Christmas Message Of His Grace Dr. Cyprian Kizito Lwanga of Kampala Archdiocese - Uganda

Dear Sisters and Brother in Christ, Happy Christmas to you all.

1.  Once again, we come to the much anticipated moment when we experience the Joy of Christmas. As we celebrate Christmas this Year 2012, our attention is drawn to two significant dates for the people of Uganda and for the Universal Catholic Church. On 9^th October 2012, Uganda celebrated 50 years of her political independence. Whereas on 11^th October 2012, the Catholic Church celebrated 50 years commemorating the official opening of Vatican II Council.

The two institutions, Church and State have had a considerable contribution to the development of Uganda through the official proclamations which act as a lens for the protection and promotion of the dignity of the human person. It should be noted that the 1995 Constitution of Uganda devotes the whole of chapter four to the question of human dignity. In the Catholic Church, the Vatican II constitutions and decrees especially Gaudium et Spes, which is considered as the ‘Magna Charta’, the charter of human dignity develop this theme of human dignity with such eloquence which makes the church an authentic “expert in humanity.”

2.    Christmas reminds us of Human Dignity

As we celebrate Christmas, this topic of human dignity comes to the fore because it is constituted by the mystery of the incarnation, when God became a human person. By taking on human flesh, God identified himself with humans and, in so doing, he raised our dignity among all creatures. But also this demands of us that we should recognize him in every other human being, regardless of ethnicity, creed, colour or social condition. When we do this, we create a space for God in our daily life. We become the leaven of a new society, where everyone is welcomed, accepted and loved. We can then join hands with one another and work together to create our world into a place where justice, peace, understanding and forgiveness shine out. Christmas is the point at which God and human beings meet, in the person of Jesus Christ, who is the subject of admiration and reflection for believers and non-believers alike. This is true in the revelation of his divine mission when he said: “I have come that they may have life and have it in abundance” (Jn 10:10). Therefore, Jesus’ coming should always bring life in our societies  families and in individual lives. However, as we celebrate this Christmas, we have a number of challenges in our society.

3.      Challenges in our Society:

a)    UNEASINESS IN SOCIETY HAMPERS A TRULY CHRISTMAS CELEBRATIONS

At this time in our history, we cannot ignore the increasing level of restlessness in our country. The statistics are frightening. They indicate that the frequency of violent crimes against our fellow human beings is on the rise and many people feel vulnerable.

For example: It is reported that 41% of all Ugandan women experience domestic violence with research from Mulago Prenatal Clinic indicating that 40.7% of their patients had experienced violence the year prior to conception alone. In 2011 as a result of domestic violence, 251 women were murdered. And only 181 cases were investigated. And the 2012 report done on the Economic Cost of Domestic Violence in Uganda by the Center for Domestic Violence Prevention (CEDOVIP) found out that government loses an estimated Sh.57.9 billion annually to deal with domestic violence. Again as with violence, the most recent crime report shows that killings by iron bars and strangulation contribute to 69 per cent (1,900) of all homicide cases in the country. 

b)     H.I.V/AIDS PREVALENCE

Uganda’s HIV/AIDS prevalence rate has shot up from 6.4% in 2005 to 7.3% as of September last year 2011. The prevalence rate has increased from 7.5% to 8.3% among women compared to 5-6.1% among men. Over 130,000 new HIV infections are recorded in our country each year. Most HIV infections in Uganda are spread by promiscuous practices of casual sex and unfaithfulness. The Church’s teaching against HIV/AIDS infection has always remained faithful, love and abstinence, hence ABC: Abstain Be Faithful and be Christo-centric, that is respond to Christ’s invitation to all of us to be holy as He is with the Father, in fighting against the disease.

c)      THE YOUTH

The youth in Uganda as a specific social category is burdened with risks and uncertainties. Many feel alienated and there are no clear strategies to help them make the right choices, protect them from exploitation and neglect and ensure their participation in all spheres of society. Whereas a society that cuts itself off from its youth breaks its lifeline; it is condemned to bleed to death.

d)     HEIGHTENED INTOLERANCE

The incidents of heightened intolerance of one another are more acute than ever before; land-grabbing has not eased despite legislation; poverty levels are heightened, promiscuity is on the rise, iron-bar hit men are becoming rampant; and the list can go on. This does not mean that there are no innumerable positive things that are happening all around us which need to be highlighted and promoted. But, in cases like these it is necessary to be cynical, in order to help ourselves appreciate the magnitude of the efforts required to bringing about a change. And in our particular situation, to help us determine what needs to be done in order to live fully the message of Christmas.

e)      HOMOSEXUALITY

These days, strange stories cover the International News. In Europe, for instance, they speak of marriages between people of the same sex. May God forbid such strange and foolish ideas among our African people! In the Gospel of Mark (10; 6ff), we read: "But at the beginning of creation God 'made them male and female'. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife; and the two will become one flesh; so they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate." Now, how can we talk of marriage between people of the same sex?

f)       MURDERS

Since Cain who murdered his brother Abel, Murder has spread throughout the World, The recent drama in America has reminded us of this horrific reality, especially when it aims at killing defenseless people. In our own Country too, we are well aware of the powers of evil spreading among us. Why should it be like that? We should never be accomplices of such evils; we should rather denounce the murderers and bring them to legal justice, not to mob justice however. Nowadays many innocent lives are being lost as a result of abortions and mob justice, I call upon each one of us to see it that this comes to an end. Remember what the Lord said: Do not kill! (Exodus 25:13).

4.      WAY FORWARD AND CONCLUSION

All these challenges I have mentioned call for Reconciliation and justice to obtain true peace in our country. I am strongly convinced that every person and every community, whether religious, civil, educational or cultural wants peace and true peace. But we cannot obtain this peace unless we have reconciled and availed justice in our societies.

 I therefore call upon all people of Uganda, people of good will to seek reconciliation, first of all with God our creator, secondly with our fellow human beings and society at large so as to achieve genuine peace at all levels and to always be just in our families, at our places of work and in our entire society.

I greet H. E Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, his wife and family, and all members of his Government

His majesty Kabaka Ronald Muwenda Mutebi II and all Cultural leaders

ALL Religious leaders in Uganda

And all people of Uganda, Citizens and other Nationalities living in our country

        To you all, I wish a Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year 2013 with many   God’s   Blessings 

Ugandans demanded equality before Independence

A. J. Bwangatto

As Uganda race forward to the celebration of the Golden jubilee of her independence, a lot has been written by many people about the history of Uganda and the events that shaped our independence and post-independence era. But the way our history is written and presented, it perpetuates a subversive discourse which is precarious to the unity of the country. Almost all our history is presented in the model of Buganda/Baganda and the rest of Uganda/Ugandans. During my O' level history lesson, there was always a topic about “collaborators and resistors of colonialism.” It is argued that some ethnic communities in Uganda collaborated with the colonial administration as “quasi colonialists themselves” and others resisted fiercely this whole colonial project. Our teacher liked this topic and he would retain us in class even during break-time. This discourse of collaboration and resistance to colonialism is perpetuated in our education system and social consciousness as a claim of stating historical facts, but I fear there are adverse effects to the unity of the country. This lingering discourse of collaborators and resistors has been perpetuated for decades in our school curriculum and the curriculum experts cannot detect the dangers embedded in such thoughts as each generation of Ugandan students are fed on the same. My contention is that by presenting Ugandans in such dichotomies as resistors and collaborators of colonialism, we are perpetuating divisions among ourselves even describing and identifying ourselves as tribalists. This again perpetuates the mistrust and hatred among the citizens and the projects of patriotism will never achieve any objective. I feel as we come close to the 50th independence anniversary of our country, we need to read and re-write our history with national lenses having a view of highlighting the contribution of all Ugandans in the fight for independence and development of the country. All the people in Uganda suffered the consequences of direct foreign domination and currently we are all suffering from clandestine foreign powers and ideologies. Our mindset is corrupted and the values of nationalism are completely deficient! We need to present ourselves as one people working to liberate ourselves from the yoke of colonialism in its overt and covert forms. 

When we if scale back into our history the British colonial administration in Uganda effectively barred Ugandans from participating in the higher levels of commerce, industry, and agriculture, thus precluding the emergence of an indigenous class with a stake in the country’s economy and, hence, its social and political stability. If we follow the progress of events in the colonial era, we notice a systematic technique to marginalise the Africans and relegate them to the periphery of society of which they formed a majority. There was tough resistance as the unfortunate events unfolded in the course of the colonial period with their resultant effects. As early as the 1890s the colonial state began excluding Africans from the processing and marketing stages of production, the most lucrative in the colony’s commodity-based economy. Kabaka Mwanga tried to buy a saw-mill but was prevented by the colonial authorities from doing so. In 1909, Governor Bell ordered the destruction of hand gins, which handled some thirty-five percent of cotton produced in the colony and nothing was done to give the hand ginners alternative employment in the processing sector. In 1913, Kina Kulya Growers’ Society of Ssingo Farmers was discouraged from marketing its own cotton. The Cotton Rules of 1918 restricted middlemen from operating within five miles of a ginnery, all of which were owned by foreigners. The Buganda Growers’ Association tried to market its own cotton in 1923 but was discouraged by the government. Four years later, Seperiya Kaddumukasa tried to erect a ginnery on his land but was refused a license. In 1920 the Buganda Cotton Company was prevented from ginning and marketing its own cotton. In 1932, when the Uganda Cotton Society tried to obtain high prices by ginning and marketing its own cotton and eliminating the Indian middlemen, it was not allowed to do so. In the same year, the Native Produce Marketing Ordinance (Coffee) curtailed the buying activities of African businessmen. 

There was a growing movement in the colonial period to press for equality and fair treatment of the local people by the colonial administration. There were growing disparities between the Africans and the foreigners and the pressure was mounting to the colonial administration to exercise fairness in the running of the economy. This quest for fairness in economic matters corresponds with what is known generally, that the national economy, as it is the product of men who work together in the community of the state, has no other end than to secure without interruption the material conditions in which the individual life of the citizen may fully develop. Consequently, in 1938 the Baana ba Kintu (The Descendants of Kintu) Association was brought into being partly to address the problem of excluding Africans from marketing commodities. The Bataka Party, building on the Bataka movement of the 1920s, was founded in 1946 to fight the exploitation of the Asian cotton buyers. When the cotton hold-up, that is, a refusal by peasants to sell cotton, was organised, their demand was to participate in the marketing of agricultural commodities. The Ugandan authorities, instead of curtailing foreign control of the economy and encouraging Africans to participate, increased levels of immigration from 1949 to 1959. European immigration grew from 3,448 to 10,866, an increase of 215 percent, and Indo-Pakistani from 35,215 to 71,933, a growth of 105 percent. The banking system was controlled by British and Indian based banks and they did not lend to many Africans although they operated on an accumulation of African peasant savings. In 1949, Ignatius Musaazi called for the use of peasant stabilisation funds to create an agricultural bank. By that time Africans had been left so far behind in business expertise and capital that they could not compete with Indo-Pakistanis and Europeans. Africans could not participate in the lucrative wholesale trade because the colonial government issued wholesale licences only to traders with permanent building of stone or concrete and very few Africans had such buildings. By 1959, when a trade boycott of all foreign-owned stores was proclaimed by Augustine Kamya of the Uganda National Movement, Africans handled less than ten percent of national trade.

With such a background, we could without doubt identify the problems which independence would bring. Ugandans were handed a country with no integrated economy geared to the satisfaction of domestic demands; no indigenous property owning class with an economic stake in the country, that is, a class that would have had to lose by the occurrence of social conflict, and no consolidated ruling class that could offer a strong base for social stability. This was an apparent recipe for violence because of the sharp stratifications existent in the Ugandan society at that time and when race decided a man’s place in society. By then, society was stratified in three grades: Europeans coming first, Asians second and the Africans were at the bottom. This racial division was extended to salary structures, financial provisions for education, housing and all other kinds of privileges which created envy and animosity. This explains the euphoria that followed the expulsion of Asians by President Amin. Many people in Uganda interpreted it as a reversal of colonial injustices. And Amin was applauded and credited as one individual who tore down the edifice of colonialism. Our history shows that all Ugandans are victims of a foreign ideologies and interventions and must stand as one to work for the development of the country. For God and My Country.

Christianity and Communism are Incomparable

I am prompted to write in response to an article “Is Christianity doomed just like communism?” by Allan Tacca which appeared in the Sunday Monitor of April 15, 2012. The article in question is interesting to read and I appreciate the creativity of the author in weaving all sorts of ideas to entertain his readers. According to the language of that text, it is more of an informative text rather than anything else. By informative I mean, it is intended only to provide some knowledge and this is juxtaposed to performative texts which intends to put in place either a policy or a working system!
However, there are some incongruences within the text which are irreconcilable. First, the comparison made between Christianity and Communism betrays all the rules of logic. How could Tacca compare a Socio-Political system (Communism) with a religious system (Chrisitianity)? The two have different foundations and motivations and aspirations for their existence. Whereas communism is rooted in human history and is solely attached to that history with mundane aspirations, Christianity trascends human history and projects itself to eternity with everlasting aspirations for its adherents. Christianity and communism are fundamentally incompatible - one a spiritual creed, the other materialist. Christianity lays down that a man’s responsibility to his neighbour is personal, a matter for his individual conscience, while communism decrees that all duties are collective, to be enforced by the state. At first glance, communism may look like the fairer system, and Christianity the more selfish. That’s why Tacca wrote that “…the once ruthless Castros were more polite and flexible than the Pope.” But we have to contend that, communism and its blood-brother, fascism, have been responsible - in Asia, Europe, Africa and South America - for more human misery over the past century than any other systems of belief thought up by man. By denying human beings their individuality, all totalitarian systems brutalise the human condition, reducing everyone in their sway to the status of ants, or cogs in a machine. Christianity teaches that each of us is a moral being, responsible for our actions to our Maker, and individually bound to love our neighbours as ourselves. I don’t know what motivated Tacca really to make such an absurd comparison!
Secondly, the reference to Christianity was only denoting Christianity as expressed and practiced in the Catholic Church. The evidence within the text suggest that his objective was a veiled attack on the doctrines, practices and traditions and leadership of the Catholic Church. In the opening sentence he said “…Pope Benedict should not forget that his organisation has also accumulated plenty of soot.”By sarcastically referring to the Church of Jesus Christ as “Pope Benedict’s organisation” is indicative of his impoverished knowledge about the nature of the Church, its history, its constitution, its mission on earth and its ultimate end. Thirdly, he clandestinely, made a lot of bewildering claims against the practices of Catholics that leaves any sober mind questioning why! His passive reference to Msgr. Ngobya with ridicule and cynicism is a sign of deep seated hatred for Catholic practices. He said that: “…A priest here who died 26 years ago has been exhumed and could eventually get elevated to the rank of a saint. Among other requirements, there must be a miracle. Will that miracle be the departed man’s heart, brain and liver that are said to be in pristine shape? What if the miracle is formalin or a fiction? Apparently, he has already been dismembered, and parts of his body will be kept as fetishist relics by Catholic officialdom. Touching his coffin means good luck. We are in the realm of medieval superstition and the occult. It is a very archaic world, a Catholic world.” With such a remark, he relegates Catholic practices to medieval times of supersitions and fetish beliefs. As a novelist and socio-political commentator, what normative criteria does he apply in evaluating religious practices of believers who belong to a certain community of faith? Who instituted him to critique Catholic beliefs and practices? Whom does he represent in this project?
Again, by reading his text, one observes that he participate in a lingering universal discourse which is motivated by militant intellectualism that draws its meaning and existence in critiquing anything Catholic just because it is Catholic. Tacca uses the same language as that used in that anti-Catholic universal discourse that trashes the Church and christianity altogether: He refers to Christianity as “organised religion” and he expresses “rigidity of the Pope towards his flock” and he refers to those distinctly Catholic practices such as “…the marriage of priests and the ordination of women.” He bends so low as to participate in that cheap redundant and stale rhetoric which claims that “…the central beliefs of Christianity – creation by God, Christ’s virgin birth and resurrection, and heaven for us after death – are no longer credible.” I would like to request Tacca, who claims that the central beliefs of Christianity are no longer credible to furnish us with the details of the standard that he applies to consider what we believe and practice as credible or no longer credible. Tacca in his writing behaves like a self-appointed jury who handles a case beyond his competence and jurisdiction. And he thinks that any set of ideas that wobbles in his finite mind is true and worthy of public consumption.
It is prudent and necessary that institutions and communities that provide millions of people with meaning, hope, and support to their lives and experiences be given due respect and a second-thought. Tacca writes with that stinking pride and self-aggrandisement as he attempts to deconstruct the tenets of Christianity without providing any meaningful alternative. He is just an idealist author who writes with less reflection on the significance and consequences of his writings! According to the article of Tacca which exposed his deficient knowledge of the Catholic Church and Christianity in general, I propose that he assigns himself some homework on Christian Theology so that we could engage in a lasting and fruitful conversation.

Building a Culture of Law-Governed State

Building a culture of a law-governed state


I have read many opinion articles in the New Vision Online and each has a recommendation, an explanation or as the column suggests, each has an opinion about a certain aspect of Uganda’s numerous challenges. I have gone through the list of articles one week, and it is quite diverse with authors making attempts at highlighting our problems and also offering some useful insights. I have found this particular undertaking very exciting and it has renewed my hopes for a future for our children. This is motivated by the fact that if we get more enlightened and informed voices on the salient issues affecting our country, perhaps, we could realise a desirable social change. I have read and critically evaluated the arguments in the following opinion articles:
• Time to revisit Museveni HIV/AIDS approach
• Do human rights abusers and despots live only in Africa?
• Maximum restraint and reconciliation are inevitable
• The increasing commercial sex work: What can government do?
• Time to deliver for girls, women
• A4C actions foreign backed
• Ugandans need skilling
• Use Kony film to up tourism numbers to Uganda
• Step up fight against Tuberculosis
• Political leaders need dialogue, not hostility
All these writings and the ideas expressed therein are good in themselves and they highlight the problems that we face as a country and the possible solutions. This means that many Ugandans are conscious of the challenges that we face as a nation and they try to suggest thinkable solutions that we can apply to overcome them. But they cannot translate into policy action since the constitutional infrastructure is enfeebled by individuals who place themselves above it. I find it that many Ugandan writers use informative language other than the performative which ought to influence policy and the direction of national events.
However I would like to maintain that the one particular aspect which is critically important to the development and stability of any country, but missing in many of our writings and speeches, is the right culture that supports a law-governed state. When the current constitution was enacted on September 22, 1995 and promulgated on October 8, 1995 it created the understanding that finally Uganda has become a sustainable, just, law-governed society founded on constitutionalism. Those of us who believe in the strict following of the rule of law thought that the constitution is the supreme arbiter and guide in all people’s lives and experiences. But on many occasions it has been trashed, altered, reviewed in order to serve some narrow interests. If one follows the events as reported in the media about land grabbing, demonstrations, protests, police brutality, oil deals, power-struggles among politicians and civil servants and the blatant culture of corruption at all levels, is all indicative of a vacuum in our rule-of-law structures.
The Ugandan constitution of 1995 is built on those properties that over a long period have been taken to define the very essence of constitutionalism, that is, constitution-making power of the people and about which there is a broad consensus. If we take the following tenets as basic to modern constitutionalism: First, the claim that the arbitrary will of the political rulers must be submitted to rules. This could be expressed differently as a government under law, a rule that governs the governors or in a more pointed version, the rule of law and not of men. Second, that constitutionalism implies the principle of popular sovereignty. This follows from the premise that in modern societies, of which Uganda claims a position, the ‘people’ is the ultimate of sovereign power; by sovereign I mean being self-determining, self-governing or independent. The third essential element of constitutionalism is the idea of limited government. This means that both the purposes of government, and the instruments available to power-holders to realise those purposes, are de-lineated – something implicit in the term ‘constituted power’. This entails some kind of separation of powers. Again constitutional government calls for rules which define accountability of the rulers to the citizenry.
As Uganda celebrates 50 years of Independence, we, Ugandans must re-invent ourselves as a law-governed society. It has been observed that almost all developed and emerging economies where poverty is virtually eradicated and people are lifted out of poverty, the secret is through the development of a strong law-governed state with individual freedoms, property rights and civil society institutions. If we are to set priorities for the next fifty (50) years of Uganda’s independence, our primary concern should be to build Ugandan values and build a law-governed state as part of the social vision to characterise our national identity. The rest will automatically suit!