Author: Alan Tacca. PHOTO/FILE
Pastor Martin Sempa of Makerere Community Church, whose descriptions of sexual things sometimes hovered perilously between the graphic and the pornographic, is not retired, but perhaps the din from the thousands of Uganda’s other Pentecostal pastors has been drowning out his voice.
On Thursday, April 4, after the 9am news bulletin, Simba FM’s Waguma Kisuule asked Sempa what he thought about the Constitutional Court’s judgment that had just upheld the anti-gay law.
Understandably, Sempa was overjoyed.
Now, in much of the liberal world, some forms of sexual behaviour that were considered abnormal and criminal only two generations ago, are now considered merely eccentric or minority behavioural ‘alternatives’.
The complex scientific, sociological and philosophical ideas that lie behind this shift in attitude are usually expressed in simplified forms that legislators, policy-makers and ordinary citizens can understand, but forms that also often distort.
However, the question is: Do we want our country to be part of the liberal world?
True, some of the behavioural features under liberalism look odd, queer, or outright disgusting, but would you give up its relative intellectual and political tolerance, the more attractive features, because of the dubious ones?
Does the harshness of anti-liberalism become more inviting when it is clothed in moral idealism and national identity colours? If under the boot of liberal imperialism you could not breathe properly, do not scream that you cannot breathe at all when the dragon in Beijing or the bear in Moscow assert their brand of imperialism.
During Uganda’s Bush War, it was Sweden, whose liberal attitude on sex is legendary, that also gave the rebel, Museveni, a home-in-exile with free movement.
Sempa correctly observed that there were countries in North Africa and the Middle East with harsh laws, but which had not attracted Western sanctions. Was it because they were rich?
Yes. In the real world, nations that have wealth and substantial military power assert their independence more easily.
In your own Africa, inequality among individuals and nations is daily displayed.
Therefore, if you were a shabby tin-pot republic cheering as your legislators swaggered about and patted their rotund bellies, you had just forgotten that big nations can trim you to the correct size.
Finally, who pays for the sanctions and their effects?
We are in this together. Parliament and now the Constitutional Court have agreed on the main points, with general public support. Whether gladly, or only after being cornered, the President signed. The country has therefore decided. We naively put emotional populism above pragmatism.
The citizens must not accept a situation where the political class, or the judges, or the bishops, dodge the pain. There must be expenditure cuts everywhere. And no tricks.
Just as the enemies of Uganda’s political Opposition allege that the latter get money from Western pro-gay organisations, Pastor Sempa alleged that the lawyers in the court action were after big (Western?) money.
But then Sempa directly solicited for money from Simba’s listeners. It was not money for some noble broad cause like, say, rehabilitating sexually abused children. He wanted money for his stomach, leaving his integrity to tumble in free fall.
His host, Waguma Kisuule, must have been greatly embarrassed as Pastor Sempa hurriedly sneaked his telephone number into the programme and literally begged people to send him money for chai – yes, “kachai” – because he had fought so hard to get the law enacted!
Are religious morality activists who become parasites different from revolutionaries and elected legislators who become plunderers? Both design to live on the sweat of other citizens.
Mr Alan Tacca is a novelist, socio-political commentator.
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