What Is Africa’s Problem

3. Religion and Politics

THREE Religion and Politics We in the National ResistanceMovement have no prejudice whatsoever against any religious ideas. Many of us are members of the Christian churches in Uganda. Nevertheless, we cannot escape the historical fact that the church has sometimes been used to serve wrong interests in society. In the Middle Ages, the church was used by people who were not properly informed to suppress and stop the spread of new ideas. The Spanish Inquisition was responsible, for instance, for the destruction of thousands of lives. The execution of brilliant scientists like Galileo and Copernicus and the well-known story of loan of Arc are testimony to a negative side of the church. The part played by Emperor Franzloseph of the Austro-Hungarian Empire is another example. This man organized what he called the Holy Alliance against the French Revolution. Manipulation Here in Uganda we have seen that sometimes religion is used to bring about unprincipled divisions among the population. I was one day in Kabale campaigning for the UPM in the 1980 elections. I was trying to persuade a certain man to join the UPM, and he said, speaking in Rukiga, that he would like to join but if he joined, ababainazi baratumara meaning , "These enemies will finish us." He meant that the Catholics, working through DP,would win. Address at Conference of Bishops at Gaba, June 4,1986. 16 Religion and Politics 17 This type of mentality is very unfortunate indeed. Responsibility for this, we believe, must be shared first of all by the colonial powers who introduced this very distorted use of the church to manipulate the population in order to serve their own selfish interests. Here in Buganda, they favored the Protestant Church and they used it against other religions. It was even enshrined in the 1900 Agreement that the Kabaka had to be a Protestant, and that he could not marry a Catholic. So you can see that religion had stopped being a vehicle of communion between man and his creator, God. It had instead become a tool for the control of other men. But a large share of the responsibility for the continued chaos must be fully borne by those among us who have perpetuated these very same ideas to continue misleading our people . We must share this blame because the colonialists have been gone now for over twenty years.We should have been able to sort things out by now. Obote, Amin, and Islam We can see the role leaders can play in distorting things. For instance, Islam in Uganda had become unmanageable because of interference from the government. Obote and Amin both wanted to use Islam for their own purposes. When I was in the Military Commission in 1980, different factions of Moslems came to me to solve their problems. But I refused to get involved since my duty was to maintain law and order. I told them to go to the Registrar of Societies and look up their own Moslem documents where the rules are stipulated, in order to decide who had done wrong. Myjob was in state government, not to interfere in matters of religion. Therefore, it is my ardent hope that the churches in Uganda will understand the historical role of the National Resistance Movement. In this role, we are sometimes against traditional ideas that have sustained the status quo. It is incumbent on us to repair the distortion in Ugandan politics that has caused so much damage. The National ResistanceMovement is not opposed to the role of the churches and religion, if they can be used positively. The movement expects the churches to assume their rightful place in the development of nations and is indeed committed to the support and encouragement i8 Religion and Politics of the spiritual and moral rehabilitation of our society. This direction is exactly in consonance with the programs of the National Resistance Movement, which is concerned, among other things, with the restoration of morality and human dignity. Our government looks forward to working closely with the churches in order to try and overcome these problems. ...