[SouthSudanInfo] From Mwanga to Museveni: Sex, Politics and Religion in Uganda - By Magnus Taylor

Elisabeth Janaina Sat, 29 Mar 2014 21:49:31 -0700

>From Mwanga to Museveni: Sex, Politics and Religion in Uganda - By Magnus 
>Taylor
Posted on March 24, 2014 by AfricanArgumentsEditor      
Mwanga

An artist's impression of Mwanga II Kabaka of Buganda.

By far the most high-profile international story to come out of Uganda
of late has been the passing of the anti-homosexuality bill. This has
been covered both here and elsewhere extensively, so when I came to
Uganda I made a conscious decision not to write about it - other
people could do it with greater insight and expertise. However, over
the weekend I visited the Uganda Martyrs shrine at Namugongo on the
outskirts of Kampala - a Catholic memorial to thirty two members of
Kabaka Mwanga's court, put to death in 1886 for converting to
Christianity under the influence of European missionaries. Twenty two
of the Catholic martyrs were canonized in 1964 and the significance of
their act to the international community of Catholics has been marked
with visits by the pope in 1969 and 1993. However, the other side of
the story is that the Martyrs were executed because they refused to
have sex with the absolutist Kabaka Mwanga, an act of disobedience
that could not be tolerated.

Largely for the above reason, the 'Uganda Martyrs' have gained some
international attention recently and have been re-animated to take
their place within the country's contemporary debate on homosexuality.
However, references to the martyrs in this debate, including that made
by Richard Dowden on this blog, have simply stated that the men were
put to death by Kabaka Mwanga because they refused to sleep with him.
This explanation seems to run counter to the 'official' explanation of
the Catholic Church, which sets them out as martyrs to their beliefs
as Christians. It seems to me to be slightly more complicated that
this - both explanations are true, but connected. The Uganda Martyrs
refused to have sex with the Kabaka because they were Christians and
persuaded of its sinfulness by newly-acquired learning from the bible.
Such an interpretation raises some interesting questions (and
problems) for those propounding the explanation that homosexuality is
un-African and its origins are external to the continent.

Mwanga II was Kabaka for a relatively short period in the 1880s,
during which time Europeans were beginning to exert influence on the
Buganda kingdom. This came in the form of missionaries arriving during
the rule of the more (in)famous Kabaka, Mutesa, who had welcomed them
to the kingdom and invited them to carry out their work there. One
result was a number of Christian converts within the large royal
court. Mwanga saw this as a threat to his political control of Buganda
and reacted violently to representatives of the new faith - a British
missionary, Bishop Hannington, was captured and killed under the
orders of Mwanga in 1885.

Mwanga also attempted to reverse the conversion of his kingdom and
executed the Christian converts within the court either by beheading
or burning. There is an account of the event, 'Black Martyrs', written
by a British Catholic priest called J.P Thoonen, which quotes a
Buganda man called Kiwanuka (see John Blevins' "When Sodomy Leads to
Martyrdom" for a more complete account.) This introduces the parallel,
but associated, element of homosexuality into the story of the
martyrs: "At that time, the king practised the works of Sodom.
Moslems and pagans were prepared to do those things with the king, but
the Catholics absolutely refused. For that reason the king began to
detest us, and deliberated with the pagans and Moslems about putting
us to death, us the Catholics". So, according to Thoonen, the martyrs
refused to sleep with the probably bi-sexual Kabaka Mwanga because
they were Christians, not because this kind of sexual practice was
particularly unusual among the Baganda at the time.

Blevins actually looks through the contemporary source material and
finds scant reference to this refusal to have sex with Mwanga as a
reason for the executions, coming to the conclusion that whilst this
element of the account is likely to be true, it was the European take
on the events that elevated it in importance. Further evidence for the
missionaries and their sponsors that Christianity, and with it
'civilisation', should be brought upon these people of the African
interior.

The site of the martyrs' execution, now in the outskirts of Kampala at
Namugongo, has become an important place of pilgrimage for East
Africa's Catholic community. Every year the anniversary of the
executions is marked on June 3rd as 'Martyrs Day' - a public holiday
across Uganda. This has grown to become a gathering of more than a
million Catholics, many coming from a far as neighbouring Kenya and
Tanzania, and is probably the most important Christian pilgrimage in
Africa. The explanation you get from the current tour guide at
Namugongo is also interesting. Whilst the story of Mwanga being gay is
not immediately volunteered, when asked about it our guide was happy
to accept that this was probably true, but I got no sense that he
thought this detracted from the fact that the men were Christian
martyrs.

As mentioned, the story of the Ugandan Martyrs has gained resonance of
late due to the passing of the anti-homosexuality bill and the
international controversy surrounding its latent and illiberal
homophobia. President Museveni, whilst never keen on the legislation,
did not let this stop him using the story of the martyrs' refusal to
submit to Mwanga's own sexual proclivities for his own political gain.
The president and his cabinet, along with other dignitaries and, of
course, influential members of the Catholic Church in Uganda, attend
the main Catholic mass on Martyrs Day, celebrated in the grounds of
the Namugongo shrine. During his 2010 speech at the event, Museveni
stated: "The African Church is the only one that is still standing
against homo-sexuality. The Europeans are finished. If we follow them,
we shall end up in Sodom and Gomorrah... I hear there was homosexuality
in Mwanga's palace. This was not part of our culture. I hear he learnt
it from the Arabs. But the martyrs refused these falsehoods and went
for the truth, which is why we are honouring them today."

Museveni's explanation that Mwanga 'learnt it [homosexuality] from the
Arabs' is a fairly popular one, but Blevins argues that it is unlikely
that Mwanga 'learnt it' from Muslims because they had little influence
on his court. This followed the execution of over 70 Muslim converts
under Mwanga's father, Mutesa, a decade earlier. Like Christianity,
Islam was seen as a threat to Mwanga's political control of his
kingdom.

The episode of the Ugandan Martyrs actually shows that homosexuality,
or at least the act of men having sex with other men, needed no
external influence to exist in pre-colonial Buganda. But the
politically motivated execution of the Christian converts continues to
be used by this generation of Ugandan leaders to strengthen their role
as guardians of Ugandan culture and with it their hold on national
political power.

Magnus Taylor is Editor of African Arguments.
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One thought on "From Mwanga to Museveni: Sex, Politics and Religion in
Uganda - By Magnus Taylor"

Remi Sonaiya says:
March 28, 2014 at 9:48 am

Homosexuality has long existed in the world. But the holy books
have always shown it as unacceptable to God. The argument that it is
against African culture is not the real issue; obviously, it used to
be against European culture too (in the sense of not being generally
accepted). Europe has got to a point now where they do not accept that
God's laws, as stated in the holy books (the Bible, for example) are
binding on them. We in Africa have not. Why is there so much pressure
on us? Nobody has been able to stop two consenting adults to do
whatever they want in the privacy of their home; but must we be forced
to accept to marry them?

[SouthSudanInfo] From Mwanga to Museveni: Sex, Politics and Religion in Uganda - By Magnus Taylor

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