Uganda anti-gay laws linked to fringe US fundamentalist group

Britain and Canada have joined the international chorus of disapproval of Uganda’s proposed anti-homosexual law. The bill, sponsored by a secretive right-wing American Christian fundamentalist group, would give Uganda the most draconian anti-gay legislation in the world on the specious grounds that "same sex attraction is not an innate and immutable characteristic". Gay sex is already illegal in Uganda but under the proposed law, a person convicted of homosexual acts is liable to life imprisonment, and if HIV positive the penalty is execution.

Britain and Canada’s prime ministers have told Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni the bill needs to be withdrawn. Gordon Brown and Stephen Harper told Museveni the proposal was unacceptable during a private breakfast meeting at the Commonwealth Heads of Government summit in Trinidad & Tobago last week. Sweden also threatened to cut aid if the bill is passed.

The Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009 is going through Uganda’s Parliament after receiving its first reading last month. The draft was introduced into parliament on 14 October. According to Clause 2, a person who is convicted of gay sex is liable to life imprisonment. There is also an “aggravated homosexuality” component which means if they are also HIV positive, the penalty is death. It was introduced by Ugandan MP David Bahati, a low ranking member of the ruling party. Bahati said the legislation promotes family values. "Homosexuality is not part of the human rights we believe in," he said. Many top government officials support the bill.

President Museveni is among them and has long claimed homosexuality is a ‘disease” imported from the West. In 1998 he said “When I was in America, sometime ago, I saw a rally of 300,000 homosexuals. If you had a rally of 20 homosexuals here, I would disperse it.” Last month he urged Ugandan youth to abhor “divergent sexual orientation” and stand firm against European homosexuals who were on “a recruitment drive”. Museveni claimed Uganda had very few homosexuals. “They were not persecuted but were not encouraged either because it was clear that is not how God arranged things to be."

God is now arranging things differently in Uganda. The bill contains provisions to forbid the "promotion of homosexuality" including publishing information or providing funds, premises for activities, or other resources. Conviction could result in seven years in prison. The Bill also proposes a three-year prison sentence for anyone who is aware of evidence of homosexuality and fails to report it to the police within 24 hours. Ugandan parliamentary Speaker, Edward Sekandi, said it was necessary “to do whatever we can to stop” homosexual liaisons in Uganda.

The legislation was immediately condemned by human rights groups. US-based Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International joined a group of 17 local and international groups saying the bill would violate human rights and should be withdrawn immediately. Amnesty said the bill would criminalise the work of organisations working for the defense and promotion of human rights in Uganda. It would also stymie effective HIV/AIDS prevention efforts.

Writing in The Ugandan Independent, blogger Anne Mugisha said Museveni was behind the bill. Mugisha said the bill was designed to distract attention from economic failings. She said his links with the US far right ideology became evident when he favoured the Bush administration approach on HIV AIDS with its emphasis on abstinence and faithfulness rather than condoms. Mugisha’s position is supported by NowPublic which says David Bahati is a member of a secretive fundamentalist Christian organisation called The Family. They quote writer Jeff Sharlet who said Bahati received millions of dollars in funding through the organisation’s African outreach programs. Sharlet also said The Family has cultivated a "deep relationship" with Museveni.

Sharlet is the author of the book “The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power” and he recently named Museveni and Bahati as members of the group. The shadowy group is led by Douglas Coe in Arlington, Virginia and Museveni has visited the group’s compound. Sharlet said one of The Family’s central ideas was that Jesus Christ’s message was not about love, mercy, justice or forgiveness. Rather, it was about power. "Jesus didn’t come to take sides, he came to take over". The group's agenda includes fighting homosexuality and abortion, promoting free-market economics and dictatorship, an idea they called “totalitarianism for Christ”. Yoweri Museveni is taking this totalitarianism to new levels in Uganda.

The Book of Revelation: the end of the world as we know it

In a recent amusing youtube video, US President George W Bush acts out his apocalyptic fantasy to the tune of REM’s It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine). It is amusing, partially because the makers have cleverly synched his words to the song, and partially because it taps in to the greatest apocalyptic fantasy of all. That fantasy is the biblical Book of Revelation. The story of Revelation is told in the fascinating book “A History of the End of the World” by American author Jonathan Kirsch.

Revelation is the last book of the Bible. Revelation is Latin for the Greek word apocalypse (“unveiling”). It is a roadmap to the end of the world, according to first century thinking. It is the Omega to the alpha of Genesis. The ‘alpha and omega’ is one of the many images that have seeped out of Revelation and embedded themselves in modern culture. Others include the Antichrist, The Seventh Seal, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Armageddon, the Whore of Babylon, Gog and Magog, and of course, 666, the fabled number of the beast. In short, Revelation is a treasure trove of the eschatology of endtimes.

However, the book is a serious anomaly. Revelation is a violent fantasy that sits awkwardly at the end of the mostly peace-loving Christian New Testament. The story of the lives of Jesus and his early followers segues uncomfortably into this misogynistic fire and brimstone Old Testament-style story of how history will end in catastrophe. Revelation’s moral calculus has been a crucial factor in the lives of many key Christians over the eras and remains a strong force especially in the religion-drenched politics of the US.

Revelation, also known as Apocalypse, has always divided the critics. The pious call it the revealed word of Jesus while feminist theologian Schussler Fiorenza called it “apocalyptic pornography” and literary critic Northrop Frye said it was an “insane rhapsody”. Thomas Jefferson was no more impressed and dismissed Revelation as “merely the ravings of a maniac”. The book was written by a man called “John” in the Romanised Asia Minor (now mainland Turkey) for an audience of early Christians. Revelation is traditionally ascribed to John the Evangelist, but no evidence supports this. However he is likely to be born a Jew from Judea, and a bitter witness to the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 CE.

But John is a Jew who has converted to Christianity and he turns Revelation into a curious mix of anti-Semitism and Jewish history and tradition that made some scholars describe him as a “Christian Rabbi”. The book’s apocalyptic theme is borrowed from the Old Testament Book of Daniel. Revelation is responsible for giving Satan (which the Old Testament merely saw an “adviser”) such a bad reputation. Satan is backed up by a memorable cast of bad guys including plagues of locusts, a seven-headed ten-horned red dragon and the Great Whore of Babylon. The drunken whore is straight out of Freud, a sexual monster with whom “the kings of the earth have committed fornication”. Most intriguingly she keeps a mysterious golden cup full of “abominations and impurities”.

According to Revelation, the abominable and impure endtimes will be presaged by the “Tribulation”, with its plagues and pestilence, earthquakes and floods, comets and eclipses, and battles in Heaven and Earth. Jesus will return to Earth at the head of an army to fight a battle at a place called Armageddon. After defeating Satan and his followers, Jesus will rule for a thousand year Reich. But then Satan will escape, and with his allies Gog and Magog fight a second almighty battle. He is defeated again and cast off to eternal torment in a lake of “fire and brimstone”. Everyone on Earth is killed but the Elect will be resurrected and granted eternal life in the “new Jerusalem”.

The timetable of Revelation has long been a boon to millenarianists ever since the book was written. But it suffered some early embarrassments. In the book, John reserves his wrath for the Roman Empire. The “mark” of the beast was actually a Roman coin, which “branded” Christians when they fell into their hands. The 666 (or possibly 616) was an alphanumeric code which some say refers to Nero (although he died two years before the temple fell). This anti Roman sentiment was inconvenient by the time Emperor Theodosius declared Christianity the state religion in 391 CE. The book probably would not have made the cut of “approved” books in the Christian canon if not for the belief that the author “John” was John the Disciple (who, by another tradition, was the author of the Gospel of John).

Augustine then legitimised Revelation by giving it a spiritual and metaphorical reading. But the book’s supporters were always excited by its promise that the “end was nigh”. A medieval monk named Joachim of Fiore fomented apocalyptic revolution based on his interpretation of Revelation. He saw the Muslim warrior Saladin as the latest incarnation of the Anti-Christ. His visions inspired Crusaders such as English King Richard the Lion-Heart who visited Joachim for inspiration on his return from Palestine.

In the 1490s, Dominican friar Girolano Savonarola urged the citizens of Renaissance Florence to toss their paintings and perfume into the Bonfire of the Vanities to bring forth Judgement Day. He was a religious reformer who preached against the moral corruption of the clergy and the pope. His vision of New Jerusalem held Florence in rebellion for three years before he was excommunicated and hanged in 1498.

By the time Savonarola died, Columbus had begun his voyages to the Americas. The ideas of Revelation were quick to follow the first European immigrants. The Puritans saw the English civil war as a battle between Christ and Antichrist. They took their millenarian message across the Atlantic where the apocalyptic message spread quickly. Revelation was the text of choice of the Seven Day Adventists, founded in 1863 by Ellen White and her husband James. Many turned to a new variation called “The Rapture” which believed that the virtuous would be plucked from Earth without being inflicted by the horror of the Tribulation.

The idea was imported into the US by Irishman John Nelson Derby who led a dissenting group called the Plymouth (or “Exclusive”) Brethren. Derby’s plot twist on the Revelation (the Rapture is not mentioned anywhere in the text) has proved immensely appealing to American fundamentalist Christians. Vernon Howell (rebadged in biblical fashion as David Koresh) followed the Savaranola template when led his followers into martyrdom at Waco. There he believed the battle of Armageddon was about to start.

The Rapture is also responsible for America’s love-hate relationship between Christian fundamentalists and the Jewish people. It states that Israel will be restored to the Jewish people before bringing the world to an end. The rise of Darby’s ideas in the 19th century coincided with the rise of Zionism. While early Zionists were prepared to site their nation in Argentina or Uganda, Christians pressed Zionist claims to Israel itself as a precondition of the Second Coming. To this day, Christian Zionists regard peace in the Middle East as an obstacle to their plans, and their ideas match those of the hawks and hardliners in Israel. An uneasy marriage of convenience exists between fundamentalists Christians (who tolerate Jews only as a necessary conduit to Judgement Day) and government of Israel (who think the Christian ideas are crackpot but value their support and money).

Meanwhile Ronald Reagan brought the ideas of Revelation into mainstream American politics. In 1980, he said “we may be the generation that sees Armageddon”. He surrounded himself with people who had similar beliefs. His Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger admitted he read Revelation and said “I believe the world is going to end…every day I think time is running out”. Reagan spoke of the Soviet “evil empire” which predicted would die out with human history itself whose “last pages are even now being written”.

Reagan was only half right. The end of Soviet Communism did not presage the end of history or the last man. And while no president since him has been so outspokenly apocalyptic, the two Bushes and Clinton have all been forced to declare themselves to be “born-again Christians”. Many of the leaders of the End Time movement are rich, well-connected and very powerful. And 46 per cent of all Americans claim to be "born-again" according to a 2002 Gallup poll. George W Bush himself was converted by Billy Graham in 1985 after a drunken weekend at the Bush compound. His core constituency is the fundamentalist voting bloc. While he himself has not openly declared himself, his language is often apocalyptic, such as when he describes the 'war on terror' as 'the epic struggle of good and evil'. His actions in the Middle East show that his government’s support of Israel is a pivotal issue. As it always was, the fate of the New Jerusalem is intricately tied with the old one.

Red Mosque: portents of Pakistan’s Islamic revolution?

The siege at Pakistan’s red mosque entered a new and dangerous stage yesterday when a Pakistani army commander was shot and killed during an operation to blast holes in the mosque's perimeter walls. Lt. Col. Haroon-ul-Islam was killed and three other officers were wounded during a failed operation to free women and children authorities believe are being used as human shields. The six-day old siege in the capital Islamabad is being held by followers of the cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi. The Government says those inside are members of the illegal Harkat Jihad-e-Islam organisation which is suspected of killing US journalist Daniel Pearl.

At least 24 people have died so far in the stand-off at the mosque. Hundreds of troops surround the compound while there are disputed numbers of how many are inside. Ghazi himself says he has two thousand followers inside while his elder brother Maulana Abdul Aziz puts the figure at 850. While Ghazi remains inside with at least 60 heavily armed followers, his brother was arrested on Wednesday after he tried to escape from the mosque disguised in a burqa.

Abdul Rashid Ghazi came from an elite Pakistani family. His father Abdullah Aziz was the head of the Red Mosque. Ghazi gained his master’s degree in International Relations from one of Pakistan's most prominent universities, the Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad. Ghazi joined the Pakistani Government and also worked for UNESCO. He lived a relatively western lifestyle until a life changing event in 1998. In that year his father Abdullah was murdered inside the mosque; the assassins were believed to be members of a rival Islamic group. Abdul Aziz took over the mosque and his brother dropped his western lifestyle to join him. The two quickly went on a hardline Islamic path. Ghazi now says he has chosen “martyrdom” over negotiations and hopes that his death would spark an Islamic revolution in Pakistan.

Lal Masjid or Red Mosque is Islamabad’s central mosque and is sited less than 3km away from the office of President Musharraf. The mosque is the favourite place of worship of Pakistan’s elite including members of the shadowy intelligence force ISI. Former president Zia-ul-Haq was said to be very close to Abdullah Aziz. The mosque has two madrassas (religious schools) which house thousands of students, one for women attached to the mosque itself and one for men a few minutes drive away.

Since the brothers took over, the mosque has become been a centre of radical Islamic learning. Though their rhetoric was toned down after Pakistan was co-opted into the so-called “War on Terror”, Lal Masjid remained strongly supportive of a “jihad against America”. Pakistani security forces tried to raid the mosque following the London in 2005 but were met by baton-wielding women who refused to let them enter the compound. That same year Abdul Aziz issued a fatwa declaring that Pakistani soldiers killed fighting militants in the northern tribal areas could not be given Muslim funeral rites.

In the last 12 months mosque students began challenging the writ of government by setting up a Taliban-style judicial system based on Sharia Law and acting as vigilantes to stop what they see as “moral crime”. The trouble escalated in January when the government ordered the demolition of what it called an illegal mosque. When the government didn’t act to stop the occupation of the building, the protesters became emboldened and took to the streets.

On Tuesday last week, a top level meeting of the Pakistani Government gave the order to launch an operation against the mosque. Authorities shut down the electricity supply to the mosque, closed two adjacent markets and blocked all roads into the area. Students carried Kalashnikovs and wore gas masks took up positions behind sandbags and dirt bunkers chanting “Jihad! Jihad!”, as police in riot vans fired volleys of tear gas. In the gun battle that followed 20 people were killed and over 100 were injured.

Six days on the students remain barricaded inside the mosque compound. On Saturday General Musharraf gave them a "surrender or die" ultimatum. While hundreds initially emerged, departures have dried up leading to the conclusion that only hardcore followers of the brothers remain. However there is also the possibility that some remain against their will. One man with a relative inside told AP that there are 250 hostages inside the mosque. Bakht Sher said he spoke by mobile phone with his nephew who told him that the hostages were being held in a basement area of the complex. He said his nephew saw the body of a man who had been shot dead while trying to escape.

Musharraf now has the dilemma of trying to storm a heavily armed compound without making martyrs of those inside. Those remaining inside the compound have apparently taken oaths on the Koran to fight to the death in the hope of sparking an Islamic revolution in Pakistan. Musharraf knows that he must move cautiously to avoid antagonising the country’s powerful Islamic clerics. At the same time he knows that every day the crisis drags on is a victory for Abdul Rashid Ghazi.

The implications are already being felt elsewhere in Pakistan. Troops were deployed to Malakand and Dir district in North West Frontier Province (NWFP) after a militant mullah Maulana Fazlullah declared holy war on the Government because of its handling of the siege in Islamabad. Pakistan say there are close links between Fazlullah and the Red Mosque with many of the mosque’s students from remote tribal areas such as NWFP. Meanwhile the Government has called for patience in Islamabad. "We will have to play this wait game,” said Pakistan's information minister, Tariq Azim. “It may take a while, but I think we will succeed in the end."

Richard Dawkins: Fundamentalism

In previous posts, Woolly Days has looked at Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion and followed his arguments on the phenomenon of Lourdes and the arguments around creationism and evolution. Dawkins then goes on to meet some American evolutionists who live in Haggart’s shadow.

Dawkins describes them as browbeaten rationalists who have organised themselves into what they called a “freethinkers group” who meet furtively. One of their number, biology teacher John Spangler, said he has received letters from parents who say he is Satan’s incarnation. Another, Gary Betchan admitted atheists are likely to suffer career damage or lose their jobs. A third man Rick Baker likened the current oppressive atmosphere to the McCarthy era.

Dawkins argues that fundamentalist Christianity is attacking science and offers in its stead a mirror image of Islamic extremism, an American Taliban state. The religious terrorism inspired by Osama is the logical outcome of deeply held faith. Even moderate believers encourage ‘unreason’. Religious warriors think what they are doing is the ultimate good. Dawkins describes the religious struggle between good and evil merely as a battle between two evils.

Dawkins goes to Jerusalem, which he describes as a microcosm of the religious conflict that threatens rational values. Politics and extreme faith have combined to cause the deaths of four thousand people in attacks and reprisals over the last five years. Tourists still flock to Jerusalem to revere their particular brand of religion. Christians come to Calvary, the site of Jesus’ crucifixion; Muslims come to the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa mosque, Jews to the Western Wall, Judaism’s most holy ruin. On the surface it looks like a place of harmless myth. But it is a source of barely repressed religious hatred.

Different religions live cheek by jowl in the Old City, all under strict security. But one area above all is under heavy guard: the Temple Mount. Here lies the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa mosque; together Islam’s third holiest shrine after Mecca and Medina. They believe the prophet Mohammed flew up to heaven from here. But next door is the site of the long destroyed first and second temple and the Western Wall. Jews are not allowed to worship inside the compound. Their prayers are confined to the Wall. The Dome of the Rock was situated on the site of the altar of the old temple.

Neither religion is inclined to share the Temple Mount with the other. Dawkins goes to meet someone whom he says “in my naiveté, would see both sides of the story”. Yusuf Al-Kattah was brought up as a secular New York Jew, came to Gaza as a Jewish settler where he was converted to Islam. Dawkins admits to Al-Kattah he is an atheist who hears nothing but hate from all sides in this religious conflict. Al-Kattah immediately goes on the attack “I hate atheists,” he says. “They don’t care if someone fornicates on the middle of the street….They don’t believe in a set of rules, they can amend the rules as they go along. They don’t believe in God’s rules. ..That’s all you have, man-made laws”.

Dawkins asks Al-Kattah what he thinks about 9/11. Al-Kattah ignores the question and continues the attack on Dawkins “you like to talk about evolution. I’d like to start by saying what do you think of the Jews that have destroyed over 417 Arab villages…what are you saying we should sit back…let us sit down and drink tea and talk about what to do”. Al-Kattah says that if there were no state of Israel there would be no 9/11. Dawkins worries that there is someone out there with faith as strong as Al-Kattah but with an opposite view. Al–Kattah counters “the problem with you, Richard, is that you have fear”. Al-Kattah advises Dawkins to “take your soldiers off our lands and fix your women”.

Historic injustice to the Palestinians breeds hatred and anger. In creating a suicide bomber culture, a level of conviction in your own righteous faith is the key. If preachers then tell the faithful that paradise awaits them if they make the ultimate sacrifice, it is hardly surprising that some crazed followers will act out the deed; leading to a vendetta, war and suffering. This will continue as long as people are brought up from the cradle to believe that there is something good in faith, about believing because you’ve been told to believe. Dawkins says killing for God is not only hideous murder but also utterly ridiculous. Unlike religion, science doesn’t pretend to know everything. But just because science cannot answer those questions right now doesn’t mean faith can. Science cannot disprove the existence of God; but that does not mean God exists.

Dawkins says we cannot disprove the existence of fairies, unicorns and hobgoblins. But we don’t believe in any of them nor do we believe in Thor, Amon-Ra or Aphrodite. We are all atheists about most of the Gods that society has ever believed in. But some of us go one God further.

Richard Dawkins: Evolution and Creationism

In the first part of The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins looked at the phenomenon of Lourdes. Dawkins describes religion as turning untested belief into unshakable truth through the power of institutions and the passage of time. According to Dawkins, this was testament to the power of tradition in religion.

Dawkins examined the Assumption of Mary to hammer home his point. According to Catholic theology, Jesus’ mother Mary did not die, she ascended directly into heaven at the end of her life. There is no evidence for this; it is not mentioned in the bible. The belief she ascended into Heaven emerged in the 6th century AD. The story spread by word of mouth and became established tradition. The longer it kept going, the more it was taken seriously. In 1950 it became authority. The Vatican decreed Catholics must believe in the doctrine of the Assumption of the Virgin. This doctrine was ‘revealed’ to Pope Pius XII by God.

While Catholic doctrine over the assumption of Mary is not in itself harmful, the Pope’s personal convictions about discouraging the use of condoms in Aids-ridden Africa is another story. Here there is an appalling human cost. The Church uses its authority to issue edicts to the faithful without a shred of evidence to back their claims. But Dawkins is at pains not just to blame the Catholics. Fatwas by Muslim imams follow the same trajectory.

Religion thrives on unsolved mysteries. For early humanity what was mysterious and unexplained was so vast, it needed a higher being an ‘alpha male in the sky’ to explain it all. Scientific investigation has rolled back many mysteries. Where once were Sun Gods, science now tells us the Sun is middle-sized star halfway through its 10 billion year life. Revolving round it is the 4.5 billion year old Earth. Science has used evidence, comparing and corroborating evidence, to update old theories about how things work.

Humanity used to resort to supernatural hypotheses for creation myths. Genesis is one of many such myths. God fashioned the world in six days. In the 19th century Charles Darwin hit on what really happened, without any need to invoke the supernatural or the divine. Evolution is a gentle slope; Darwin’s great insight was that life evolved steadily and slowly over four billion years. Natural selection not a divine designer was the sculptor of life. The design hypothesis raises an even bigger problem than it solves: who designed the designer?

Dawkins thought that in his lifetime evolution would be accepted as fact everywhere, backed up as it is by overwhelming evidence. But this evidence cuts no ice with many. Evolution today is under threat. In the bible belt of Middle America, evangelicals are fighting back against science. In the new world, religion is free enterprise. Rival groups set up shop competing against each other to save souls. Fundamentalist Christianity is on the rise in the world’s only superpower. Its power spreads up to and including the president. 135,000 million Americans believe the universe is less than 10 thousand years old.

Dawkins goes to the New Life Church in Colorado Springs where conservative Christians have built an $18 million Church. New Life isn’t just a church but a social network. A 12,000 congregation attend 1,300 organised programs which guide them on everything from marriage to dog walking. It is a New Jerusalem in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. While it lacks the tradition of Lourdes, it makes up for it in swaggering authority.

Evangelical churches like this have become enormously powerful in the US influencing everything from the teaching of science in schools to foreign policy. New Life Church Pastor Ted Haggard was a powerful man, chairman of the National Association of Evangelicals. Haggard had a hot line not only to God but also to President Bush. He is a staunch Republican. He had also rubbed shoulders with Tony Blair and Ariel Sharon. Dawkins was not to know that Haggart was forced to resign in November 2006 after paying for sex with a gay prostitute and admitting he bought drugs.

When Dawkins and Haggart met, they clashed on the Bible. Dawkins wanted to understand what he called ‘irrational faith’ is spreading and attacking science. In their interview Dawkins began by complimenting Haggart and suggested a lot of money was spent here. Haggard said “I wanted people to be able to worship and enjoy it and be in a setting where the speaker is close to them…so I can look at them”. Dawkins said this was effective and said the sermon reminded him of the Nazi Nuremburg rallies. Haggard laughed and said lots of Americans think of it more as a rock concert.

Dawkins acknowledged that every person needs at the centre some sense of meaning about existence. But most accept that life is complex not the childish certainties of God. Dawkins biggest concern is that evangelicals like Haggart are foisting falsehoods on their flock. They deny scientific evidence just to support a Bronze Age myth. Haggart hit back by accusing “people like Dawkins” of intellectual arrogance and air of superiority because “they know so much more”.

Haggart’s approach is to lets teach evolution as just another theory alongside creationism and intelligent design, which sounds reasonable on first impression. But whereas evolution by natural selection is supported by mountains of evidence, creationism exists on a flimsy base; self-contradictory and supported only by what Dawkins contempuously calls "ancient scribblings".