| A good bishop, Aids and the hysteria against gays |
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| Submitted by Dennis H |
| Wednesday, 10 February 2010 22:44 |
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In Summary The best guide to what the good bishop might have done can be gleaned from how he dealt with Aids. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, this country was in the deadly grip of Aids and thousands were being felled by the pandemic every month.
Last year in October, I wanted to write an article to commemorate the 12th anniversary of the death of my friend, the Rt Revd Misaeri Kauma, the former bishop of Namirembe Diocese. I wanted to, but never came round to it. I can’t remember exactly how the bishop and I became friends, as I was nearly as young as some of his children. Some of my best days were when I was at the office and was told; “the bishop is outside and wants to see you”. There he would be, sitting in his car. I would go round, lean in, and we would chat. After 20 or minutes, he would drive away. I am not a Protestant. So, obviously, we talked little religion. I remember Bishop Kauma because of the debate over gays in Uganda. Not the debate itself, I think that should go on, but the fact that the most extreme views, the fellows who want to hang gays and to condemn them to life sentences, are Born-Again politicians and pastors. Even stranger, is to hear some of these people pleading that witchdoctors who sacrifice children should be treated leniently. It is truly a strange God that approves of witchcraft and child sacrifice, but abhors homosexuality. I asked myself, what would Bishop Kauma have done and said?
Superstition and irrational fear had run amok. People crossed to the other side of the street if they saw someone who was living with HIV/Aids approaching. You would go to an Aids ward to see a friend who had come down with the disease, and nurses were too frightened. They would hand the relatives the medicine to administer to the Aids patient. It was not uncommon for families to wait for darkness, then carry out a relative who was sick with the disease and throw him or her out on the roadside. Then a man called Philly Lutaaya, a wonderful musician, came along. He was to dramatically change our view of people living with HIV/Aids. Sometime in 1988 he became perhaps the first entertainment figure in the world to publicly disclose that he was HIV positive. There was shock and revulsion. Undaunted, Lutaaya set out on a tour of the country, performing his music and giving lecturers about Aids to school kids. The next one year, his struggle with the disease was very public, and by the time he died he had become a global icon in the fight against HIV/Aids. But it was not easy. I remember a press conference at what is now The Sheraton Hotel, where cynical journalists badgered him with questions about how he got the disease, and if he knew the woman who infected him. Lutaaya left that press conference in tears. The turning point for him came from one man – Bishop Kauma. The churches and mosques had a very reactionary view of HIV-Aids, with some priests arguing that HIV-Aids was God’s just punishment for sinners. Kauma realised that if the battle against Aids was to be won, the church needed to change its attitude, and it needed action that would be a dramatic example, not just pious words about love and tolerance. Lutaaya was a good musician, but like many of us, not a model church-going man. Which is why, added to the hostility of hard-line Christians, what Kauma did next was truly brave and revolutionary. He invited Lutaaya to sing with the celebrate choir at Namirembe! If he were not the bishop, he probably wouldn’t have got away with it. But he was the chief—and used his power to good cause. So Lutaaya sang, and afterwards Kauma posed with him and other faithful for a photograph on the steps of the church. To this day, in my wanderings I still meet people who watched Born in Africa, about Lutaaya’s battle with HIV-Aids, who get all emotional when they refer to that scene in the film.
And that opened many gates, and encouraged many to be courageous in the fight. It was remarkable, how a man of his age was so ahead of his time. When Kauma encountered something he didn’t understand and about which there was hysteria, he did not join the mob. He got close and tried to understand it. That is why, in the face of oppression; the rampant corruption that is eating away the soul of the nation; the prejudices fuelled by people who are leaders and are supposed to bring us together but are instead tearing us apart; one shouldn’t despair. This land has produced remarkable men like Bishop Kauma, and many others we shall not list today. From where they came, more will spring. And to me, patriotism means honouring that part of our country from which people like Bishop Kauma came. You cannot fail to be proud of that. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Source-- http://www.monitor.co.ug/OpEd/OpEdColumnists/-/689366/858880/-/3xakedz/-/index.html |
