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Link to watch: https://www.facebook.com/video/embed?video_id=566979386668690
I have watched violent movies before but this one I failed. The clip is about four individuals, who are beaten with sticks and whatever people can get their hands on. Thereafter, they are set ablaze – burning them alive.
Various individuals posted their sentiments on the clip –claiming the victims were gays and witches. But that is not the issue here – all I want to know is why people can do such a horrifying thing.
What happened to our African values of Ubuntu? And where are the religious leaders when such things are happening? But then it dawned on me – it happened in Mansa – people were roasted alive in the presence of countless Christians.
Demonization of others can impair our common humanity. Most of us would disapprove of burning animals to death, but our hatred for others warrants their death. So what is my point? Well, after reading comments on the arrest of James Mwape (20) and Phillip Mubiana (21) of Kapiri Mposhi and my articles, I realized that we are not too far from this clip.
To most of us, gays and their defenders are worse than animals; therefore they deserve the cruelest punishment – death.
I respect your position on gays, but I want to appeal to our common humanity for once.
Our government should unite and not divide us or make us moles. Just this week, a Kenyan Catholic Priest killed himself after being accused of being gay. So, the PF government’s call for communities to spy on each other is shameful. Imagine the police coming to your home and arresting you on the premise that you are gay. The basis for the charge is a tip from your neighbors.
To prove your innocence, however, you will need to undergo the degrading and outdated nineteenth century medical examinations. Most of us will argue that this won’t happen, but we are wrong. If it happened to James and Phillip, it can happen to you too. That aside, our lovely nation is slipping into Uganda or Zimbabwe –when it comes to our basic human rights.
We are humans first and foremost, before we are gays, witches, and Christians.
Here, it is saddening that we, the religious leaders have failed to defend human rights for all God’s people. How on earth can we preach the gospel of Christ when innocent people are in jail for who they are? Let’s face it – this couple was in the privacy of their home –and I believe that the government has no business to spy on us even in our bedrooms. Our constitution is clear- article 11, d) protects individuals’ privacy.
Unless you can prove how being gay prejudices your “rights and freedoms,” every Zambian has the rights to privacy, liberty, security, freedom of conscience, expression, assembly, movement, and association.
Since most of us are Christians, I want to remind you about the story of the Good Samaritan. Jews and Samaritans did not see eye to eye, but Jesus reminded them of their common responsibilities to one another.
To love God and one’s neighbor means going an extra mile for all God’s children – even those we consider inherently evil. No wonder he will say to us – “I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me” (Matthew 25:43).
James and Phillip may be gays but their arrest defiles any sense of reasonableness. Prostitution is outlawed in Zambia, but for the government to round up all our sex workers from their homes is unjust. Surely, we don’t need the U.N Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s or Amnesty International’s intervention before speaking out against this injustice.
I have published widely on this issue and I can confidently say that across Africa, unpopular leaders use gay issues to win popular support. So, the unconscionable arrest of James and Phillip is shameful to the image of Mother Zambia and the Churches alike.
I know that the gay issue is highly misleading. The claim that homosexuality is a mental disorder is clearly unscientific. In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and so did many other nations. Being gay is not an illness to be cured by powerful prayers or counseling.
Alan Chambers, the American who made his career in “curing gays” and was one of the Speakers at the Evangelical Lausanne Conference in Cape Town in 2010, recently rebutted the idea. So for those pastors who claim to cure gays, I say, it is not the first time we have heard it.
We once claimed to cure AIDS, raise the dead and give eyes to the blind. Until then, I appeal God’s fearing people to love one another – for love “always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres”(1 Corinthians 13:7). Finally, let us “stand and sing of Zambia, proud and free!”
Rev. Canon Dr. Kapya John Kaoma