of the battle over the anti-homosexuality bill. David Kato, a man whose murder in 2011 brought the most global attention to the issues in Uganda, is the central figure of the film. Along with a handful of other Ugandans, they form an activist group in hopes that the bill will be dismissed, tolerance will grow, and homosexuals will be encouraged to come out of the closet and live without shame and fear.
Kato’s courage is admirable and the treatment of homosexuals is disgusting, but to the film’s credit – despite his death and the abhorrent public reaction to his funeral – Call Me Kuchu perseveres, offering positives to offset the negatives, showcasing courage in the face of hatred, and promise despite the large majority of Ugandans who despise homosexuality.
Certainly, the documentary supports human rights, and for that it is applauded. At the same time, it digs deeper than just the discourse over homosexuality. In this country shows like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and Will and Grace indoctrinated us with the existence of different life styles and choices, so, while the treatment the Ugandans believe is absolutely shameful and near foreign, these weren’t the most stomach-churning moments of the film. Those belonged to the irresponsible media, for which “hate mongers” would be the more appropriate term.
On October 2nd, the Ugandan tabloid Rolling Stone, which has absolutely no connection to the American publication of the same name, published — for its circulation of 3,000 readers – David Kato and another man on its cover, with the words “Hang Them” placed above, and the headline “100 Pictures of Uganda’s Tom Homos Leak.”
For much of the film, Rollings Stone’s managing editor, Gilles Muhame is interviewed about the published photos and the instructional epithet. And each moment he is on film, he morphs closer into a cartoonish villain than anything real. Alternately leaning back in his chair and energetically answering to the camera, he gesticulates to the paper with the wicked headline and advertisement, all the while defending his actions by suggesting that “Hang them” was an excerpt of a quote taken from priests condemning homosexuality from the lectern. To make his feelings toward homosexuals known, he notes that they should be hung, but after due process. In other words, they should be arrested, tried, and then hung.
In truth, Muhame is the nefarious intersection between media and religion. His self-proclaimed righteousness is amplified by his ability to disseminate information through print. Perhaps his intent wasn’t truly to have Kato and other homosexuals attacked or killed. But his publication allows for those to channel anger onto a face, a published persona, one that has little recourse because his or her lifestyle is attacked from all sides.
What’s most eerie is that, through this film, we are now privy to cultural stigmas held by our own country only a few decades ago, when AIDS was known as GRIDS or the “gay plague.” While hanging wasn’t decreed upon the gay population, they were the stigmatized ground zero that was infecting people around them. They were the personified disease.
Now our cultural righteousness has lessened – certainly not dissipated mind you, but lessened, and it’s our time to educate.