David Kato, Gay Rights Activist, Is Killed in Uganda - NYTimes.com

David Kato, Gay Rights Activist, Is Killed in Uganda - NYTimes.com

"My underlying premise is that there is something inherently mystifying in a direct confrontation with it [violence]: the overpowering horror of violent acts and empathy with the victims inexorably function as a lure which prevents us from thinking. A dispassionate conceptual development of the typology of violence must by definition ignore its traumatic impact" (Zizek 4).

The challenge presented by Zizek is a difficult one: how can we not be horrified by the senseless murder of David Kato? I, for one, cannot escape from the grief, disappointment, and anger of another life lost to closed-mindedness and intolerance. I can, however, use the conceptual framework of violence offered by Zizek to move beyond my instinctual reaction for a "SOS call to stop violence" and proceed to an "analysis of that other SOS, the complex interaction of the three modes of violence."

The basic fact of the physical, subjective violence of Kato's murder is clear. Nothing more needs to be said here. The objective, ideological violence of the hate crime against an openly gay man in Uganda is also clear, as is the role of the American Evangelicals who arrived in Uganda to perpetuate their Christianity-driven homophobia. The third piece of Zizek's triumvirate of violence, systemic violence, is also visible in the murder of David Kato. It seems that Ugandan political leaders were contemplating a new law that would sentence openly gay men and women to the death penalty. Such intolerance for basic human rights by members of the Ugandan political system basically sanctioned and encouraged the horrible act undertaken by Kato's killers.

A thorough analysis of violence must, as Zizek alludes, take into account the interaction of these three forms of violence. I realize that my analysis of Kato's murder using Zizek's conceptual framework of violence is brief. However, I believe that it can serve as a useful starting point for providing a more complete account of hate crimes against gay men and women and make visible the invisible forms of violence.