Ssemmuli, John Bosco (2010) Religious Conflicts in Uganda: Their Roots and Possible Solution in Interreligious Dialogue. Masters thesis, Santa Clara University Berkeley, California.
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Abstract
Uganda is a country that experienced bitter religious conflicts at the end of the 19th century. These religious conflicts initially took place between the Catholics and Protestants (Anglicans), though subsequently, the Catholics joined the Protestants to fight the Muslims. These conflicts took place during the 1890s and as a result, the three religious groups remained divided with a lot of hatred and mistrust among them. Uganda, as a state unified in 1894, inherited the effects of these religious conflicts which have left an indelible scar in the life history of the nation up to the present day. In this work, I want to look at the historical roots of these various religious conflicts, the different players involved, and propose possible solutions. I will consider some of the steps that were taken to ease the situation, such as the Uganda Agreement of 1900 and the formation of the Ecumenical Council of 1963. However, I intend to argue in this paper for the formation of interreligious dialogue among all religious groups as a plausible and more comprehensive approach to these conflicts. My reason for proposing interreligous dialogue as a solution to the religious conflicts in Uganda is that such dialogue brings different religious traditions together: Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Jews, as well as the traditional religions. Its aim is to foster good relations among people of different religions, helping them to live in peace and harmony. This is no easy task. It entails cultivating mutuality, knowledge of the others’ traditions, overcoming prejudices, and the creating of trust. It means strengthening bonds of friendship and collaboration to such an extent that detrimental influences that may affect the respective faith traditions may be resisted. In this paper I intend to use the method of personal narrative, particularly in Chapter Three, because of the experience I have with the situation of Uganda--with what I have myself suffered and experienced of the consequences of the religious conflicts in my country. I see the HIV/AIDS pandemic and the nation’s poverty as two possible issues that can bring all religions together despite their differences. In Chapters One and Two, I will use descriptive and historical methodology. The sources that I will use in this work include major historical works on the arrival of the various religious groups to Uganda, and the conflicts that followed. I will supplement these sources with other works on religious conflicts outside Uganda as well. Finally, in conjunction with the narrative approach mentioned above, I will use the oral stories told to me throughout my life in Uganda. I believe that when I join these sources and synthesize them, I will come out with a well-done work on the religious conflicts in Uganda and their possible solution in interreligious dialogue. Background Apart from the proposed solution of interreligious dialogue, other actual attempts were made to stop these religious conflicts. The colonial rulers who witnessed these wars thought to solve the problem politically with an official agreement of 1900. Despite the agreement being political in nature, it focused on stopping the physical wars and consolidating the colonialists’ political influence in Uganda. That agreement never fully addressed the root causes of the religious conflicts; on the contrary, it aggravated the situation because the colonialists who instigated the agreement inclined to one particular religious loyalty—the Anglican tradition, and left the other religious groups dissatisfied with its work, first, because other Christian groups were only nominally included, and second, the Muslims were excluded entirely from the Agreement. The second attempt was made by the religious leaders themselves in 1963, more than eight decades after the beginning of these conflicts, through the formation of the Uganda Joint Christian Council (UJCC), which included the Catholics, Protestants, and the Orthodox Church. The three founding Archbishops of the Uganda Joint Christian Council showed profound foresight in laying a solid ecumenical foundation for religious dialogue, one which has become even much more imperative today than it was in the past. Unfortunately, however, this effort has been largely unsuccessful in addressing the real issues for which it was intended. The Council had to address the major problem of religious divisions and rivalries, it had to open its doors for other denominations for talks, let them be Christian or non-Christian to join them to find a common ground for religious harmony in Uganda. The Council must manifest itself as a true body that is intended to correct the past mistakes of religious divisions and hatred. Moreover, with the efforts of this Joint Christian Council to respond to Jesus’ desire that “There should be one flock and one shepherd” (Jn 10:16), the council failed to address the question of the non-Christian traditions. The fact that the Muslims were never invited into this council--so that the council might become ecumenical and interreligious—never really concerned them. For their part, the Muslims were not interested in joining given the reality that Christian ecumenism by definition excludes Muslims from the conversation. In fact, in Uganda there have never been planned and constructive talks in terms of Christian dialogue with the Muslims. This is the major shortcoming of the Joint Christian Council because unity can only be built through inclusion of all at the table. As noted above, both Muslims and Christians were part of the religious conflicts from the beginning, and consequently, because of their exclusion, the Muslims continue to attack the Christian churches today. Therefore, meaningful religious dialogue today in Uganda will bring all religious groups together, including the traditional religions. I understand that when we undertake the journey of religious dialogue we enter into a situation of possible tension and conflict. Learning how to relate to other religions often brings us into uncharted territory that requires new ideas, new activities, and new ways of seeing that take us out of our comfort zones. At the same time, we want to remain in continuity with our own religious traditions as Catholics, Protestants, Muslims and Orthodox, respectively. However, even with its tensions, this is a path of genuine peace that we must pursue. The major problem we have in Uganda is that the effects of the religious conflicts penetrated deeply into the collective psyche. The people were generationally affected by these historical conflicts. From the existence of the Ugandan nation in 1894 to the present day, the whole country is deeply affected by these political and religious conflicts. One critical problem is that the educational, health, political and social sectors, were all established in Uganda according to religious affiliation. The first schools in Uganda were built by the various missionaries: Gayaza High School and Kings College Buddo were the first to be established by the Protestants; St. Mary's College Kisubi was established by the Catholic White Fathers, and Namilyango College by the Catholic Mill Hill Missionaries from Britain. The colonial rulers never constructed schools--that work was left to the missionaries. Wherever there was a Catholic school, there was a Protestant one of the same level nearby, and these institutions were hostile to each other. No child was allowed to attend a school if that child belonged to a denomination different from the one to which his or her parents belonged. Such practice is still going on today in many schools. The relative absence of public schools in the country has served to maintain this situation. Teachers have to adhere to these religious divisions when looking for schools in which they could teach: Catholic schools must have Catholic teachers and the same with Protestant schools. As a consequence of these divisions, Uganda experienced a very low standard of education, because even the teachers that were supposed to be hired based on their academic qualifications, were in fact hired by the owners of the schools on the basis of religious affiliation. Because the colonialists never put their emphasis on education in Uganda, colonial and later post-colonial education did not set out to teach people to acquire productive skills. There was little or no vocationalisation of education, and this lack of technical skill set affected the development of a middle class in Uganda. A skilled middle class would have consisted of job creators rather than job seekers. Many people, especially those who went to school during the colonial times, were expecting white collar jobs, but not all of them managed to get those jobs. The very high unemployment we have in Uganda is solely due to that factor, and it will only be reversed when people realize the need to create jobs rather than simply to be employed. As noted, the Christian organizations in collaboration with the leading Christian chiefs, and using the given land, begun setting up schools. Naturally, the first schools were for the sons and daughters of the chiefs. The Muslims, who had no chiefs could not, therefore, realize their dream of education easily. Secondly, the schools, being set up by he Christian agencies, were first and foremost to be used as a source of conversion to Christianity. When the Muslims realized this, they pulled their children from the mission schools for fear of their children being converted to Christianity. The only option left to the Muslims was to take their children to traditional Quranic schools (Madrasah), which were teaching Islamic sciences, and some rudiments of Arabic language. The consequence is that most of the Quranic school products went out into the world without knowing what they would do. With very little effort to correct the past mistakes resulting from religious divisions, even today the new universities in Uganda continue to be built on particular religious affiliations, with each tradition attending its own respective university. Such divisions not only influenced schools and hospitals, but also the political life of the country. In the1960s, when the struggle for independence was emerging and political parties were being formed, religion played a key role. The first political parties were formed on this basis, a reality which would subsequently have terrible consequences for the political life of Uganda as a nation. To this day, the effects are still very evident. The Uganda Peoples’ Congress (UPC) was Anglican-based and had Anglican support while the Democratic Party (DP) was Catholic and had the support of the Catholic Church. For many citizens in Uganda today, these political-religious affiliations are still perceived as such. The root cause of this, as noted above, lay mostly in the way the first missionaries established their home politics within the new areas where they went. The Anglican missionaries managed to influence and manipulate the institution of the King (Kabaka) in the kingdom of Buganda. After the ictories of the Anglican armies in the 1890s, the Anglican Church completely imposed itself on the institution of the Kabakaship in Buganda so that a King in Buganda has to be an Anglican. Such a situation was imposed and supported by the British colonizers and was a pattern that exerted a strong influence on the other kingdoms and polities that came under British sovereignty in Uganda. The royal families of the kingdoms of Bunyoro, Tooro, and Ankole became Anglican. Other parts of the country, even if they were not traditionally organized around kings, tended to model themselves on this pattern: power and membership in the Protestant church went together. As noted above, during the religious wars of 1890, the Muslims were defeated by the joint armies of the Catholics and the Protestants. As a result, the Muslims were pushed out of the capital, near the King’s palace, to remote places in the country side. In 1971, when the dictator Idi Amin Dada, a Muslim, took power in a military coup, the Muslims felt themselves once again to be an empowered group. They perceived that period to be their time in the history of Uganda . Idi Amin committed massive atrocities against the people of Uganda and unfortunately, he did so with the support of the Muslims. Despite the fact that Idi Amin banned small religious groups that had religious connections to Christianity, with the exception of the three major ones--the Catholics, Protestants, and the Muslims-- the Muslims were the only religious group that had full liberty. With an Islamic government now in power, the old enmity between Christians and Muslims that had been relatively suppressed for so long, now re-surfaced. During that time, as a result, the Christian Church leaders could not talk among themselves, or make public statements about the abuse of human rights and lack of religious freedom, and some went in hiding to save their lives. When the Anglican Archbishop Jonan Luwum of Uganda , Rwanda , Burundi and Boga Zaire ( Congo ) tried to oppose Amin’s suppression of the religions other than Islam, Idi Amin himself murdered the Archbishop in 1977, accusing him of complicity in a plot to overthrow the regime. Other non-Muslim leaders were also victims of Amin’s brutal killing: Benedict Kiwanuka, a Catholic lawyer and the first Prime Minister of Uganda in 1961, Fr Clement Kiggundu, editor of the Catholic newspaper Munno, Lt Col Michael Ondoga, Amin’s brother-in-law and his sister Kay, both Anglicans were all murdered. More than 300.000 Ugandans were victims of the brutal rule of dictator Idi Amin Dada. It was not until 1979 when Idi Amin was fought and deposed that religious killings stopped. Unfortunately, the Muslims continued to claim that their regime was maliciously deposed by the Christians. Now, with the rule of law established in the country, there is relative peace. Each religion is doing its work without reference to the other. Though one can say that the situation has somehow changed, the relationship still remains rather tenuous, and the peace superficial. The different religious groups tolerate one another but they never fully accept one another, likely because of these scandals of alienation and divisionism that have characterized the history of our religions. Therefore, the solution I have proposed, and upon which I will elaborate in this thesis, is to bring all religious groups together in a meaningful, friendly, and mutually respectful interreligious dialogue. The ideal outcome of this ongoing process is that after resolving the many misunderstandings and prejudices, each religious group can feel free to visit the other, to help the other in case of need, to work with the other for the common good of Uganda, and to conduct its activities without expecting another religious group to sabotage these attempts, as so often happens today. Chapter One will explore the historical roots of the conflicts in present day Uganda. First, it looks at the Buganda Kingdom and the King; second, it examines the religious groups that came to Uganda; and third, it looks at the beginning of the conflicts. Chapter Two considers the steps already taken to ease the tension of the various conflicts, namely, the Uganda agreement of 1900, and the formation of the first Ecumenical Council in 1963. Chapter Three explores the solution to these various conflicts by proposing the formation of interreligious dialogue among all the religious groups of Uganda. Here, I argue that such a dialogue can provide a united front in the fight against Uganda’s grave social problems such as HIV/AIDS and dire poverty.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Masters) |
|---|---|
| Subjects: | B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BL Religion B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BV Practical Theology H Social Sciences > HN Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform |
| Divisions: | Africana Afro-Christiana Jesuitica |
| Depositing User: | Tim Khabala |
| Date Deposited: | 13 Sep 2017 09:02 |
| Last Modified: | 13 Sep 2017 09:02 |
| URI: | http://thesisbank.jhia.ac.ke/id/eprint/2124 |
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