In Tucson, a young man, obviously severely mentally ill, did the shooting. Despite the climate of hate and the violent metaphors in political speech, it appears that his motives were primarily his own psychotic thoughts, not a political ideology.
Still, did the violence in the air have some non-specific effect, permissive if not outright encouraging to take action? "Don't retreat; reload?" It's nearly impossible to know.
In Uganda, it seems likely to be very different, although here too the officials are claiming that the murder was done by robbers, not anti-gay vigilantes responding to hate speech. This article from the New York Times based on a December 2009 interview with David Kato, the Uganda's most most prominent gay activist, suggests a different view.
At the time [of the interview], December 2009, Uganda’s Parliament was considering whether gay people should be executed. A Ugandan politician had crafted legislation, the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, after a visit from American evangelicals who advocated a program to “cure” homosexuality. The evangelicals later disavowed any intent to inspire the bill.
In fact, as soon as it was put forward, many human rights groups were forecasting what would happen next. They said that just the notion of the government’s seriously considering the death penalty for gay people would spur lynch mobs and spell open season on Uganda’s gays.
Last October, a Ugandan newspaper published a diatribe against homosexuals with Mr. Kato’s picture, and another, on the front page under the words: “Hang Them.” On Wednesday, he was attacked in his home during the day and beaten to death with a hammer. The police called it a robbery. Mr. Kato’s friends were emphatic: He was killed because he was gay. . . .
Uganda . . . doesn’t feel like an especially intolerant place. Most people here seem free to say what they want, even regarding President Yoweri Museveni, who has been in power 25 years straight.
But beneath the mild surface is an intensely strong current of religion. And in March 2009, the American evangelicals came to Uganda to discuss what they called “the gay agenda — that whole hidden and dark agenda,” and to assert that gay men often sodomized teenage boys.
Many Ugandans have told me that gay people, historically, had been tolerated in their villages. Perhaps they were looked at a little differently, but they were not viewed as a threat. But now, that had changed.
The Rev. Kapya Kaoma, a Zambian who attended the antigay meetings, said the Americans had underestimated the homophobia. “They didn’t know that when you speak about destroying the family to Africans, the response is a genocide,” he said. “The moment you speak about the family, you speak about the tribe, you speak about the future. Africans will fight to the death. When you speak like that, you invite the wrath.”
Don Schmierer, one of the evangelicals who visited in 2009, called Mr. Kato’s death “horrible” and said, “Naturally, I don’t want anyone killed, but I don’t feel I had anything to do with that.” He added, “I don’t spread hate.”
On Friday, Mr. Kato was buried in his home village. Several hundred attended, including a priest who told the mourners to repent. The Anti-Homosexuality Bill is still being discussed and may become law this year.
Re-read the quote from Rev. Kaoma: "They didn't know that when you speak about destroying the family to Africans, the response is genocide." This captures the problem. When Sarah Palin uses gun metaphors, they are just part of her daily life (or so she would have us believe, although some have questioned, after watching her hunting moose on her TV special about Alaska, how much she really knows about how to shoot a gun).
But to others, with different experiences of guns, it incites different feelings and associations. When you have someone unknowingly trampling into the culture -- or the mental illness -- of another, you may trigger an effect you never intended.
Speech is powerful. David Kato told the Times interviewer that, after he held Uganda's first gay rights news conference several years ago, police officers had broken his arm and cracked him in the nose. "He talked fast, constantly scanning the darkness. He struck me as clearly brave and deeply frightened."
And now he is dead -- as predicted and as feared. And so are six people in Tucson. Neither the right-wingers nor the evangelicals intended for anyone to die. But words of hatred and violence often have horrible unintended consequences.
Ralph
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