call me kuchu : a review

Recently I watched a documentary called Call Me Kuchu[kuchu means queer in Swahili]. It's about the activism of murdered Ugandan Gay right activist David Kato. The documentary itself was good but I did have trouble reading the subtitles sometimes. The lettering was in white and the backdrops were often too light, so the words would blend into them. The subtitles also went fast and I had to keep pausing and backtracking. Other than that it was quite good and informative.
    Kato was murdered in 2011 for his activism, although the official story says that it was by a male prostitute over money. I guess we'll never know what really happened but I don't see how it was not an assassination. Uganda has a disgusting stance on LGBT rights. They recently passed the Anti-Homosexual Bill[ that's what it's called] that Kato was working to stop. The bill says that anybody found to be LGBT, abating anybody LGBT or not reporting somebody who is LGBT can be imprisoned and/or executed! It also says that this applies to any Ugandan living abroad! Of course the international community has spoken out against this but, lets face it, every county commits human right violations.
    Africa came to be so anti-gay in the first place because of the colonist who came there and imposed their anti-gay laws on the locals. Now, most of those colonial powers have changed their laws but most of Africa is still steeped in the prejudice and misunderstanding that the colonist created. Africans in general think that homosexuality is some kind of Western plague but Uganda is a Christan county. This is equally ironic because That's something that was imposed on them, too! The situation is a hot buttered mess! But the good news is that Uganda's LGBT people are not giving up. They have an organization call SMUG[sexual minorities Uganda which Kato helped to found] that has a very articulate and courageous[and handsome I might add] executive director named Frank Mugisha.
    I already knew that South Africa has marriage equality and constitutional protection for It's LGBT citizens but watching this documentary motivated me to find out more about LGBT people in the whole of Africa. I found out that there are about fourteen countries that have no laws criminalizing homosexuality but they don't protect it either. The rest of them specifically criminalize it. The degree to which they criminalize and enforce these laws probably varies from country to country, but Uganda's must be one of the most extreme.