Let's pretend that we are 'TANZANIA'

Dear Africa,

We are pretending again. We are pretending that there is one way, just one way of 'be-ing'. So we hit hard on every other thing that diverges from that one way. The most recent, Tanzania. They are pretending that it's okay to run amok on the lives of people who have chosen to speak, write and say the things that others pretend not to know or see.

They pretend that they have no need to lubricants or that the battle against HIV/AIDS is no longer
a worthy cause . Of course all Tanzanians are either naturally asexual or are capable of secreting natural lubricants in the course of intercourse- they had better. They pretend the 'homosexuality is un-African' argument has not reasonably been trashed all over by arguments more valid and more practical. But this pretension has gotten out of hand Africa. Some of them now wake up in the morning and decide that all of Tanzania should be subject to laws no one legislated. 'Promoting homosexuality'! How does a person do that? Does a person's genitalia get lectured on what or who to erect or moisten for and when or how to erect or moisten? Or is a person's heart trashed repeatedly, fiercely...so hard that it will never beat or love again the way heaven has scripted it to? How, Africa, does a person promote homosexuality?

Photo sourced from the movie 'Naz & Maalik'

Even if there was a way homosexuality could be promoted, do you think it would compete with our corruption and bigotry? Scratch that. Do you think throwing people into detention without due process and bending to laws imagined through undemocratic whims, does not create a trend that will soon come back to haunt you, us? Look Africa, bigotry, discrimination, inhumanity, unfairness is a poison that will spread once it is allowed. Injustice validates further injustice. Perhaps tomorrow it won't be people writing freely on the internet, or loving freely, it will be the Igbos in Nigeria that now think the presence of an Hausa/ Fulani person(or anyone not traditionally Igbo) is a threat to their security and perhaps attack. Or the Hausa/ Fulani cattle herders that think that an affront to their cattle is a sin worth killing  for. Oh dear, so sorry Africa, that's not tomorrow. It's happening right now!

Tyranny and institutionalised homophobia or hate such as what is happening in Tanzania only begets more, poisoning all of us. Some people are behind bars right now, not for a crime, but because some one powerful enough does not like anything that smacks of homosexuality or not being traditionally ordinary. What will this person not like tomorrow?

Let's pretend we are Tanzania. Let's pretend that hate and intolerance are okay. But while we are pretending, let's buy umbrella's of steel(if it will be of any help) because hate is an acid that will rain if we don't smack out of it, if we don't stop pretending.

Stop it Africa! Stop it!

Frantic,
Nnanna