Should Swedish Foreign Aid go to organisations that are trying to " cure" homosexuals? Of course not!
Cornelius Hamelberg
The Swedish aid would, among other things, go towards strengthening the rights of LGBTQ people in African countries.
Several million went to organizations that have been singled out for trying to "convert" homosexuals, DN's review shows.
Being gay is forbidden in a number of African countries. In Uganda, LGBTQ people risk up to life imprisonment for their sexual orientation. They are also repeatedly subjected to violence and abuse by the police, according to the human rights organization Human rights watch.
Just a few months ago, the Ugandan government banned one of the country's well-known LGBT rights groups.
- Homophobia has really escalated. The situation is very serious and we are worried about what may happen in the future, says Pepe Julian Onziema, program director at the now banned organization Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG).
According to SMUG, the incidence of so-called conversion attempts against LGBTQ people has increased in the region. That is to say that people through coercion or pressure undergo dangerous and unscientific attempts to become free of their sexual orientation.
In 2021, the independent journalism network OpenDemocracy conducted a six-month investigation in which reporters under false identities visited health clinics and hospitals in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. A long line of health care providers in the countries offered conversion therapy and described, among other things, homosexuality as "evil" and something that "whites" choose to be.
"We help anyone who wants to stop being gay by bringing them together with outside therapists," one of the clinicians at Uganda's largest state hospital told reporters.
DN can now reveal how millions in Swedish aid have gone to several of these healthcare providers and organizations in recent years.
TASO Uganda, formerly known as the AIDS Support Organisation, is one of them. Their mission is, among other things, to help and support people with HIV. It was their clinic that stated that they help people who want to "stop being gay".
Since 2019, TASO has received over seven million Swedish kronor in aid. The support originally comes from Sida, and went to TASO via cooperation organizations to Sweden.
Photo: Screenshot from audit report.
The Swedish support has not only gone to actors in Uganda.
In the Kenyan capital Nairobi is the headquarters of the organization LVCT Health, which claims to work according to scientifically proven methods. Staff at the headquarters offered OpenDemocracy's journalists conversion therapy and, among other things, called homosexuality "a trend".
Sweden also has continued active collaborations with LVCT Health, which has received hundreds of thousands of kroner in aid via an intermediary. Swedish support also continues to go to TASO.
Two more actors who are said to have offered conversion therapy have received aid from Sweden. Sinza Hospital in Tanzania is one of them. Uganda's largest privately owned hospital, Nsambya, another.
The information from OpenDemocracy is corroborated by several officials at the LGBT rights group SMUG, and with whom DN spoke. They state that they have been in contact with people who have been subjected to conversion attempts at clinics that have received Swedish aid.
Among other things, they are said to have met young people whose parents forced them to Nsambya to be subjected to conversion attempts, and who are said to have been traumatized by this.
- We have been warning about this for a long time. We have spoken to international partners who provide aid that support to these groups must be stopped. But sadly, we are seen as second-class citizens, even in international contexts. Our votes do not count, says Pepe Julian Onziema.
The Swedish aid agency Sida states that they are taking seriously what has emerged and that they were not aware of several of the information.
- We will of course immediately contact our partners to discuss what may have happened and, if so, how this could have happened. We will look at the agreements and see what may need to be adjusted, says Ulf Källstig, head of the Africa department at Sida.
How well does this fit in with Sida's work on aid?
- So-called conversion therapy goes completely against our mission and our values. That is why we now have to act and control this and discuss with our partner organisations, he says.
One of Sida's partners is said to have specifically investigated TASO in 2021, but then failed to find its own evidence regarding the existence of conversion attempts.
The Swedish embassy in Uganda does not want to participate in an interview, but states in a comment that they have a good dialogue with LGBTQ organizations in the country, and that this issue has not been raised with the Swedish embassy.
DN has applied for all the aforementioned organizations that have received Swedish support in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. They have not returned with any answers.
TOPICS IN THE ARTICLE
TEXT
This is how DN works with quality journalism: information published must be true and relevant. Rumors are not enough. We strive for first-hand sources and to be there where it happens. Credibility and impartiality are central values for our news journalism. Read more here.Cornelius Hamelberg
In the countries where LGBT activities have been criminalised, especially African Countries where LGBT have been criminalised (long-term imprisonment, life imprisonment, solitary confinement, social and family ostracisation, castration, the death penalty etc) stage one ought to be decriminalisation instead of forced or attempted “conversions” -” deprogramming” “ Exorcism” before modern psychiatry as in Ancient Galilee - of “demon possession” ( Beelzebub, I command you to come out of him NOW!!!! - In Jesus’ name - Amen) but surely, Jesus did not “cure '' or exorcise alleged evil spirits from LGBTQ people or is he credited with such miracles in the New Testament?
This is the kind of attitude that informs the sort of hocus-pocus treatment the poor LGBT person is likely to receive, from some misinformed quacks, beginning with some kind of prayers and well-meaning verbal persuasion which on the whole usually prove wholly inefficacious and totally unsuccessful and are therefore followed by all kinds of mental and physical torture, more drastic/forceful/extreme methods of indoctrination, I imagine nothing less than a hotchpotch of some ancient tribal magic being concocted on the spot by some local divine, paedophile, medicine man, witch-doctor, herbalist, sadist, sadomasochist, conman, charlatan, all to no avail, of course…
Instead of Swedish Aid being channelled to the experimental activities described above, instead of to support the human rights and protection of sexual minorities, it would seem that the new intention is that most of the Foreign Aid is to be channelled to where it’s needed in Ukraine. And that as far as they ( the current government) are concerned, “ charity begins at home, or nearer to home, and this means that the aid that was previously earmarked for the wretched of the earth in Africa will now be moved from the back-burner to Ukraine which they argue is in more dire need and geographically speaking is physically and maybe spiritually too much closer to Sweden.
Biko Agozino
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Salimonu Kadiri
Sent: 30 December 2022 14:31
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Should Swedish Foreign Aid go to organisations that are trying to " cure" homosexuals? Of course not!
Dr. Oohay
Cornelius Hamelberg
Cornelius Hamelberg
Baba Kadiri,
From your point of view, the Prime Minister of Ireland should be arrested when he arrives at Kampala International Airport, for the crime of being who and what he is - maybe summarily transported to a conversion centre where according to you, they “deprogramme sexual perverts and deviants”
Hopefully, it’s not another case of “Those who know don’t say, and those who say, don’t know”
Recently, there was all that hullabaloo about al-cohol not being permitted during the FIFA World Cup in Qatar, not even a drop. As was to be expected, LGBTQ issues were also raised. No one was hanged, beheaded or lashed.
The Qatar World Cup event turned out to be the most successful Football World Cup that has been held so far….
Here , things are hotting up. Just now, all eyes are riveted on Israel who seem to be on the verge of declaring the death penalty on terrorist offences. Of course, if the Knesset goes ahead with such a proposed deterrent, we are to suppose that Iran will be the first to object on behalf of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, popularly known as the PLO
I know that ( a) You do not subscribe to “ When in Rome, do as the Romans do” and (b) Apart from the activities of RFSU, you are familiar with and probably accept in toto The European Convention on Human Rights and to the point in this discussion, please read carefully: Right to equality and freedom from discrimination
We are all living in the modern world, we are less than twelve hours away from Anno Domini 2023 according to certain time reckonings and despite your familiarity with this universal Right to equality and freedom from discrimination
you are still asking, “Why then should it be a crime or an offence for African sexual therapists to attempt to deprogramme sexual perverts and deviants in Africa?”
Have a heart, Baba Kadiri, first of those identities that you have diagnosed as “ perverts” and “deviants” have a human right to be who they are, and secondly, as free human beings who do you think has a right to coerce anyone else in any way whatsoever, not to mention the brutal methods being used - as you must have gleaned from some of the cases mentioned in these links
Bottom Line: Universal Declaration of Human Rights: LGBTQ
The African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights : LGBTQ
Happy New Year and please don’t reply if you don’t have anything more to say…
Salimonu Kadiri
Cornelius Hamelberg
Baba Kadiri :
If we’re still talking about relativity, e.g. ethical relativism,
well, here's another marvel
I wonder what she’d have to say about all this?
What saith, e.g. the Greta Thunberg generation?
Sure, we are talking about free electrons, autonomous private body parts, nevertheless, I must call your attention to this most excellent one and the same thing:
Adab and Respect for elders !
Say what you will but by any token, Bill Clinton is also your elder and therefore in any future communications about this or other related matters, even as you start getting emotional and carried away by your zeal could you please exercise more self-control by sparing us all the gross, really nauseous anatomical details, Cuban cigars, v-gs, the names of various private body parts; Please!
I know that you're going to protest that a spade must be called a spade and that “ things” must be called by their proper names, but please don’t forget that there are ladies present.!
By the way, there are no names for sexual organs in the Hebrew Bible that you are so fond of quoting. Therefore, hopefully, in like manner, you too could resort to euphemisms and still be speaking truth to power or to the enemy
Unfortunately for you dear Baba Kadiri, in spite of your elaborate efforts at clarifying exactly what you mean by sexual intercourse, taking into consideration the varieties of sexual behaviours in humans , the definition of sexual intercourse in the law statutes of the various countries where sexual relations between consenting males is a crime, do not agree with your definitions, even if it’s the morality or immortality of the law that we’re talking about, since they refer to what you yourself had better term “ Deviant sexual intercourse”, because such action is sexual intercourse, nonetheless.
I would definitively say that Sweden - and indeed, Nigeria too has and should reserve the right to every right to not give financial support to any African country that wants foreign financial aid to stamp out LGBTQ human rights and to wipe out LGBTQ communities by so-called “conversions “ and other means of coercion employing force, intimidation, torture and other primitive, brutal methods.
Sadly, Edwin Chiloba a Kenyan LGBTQ activist has been killed in Kenya his body dumped in a rubbish bin by the wayside
Baba Kadiri, what is your reaction? How do you feel about his murder?
Your objections to the idea of live and let live seem to be based on some divinely worded edicts found in the Hebrew Bible and an admixture of what you believe to be at variance with “ natural selection” in the interests of the Almighty saying; “ Be fruitful and multiply”, Consider: We are now eight billion souls The Almighty must be mighty pleased about the reproductive capacity of the descendants of our great grandparents, Adam and Eve.
As To LGBTQ and “the word of God”, well, whilst you are too busy being more Catholic than the Pope, just look at Tel Aviv which is the Mecca of the Gay!
You know this line so well :
O Judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts, and men have lost their reason !
Progress is slow: I have only just now completed chapter five of THE END of FAITH : Religion, Terror, and The Future of Reason by Sam Harris.( no tortuous, stilted big grammar.) Of special relevance to this topic, is chapter five; West of Eden ( 15 pages 153 - 169) ) and we could skip directly to “The War on Sin”
Better still start from the beginning with “ Reason in Exile”
Cornelius Hamelberg
Baba Kadiri,
On second thoughts, moral relativism is more inclusive than “ethical relativism”
I’m adding this postscript after reading this other item that was posted here about the genocidal scoundrel who as reported, “wants to holocaust Germans because of their support for LGBT people.”.
From the reported allegation, it’s unclear whether he only wants to exterminate the Germans who support LGBT people or if he wants to exterminate all Germans. And what exactly does he mean by “ Germans?” Does he mean all German citizens, including blokes like Antonio Rüdiger ?
BTW, I suppose it’s an excellent example of rhetorical hyperbole which on the surface qualifies as hate speech, but which I don’t think should be taken as seriously as that letter would like us to believe, especially the implication we are to deduce from a logical extension of that kind of statement, namely that Mr Dhiab would want to exterminate every single person that supports LGBT people, including all LGTB people themselves, in their millions, a really absurd and criminally genocidal, ICC -bound proposition - as per Sheikh Abraham’s altercation with the Almighty ( the homophobic Almighty? ) with regard to the Almighty wanting to wipe out all the LGBTQ people in Sodom and Gomorrah if we are to seriously regard that altercation as a historical event that actually took place…
As I’ve already told you, don’t be shy and please feel free to say whatever you like, because I’m not going to reply to whatever it is that you have to say about this matter( these matters) since you've made your position crystal clear.
However, given the extent of the damage done to our nations, which do you think is worse, LGBTQ or pernicious corruption?
Baba Kadiri, on the scale of personal ( and national) aversion, where do you place the two, LGBTQ and CORRUPTION ( in its various manifestations and effects? And please don’t say that we shouldn’t compare apples with oranges.
Seriously, Baba Kadiri, don’t you think that apart from correctional facilities - of the type we have in countries where the rule of law prevails, don’t you think that we should have conversion and deprogramming centres for the corrupt?
( Interesting: ‘Fourth Reich’ to be made up of Germany, Poland
Sam Harris: End of Faith
Salimonu Kadiri
Salimonu Kadiri
Cornelius Hamelberg
O most kind-hearted & compassionate Baba Kadiri,
May our tribe increase!
I know that such a wish should put you in a good mood O kind-hearted and compassionate soul who does not believe in the death penalty, who says that he does not want to hang anybody or to have anybody hanged, whether it’s Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, Eugene de Kock, Adolf Hitler, Adolf Eichmann, Dr Mengele, or any of the other major perpetrators to be counted among the Genocidal Nazis, “no matter how heinous a crime might be.”
According to you, ideally, the aforementioned and others of their ilk should “undergo therapeutic treatment after which they are released and reabsorbed into the society.”
Have a heart, Baba Kadiri!
Do you mean that when it comes to the holocaustal son of a gun, it’s the exception that should be the rule? Do you see how incredible such an idea is in concrete terms when you seem to want to reward genocidal sadism with some compassionate rehabilitation & recuperation therapy?
Ideally, that is what Putin could have in mind for Joe Biden and his little puppy/ puppet agent Zelensky (the midget’s illusions of grandeur): rehabilitation & recuperation therapy. Recuperation from the big delusion. Most probably, Zelensky will be awarded something like the Victoria Cross by his British allies and then offered some recuperation treatment and some vodka in Winston Churchill’s bunker at Number 10 Downing Street, shortly or maybe posthumously, when he hits eternity, whilst his country Ukraine is being systematically battered and bruised, a lifetime's infrastructure progressively destroyed, eradicated, what remains of his fighting forces incrementally decimated because he doesn’t want to seek peace and pursue it.
Even as the nightmare unravels he seems to be still daydreaming, hellbent on taking Crimea and maybe, after that, Moscow, as in First We Take Manhattan.
He shouldn’t forget that Russia - yes Russia, lost 27 Million souls in WW2.
The very latest: Ukraine’s defence minister:
“We are now a de facto member of the Nato alliance”
Baba Kadiri does not believe in the death penalty.
“Send that boy off - to die !”
The death penalty comes in many shapes and disguises
Next phase, Uncle Joe Biden will be sending some pilots and boots, on the ground
“And it's one, two, three,
What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam.
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.”
You wrote that this is supposed to be your “last submission on this subject”, however, you have obviously done your level best to ensure that I would also break my vow that my last submission would indeed be my very last submission on this subject, and that’s your reason for making this kind of statement - a sordid accusation that would ensure that at the very least I should protest - just for the record, rather than to just let sleeping dogs lie. In the Rhetorical Gospel According to Baba Kadiri, to me:
“Finally, your tolerance for LGBTQ, according to you is based on your belief that they are born to be what they are, same-sex intercourse etc. Based on your belief, should rapists, sadomasochism, paedophilia, and zoophilia also be tolerated and accepted because they are naturally born to behave as they do? If not, why? “
We have to be careful with our definitions of natural and unnatural. Just for the record, short of committing suicide/ jumping into the lake of fire, how would Baba Kadiri have reacted if he had discovered/ realised, O me Miserum that he or any of his most near and dear kith and kin had been born into any of the LGTBQ categories? With regard to you yourself, I suppose you would have opted for the conversion de-programming followed by rehabilitation and recuperation therapy, from the natural to the unnatural ( The motto of Black Radical was “ Free your mind, and your ass will follow!”
For example, a Rabbi once said that we have to help God. Sounds sacrilegious, doesn’t it? He explained that no one is born already circumcised. Of course these days, there are the scientistic who will tell us that circumcision - for e.g. the Jewish people, the Brit milah which is a sign of the Covenant, that it is unnatural, primitive and barbaric; ditto the so-called FGM
Secondly, shouldn't we think twice before lumping LGBTQ sexuality in the same category as “rapists, sadomasochism, paedophilia, and zoophilia “?
Dear Baba Kadiri who is fond of saying that this and that aspect of human nature is “not African”, you do remember that the former President of Zimbabwe, President Canaan Banana was jailed for being homosexual
Fortunately, Langston Hughes and James Baldwin and many other Black and gay people did not fall foul of the law in the same way
Rabbi Aaron Katz, who was the first Orthodox Rabbi met in Stockholm circa July 1986 - by appointment at the community house, declared himself gay, several years later…
The war of ideas and of ideas in action continues. I wish you had met Rabbi David Lazar on homosexuality and on LGBTQ - the very first time I met him ( accidentally at Hedengrens bookshop) he was adamant that the prohibition in the Torah concerned relationships of “dominance”.I also attended one of his seminars on the theme ( knowledge is king). Of course, if Baba Kadiri had been present at that one, he would have most probably turned the whole place upside down. Freedom of speech/ opinion? Freedom of homophobia? They would have probably had to call the police to get you out of there:I guess I would have left with you….…
Bob Dylan: Man Gave Names To All The Animals
Bob Dylan: Do Right To Me Baby ( The Golden Rule)
Salimonu Kadiri
Cornelius Hamelberg
Baba Kadiri,
For your perusal: Everything you've always wanted to know about sex: The Sheep Scene
You must be reminded once more: Let not your heart be troubled.
As your namesake, King Solomon said, “ What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.”
Yes, so you’ve heard about calculated calumnies such as piggate
Fear God. Stop giving all these extremely nauseous examples. Don't make the extremely perverse as the foundation for what you would like to admit as normal human sexual practice as if insanity is the normal state of the human being.
Cornelius Hamelberg
Baba Kadiri,
For your consideration :
Sam Harris: The war on sin
Sam Harris: The demon of relativism
A little about Brother Soyinka on cultural relativism
According to recent statistics - and we can’t say that “ It’s cultural” or simply dismiss it as “ it’s natural”, because there must be a whole lotta other factors that contribute to South Africa’s unenviable status as “ The Rape Capital of the World”
For some time now you have been suggesting, just like Thabo Mbeki at the height of the HIV pandemic that was seen to have been decimating Africa in particular - that Africa’s most pressing concerns were and are about providing basic human amenities such as clean potable water for drinking, and now, fast forward the liberal/ decadent West can be observed, more or less bullying poverty-stricken and in some cases aid-dependent African Countries by making aid conditional on such African countries granting LGBTQ rights their citizens and legalising LGBTQ relationships, sexual practices, same-sex marriages etc…
On what basis do the aid donor countries arrogate to themselves the right to impose their moral/ immoral standards on the rest of the world, as universal standards?
Well here’s a clue, it could do us a world of good to read through “Slavery, the Hebrew Bible and the Development of Racial Theories in the Nineteenth Century” which Professor Gloria Emeagwali posted the other day. Here’s an excerpt:
“The basic polygenic arguments of Nott and Gliddon (and the American School generally) was that nature had permanently fixed the Negro’s place, as it did for all other races, and hence any attempt to alter what was fixed by supposing the inferior types could change their station was misguided. As a result, the pernicious notion being increasingly agitated by abolitionists at home and abroad that the Negro race could be elevated through emancipation and education was not only altogether futile and a waste of resources but was in fact an attempt to “arraign Providence” (Nott and Gliddon 1854, p. lii). In defense of the permanent racial stasis of blacks they claimed: The monuments of Egypt prove, that Negro races have not, during 4000 years at least, been able to make a solitary step, in Negro-Land; the modern experiences of the United States and the West Indies confirm the teaching of the monuments of history; and our remarks . . . hereafter, seem to render fugacious all probability of a brighter future for these organically-inferior types. (Nott and Gliddon 1854, pp. 95–96) Consequently, [I]t would seem that the Negroes . . . must remain substantially in the same benighted state wherein Nature has placed them and in which they have stood, according to Egyptian monuments, for at least 5000 years. (Nott and Gliddon 1854, p. 189)
According to these architects of human worth nothing but “a miracle”—the “silliest of desperate suppositions”—could possibly change the Negro’s inherent inferiority (Nott and Gliddon 1854, p. 191).”
Cornelius Hamelberg
Good news for Baba Kadiri :
UK government to block Scottish gender bill
Plan to ban gay conversion therapy brought back by government and will include trans conversion
This goes to show the power of centralisation; that the sections that make up what’s known as Great Britain, namely England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland do not have the power to decide about such matters on their own, without approval from headquarters.
I wonder what the future holds for LGBTQ rights in Africa South of the Sahara ( Black Africa).
With regard to Nigeria, some consistency is to be expected from the twelve Sharia states where by definition, to the delight of Baba Kadiri, LGBTQ is haram - against the law and that’s why it’s difficult to imagine that there will come a time when same-sex-marraiges will be conducted in any of the mosques in Sokoto or Kano.
I suppose there might be some window of opportunity for the LGBTQ people within the various pockets of the country where Christianity holds sway, and, given that the Church ( the body of Christ) is one, it’s understandable and probable that the various Christian folds will continue to follow in the footsteps of the major denominations, the Vatican and the Archbishop of Canterbury, whereas in the bastions of the more independent churches they will probably stick to the majority African traditions and prejudices which on the whole seem to be an aversion to LGBTQ.
Other good news for Baba Kadiri: The clearly oedipal man of the moment, the oedipal Prince Harry is said to have broken a world record since his autobiography Spare has already sold more than one and half million copies - in spite of the availability of free downloads whereby the curious readers can assuage their thirst for such salacious gossip. The last piece of literature I read that dealt with the Oedipus complex was for A levels back in 1965, D. H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers. Given that much of the circumstances that we all already know so well, the tragic loss of his mother, the seething resentment/ hostility towards his father’s new wife - King Charles’ consort Camilla,, his own 41-year old Meghan's role in the main palaver, in due time let's suppose that a blockbuster Hollywood movie will come out of the ashes, starring Harry & Meghan playing their life roles. Who then will play the parts of King Charles III and The Queen’s Consort will remain to be seen…
I thought that you would appreciate this: Elder Obasanjo celebrating