Insights into Uganda

Insights into Uganda

Kevin’s first book was Ugandan Society Observed to which Insights into Uganda is the sequel. Reviews include:

‘In Insights into Uganda, O’Connor casts his eagle eye over life in Uganda and weaves a rich and daring tapestry out of his observations. He ranges over the silly, the commonplace, the hilarious, the serious and the bizarre with a refreshing honesty. Though O’Connor serves his insights with a fearless directness, they are frequently tempered by a cheeky self-deprecation and a rich seam of laid-back humour. Insights into Uganda is a book you read while chuckling and from which you gain an invaluable understanding of the country that Winston Churchill once called The Pearl of Africa.’ Julius Ocwinyo, novelist, poet and publishing consultant.

"Insights into Uganda is a combination of seriousness and humour...the register used makes the text accessible to a wide readership. Insights into Uganda has a unique character that makes it stand apart with regard to existing literature on and about Uganda... it should be accessible to government and policy makers as well as activists campaigning for social change/transformation...and is appropriate for incorporation into the national curriculum for the consumption of young people." Bernard Atuhaire, Editor

"Ugandan Society Observed would make a great gift to any potential traveller to Uganda or in fact, to anybody with a keen interest in knowing a little more about Ugandan society or culture." The Eye Magazine (Kampala).

"Forget the travel guide books about Uganda. If you want insight into the country’s media, music, development assistance, foreigners (whites) and sex-life, this collection of articles from the column Roving Eye is more entertaining and just as interesting." Bistandsaktuelt (Norwegian monthly newspaper on aid and development).

"Visitors looking for a general read about contemporary Uganda to complement the travel info in the Bradt Guide are pointed to Ugandan Society Observed, a collection of essays written by Kevin O’Connor AKA The Roving Eye, the outspoken columnist for the Sunday Vision and more recently the Sunday Monitor." Philip Briggs, the Bradt Travel Guide – Uganda (internet update).

Agree or disagree with him, this book is guaranteed to give you plenty of good reflection as well as great entertainment. Father Carlos Rodriguez Leadership Magazine.

"Ugandan Society Observed is a classic read. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Congratulations to Kevin." Rachel Magoola (Ugandan singer/songwriter).

Tourguide Publications

P.O. Box 488

Kampala

E-mail: info@tourguide-uganda.co.ug

E-mail: tourguide@foutainpublishers.co.ug

Website:www.tourguide-uganda.co.ug

An imprint of Fountain Publishers Ltd

Distributed in Europe, North America and Australia by African Books Collective Ltd (ABC), Unit 13, Kings Meadow, Ferry Hinksey Road, Oxford OX2 0DP, United Kingdom. Tel: 44(0) 1865-726686, Fax: 44(0)1865-793298. E-mail: abc@africanbookscollective.com Website: www.africanbookscollective.com

© Kevin O’Connor 2016

First published 2016

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, including copying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

ISBN 978-9970-637-39-3

Contents

Preface

1: Gender and Sexual Orientation

Let’s castrate Kadokech

Good riddance to bad rubbish!

Ugandan women better than men

Miniskirts – Buturo requires a brain transplant

Obama, Zuma and polygamy

When is something un-African?

Some truths about homosexuality

The long and short of it

To bend or not to bend?

Why women sit the way they do on boda-bodas

2: Sex and Love

It’s better to kiss in public

Bukenya, Nakku is a non-issue

Polygamous? What’s your motivation?

Mystery Date wins Uganda Snob of the Year award

Big Brother Africa – a case study in polygamy?

Kazini, Zuma and polygamy

Lower Uganda’s age of consent to 16 years

Why are Ugandan bars so dark?

Of bums, hips and manhoods

Ask Uncle Kevin – new problem page

Unhappy Valentine’s Days

Sex in Uganda’s crowded rooms

When a Ugandan woman does not produce

Ugandans and their secrets

Ugandans and zero sons and daughters

Norbert Mao will win the race

Chips chicken better than sex!

Let’s celebrate International Childfree Day

3: Bazungu (white people)

The Irish, tribes and jokes

Mourning an animal corpse

Slow muzungu loves Ugandan slowness

Perverts, paedophiles and pencils

Muzungu v Ugandan eccentricity

Would you eat while walking?

Old muzungu gets dirty looks

Time to say goodbye to the colonial suit and tie

Ugandan and bazungu nicknames

A muzungu’s long call too far

Drinking beer from bottle, glass or straw?

A rich muzungu’s hair transplant

Things that might surprise a muzungu in Uganda

4: The Environment

Uganda, the pearl of bird watching

You don’t always have to behave

Old buildings deserve respect

The tiny difference between success and failure

Fish, cattle and paving stones

Would you put a cup of tea on the ground?

Drinking and dropping a duck’s soda

Sir Alex Ferguson and Uganda’s historic buildings

Where are Kampala’s parks?

Some animal pupu issues

Why tarmacking roads might not be a good thing

5: Religion

Never mock God! Well, yes and no

No HIV/AIDS cures at crusades

Frowning upon gospel opportunists

Pastor Kiwewesi’s disgraceful wedding

Pastors – why no pothole miracles?

Archbishop’s priorities are wrong

Archbishop Orombi helps set world record

Did Christianity generate a culture of lies in Uganda?

The telling of lies in Uganda – Part Two

How religion brainwashes us

Ug Sh 12 million wasted praising Archbishop Orombi

Sodomy, pasta and miracles

Have no faith in faith

Execution is always wrong

Missionaries brought already damaged goods to Uganda

The Catholic Church’s funeral

There is no God

Sundays – to work or not to work?

6: Language

Move over, I have diarrhoea!

Unintended humour in a Kampala toilet

Now you wouldn’t misspell ‘misspell’, would you?

Is the mobile phone destroying Uganda’s greeting culture?

Will you laugh at my jokes?

Bigmen, smallmen and humour

The story about storage

Apology and forgiveness – more than just words

Keep English simple

Ugandan greetings made easy

How to find the meaning of fascinating phrases

Why do Ugandans say Er?!?

Ugandans’ overuse of over

Enkya never comes

Proverbs and culture

Are you able to mimic?

OK please is OK

A book you can’t put down

Some unusual names

7: Sport

Lessons from the MTN marathon

Why more Ugandans should support smaller Premiership teams

Let’s kill off American sports scholarships

Making the right choices

Athletics has shown me Uganda

Ludo a sport? How ludicrous!

Pity those who don’t understand sport

Beijing Olympics – there will be no medals for Inzikuru

God bless the underdog

FDC calls for unlimited term limits

Ugandan patriotism destroyed by English Premier League

Sitting and standing in football stadia

When neocolonialism won at the Cecafa Cup

Idi Amin’s Golden Age?

An athletics training experience for Cranes’ footballers

Two World Cup memories

Namboole Stadium – learning from the past

Namboole Stadium – a national disgrace

60th Anniversary of the 4-minute mile

The Margaret O’Hogartaigh Women’s 5000m Memorial Race

Did Cheptegei choose money over honour?

8: Music

Music to soothe the soul

The sagala song hits Uganda

Lucky Dube’s songs will never die

UB40 – No money to go

Is Juliana getting fat?

The late, great Lucky Dube lives on

What music at your funeral?

Disco music and much else spoils my football viewing

Unhappy and happy New Year’s Eves

What music motivates you?

9: Education

MUK graduates, I have no money for your parties!

PLE results boredom

Journalistic corruption and PLE results

Don’t send children to single sex schools

Oral communication skills are key to your career

Back to school and bullying

Examination worries

Study less for higher grades

Good and bad memories

Memories of teachers

Ugandans’ educational concerns

10: Media

Truth, lies and advertising

The advantages of journalists’ misspelling

USPA should right its shameful omission

Kevin evicts Big Brother Africa

Beware of ambiguous headlines

Allegations, allegations and more allegations

Roving Eye relaunch

Your newspaper – the business page meets the sports page

Journalists in love with photos of themselves

Red Pepper’s Friday 13 superstitious nonsense

Is O’Connor a scumbag?

Phrases too loved by journalists

A Kandahar whopper

MPs swearing-in overkill

Dead but not dead!

11: Poverty and inequality

Sporting inequality and cars

Brave Mukula bathed in cold water

Electrocuted by a hotel’s prices and fence

1920s UK and 2009 Uganda – some similarities

How much would you need to be paid to?

137 years to earn what Ronaldo gets in a day

Of economic and social inequality

A British dog causes surprise in Kampala!

Jamwa – more guilty than of being fat?

Akright should sack its ad agency

Too poor to buy a newspaper

Why are you not rich?

12: Health and death

Grey hairs all over the Queen’s land

Burn me when I die!

Making use of a digital weighing scale

Obituaries – lies and more lies

Would you shake hands with Jim Muhwezi?

Antiretroviral drug money eaten

Budget should increase tobacco taxes

When you should use the F-word

The man who saved my life

Unseasonal thoughts on death

Could tobacco play a part in Uganda’s population control?

The dangers of alcohol

Pet insurance – whatever next

Do you pick your nose?

All good wishes to Mr Gureme

Shortages and corruption in the health sector

13: Katogo (mixture)

Hurdles in telling humour

In trouble for speaking out

To comb or not to comb – that is the question

Bus passengers must be more outspoken

Kevin meets a seer

Gadaffi renames Uganda

Resignation – not the Ugandan way

Getting on top of your problems

How I pity corporate managers of 2009

Children, church and carnage

A small lie told in Kampala

The importance of the 50th anniversary

O’Connor and hand movements

Learning something new

Construction ignorance

Five, not four, jokers in a pack

Nabbed by the traffic cops

Spam, spam and spam

Why I fear driving

Glossary

Preface

Insights into Uganda is a selection of my Roving Eye newspaper articles published in the Sunday Monitor mainly in the 2007 – 2011 period, plus new articles written in 2015, specifically for this book.

Many topics are covered, but I have steered clear of politics – both because my knowledge is not that great, and because I feel that this is a subject for Ugandans, rather than a foreigner, to address.

I must give special thanks to my parents – my late father Pat and my mother Betty – who ensured I received the education that they never had the opportunity to enjoy. If I had been required to leave school at 14 years, like they and most children of manual workers were in the 1930’s, my life would surely have been very different.

I would like to thank Charles Bichachi of the Monitor and Joseph Bugabo of Tourguide Publications for their support and encouragement. I am similarly indebted to Bernard Atuhaire.

My gratitude goes out to the many Ugandans whose comments and views have found their way into the articles. For reasons of anonymity I have often changed your names, but I have always tried to stay true to the accuracy of what you told me. Similarly, many of your quotes are the words as spoken, and have not been changed for grammatical reasons.

As I said in the preface to my first book Ugandan Society Observed, I must thank Uganda. As I walk slowly and languidly around, it strikes me that, (with the exception of driving vehicles), your character and my character share much in common; and, Uganda, you gave me chances to flourish, in journalism and athletics coaching, which would never have come my middle-aged way in my country of birth.

And finally, the greatest thanks of all are reserved for my wife, Sue. She provided the ideas for many articles and proofread most. She, to use the words of a man I greatly admire, Professor Richard Dawkins, coaxed me through all my hesitations and self-doubts. Throughout the 34 years we have known each other, Sue has encouraged me on to higher levels of achievement that I could not possibly have attained by myself.

Kampala

December 2015

1

Gender and Sexual Orientation

Let’s castrate Kadokech

(8 April 2007)

Very, very occasionally, one reads a newspaper article that is so, so foolish and so, so stupid that one wonders if the male writer has had their brain removed by Masculine Intellectual Mutilation (or MIM) before they put pen to paper. For such an article (Female circumcision is a cultural right, The New Vision, 22 March 2007, p11) was written by Mr. S. Kadokech (Director, Budaka Community Development Initiative).

FGM’s dangers

Kadokech argued that female circumcision – more commonly know as female genital mutilation (FGM) – was part of the Ugandan/African cultural heritage and, therefore, should be preserved (while being made medically more safe).

The article has fortunately generated many articles and letters condemning Kadokech’s nonsense (e.g. Female genital mutilation more gross than you thought by Irene Mulyagonja, The New Vision, March 30 2007, p10). These articles have rightly highlighted the many medical dangers, sometimes fatal, of FGM during circumcision and during childbirth. So, I will not repeat these dangers here.

Sexual pleasure

However, FGM involves the removal of the clitoris which means that the woman cannot then experience an orgasm during sex.

Kadokech is, therefore, totally wrong when he writes:

Female circumcision can be compared to the Islamic and Jewish practices of male circumcision, which even Jesus Christ consented to.

Unlike FGM, male circumcision does NOT result in a loss of orgasmic/sexual pleasure.

The correct male comparison with FGM is not circumcision, but castration, where a man’s testicles are removed.

Kadokech should only support FGM, if he is prepared to undergo castration. I do not foresee any prospect of a testicleless Kadokech, so he is not only wrong in his views, he is also a hypocrite.

FGM and culture

How do the Kadokechs of this world get it so wrong? It is that they don’t recognise that every culture in the world has its good points and its bad points. The good points, one seeks to preserve and the bad points, one seeks to change.

Thus the defilement of housegirls by male members of the household (often the husbands, fathers or uncles who employ them) is undoubtedly a part of Ugandan culture, for it has existed as long as anyone can remember. But, would Kadokech argue that we should seek to preserve such defilement as it is part of the culture? Of course not. It is right we should change the culture by providing the maximum protection to the exploited, underage housegirl.

The same reasoning applies to the efforts of the many Ugandans who have sought to end FGM in this country. Thus, as Phillip Briggs writes (Uganda – The Bradt Travel Guide p439), when the Sabiny Elders Association was formed in 1992, it aimed to protect the Sabiny culture by preserving songs, dances and other positive customs, but also wanted to eliminate more harmful traditions, most notably FGM.

If female genital mutilation is what Kadokech calls circumcision, then male genital mutilation (MGM) is castration. One cannot support FGM without supporting MGM. So, hurry up Kadokech, show us your testicles – we want to cut them off!

Good riddance to bad rubbish!

(11 November 2007)

A recent Roving Eye told the story of Mary, whose boyfriend David, without telling her, removed the condom during a sex session, as he wanted her to produce.

Mary is not a goat, but a 21-year old Ugandan woman, who has many plans and ambitions over the next 5 years, and whose salary pays for her siblings’ school fees. She, therefore, did not wish to get pregnant until her mid to late twenties.

The good news is that Mary was neither impregnated, nor infected with HIV and speedily ended the relationship. But Mary’s story begs the following question:

•What is it about Ugandan men or the country’s culture, or stage of socioeconomic development, which made David behave in such a nastily selfish way?

I turned to some Ugandan women friends for an answer to these questions.

Choice of words can say much about the attitude and values of the speaker, and it was David’s choice of words that was picked up by Dorothy, a 40-year-old school manager. She observed:

"Produce, meaning to have a baby, just shows the still predominant belief amongst Ugandan men that women are baby machines."

Similarly, Irene, a 34-year-old senior sports official, saw men such as David as:

Regarding women as tools of production for manufacturing human beings, irrespective of the needs and responsibilities of the woman to her siblings and parents.

So, indeed, David did regard Mary a bit of a goat, and whether he used the same sexual position as used by goats, I have no idea. And if goat is too harsh, implying that David thought of Mary as a sub-species, there is no doubt that his behaviour was fuelled by gender inequality. Back to Dorothy:

Relationships in Uganda are still very much a man calling the shots. Many women would be flattered if their boyfriend is trying to get them pregnant. So, a man can take it upon himself to think she would be thrilled if he said ‘I want you to produce.’

And Irene added:

Women are expected to be submissive and many men believe what can ‘tie’ a woman to a man is having children. A woman, especially a traditional one, will always find it difficult to leave a man once she has a child with him as society considers her ‘second-hand’ property. Selfish and insecure men try all means to put a woman in a situation that benefits them, including impregnation. This could be the case with David, who wants to tame Mary!

When Mary told me her story, my overwhelming feeling was that ‘you will never be able to trust that man again’ whether it be in love, in money or in whatever. We can try appreciate the societal factors that have shaped David’s attitudes, but when he removed that condom without informing Mary, his behaviour was absolutely despicable. He could have ruined her life, her dreams. If, when she red-carded David, Mary had shouted at him Good riddance to bad rubbish, her words would have been more than justified.

Ugandan women better than men

(23 March 2008)

As I am an author, journalist and volunteer athletics coach, I hope nobody thinks I am an idler. There is a group, sometimes groups, of idlers in every trading centre in Uganda. They may be idle, but they are often smart, for as Carol Natukunda explains in her recent article, Idling as a way of life (Sunday Vision, March 16 2008):

It doesn’t cost that much to acquire a corporate image; just get hold of an old newspaper and a file folder, put on your designer clothes and shoes bought at a fraction of their value in Owino Market, and you can hang out anywhere in the city without causing too much suspicion.

But Natukunda did seem to miss one key point about idlers – they are almost always...... men.

Now, there are many wonderful, hardworking and high-achieving men in Uganda. But, while one should always be wary of generalisations, if we talk averages, then the average Ugandan woman is significantly more impressive than the average Ugandan man. The late, great Lucky Dube, sings God Bless the Women and in Uganda one rarely sees a woman doing nothing.

So why do males have almost a monopoly of idling. David, an assistant in a Kampala shop, said, It is because ladies stay in their homes. Men go out and look for money. But some end up idling on the street.

Sarah is 35 years old and sells vegetables from a small stall. She observed:

Yes, idlers are all men not women. They are lazy. Women are accustomed to working. They are not idlers.

In my local trading centre, there is a group of men who sit in a shaded area just outside a lodge. I have seen them drinking crude waragi as early as 7.30 in the morning. A man, who lives next to the shaded area, told me:

These men are self-employed businessmen who work at night or are landlords who own the houses next to the shaded area.

When I repeated these comments to Sarah, she forcibly stated:

That man is lying, and is probably an idler himself. The landlords do not stay there. Those drinkers are idlers.

While David added:

"The ones who take waragi are not responsible men. Some are even kids, sometimes from rich homes. Those men do not work at night. For if they did, they would not booze in the morning, but in the afternoon. He was definitely lying to you – those men are idlers."

It would take me about 5 Roving Eye columns, or possibly a PhD, to do a thorough gender analysis of Ugandan men and idling. So let me leave the final words to one man who definitely was not an idler – Lucky Dube:

"We, praise heroes everyday

But there are those that we forget to praise

The women of this world.

They don’t run from anything

They stand and fight for what’s right......

God bless the women."

Miniskirts – Buturo requires a brain transplant

(28 September 2008)

It is not yet October, but Ethics and Integrity Minister, Nsaba Buturo, may have already won Roving Eye’s annual nonsense prize.

Buturo said (and I assume he was not joking) that miniskirts should be banned – because women wearing them distract drivers and cause traffic accidents!! And, dear reader, I am afraid it gets worse, for he went on to say that wearing a miniskirt was like walking naked in the street!!

Can you imagine a naked Mr Buturo walking along Kampala Road, manhood dangling and all of that? Well, you should try, because I assume he sometimes wears shorts, and the male equivalent of his comments is that Buturo wearing shorts is like Buturo walking naked in the street.

But the worst part of the Buturo nonsense is their implicit demeaning of Uganda’s road carnage. My wife and I drove last week from Kapchorwa to Kampala and there was all the normal overspeeding, overtaking on bends etc. by hundreds of cars, matatus and lorries. And do you know something? I did not see one woman wearing a miniskirt to hold responsible for such bad driving.

The number of road accidents caused by a male driver looking at a miniskirted woman (or, dare one add Mr Buturo, a woman driver looking at a man who nicely fills his trousers, in the way that perhaps you do) must be such a tiny fraction of one percent, that they are not worth worrying about.

Mr Buturo is a representative of a patriarchal society where men have been dominant historically, and remain so into the present. Throughout the world, the large percentage of sexual attacks are performed by men on women, not vice versa. And when it comes to kids being raped, the huge majority of the victims are female. A primary schoolgirl or a housegirl, rarely has to wear a miniskirt to provoke male aggression.

And the same male aggression results in aggressive driving on the roads. Almost all the overspeeders are male – driving fast is their vehicular way of saying look at my big thrusting manhood. In contrast, most of the slow, careful drivers are female.

One of the results of men dominating a society for centuries is that they shape its value system so that women take the blame. So, who is to blame for road accidents? – women in miniskirts; to blame for sexual attacks? – women in tight pants; to blame for prostitution? – female prostitutes, not their male clients. And it goes on and on. So, lo and behold, when a couple do not produce, who is to blame? It is, of course, the woman, automatically assumed to be barren.

The ban should not be on miniskirts but on men mouthing meaningless nonsense.

Obama, Zuma and polygamy

(1 February 2009)

Barak Obama Senior abandoned his son and was married to 3 women at the same time. Jacob Zuma has, at the last estimate, 5 wives and 18 children.

What do these facts tell us? They tell us about the difficulty that polygamous penises have in staying inside their polygamous pants.

They also tell us about some of the disadvantages of polygamy.

Let’s start with Zuma. I have no idea whether he is, or is not, guilty of corruption (of spending government funds on his own home, for example). But if he is guilty, then one of the reasons widely put forward for him taking money that was not his, is the need to financially support his huge family.

And as regards Obama Senior, the polygamous disadvantage is that it is not he, but the mother, who has been recognised to have shaped President Obama. So, while the media go on and on and on in boring fashion about the new President of the United States being partly Kenyan or East African, the reality is that like so many African children born of polygamous relationships, Obama Junior was brought up by his mother. Indeed, so shaped was he by his mother and his maternal grandparents, the new President is about as African American as Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt.

John, 22, is an assistant in a Kampala shop and a part-time Makerere University Business School student. He observed:

Obama Senior was a typical African man. Most men here, they get money and they marry as much as they can. Some marry as many as 20 wives. The US President’s father generally had money and he married more than one woman. Such behaviours is what we African men do. At the very least, you add a concubine.

However, continued John, "to be fair to Obama Senior, it was more than just his African background. For a black then to be married to a muzungu was very unusual in the USA at that time. He experienced racism. If it was not for that racism, he would surely have spent more time with his son."

Is it not rather sad how Africa has tried to cling to the supposed Africaness of President Obama? As well as being polygamous, the President’s father was a drunkard. In other words, he was like a lot of other African men who everyday one sees at a Ugandan local trading centre. And he deserves about as much respect as they do i.e. zero. It is a pity that Obama Senior did not take as much interest in his son as he did in his booze.

Polygamous penises, if they can’t stay inside their pants, should at least put condoms on. The world would be a better and less over-populated place, if they did.

When is something un-African?

(15 February 2009)

The phrase XXXX is un-African is used widely in Uganda, and with good reason. The cultural and economic domination of the First World over the Third World, whether it be the colonialism of the past, or the neo-colonialism (especially in the media) of today, means that Africans are naturally keen to hang on to their cultural heritage and roots.

But sometimes I think the term XXXX is un-African can provide an excuse for Africans to disengage their brains from their hearts.

For example, how often do we hear, homosexuality is un-African? Yet, as Njoroge wa Kamau pointed out in a letter to The East African newspaper, the proposition that male homosexual relationships are alien to African culture is refuted by ample anthropological evidence...... from Sudan to Zululand.

And as regards Uganda, let us consider the 1880’s, and use a quote about homosexual realities from none other than Pastor Martin Ssempa (The New Vision, June 3 2005, Page 8).

Kabaka Mwanga’s homosexuality is an issue we tiptoed about for fear of offending the Buganda monarchy, which abhors homosexuality. But all historical accounts agree that Mwanga was a deviant homosexual who used his demigod status to appease his voracious appetite for sodomy by engaging in these unmentionable acts with his pages at court.

In the 1880’s, there was no internet, no foreign films or magazines, and some, but not yet huge, influences on Uganda from outside Africa. So what was responsible for Kabaka Mwanga’s homosexuality other than himself and his own (African) culture?

Turning to religion, every Sunday I get asked ad nauseam by Ugandans – have you prayed today? Have you been to church? Yet, Christianity did not arrive in Uganda until the late nineteenth century. So, therefore, is Christianity African or un-African?

Christianity has achieved much in schooling and health in Uganda. But, as this column has frequently argued, given widespread dishonesty and tribalism, Christianity has been an abject failure in persuading Ugandans to treat their neighbours as themselves.

Found in different Ugandan languages is the expression whatever happens in the house must stay in the house, or its equivalent. Perhaps there should be a new expression – whatever happens in the church must stay inside the church. For dishonest behaviour Monday to Saturday seems to remain majestically untouched by Uganda’s widespread Sunday churchgoing.

I am not African. But I have lived in Africa for approaching 20 years. So, as a believer of the much greater influence of nurture over nature, I am presumably not now fully un-African.

I cannot, though, become tribalistic, since I find it virtually impossible to recognise anybody’s tribe from their features or their speech!

But perhaps I should change my name to Kevin O’Corruption. I could then demand bribes for attacking (or not attacking) somebody or something in the Roving Eye column. This could be a big income generator for me, so please email me the money (in US dollars, not shillings, as I am not that African yet).

Some truths about homosexuality

(26 April 2009)

At last a newspaper article has been written by a Ugandan which discusses homosexuality in a sensible way. In When Christians condemn God’s children during the Easter season (Saturday Monitor April 11 2009), Bernard Tabaire draws attention to the unchristian behaviour of nasty gay-haters such as Stephen Langa of the Family Life Network and Pastor Martin Ssempa of the Makerere Community Church.

Christianity and homosexuality

As regards homosexuality, to this list of Satan’s sinners, can be added Dr James Nsaba Buturo, Minister of (supposedly) Ethics and Integrity, who recently labelled homosexuals as, abnormal, unhealthy and unnatural.

To the Langas, Ssempas and Buturos of this world, we must ask two questions:

•Where is your treat your neighbour as yourself?

•Where is your recognition of the truth that, the world over, somewhere between one in ten