Even in death, abuse against gays continues.

[Lyric]

Even in death, abuse against gays continues.
Case in Senegal shows the intensity of homophobia in Africa

Ricci Shryock / AP



Ousmane Diallo stands in his shop in Thies, Senegal. His son's body had only been in the ground for a
few hours when a mob dug it up and dumped it in front of Diallo's house.

THIES, Senegal - Even death cannot stop the violence against gays in this corner of the world any more.

Madieye Diallo's body had only been in the ground for a few hours when the mob descended on the weedy cemetery
with shovels. They yanked out the corpse, spit on its torso, dragged it away and dumped it in front of the home
of his elderly parents.

The scene of May 2, 2009 was filmed on a cell phone and the video sold at the market. It passed from phone to phone,
sowing panic among gay men who say they now feel like hunted animals.

"I locked myself inside my room and didn't come out for days," says a 31-year-old gay friend of Diallo's who is ill
with HIV. "I'm afraid of what will happen to me after I die. Will my parents be able to bury me?"

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36376840/ns/world_news-africa/

----------------------------------------------------------

Oh dear god, oh dear god, oh dear god. This is not an isolated incident. Read the whole article. It's beyond horrifying.

:cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry:

[Lithos]

1. Sad... I weep for their pain

Words escape me for this. I can't describe the mixed emotions here - pathetic for the crowd, the empathy towards the father...


Side note, great photo...

L-

[OhioChick]

2. How terrible....

What a screwed up world we live in. :(

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. How horrible, my dear Lyric...

I cannot believe how people can treat others.

Whatever happened to respect?

Respect for our neighbors, respect for their children, no matter their sexual orientation?

:hug:

[Chulanowa]

4. I can't conjure words

(Not trying to belittle or anything, I just... honestly can't convey how angry this makes me)

[LuvNewcastle]

5. It is always more terrifying to me

to see supposedly normal, respectable people engage in heinous acts like this. Remember, this was not done by a gang of serial killers but by ordinary people. GLBT folk in Senegal and other homophobic areas of Africa must feel like the world is coming apart at the seams.

[Roon]

6. Disgusting

and my freeper parents wonder why I am so militant.

[flvegan]

7. You're right, it is.

When I read things like this, I oftentimes revert to my alter-ego, Frank. I think...WWFCD? I don't usually like the answer.

I've posted this a number of times...I'd love it if my GLBT activists could sit down and share a playbook with my hardcore AR folks.

THAT, would be brilliant.

[dmr]

8. Heartbreaking. No peace in life. No peace in death.

I just don't understand this type of mob mentality of hatred.
:cry:

[Lithos]

9. Yep...

it is hard to comprehend such a volume of hate...

[Jkid]

10. Not even death prevents these homophobic pigs from grave desecration?

[xchrom]

11. Recommend

[Smarmie Doofus]

12. The religious aspect is suggestive:

>>>>>>The crackdown also coincided with spiraling food prices. Niang says political and religious leaders saw an easy way to reach constituents through the inflammatory topic of homosexuality.
"They found a way to explain the difficulties people are facing as a deviation from religious life," says Niang. "So if people are poor — it's because there are prostitutes in the street. If they don't have enough to eat, it's because there are homosexuals.">>>>>>>>

One wonders how far this murderous hysteria runs in areas/countries where Islam is not dominant. It would be an interesting jumping -off point in terms off figuring out WTF is going on here and why.

[Jennicut]

13. Of course, shifting blame onto those who are more vulnerable

is something that has been done in all countries throughout the world at some time. It only makes it worse that people who are GLBT are the most vulnerable right now because of outright hatred and homophobia. Easy target. It makes me disgusted and incredibly sad.

[Smarmie Doofus]

16. Wiki says that some established homosexual patterns "died out"....

... after European ( i.e. Christian) colonization.

I like the choice of words ( "died out") given the topic we're discussing.


>>>Africa

Though often ignored or suppressed by European explorers and colonialists, homosexual expression in native Africa was also present and took a variety of forms. Anthropologists Stephen Murray and Will Roscoe reported that women in Lesotho engaged in socially sanctioned "long term, erotic relationships" called motsoalle.<141> E. E. Evans-Pritchard also recorded that male Azande warriors in the northern Congo routinely took on young male lovers between the ages of twelve and twenty, who helped with household tasks and participated in intercrural sex with their older husbands. The practice had died out by the early 20th century, after Europeans had gained control of African countries, but was recounted to Evans-Pritchard by the elders to whom he spoke.<142>
The first recorded homosexual couple in history is commonly regarded as Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum, an Egyptian male couple, who lived around the 2400 BCE. The pair are portrayed in a nose-kissing position, the most intimate pose in Egyptian art, surrounded by what appear to be their heirs.>>>>>

'Course Senegal is 95% Muslim ( I know some Senegalese... a fact that has added some extra interest in this topic for me). Seems as though there's a truckloads of history that have to be sorted out to really get a handle on this.

I'd like to be able to say that homosexuality is natural (which it certainly IS) and indigenous ( ditto) to that continent and that the kind of savagery we're seeing know is a foreign ( i.e. from Europe and/or the ME) import, but there are so many variables here that it would take a lifetime of scholarship to sort out.

It sucks... that's for sure. And we in the West will ignore it... that's for sure also.

[Lyric]

14. That particular passage reminds me of the rhetoric we hear here

from the right-wing. Think about what people like Falwell said after 9-11, and what fundie ministers STILL say to their congregations.

:(

[Echo In Light]

15. Ugh ... k/r