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!

Mourn Oh! Powerless African Union!

The Voiceless and Powerless African Union
Fr. Ambrose J. Bwangatto
I read with sympathy when the African union delegation was denied landing permission to Libya by the big powers who are pounding Ghadafi with sophisticated guns and the innocent civilians who are bearing the consequences of a war they never planned. The AU committee in their communication desperately said: “The committee, in conformity with resolution 1973(2011) of the United Nations Security Council, requested for the required permission for the flight carrying its members to Libya in order to fulfill their mandate. The committee was denied permission.” By the way, even Uganda ministers Sam Kutesa (Foreign Affairs) and Amama Mbabazi (Security), who represented President Museveni, were part of that delegation. If one takes a cursory look at the AU which is a huge block of 53 African states, numerically, they outnumber the United Nations Security Council which is composed of just five permanent members — China, France, Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States — and ten non-permament members Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Colombia, Gabon, Germany, India, Lebanon, Nigeria, Portugal and South Africa. So, in principle the United Nations Security Council is controlled permanently by just five countries which determine its core business and the security issues in the world which need attention. This explains why the “UN Security Council” assessed Libya’s security situation as grave and immediately voted for a no-fly zone, a measure which was implemented with swift and rapid action and force. I was thrilled by President Museveni’s extensive statement about Libya, which appeared in the main daily newspapers on Tuesday, in which he tried to make a careful and objective assessment of parties in the Libyan conflict without siding with anyone completely, and only ended by saying: “It is high time we did more careful thinking.” Museveni, in his statement, appeared more of an idealist than a pragmatist he is known to be.
Anyway, following the development of events over Libya in the past few days, one would be prompted to ask why would the African Union not handle this problem as President Museveni is claiming that it is an African problem which requires an African solution? If the AU would be actively involved in Somalia which is destabilising the maritime business in the Indian ocean, why would the AU not handle Libyan question as well? And why would Africans ask for permission to fly within Africa? All these and other nagging questions would be given a simple reply: Africa is perceived in the global discourse as still being under tutelage. This myth that Africans are learners is a concept that dominates the consciousness of the developed world and hence relegate our voices to the margins. Even issues typically African will not be accorded world attention unless they are articulated by the voices of the powerful master in the west. We as Africans are rendered voiceless and when we try to talk our voice is drowned by the loud voice of the powerful master. But this trend of events could not be allowed to continue eternally.
Africa must act. Africa must develop strong systems of governance coupled with improved infrastructural development. African leaders must invest in their populations and have a strong and vibrant skilled manpower. It is practically the same as treason for an African leader whether in politics, religion, business, or culture to feel secure by keeping their money in Swiss Banks and invest in the London Stock Exchange and buy a home in a Scandinavian or European country. Africans must invest heavily in the health sector and hence control the sickness of the population, otherwise we shall continue to be mocked as a sick and nauseating continent. Since education and research are the real tools to turn around the fortunes of any population, educational curriculum should be revised to address this requirement. Without a vibrant research culture, there is little chance that meaningful development would be achieved. Research is important because it engages the mind in generating ideas, and the hands in experimenting them. Africa will participate in the world discourse as a meaningful partner, if there is some significant development in all its dimensions. None will respect or listen to any leader whose middle class is the political elite around him and its cronies, whose country lacks infrastructural development, whose population is sick, poor, hungry, emaciated and ignorant. It is not helpful for Africa to keep blasting and criticising the west for whatever they do to Africa, rather Africa must look for answers to get out of this humiliating situation of marginality and how to achieve the development of the continent.

Ugandan political candidates advised

Propose development policies not emotions in campaigns

Fr. Ambrose J. Bwangatto

Uganda has officially started the season of political campaigns with fanfare, drama and bickering between and within contending parties. Such a scenario is expected especially in political pluralism where the major operating premise is exclusion of the opponent. In the process of competing for political offices, candidates struggle to exclude others from political competition and political parties seek to exclude others from attaining any political advantage. The means used in this process vary and this tells why some pessimists, after observing politicians, conclude that politics is a dirty game. Since politics revolves around power and its trappings, political candidates pay their particular focus to attaining and maintaining power. This implies that politicians in power strive to maintain it and those without power endeavor to get hold of it. This situation makes politics to be so competitive and politicians to be so creative to achieve their ambition. In politics, the basic consideration is that the end justifies the means to achieve that end. This kind of argument would be the motivating factor for the many rosy promises the candidates are to make to the electorate, however unrealistic some may be.
Towards the year 2000, we witnessed to mantra-like slogans which characterized almost all political speeches: Clean water for all by the 2000; Education for all by the year 2000; Health For all by the year 2000; Good life for all by the year 2000. Ten years after, we are yet to achieve some of these promises. So in these campaigns, Presidential candidates have started with promises like granting federo to Buganda, cutting the cabinet size, free education, restoring the defunct parastatal bodies, re-instating presidential term limits, zero tolerance to corruption and its causes, equitable development, a just and fair land policy and jobs for all citizens and many more such promises. But the question is how realistic and fundamental are these promises to the life of the ordinary Ugandans and the mechanisms proposed to achieve them?
When one traverses the different parts of Uganda, the stark reality is that our worst challenge, as a country at the moment, is the level of wallowing poverty and underdevelopment in which thousands of people are still trapped. It is heartrending to notice the high level of dependency where the fortunate few Ugandans have to sustain whole clans and villages in their day-to-day economic needs. Such a scenario suggests that individual Ugandans seek to claim economic independence so as to achieve their full humanity and integrity. When we talk of economic growth, it should be related with human progress and a resultant quality of life. And the statistical data provided by government with projected economic growth rate requires to be translated into people’s actual lives. This is so because it is assumed that the faster an economy is growing the better off people are; and a rising GNP is taken to mean that a health and people’s lives are improving. But given our situation in the country, the life of the ordinary Ugandans is yet to improve to acceptable human standards.
Therefore, this carries a number of consequences for the candidates vying for the various political offices. (1) The electorate would like to have their questions answered in the policies and programs of the various party manifestos and how these would be achieved other than being drawn into insignificant personal differences between candidates. (2) Campaigns must be governed by rational arguments about real issues affecting the life of ordinary Ugandans other emotional flare-ups of politicians. (3) The various candidates must be proposing policies and developments programs and the challenges which face the nation and rationally deconstructing or ripping through alternative policies and programs of their opponents other than discussing trivial issues of personalities. (4) Ugandans as a decent people deserve pragmatic proposals from their leaders other than being drawn into non-constructive arguments which will never be realized in their daily ordinary life experiences.
Despite their differences, political candidates need to identify a common ground for the good of the nation and by acknowledging their differences; they can find common premises on which to work together for democratic changes and participation. The guiding principle for all candidates, despite their personal egos, should be to have a free, democratic and prosperous Uganda!

Ugandan political candidates advised

Propose development policies not emotions in campaigns

Fr. Ambrose J. Bwangatto

Uganda has officially started the season of political campaigns with fanfare, drama and bickering between and within contending parties. Such a scenario is expected especially in political pluralism where the major operating premise is exclusion of the opponent. In the process of competing for political offices, candidates struggle to exclude others from political competition and political parties seek to exclude others from attaining any political advantage. The means used in this process vary and this tells why some pessimists, after observing politicians, conclude that politics is a dirty game. Since politics revolves around power and its trappings, political candidates pay their particular focus to attaining and maintaining power. This implies that politicians in power strive to maintain it and those without power endeavor to get hold of it. This situation makes politics to be so competitive and politicians to be so creative to achieve their ambition. In politics, the basic consideration is that the end justifies the means to achieve that end. This kind of argument would be the motivating factor for the many rosy promises the candidates are to make to the electorate, however unrealistic some may be.
Towards the year 2000, we witnessed to mantra-like slogans which characterized almost all political speeches: Clean water for all by the 2000; Education for all by the year 2000; Health For all by the year 2000; Good life for all by the year 2000. Ten years after, we are yet to achieve some of these promises. So in these campaigns, Presidential candidates have started with promises like granting federo to Buganda, cutting the cabinet size, free education, restoring the defunct parastatal bodies, re-instating presidential term limits, zero tolerance to corruption and its causes, equitable development, a just and fair land policy and jobs for all citizens and many more such promises. But the question is how realistic and fundamental are these promises to the life of the ordinary Ugandans and the mechanisms proposed to achieve them?
When one traverses the different parts of Uganda, the stark reality is that our worst challenge, as a country at the moment, is the level of wallowing poverty and underdevelopment in which thousands of people are still trapped. It is heartrending to notice the high level of dependency where the fortunate few Ugandans have to sustain whole clans and villages in their day-to-day economic needs. Such a scenario suggests that individual Ugandans seek to claim economic independence so as to achieve their full humanity and integrity. When we talk of economic growth, it should be related with human progress and a resultant quality of life. And the statistical data provided by government with projected economic growth rate requires to be translated into people’s actual lives. This is so because it is assumed that the faster an economy is growing the better off people are; and a rising GNP is taken to mean that a health and people’s lives are improving. But given our situation in the country, the life of the ordinary Ugandans is yet to improve to acceptable human standards.
Therefore, this carries a number of consequences for the candidates vying for the various political offices. (1) The electorate would like to have their questions answered in the policies and programs of the various party manifestos and how these would be achieved other than being drawn into insignificant personal differences between candidates. (2) Campaigns must be governed by rational arguments about real issues affecting the life of ordinary Ugandans other emotional flare-ups of politicians. (3) The various candidates must be proposing policies and developments programs and the challenges which face the nation and rationally deconstructing or ripping through alternative policies and programs of their opponents other than discussing trivial issues of personalities. (4) Ugandans as a decent people deserve pragmatic proposals from their leaders other than being drawn into non-constructive arguments which will never be realized in their daily ordinary life experiences.
Despite their differences, political candidates need to identify a common ground for the good of the nation and by acknowledging their differences; they can find common premises on which to work together for democratic changes and participation. The guiding principle for all candidates, despite their personal egos, should be to have a free, democratic and prosperous Uganda!

Kayiira Murder Report: Lessons for Uganda

Kayiira Murder Report: Lessons for Uganda

The year was 2007 and it all started well at least on the political front. The Democratic Party then flexed her muscles and forced the government to wake from its complacency and stupid slumber and come out after 20 years to release the Kayiira murder report which it has kept under the carpet all along. I am not interested in the whole debacle whether the report is true, real, genuine or authentic. But I am interested in what transpired from the report and what the whole story taught us as Ugandans.
1. That once the people stand resolute on a certain question incessantly, they can force the government to wake up from its political siesta and take action. Ugandans are too gentle compared to other East Africans that’s why we are constantly abused by the political elite and they go away scot-free. The Democratic Party has paved for us the way and opened our eyes. If Ugandans can stand together and make enough noise without fearing any manner of intimidation the government can accomplish something. There are a lot of things that call for urgent action from government and we cannot have the courage to note them down since the list would be endless. With pressure from D.P, the government which that was complacent for 20 years, managed to contact the Metropolitan Police in the U.K in a record time, produce the “certified copy” of the report to the press and table the same before Cabinet for further discussion. But all such action and speed has been prompted by the pressure and firmness from the Democratic Party. This is a great lesson for us fellow Ugandans. Since President Museveni alleged that his Cabinet Ministers are a sleeping lot, it seems, they need a lot of noise to wake them up and act. The President expressed what Uganda actually is, that is, a disorderly society. Uganda as a developing country has not yet built up viable social institutions which would guarantee equal opportunity to the individual citizens and the proper and harmonious functioning of the state. This brings us to the idea of a well-ordered society, which is a society effectively regulated by a public conception of justice, as a companion idea used to specify the central organising idea of society as a fair system of cooperation. However Uganda as a political society is deficient in the structures which ought to exist in a well ordered society. This creates a sort of social discord because the following three elements which operate in a well ordered society are lacking or partly deficient. First, and implied by the idea of a public conception of justice, it is a society in which everyone accepts, and knows that everyone else accepts, the very same political conception of justice. Second, and implied by the idea of effective regulation by a public conception of justice, society’s basic structure, that is, its main political and social institutions and the way they hang together as one system of cooperation, is publicly known, or with good reason believed, to satisfy those principles of justice. Third and also implied by the idea of effective regulation, citizens have a normally effective sense of justice, that is, one that enables them to understand and apply the publicly recognised principles of justice, and for the most part to act accordingly as their position in society, with its duties and obligations requires. In a well-ordered society, then, the public conception of justice provides a mutually recognised point of view from which citizens can adjudicate their claims of political right on their political institutions or against one another. Subsequent to the above, and an analysis of the existing context in contemporary Ugandan society, it is quite obvious that the country is not nearer the concept of the basic structure of society, which “is the way in which the main political and social institutions of society fit together into one system of social cooperation, and the way they assign basic rights and duties and regulate the division of advantages that arises from social cooperation over time.” I would consider that failure to measure to such a standard would place Uganda in what Rawls considers as the “burdened societies”. He portrays such societies that, “while they are not expansive or aggressive, lack the political and cultural traditions, the human capital and know-how, and, often, the material and technological resources needed to be well-ordered.” This understanding would illustrate the kind of problems which would reign in a society and the position of the individual person in the whole setting. It seems the Ugandan government can only act as long as there is pressure born upon it. Similar to the above Kayiira report, Uganda ratified the International Labour Organisation-C26 Minimum Wage- Fixing Machinery Convention in 1963, to fix minimum wages, but more than 40 years after the ratification, Uganda still lacks a clear minimum wage-fixing mechanism. Under this convention, each member of the International Labour Organisation that ratifies the convention is supposed to create or maintain machinery whereby minimum rates of wages can be fixed for workers employed in certain of the trades or parts of trades in which no arrangements exist for the effective regulations of wages by collective agreement. The Ugandan government had to make an international commitment to pass labour laws before the end of April 2006. This development had been born by pressure from the United States Congress, failure of which Uganda risks being removed from the list of beneficiaries of the US’s African Growth Opportunities Act (AGOA). The bills under consideration are: Employment bill, Occupational Safety and Health Bill, Labour Union bill, and Labour Dispute bill. This is prompted by the fact that labour laws which were enacted before the 1995 Constitution are obsolete with some provisions contradicting the constitution. My foremost conclusion on this point is that our government can only act as long as there some pressure from outside. Wake up Ugandans and make noise!! Bravo and thumbs up, Democratic Party!!
2. That no wrong-doing will ever be hidden from the memory of Ugandans however long it takes to uncover the truth. Memory is one of the greatest tools we humans possess. Memory is the retention of, and ability to recall, information, personal experiences, and procedures, skills and habits. There is no universally agreed upon model of the mind/brain and no universally agreed upon model of how memory works. Nevertheless, a good model for how memory works must be consistent with the subjective nature of consciousness and with what is known from scientific studies. Subjectivity in remembering involves at least three important factors:
(a) Memories are constructions made in accordance with present needs, desires, influences, etc.
(b) Memories are often accompanied by feelings and emotions
(c) Memory usually involves awareness of the memory
One of the most popular models of memory sees memory as a present act of consciousness, reconstructive of the past, stimulated by an analogue of an engram called the "retrieval cue." The engram is the neural network representing fragments of past experiences which have been encoded. The evidence is strong that there are distinct types and elements of memory which involve different parts of the brain, e.g., the hippocampus and ongoing incidents of day-to-day living (short-term or working memory); the amygdala and emotional memories. Memories might better be thought of as a collage or a jigsaw puzzle than as "tape recordings," "pictures" or "video clips" stored as wholes. On this model, perceptual or conscious experience does not record all sense data experienced. Most sense data is not stored at all. What is stored are bits and fragments of experience which are encoded in engrams. Exactly how they are encoded is not our concern but what is important is that people store their daily experiences and they come to form their imagination. Parliament has, in the past, passed touchy bills and it is alleged that there is a plan to table other contentious bills which are anti-life like abortion. Ugandans are carefully watching what is going on and will one day demand an explanation, since they keep all such issues alive in their memory.



Fr. Ambrose J. Bwangatto

St. Mbaaga’s Major Seminary Ggaba
P. O Box 4165 Kampala
UGANDA (East Africa)
Homepage: http://ugandapeople.com

From Jjongoza to St. Mbaaga

The Story behind the Founding of St. Mbaaga’s Seminary

In earlier times when Archbishop Henry Streicher, W.F. announced to his people that he intended founding a seminary for young boys to train for the priesthood, some Africans said that that was impossible. Records have it that Oweekitiibwa Mugwanya (a very devoted and exemplary catholic) protested a lot and said to the Archbsihop that he could not get Africans into the priesthood where there were no marrying and begetting children. He is said to have gone even further to suggest that the Archbsihop would rather turn a leopard into a lamb than make an African a priest. Mugwanya said the same of African girls becoming nuns. Ironically his daughter, Restetuta, became a Religious sister in the congregation of the Daughters of Mary. She gave catechetical lessons to the young Emmanuel Nsubuga and faithfully served for more than 75 years as a Religious Nun.

So it was with Archbishop Nsubuga when he intimated that he intended to found a seminary for Late or Mature Vocations. The practice in Uganda was to take very young boys and train them from an early age for the priesthood. Failing to go to the junior or minor seminary at the age of about 14 meant that you had missed the boat and would have no chance of becoming a priest. But basing himself on Vatican II Decree “Optatam Totius” No. 3, which states that, “Care should be taken in fostering vocations in those special institutes which, keeping with local conditions, take the place of minor seminaries, and also among boys educated in other schools or according to other systems. Colleges for late vocations and other undertakings for the same purpose should be diligently promoted.” Archbishop Nsubuga decided to explore the possibilities of getting mature boys to train for the priesthood. In 1973 he directed his Vocations Director to go around exposing the possibility of joining the Seminary other than at the young age of 13 or 15. For two or three years, some young men, including those with theirn own professions, came forward. They were given a three months orientation course and were sent to Katigondo Major Seminary for ecclesiastical studies. Unfortunately Katigondo did not have enough room for all of Nsubuga’s candidates. Yet there was need for more priests. Wherever he went throughout the Archdiocese the Christians were asking him for more priests and more parishes. Vatican II had recommended “bringing Christ nearer to the people.” Around that time Katigondo fell short of accommodation and not all the successful candidates, coming from the Minor Seminaries and much less those coming from Nsubuga’s three months’ orientation course could be absorbed.

An idea dawned on him one fine day and he started to contemplate establishing his own Diocesan Major Seminary for Kampala Archdiocese. Nsubuga could not stomach seeing successful and worthy candidates being victims of circumstances. The ratio of priests to the number of Catholics in the Archdiocese was so alarming that something had to be done. But when he shared this idea with members of his curia and the priests of the Archdiocese, the immediate response was “IT IS IMPOSSIBLE”. “Let us discuss it”, he replied. After a serious discussion, followed by explanations of the Archbishop, a vote was taken. Some passed the idea, others rejected it outright and still a third group accepted it with reservations. Nsubuga interpreted the third group as being positive and so at the end of the day, the majority of priests who had gathered that day supported the Archbishop to found a Major Seminary for the Archdiocese. A feasibility study had to be done regarding the teaching staff, place of establishment and a few other things.

The Archbishop had almost ready answers for most of the disturbing questions regarding the opening of a major seminary. As for the place, Cardinal Nsubuga, had in his mind the vacant premises of the former Gaba Pastoral Institute which had transferred to Eldoret, Kenya because of difficulties in getting work permits for non-Ugandans during Idi Amin’s regime. He considered the transfer of the Institute to Eldoret a “felix culpa” (a blessed misfortune). As for the possibility of getting the qualified teaching staff, he jokingly replied by saying that when Archbishop Henry Streicher wanted to start a seminary in the year 1893, he did not wait until he had obtained priests with degrees. “We’ll start with the ones we have while training others,” he thought.

Cardinal Nsubuga informed his fellow Bishops about his intention of opening a Diocesan Major Seminary. “That’s impossible,” some Bishops said and they had good reasons for reacting so. Archbishop Nsubuga was their Metropolitan and the Chairman of the Uganda Episcopal Conference. They feared that he was planning to pull out of the National System of the Conference and hence split it by opening a rival seminary system. To these objections, Nsubuga replied by saying that he did not intend to pull out of the National System. He would continue sending to the National Seminary those students of his who would be admitted there. His other concern was to cater for late vocations and for those of his deserving students who, having successfully completed their Minor Seminary courses, were left out for lack of accommodation at Katigondo. There must have been other objections from the Bishops but they did not surface. One thing is certain and that is that the Bishops gave him the “green light” to start his own seminary with a big ‘BUT.’ “Yes you may, BUT not so near to our National Seminary.” The Bishops had proposed to rent the premises, which Nsubuga had in mind to open his seminary, to turn them into halls of residence for the seminarians at the National Seminary. That would mean that they could admit more candidates. Nsubuga objected saying that he wanted to establish his Seminary near to the National Seminary because at the start he would ask for the services of some of their staff members to teach some lessons at his seminary. On 23rd. December 1975, Archbishop Nsubuga wrote to the Sacred Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples informing them of his intention to establish a Diocesan Major Seminary. All obstacles notwithstanding, Nsubuga opened St. Mbaaga’s Seminary on 16th February 1976, the eve of the anniversary of the arrival of the first Catholic Missionaries in Uganda (1879). Some interesting features were: The ceremony was very simple. The Seminary was dedicated to St. Mbaaga, one of the Martyrs of Uganda. The seminary was entrusted to Rev. Fr. John Baptist Kaggwa as its first Rector. When St. Mbaaga’s Seminary celebrated her Silver Jubilee of existence in 2001, Bishop J. B. Kaggwa, its first Rector for the first eight years, gave the homily at Mass. He said: “…However, the road was not smooth at all. There was no money. The candidates to come were not identified yet. The staff included only Fr. Evarist Ssempijja and myself. No Library. No Food. No essential commodities. These had to come from Nairobi. So our strongest support was ‘DIVINE PROVIDENCE’ and the love and understanding from my Ordinary (Cardinal Nsubuga) and the first priests I stayed with. The mission we were entrusted with by Archbishop Nsubuga was to form pastors capable of delivering in parishes and so we insisted on the qualities of a good pastor and on what he needed to do his job.”
To date records show that over 150 priests have been ordained from the precincts of St. Mbaaga’s seminary. The tribute goes to Nsubuga, our gratitude goes up to GOD. Among those priests are Ambrose J. Bwangatto from Jjongoza village who is an alumnus of St.Mbaaga's Ggaba!

Shocked at Heaven's Door!

SHOCKED AT HEAVEN’S GATE



I was shocked, confused, bewildered
As I entered Heaven's door,
Not by the beauty of it all,
Nor the lights or its decor.


But it was the folks in Heaven
Who made me sputter and gasp--
The thieves, the liars, the sinners,
The alcoholics and all the trash.



There stood the kid from seventh grade
Who swiped my lunch money twice.
Next to him was my old neighbor
Who never said anything nice.



Herb, who I always thought
Was rotting away in hell,
Was sitting pretty on cloud nine,
Looking incredibly well.

I nudged Jesus, 'What's the deal
I would love to hear, Your take.
How'd all these sinners get up here?
God must've made a mistake.



'And why is everyone so quiet,
So somber - give me a clue.'
'Hush, child,' Jesus said, 'they're all in shock
No one thought they'd be seeing you.'


JUDGE NOT!!


Remember...Just going to church doesn't make
you a good Christian any more than standing in
your garage makes you a car. Every saint has a past
And every sinner has a FUTURE

An African labels Africans mentally weak! Ridiculous!!!

This blog post is in response to an article by Mark Namanya that appeared in the Monitor newspaper online that was posted on Saturday, June 26, 2010 titled: Mental weakness killing Africa more than anything else! According to the article, the author is critically negative of the performance of African teams in the on-going World Cup finals taking place in South Africa. He makes bewildering claims about African players that leaves one wondering the rational bearing of his consciousness. He ridicules African players as being intimidated by their white counterparts at the “….occasion everytime they advanced to the goal box” and that the “….problem of the African players is psychological stamina and lack of conviction in their minds.” I have been shocked to find an African writer, writing about African representatives to the World Cup finals taking place on the African continent, labelling Africans as mentally weak. It is an insult to the whole African race and a perpetuation of the centuries old prejudice against Africans. And moreover, an African person of such rank and intelligence, to begin negating reason to Africans and calling them mentally weak, shows that he is not rooted in African consciousness. And, again that one can detach oneself from the continent of his birth and objectify it and say...Mental weakness killing Africa....shows that his whole perception and imagination about Africa is of a foreigner. One of the disturbing developments in our country’s education system has been to produce a people who are disconnected from their natural environment and social context and life history. This phenomenon is an intriguing problem which demands immediate attention from experts to study and establish the factors that deprive the people of Africa of the pride, attachment and appreciation for their country, race and continent. I think, failure to sort out this question, poses challenges to the modernisation and development paradigm which Africa is craving for in this era. Again Africa is currently at a turning point in the world discourse and African scholars in all dimensions must take the mantle of leadership that would redeem the historically tainted image of Africa.

Family Curses: What is Essential to Know!

Questions on Family Curses Answered
Fr. Ambrose J. Bwangatto
Is there anything like a family/generational curse? Some people say that in family x, all members are drunkards etc
Before we delve deeper into this question, we have to understand what is meant by a curse. A curse simply put is defined as the opposite of a blessing. But such a definition is so simple and would easily make some to easily label anything bad a curse. The English word “curse” has obscure origins, but the etymological dictionary suggests that it derives from an Anglo-Saxon word meaning “wrath”. It is commonly defined as harming others through demonic intervention. Curses invoke evil, and the origin of all evil is demonic. There are four different but not independent forms of curses:
(i) Black magic or witchcraft or satanic which rites have a common characteristic to obtain a curse against a specific person through magic formulas or rituals by invoking the demon, but without the use of particular objects. Whoever devotes himself to these practises becomes a servant of Satan through his own fault. The word of God forbids these practises: “There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, weaver of spells, consulter of ghosts or mediums, or necromancer. For anyone who does these things are detestable to Yahweh your God; it is because of these detestable practices that Yahweh your God is driving out these nations before you”.
(ii) Curses: when curses are spoken with true treachery especially if there is a blood relationship between the one who casts them and the accursed, the outcome can be terrible. The most common instances mainly involve parents or grandparents or uncles who call down evil upon children or grandchildren. The most serious consequences occur when the evil wish is against someone’s life or when it is pronounced on a special occasion such as birth or wedding. This is so because the authority and the bonds that tie parents to their children are stronger than any other person’s. A parent has a very strong bond of kin with his/her children. Here, we have to consider the instances in which parents do curse their children with the effect that children do carry that parental curse with them all through their lives. This may be damaging to their lives since all that characterise their lives may be failure and misfortune. This type of curse may become generational because parents may pass on such a curse to their children and their children’s children for generations to come. Here, we have also to think of instances where parents consecrate their children to the family spirits or to the devil for protection. In such instances, a child is already given up to the devil and to the demonic powers and they will always have to reclaim him/her as their own. This means that such a consecrated person has to be available in service to the powers to which he has been consecrated and any failure to recognise them may turn out to be fatal to the life of that person. Such a person may experience devastating experiences in life as a reminder that he belongs to the realm of the devil. Parents have to be careful when performing certain rites on children as this could turn out to be a curse for generations to come in the life of that individual. This is the origin of the generational or family curses. But curses are so broad that a curse may assume different characteristics, according to the end that is desired. For instance, it may be called “divisive” if it intended to separate spouses, engaged couples or friends. Another type of curse may be “infatuation” which is used to lead someone to “fall in love”. Other curses are called “illness” because the target will always be sick. The so called death curse is named destruction.
(iii) Evil eye: This consists in a spell cast by looking at someone. The evil eye is a true spell, in other words, it presupposes the will to harm a predetermined person with the intervention of demons. In this instance, the wicked deed is achieved through the sense of sight. Many times the perpetrators of the spell are not known nor how it began.
(iv) The Spell (also known as malefice or hex): This is the most commonly used means to achieve evil. The name in Latin means to do evil, that is, to make or manufacture some object with the most diverse and strange materials. This object has an almost symbolic value, it is a tangible sign of the will to harm, and it is offered to Satan to be imprinted with his evil powers. There are two distinct ways the spell is applied to the designated target. The direct way consists of mixing the object that is used for the spell into the victim’s food or drink. As mentioned earlier on, this is manufactured with the most diverse materials; it can be menstrual blood, bones of dead people; various burned powders, mostly black; animal parts – the heart seems to be the favourite; peculiar herbs and so on. But the evil effectiveness is not so much in the material used as in the will to harm through demonic intervention. This will is manifested in the black magic formulas that are chanted while mixing this material. The Indirect way consists in putting a spell to objects that belong to the target – photographs, clothes or other belongings- or figures that represent the accursed: dolls, puppets, animals, even real people of the same age and sex. This is called ‘transfer material’ and it is struck with the same ills that are intended for the victim. A doll is very common example: during the satanic rite, pins are stuck all around a doll’s head. As a result, the victim suffers from intense headaches as if pins are in ones head.


In Greek mythical tradition, the family curse is presented as a punishment inflicted by an angry god on the descendants of an individual who has offended that deity. The curse, although a legacy from the past, is also a destiny, and involves prophecies of what is to come. It has the power to overrule any potential individual development, rendering the person a mere vehicle for the unfolding of the curse.
The first known example of the word occurs in the 11th century: Goddes curs, the wrath of God. A curse is thus something inflicted by a wrathful deity in response to human wrong-doing. Its roots lie in the past, but it predetermines the future. Most people do not think in terms of their families being cursed, whatever difficulties they experience like repeating generations of broken marriages, alcoholism, sexual and drug addiction, suicide, financial ruin, and functional diseases, however much these patterns are deeply disturbing in their consistency and precision.
When we read the scriptures we realise that the whole of creation is under a curse or bondage from God for having fallen through the Original Sin of Adam and Eve. “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned” (Rom. 5:12). Again the letter to the Romans states that, “For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God,” (Rom. 8:20-21). Hence, we would define a curse in the context of original sin as that which God brought on all creation. But outside the context of the Original Sin we would end up labelling every bad thing in our lives a curse. For instance, persecution, trials of faith, every sickness, every failure, every accident, every type of poverty, carrying the spiritual cross, and so on would all be labelled curses. Outside the context of Original Sin a curse, from a biblical perspective, is any undesirable matter that emerges from an utterance, statement, pronouncement, and invocation, oral or written vocabulary that expresses ill will or misfortune to an individual, animal or objects. What distinguishes a curse from other unpleasant matters is in its expressive. It needs to be uttered whether verbally or in writing. It’s not just a bad thought, feelings of anger or hatred towards someone. Curses are not telepathic or psychical. Neither can curses be received through a dream, vision, apparition, or any spiritual phenomena. They can only be expressed in the physical or earthly realm, not spiritual realm. We could agree that until such mental or any spiritual phenomena are physically uttered whether verbally or in writing they cannot result in a curse. The expressed words, whether spoken or written, do not constitute curses on their own. They’re cursing words but they are not curses in the real sense. In general language we say someone spoke cursing words to another. However, in reality the words themselves are not curses. It’s what emerges or results from the words that constitute curses.

The nature and characteristics of curses
The nature and effects of a curse can be any type of unpleasant matter. This does not mean any type of unpleasant matter is a curse. It only implies that a curse can come in any form or characteristic that is undesirable.
It can be characterized by any one or more of the following: affliction, nuisance, hardship, pain, grief, despair, misfortune, punishment, condemnation, sentence, scourge, torment, torture, terror, toil, bondage, deformity, abnormality, payback, hindrance, difficulty, stumbling block, interference, holdup, predicament, confusion, chaos, and so on – anything unpleasant. But as said earlier, not all unpleasant or undesirable matters are a result of a curse. A curse is only a subset of various categories of unpleasant and undesirable matters.
There are five conditions for an ill-will or misfortune to operate as a curse on a person
1. Curse words need to be outside the Original Sin or the fallen nature.
Curse words from God are outside the Original Sin or the fallen nature of which the individual innocently inherited from Adam. The book of Deuteronomy has a snapshot of God’s curse words for people walking in disobedience. Here is an example of God’s words of misfortune on the disobedient: “You will sow much seed in the field but you will harvest little, because locusts will devour it. You will plant vineyards and cultivate them but you will not drink the wine or gather the grapes, because worms will eat them. You will have olive trees throughout your country but you will not use the oil, because the olives will drop off,” (Deuteronomy 28:38-40).
2. Curse words need to be specifically addressed to an individual. Curses are always specifically addressed to an individual. In this case a curse needs to have a source who is the originator of the curse, and who expresses the curse to an individual. There are only three sources that qualify to curse: God, people and the individual himself or herself. Being specifically addressed to an individual means curses on people are not random. They do not just happen by chance, or by bad luck, or accidentally occur on a person. Like mail curses have an address where they are sent to. It is to the person, people or entity they’re addressed to that curses will affect. We have seen that the curses God pronounced in the book of Deuteronomy did not just randomly apply to anyone. They were pronounced on those who fell in the category of the disobedient. Thus anyone walking in obedience was automatically spared from the curses. A person walking in obedience was actually entitled to God’s blessings.
3. Curse words need expression through two avenues: speech or in writing. Curse words or statements of ill will or misfortune, need to be uttered whether verbally or in writing by the source directed to an individual. A mere mental wish of ill will or misfortune cannot result into a curse.
4. Curse words need a person deserving or having grounds to receive it. For every curse word to have any effect on an individual it needs to find a person having one or both of the following factors: (a) A person in a position of deserving it. Deserving it implies a person did something wrong intentionally or ignorantly and the curser (source assigning the curse) is justly proclaiming punishment and holding the person accountable for the wrong. (b) A person having grounds or a legal doorway to receiving it. Having a legal doorway to receiving a curse implies a person is not directly responsible or accountable for a wrong but has a liability for it. He/she has an avenue of access for a curse to bear fruit. This liability poses as a risk factor. Liabilities include having not received the gift of salvation and walking in sin. Walking in sin also opens grounds or legal doorways to receiving curses in some areas. The major source of curses from walking in sin is God (curses from God). Self-imposed curses can also have an effect on a person since walking in sin creates grounds or legal doorways for various negative matters. St. Paul cautions us thus: “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps whatever he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit will reap eternal life,” (Galatians 6:7-8).
5. Curse words need to go through God, the ultimate Gatekeeper of words. The word of God is clear on this: “To man belong the plans of the heart, but from the Lord comes the reply of the tongue,” (Proverbs 16:1) and “Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails,” (Proverbs 19:21). God cannot be forced into action by proper wording or ritual. Thus a curse could not be used capriciously as a weapon against one's personal enemies.
From all the above, we can deduce that there’s a family or generational curse in a certain family if members of that family do conform to the above conditions that merit to term their situation as being cursed. But we cannot precisely state that such and such a family or members of such and such a family are cursed. We may not have the proper instruments for measuring such curses. That’s why we need to approach an officially appointed exorcist to help us determine our fate. In the Catholic Archdiocese of Kampala, UGANDA, we have Rev. Fr. Dr. Dominic Mwebe Bakipapankulawa currently Parish priest of Nansana Catholic Parish on Hoima Road, who is the officially appointed Archdiocesan Exorcist. His contacts could be provided on request!

Ugandans Humiliated by Poverty and stripped of Dignity

Poverty Humiliates Ugandans and are stripped of Dignity

Fr. Ambrose J. Bwangatto

In this treatise on poverty, I want to argue why I say so! A fundamental dimension of poverty is the inability to adequately feed oneself and one’s family and to meet other basic requirements such as clothing, housing and healthcare. There is broad agreement that poverty occurs when someone experiences a fundamental deprivation – a lack of some basic thing or things essential for human well-being. Intuitively, most people think they can recognise poverty – hunger, malnutrition, worn clothing, unwashed bodies, run-down housing or no home at all, begging, lack of access to clean water, primary schooling or basic health services, and so on. But this apparent consensus is considered deceptive because there is no objective way of defining poverty. The way that poverty is conceptualised is inherently about value preferences that vary between individuals, organisations and societies. Until the 1990’s, poverty was considered mainly in ‘material’ terms – as low income or low levels of material wealth. But other factors like vulnerability and multidimensional deprivation especially of basic capabilities such as health and education have been emphasised as key aspects of poverty. Indeed poverty is rarely the result of a single factor. Instead, combinations of, and interactions between, material poverty, extreme capability deprivation and vulnerability often characterise the chronically poor. On the other hand, poverty is not a static condition. This implies that the dynamics of people’s poverty changes, or does not change, over time. Nevertheless common to the poverty situation, is that poor people commonly experience several forms of disadvantage and discrimination at the same time.
The above consideration of poverty provides us with a background to initiate our investigation into its relationship with human dignity in the Ugandan context. In a situation of poverty an individual is reduced to a peculiar scenario since one is unable to supply oneself with all the basic material necessities of survival. The most distressing representation of poverty is that of the long term poor who are not economically active because of health, age, physical and mental disability. With this group, there is no obvious remedy for the causes of their poverty. Then, there are those who are economically active but unable to escape poverty because of the terms of their employment, their lack of access to productive assets or social barriers that mean they are discriminated against. Poverty renders its victims to the fringes of society and makes it thorny for them to participate equally in the opportunities, which are prevailing. So poverty is a form of injustice and “the poor are victims of injustice.” If this is the case, then there is a deliberate disregard for their humanity and an abuse to their dignity. In the Uganda’s development discourse, the poor are framed as part of the problem, lacking the level of economic activity to drive through the transformations required to move Uganda out of being a ‘backwards’ -agricultural economy. In a speech attributed to the President of Uganda, which aimed at articulating the government’s underlying project of development, Museveni argued that most of the 85 percent Ugandans engaged in the agricultural economy “are stepping on top of each other and not doing anything useful.” This is practically the same as saying that the poor are not worth existing, they are just good for nothing beings and a burden to the nation of which they are the principle components and hence a burden to themselves.
In addition to the above, one of the fundamental questions, which is distressing, is about the causes of poverty. According to the Chronic Poverty Report 2004-5, a group of disabled Ugandan women stated that, “Obwavu obumu buba buzaale. Abaana babuyonka ku bazadde baabwe, ate nabo nebabugabira ku baana” meaning that – some poverty passes from one generation to another as if the offspring sucks it from the mother’s breast. But this is a common belief among Ugandans and we can attribute this to the fatalistic mentality, which is a common anthropological ingredient in our society. Paulo Freire would characterise this as “semi-intransitive consciousness, that is, a mode of consciousness which cannot objectify the facts and problematical situations of daily life.” He assumes that men whose consciousness exists at this level of quasi-immersion lack what we call ‘structural perception’, which shapes and reshapes itself from the concrete reality in the apprehension of facts and problematical situations. For Freire, lacking structural perception, men attribute the sources of such facts and situations in their lives either to some super-reality or to something within themselves; in either case to something outside objective reality. If the explanation for those situations lies in a superior power, or in men’s own natural incapacity, it is obvious that their action will not be orientated towards transforming reality, but towards those superior beings responsible for the problematical situation, or towards that presumed incapacity. Therefore, it is not hard to trace here the origin of the fatalistic attitudes men adopt in certain situations.
Nevertheless if we consider the men and women’s perceptions of the causes of poverty in Uganda, we recognize a number of reasons, which are at the same varied. I have preferred the women’s explanation, which I suppose, is more representative of the reality on the ground. Women have ranked the key causes of poverty as the following. One, Ignorance, defined as a lack of knowledge; doing things, which are not helpful, and an inability to communicate the necessary information, for instance to husband or to wife. As a result people do not use their assets well. Two, laziness, defined as people who do not want to work. They are able, they have the knowledge, they aren’t stupid, but they don’t want to work. An example would be someone who has land, but instead of cultivating it, rents it to obtain money for alcohol or despite having their own land they do casual work to get quick money for alcohol. Three, drinking, that some people just get up to drink. Four, education, that is, most of the youth do not have skills so they spend their time drinking and then gang up to break into homes. The women link the lack of education to polygamy as the husbands concentrate on one wife and her children and the others are neglected and not educated. The girls are sentenced to marriage. Other reasons given are, theft of animals and crops; lack of cooperation within families, polygamy, poor soil fertility, variable climate, sale of household assets by husbands and decline in farm-gate prices. Men on the other hand discussed mostly the meso-level causes of poverty.
This state of affairs carry complicated repercussions for the individual human person and the wider social setting. According to a survey carried out in the health institutions it is claimed that patients are left to die in Mulago hospital. The report details the plight of the six-year-old Sadat Mangeni lying in agony and pain at the Cancer Institute in Mulago Hospital suffering from a heavily swollen cheek and deformed jaw. His father with seven more children had to sell all his cows to save the life of his child and as a consequence his other children had to drop out of school because of the expenses incurred on Sadat’s treatment. This is because the full dose needed to save the boy’s life reportedly costs between Shs3 million and Shs5 million (that is between 1500 and 2500 Euro) and the family cannot raise it. The report gives other appalling instances, for example, Lukiya Nakiwala, 17, was admitted to the hospital suffering from kidney cancer. Her parents failed to raise Shs3 million (about 1500 Euro), to buy the requisite drugs and going by the doctor’s advice, she went for the only free available alternative – radiotherapy with its adverse effects that she went into comma and re-admitted to the hospital. Other cases involve patients like Solome Banura, 16, suffering from leukaemia and her condition demand a dose of cancer drugs worth Shs300, 000 after every two weeks, but her parents cannot afford it. Some patients need drugs that range from Shs70, 000 to Shs100, 000 just for a start. And other patients recount their dreadful experiences in health institutions that even after one has spent Shs3 million to buy drugs from Nairobi, he could not get a doctor to administer the drugs on him. The high mortality and morbidity rate in Uganda can be attributed partly to poverty because many people are unable to get the necessary medical attention, given that they have no financial means to access the same. The only feasible alternative is to resign to God’s mercy. And again it has been reported that “Patients who cannot afford their own drugs from outside pharmacies are either neglected or pushed out of the hospital.” This is a precarious situation for the poor and the United Nations believes that “overcoming human poverty will require a quantum leap in scale and ambition: more nationally own strategies and policies, stronger institutions, wider participatory processes, focussed investments in economic and social infrastructure, and more resources, domestic and external.