COVID-19 and How It Impacts My Life: Uganda Queer Short Stories - Desert Island Series

COVID-19 and How It Impacts My Life: Uganda Queer Short Stories - Desert Island Series

Bernard

The Desert Island Series are about COVID-19 and daily activities of life among the LGBTIQQ of Uganda. These are radical compositions countering deficit narratives used to justify othering, marginalization, externalisation and peripheralisation. This is an art of crafting, claiming and consolidating space for Queer persons to talk about, demand and recognise how they can promote self-determination and quality life. In the stories we celebrate innovations, executions and translations that culminate into lived realities and destinies.

Moderator and Interviewer: Tom Muyunga-Mukasa

Featuring: Any person willing to tell a story

Synopsis

Meet Bin Suleiman or as many call him Bernard, an adult male gay bottom Ugandan with many older siblings as he puts it. The father is Moslem and the mother is from Catholic. Bernard chose his mother’s religion later in life and goes by the name Bernie. He uses the following pronouns: he, him, they, their and them comfortably. The father was the Secretary General of an Electoral Oversight Organisation in Uganda and the mother is an advocate at the High Court as well as a professor of law at Makerere University. Bernie is a graduate in Law and a counsel whose practice offices have contracts with different government departments. Bernie is sharing his struggles, tribulations, triumphs and lessons during COVID-19 restrictions.

Tom: Are you happy we are doing the Desert Island Series and please tell us about yourself? 

Bernie: Thank you. I am Kawooya Bin Suleiman Bernard Kasujja.

Tom: Tell us about the Bin Suleiman Bernard combo!

Bernie: Hahaha! You caught it! It did not slip your ear Tom! Typical of you! My naming story has to include how my mother and father decided to have three children. My mother joined University when my father was a lecturer there. My father taught for two years and he had to leave Uganda for further studies at Yale and Duke in USA. My father opted for international jobs with World Bank. While my father was working outside of Uganda, he used to return to Uganda briefly. My mother and father kept correspondences as friends and this no doubt blossomed into spousal relationships. My biological twin siblings and I; are the product of this relationship. I took up Islam but when I joined university I embraced Catholicism. I asked my father and he agreed but I kept my Islam names which actually mean son of Suleiman. I took up the name Bernard for various reasons. One of the reasons is because I embraced Catholicism during Pope Benedict’s time. I looked up the Saints with the help of my mother’s brother who is a Roman Catholic priest and the help of the University Chaplain then.

Tom: ...Well...any trivia….or gossip?

Bernie: The boy I had my first anal receptive debut is the man who married me! My partner is my confidante too and he is called Tom Ochola.

Tom: You went through all the trouble looking up St. Bernard, Bernie..... (…rolls eyes….).

Bernie: I read the Kampala Gay News Letter and the Kampala Sexuality Journal blogs….hahahahaha….! I wonder why someone goes into all the trouble to write. That motivated me to be a reader too. I read widely about St. Bernard Clairvaux and know by heart his treatise on grace and free-will. I have used the concept of grace and free will to argue for my Masters of Law Thesis. Instead of using Bernard of Clairvaux elements of ascetics and mysticism, I used the will behind omission and commission. I went further to show how practice and theory could be used to give new interpretation of the law. There is positive and normative law. We have tended to apply law according to older judgments but our times are different. I see this as a reluctance to push the status quo. When we act even if it may not be comfortable for our structured legal premises, we are being prodded by justice. It is Martin Luther who said: “let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

In doing justice we are actually contemplating at a philosophical level in the quest of truth. We are making our will focus attention on good deeds or a good turn. This is the Gospel in the corridors of law courts. Bernard of Clairvaux speaks of three species of freedom: natural (naturae); that, given by grace (gratiae); that of life or glory (vitae vel gloriae). He derived them from the Trinity by means of analogy. This classification of freedom enabled him to analyze the essence of humans anthropologically, psychologically and theologically. The three species of freedom establish the possibility to escape necessity, sin, and suffering. The natural freedom, which we all still possess, is realized by means of liberum arbitrium, the foundation of every free act. The quality of liberum arbitirium makes an actor virtuous or sinful, worthy to be priced or punished. 

The two remaining species, according to Bernard of Clairvaux, are lost because of the original sin. That is why we need to engage in activities that channel pleasures in the benefit of rational considerations and admonitions. We need gratuitously given divine grace in order to overcome sinful desires. 

In my case, I emphasized the need for grooming people through consistent work, learning and being accountable. This was the essence of discipline. I learnt more about the need for discipline in the things we do from St. Bernard. That is I chose the name and him to be my patron saint.

Tom: ...Well...can you repeat what you just said please in plain English for my readers? You still have not told us why you are happy being here with us on this show!

Bernie: I am so happy you have this platform! It depicts gay people are well intentioned people. That is why I was so happy to be interviewed.

Tom: Oh, that is sweet of you......hahahahaha.....

Bernie: I read previous series and I echo their sentiments. I am so happy sharing with you. We need to show case examples that promote understanding of crisis, sexuality, orientation, gender, patriarchy and giving precarious femininity or masculinity for that matter the kick in the butt!

Tom: Wow! Tell us a little bit about that moment in your childhood in school that made you aware of your sense of agency and autonomy.

Bernie: Ha! Tom! ........ (Silence...mulling over something)......

One day, a long time back, our mother had gone for about three months to study. I am the bigger boy so it was upon me to look after my siblings and make sure we finished our homework in time for a very favourite TV show then. I still do not know how I made it but those three months flew so fast and in no time our mother returned with news that she had finished working on her Post Doctorate studies. Later on in life she told me she saw very earlier on that I was the man show could entrust her children with. That lifted me so high and from then on I made sure I never disappointed our mother. In fact she was the one I told I was gay and romantically felt for fellow males. We talked about it and the consequences to her, my father and all my friends. She told me she was aware of my sexuality and admired how I balanced my social life. She gave me more parent-to-son talk.  

Tom: Let us talk about COVID-19. What tip are you giving to families in their homes?

Bernie: I echo what I read in the previous series. Indeed we are now living under restrictions which in turn curtail our mobility, individuals at family or household levels need to do a self-assessment. It is our practices or behaviours that either expose or protect one against COVID-19 indeed.

Tom: Thank you Bernie! How is COVID-19 affecting you or your work in anyway?

Bernie: COVID-19 has made me busier and better focused. I am part of a team providing pro-bono services to persons involved in domestic abuses but want mediation and counselling. This is how much COVID-19 is exposing bitterness among people. So, we hope that our legal clinics are a much needed reconciliatory services.

Tom: We are about to wind up. This being Desert Island we give you a chance to choose an activity to do were you to find yourself in isolation but with all the comforts one needs in life. Also give a last tip to our readers on COVID-19 prevention.

Bernie: Aahhhhhhhh! You are crazy Tom! 

Tom: That I am!

Hahahahahahahaha!

Bernie: If I were to be at the Desert Island, I want to come along with Tom if it is acceptable. He needs the break away from architectural drawings and designing!  Oh! The last piece! Wash the hands with soap for about 30 seconds; social distancing is a must; wear that mask and stay home if you must.

Tom: Thank you so much Bernie, I hope you will like us to make more series of this with you?

Bernie: Yes, anytime buddy, anytime..... Cheers! You should have Tom here too. Send my regards to that person you are yet to show us to!