Living by the sword

 I remember when I was about 10 years old, I had a very vivid image of what my future would be. I would be married to Michael Jackson and have three children and live in America.
But of course just like many children with imaginative thinking, this image faded away very fast as I was hit by the harsh reality of growing up. Here I am, almost 2 decades later,  still unmarried though with a child.

I have many doubts on the idea that a woman's destiny is marriage like we were raised in Uganda and many parts of Africa. We have evolved so much in many different ways, traveled almost in every corner of the globe and met so many people that it is not possible to be the even close to same person you were prior to all these factors.

This is not a case of eating sour grapes but Europe is a different system with solutions and remedies to almost everything compared to Africa. People live with options and hope of change in case things back fire or do not go their way.
There was once a very influential woman in Uganda who wanted to divorce her abusive husband but she failed to do so because she was married in the church and the best she could do was separate from him but officially they were still married.
Marriage is such a serious institute that I feel that people these days do not want that kind of bondage. At what point did this happen?

In my opinion, as long as I am with someone for a while and we are committed to each other, then that is marriage already. A certificate and a ring are merely symbolic which is also good because if I went to the moon and I had no proof of it, then it would sort of be a shame.
 But of course where I come from; protocol, society, family and other factors that surround human society dictate that if you are together for such a long time, then you should have children and be married.

With so many African women traveling all over the world, getting more educated, making their own money, meeting different people, they somehow seem too independent which is not the typical way we were raised.
People sometimes seem to misinterpret woman emancipation. I am no feminist but an African woman these days pays her way around life and can do many things that were taboo but it does not mean she is the same as a man. A woman has never been equal to a man otherwise  then we would look the same instead of alike and our bodies would do the same things not similar.
We have different roles and that makes us not equal, we are equal as human beings but not gender- wise.

This quest of living between two different cultures has cost me a lot but also made me a better person to some level. I do believe in marriage but as I have grown older, I appreciate companionship and love more than getting married.
 It is the way the cookie crumbles and inevitably the world we are living in is becoming less dependant on permanent things.
There is always a new version of everything which is exciting in the beginning because it is like a child with a new toy and then after a while you know all you need to know and then you move on to the next. It is a vicious cycle which we keep fueling in many parts of our lives.

We do not know how to fix things that are broken anymore but just get something new!
Much as we may say the West is like this and like that, Africa is catching up quite fast and all the pros and cons of globalisation and modernity are very present there.
Young and modern day Africans approach relationships much more different than their fore fathers. It is not just about the celebration but also what comes after.
People choose their own spouses much more than the arranged marriages that out ruled choosing for oneself.
Africans have more control of their personal lives than ever but of course with power comes great responsibility.

Hello Uganda..

Recently I met an African art collector in my neighbourhood cafe. Rob Aussen is his name and of course we talked about Africa and how I came to the Netherlands. He then invited me to his studio where he had this collection of African art. He is a painter himself but passionate about African art.

Well I sort of knew what artifacts to expect; tribal masks, wooden sculptures and so on. But what I did not count on was the scale at which these things would be.
Rob has a collection that could fill up a quarter of a football field. He had been collecting for forty years from mainly West Africa and a little bit from other parts of Africa. But due to some bureaucratic issues, there was a restriction on the importation of “exotic” artifacts.

This came to my mind that West Africa for a very long time has over shadowed East Africa when it came to art. We heard of the biennale that was in Dakar, Senegal and other activities that were taking place in that part of Africa. And I started to think why this can not also happen for East Africa.
So I started contacting different Dutch art and cultural institutes in order to get them interested. My main focus being on Uganda because also in the region, Kenya and Tanzania for a long time have over shadowed Uganda in terms of tourism, art and also the fact that they are on the coast.

I contacted a few artists in Uganda and I got more encouraged to really promote these young contemporary artists. These people live under a lot of pressure, they do not have their art funded or get subsidised from the government like artists in the Netherlands but they keep on. They are passionate about what they do, so they inevitably make it happen. Some of them have even exhibited their works abroad and been all around the world like Rose Kirumira.

Denmark June 2000, installing the Sculpture piece Omulangira [the Prince] at Albourg. The art piece was made out of oak wood Photo courtesy of Rose Kirumira archives.

I remembered my days at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie where I always used good equipment for my films. The academy would let students borrow all sorts of electronics for their projects. If a student had a special request and they did not have it, it was possible for them to go outside the school premises to get it. This was such a luxury and joy for me because many times I got to use machinery I could not afford. So when I look at the young Ugandans who do not even have half of what people in the Netherlands have, my heart reaches out to them.
These artists need more exposure and appreciation than they are getting.

There are more residencies, art/ film festivals, art schools, exchange programs going on, more than I ever expected. Yet again Uganda is a country that catches up fast. I remember not even up to 10 years ago, there was no particular art scene compared to other African countries. People mainly made these artifacts for selling because tourists loved them. But now more and more artists are expressing themselves in their work.

Most of the Ugandan contemporary art remains particularly influenced by the historical and political forces that have shaped it. So many artists focus on the political, social and economic factors as the root of their work because this is what many people are going through but may not be able to express themselves.
Like Ronex Ahimbisibwe who is a visual artist in Kampala stated “I am inspired by the phrase ‘Gifted by Nature’ a theme the Ugandan government used in order to advertise the country to the world. I believe that Uganda is truly and naturally gifted but how we, as Ugandans, have exploited that blessing to our advantage is another issue. In the twenty first century we experience daily scenarios in Kampala that are not fit for the modern world and sadly such scenes are embedded in our way of life. My work is a way of expressing my frustrations and also a way of creating awareness of these issues that to most, sadly, remain in the subconscious.”

On Kampala streets series by Ronex Ahimbisibwe

                                         
Ugandans are finding different ways of improving or detaching themselves from the traditional methods of visual interpretation.
For instance David Kibuuka who is one of the founders of modern batik painting where he introduced “Fragmentation” technique to traditional Batik Art. This modification improved the quality of the traditional Batik because it increased background depth, broadness and a richer palette of colors, allowing this novel fine art medium to yield control, detail and richness comparable to acrylic and water-color painting.

Water carrier by David Kibuuka

                                                       
Pamela Acaye a multimedia artist who runs the Women Rising Theatre and Arts Project in Kampala’s Kireka slum is also a performance artist who writes poetry that is performed in musicals at the National Theatre in Kampala.
“While doing development and social work in Kampala, I saw first hand the difficult lives of internally displaced women in Namuwongo and Acholi quarters in Kireka. I have thus embarked  on combining my passion for social activism  through theater with design, fashion and art.”

Inside the workshop

Outside the workshop

Via Acaye Designs, Pamela worked with women on quality enhancement workshops for their bead work, tailoring and craft making skills so that they could become self-sufficient.

In the next few years to come, the art scene in tiny Uganda will be sky rocketing. As a Ugandan artist in Amsterdam I was surprised at my findings. The art scene is extensively going on and more and more people are getting involved. I am and will always be an advocate for the uplifting of a society that raised me.

Biri Biri pictorials 2012

Food plaza that took place in Gorichem, Netherlands:
A number of Ugandan/ East African dishes were prepared for a group of about 20 people and after the meal, recipes were given out.
I taught people how to prepare the dishes and for what occasion these dishes are made.

The book reading that took place at the Tropenmuseum (a museum dedicated to countries in the tropics) in Amsterdam. This was during the Kinderboekenweek which was an exhibition for children.
I was hired to research on children's stories in Africa, find a suitable story that was both educative but also understandable for any child in any part of the world.

 I also gave private crafting lessons to a few individuals. This included how to make place mats, bags and coasters out of dried dyed palm leaves that I got from Uganda. Not only did I teach them how to make the crafts, but also taught them about the materials they were using.

All sins are not equal..

Growing up in Uganda, I was raised in a Catholic setting though my mother was Protestant. My father being Catholic, that meant that I was raised the same way. I never really understood this because I grew up with my mother and one would think that I would be raised Protestant. Also the fact that I almost do not speak my mother's language but my father's. Anyway that is the beauty of being African... we do not ask why? We just do and then when you grow up, you can ask why and become as curious as you want especially when you are away from home.

During my early years prior to becoming a teenager, it was custom to get your "Confirmation" in the church. I do not know how to explain this but those who went through the same thing world wide know what I mean. I hated it but then I was told if I did not get confirmed then I would never be married in the church. And I remember one day asking my mother: "What if I got married in another country? How would they know if I was confirmed or not?"..... that was rather a rhetorical question that my mother answered back with dagger looks.

The confirmation classes took place every Saturday morning till the mid afternoon. These classes collided with my Saturday half day lessons at my primary school which was also in the neighbourhood. I hated both because it was a Saturday and I wanted to be up and about playing and getting up to no good. But I hated the confirmation classes more because we had our teacher Mr. Odoi who happened to share the same surname as my mother. For some reason he thought having the same surname with my mum made him have more rights to tell on me whenever he pleased.

After one year, I was able to finish the confirmation classes and I had to buy the whitest of dresses and the prettiest of rosaries for the occasion when I was allowed to eat "The body and blood of Christ". I was told it was real wine but it tasted like bad blackcurrant juice and there was no buzz kick at all. The "body" tasted like bread dough and it stuck to the palette of my mouth. I was quite disappointed that the ear pulling and the boring confirmation classes had this in payment. The classes were in my local language; Luganda, which was easy to speak but a headache to read or write. I later on wondered why I wasn't put in the English one. I should have pretended not to know Luganda.

Anyway as time went on, I started exploring other religions. Funny enough, my mother always told me that she did not mind if I changed religions as long as I did not turn to Islam. That was rather a weird way of giving someone freedom but I took it because for me this was paradise. I went to the Protestant church first for a few years and then moved to the Born Again church.
When I moved to the Netherlands, I changed to a Ghanian Methodist church which I somewhat liked even though at times they would hold part of the Mass in Twi, their local language.

Still something was missing and I was curious about Islam because Christianity almost taught the same thing. Catholics, Anglicans, Protestants, etc they all had the same theme.
So I started reading the English versions of the Qur'an on the internet. Someone even offered me a small Qur'an which I still have in my apartment though it is in Arabic.

Then I moved on to Buddhism, then read some of the Dalai Lama's teachings and so many spiritual divisions of the world. And i realised all the different spiritual approaches to life had a main goal and that was to help man save his soul. I enjoyed getting to discover all these different parts of man's quest for spiritualism. Because I believe that "he who travels not, thinks his mother cooks best". 
And I am in a position where I question anything man made..... Be it religion or government. They are all made by man so they are not greater than man. Religion is man's interpretation of God.

I am a spiritual person, I will not say I am religious because I was raised Christian but there are many bad things that have been done and are still done in the name of Christianity.
I believe there is God, whether a man or woman, I do not know.
But I know there is a force out there stronger than me. I have found out that other spiritual groups are a lot more peaceful than Christianity. Christianity bashes other spiritual groups as Satanic but also within Christianity, sects bash each other. And if the aim is to save man's soul, it would not matter which sect is bigger than the other. But religion is a result of man's greed and worst of all it was a war tactic used in the days of slavery.

Christianity separated Africa so much and in other parts of the world. But when you look at it, they all read the Bible, they all worship the same God... So why the many sects? There are over 50 sects within Christianity. What is that all about? There are many versions of the Bible. What is that all about? Good News Bible, New International Version, King James Bible, New Revised Standard Version, etc. Is this really what it is all about? My version, his version, their version.

It took me a while to really question myself about this. I once spoke to a religious leader back home in 2009 and he said I was full of demons for asking these sort of things.
First of all, our original religion is voodoo, juju, black magic... call it whatever you want. This is what we had before colonialists came to Africa. But as I said, Christianity was also a war tactic. Remember Scramble and Partition of Africa? The colonialists told us that our religion was not good and that Christianity was the way to go.  
"And then they told us to close our eyes and pray. When we opened them, we had the Bible and they had the land"

When you look at present day Europeans, many of them are either not religious and if they are spiritual at all, they are into Buddhism, Kabala or another form of spiritualism.
Look at Italy and Spain that are supposed to be the centers of Catholicism.... none of that happening there. Western European countries are liberal. Liberal does not mix with the Biblical teachings. 
How can someone introduce you to a belief they themselves no longer believe in?
Why are we told we can not question what we were not born with?

There are many good aspects of Christianity, no doubt. The Bible teaches many ways in which to live in harmony with each other. Love your neighbour as you love yourself.. help one another...tell the truth, etc. But in all this, the world has been torn apart by Christianity. Take for instance, many people tell lies under oath in court. If you take a Muslim and make him swear on the Qur'an, there are very few that will lie. Maybe that is why they are called extremists because for a Muslim, his religion and everyday life is emerged together.

I was raised Christian and I have grown up seeing a lot of things, so it is only fair that I criticise what I know best. Many people might get defensive and start talking about all the bad things done by Muslims and I am not overruling anything. No human being on this earth is spotless, we all have our bad deeds. But when you are always pointing the finger, remember there are four other fingers pointing at you.

We all have a role to play on the this so- called planet, Earth but when you are not doing such a good job, people will realise it. And when they do, not all will say something but some will definitely stand up. When these few stand up, they try to make things right. The only problem is, in trying to make it right, they make those in authority look bad. Well if you do your job right, people will not criticise you as much.
I do not respond to authority very well because one human being can not be the controller of another human being. Much as society needs some sort of governance and order. We are all born of a woman. Bishop, president, peasant farmer, student, teacher.......... FROM DUST TO DUST!!

Opinions are like...... we all have one!

For quite a while now, there has been the topic of the "Anti-gay bill" in Uganda. I have friends and people I know from all corners of the world in Amsterdam and they always ask me "is it true they kill gay people in Uganda?"....... It is a bill, not a law, and NO they do not kill gay people in Uganda. But I can assure you, if you go to Jamaica or Pakistan, they probably would kill you for being homosexual. Why is the media so focused on Uganda? Is it really because of the bill?

I have watched some foreign interviewers going to Uganda and interviewing MP's and local authorities about the situation. And I keep thinking to myself, is it really about human rights?
In August 2012, one British producer David Edwards Cecil that was arrested for staging an apparently controversial gay play “The river and the mountain” in Kampala, Uganda.
In my opinion, if you want to act on human rights, do not push buttons and move aside to see what will happen. Why did he not go to the Middle East or a really gay unfriendly country and make a statement there? I would have more respect for him, than coming to Uganda where the worst could be arrest or people booing at him.

People all over the world religiously listen to Dance hall and reggae even though it continuously bashes homosexuals. Why not bash Jamaican artists or boycott their concerts or iTunes that sells this music too?
I have realised that Uganda has become some sort of punch bag for many countries. We (meaning the leaders) have taken so much aid from Western countries, we are in debt till our throats yet still take more aid. Aid comes with so many strings attached. You can not expect someone to give you money just like that. It comes with a lot of conditions...."if I give you this amount, you have to do this in such and such period of time."
Debt is bondage!!!

And now so much aid was cut off because of the anti- gay bill. Maybe then Uganda will wake up!! If you are self sufficient, nobody can tell you what to do with yourself or resources.
Many Ugandans were complaining about how the West is hypocritical for cutting off aid.... Well you refused to live up to their expectations.You were asked to stop the anti gay bill...you refused..hence forth no more money! Besides how can they keep injecting money in dysfunctional economies. Something that also beats my understanding... over decades of giving aid, people noticed it does not work but still more funds are injected in these corrupt economies.

I do not care for anybody's sexual preference, I actually do not want to know what happens in people's privacy. I also do not reduce people to just their sexual orientation, educational background, how much money is in their bank account or many superficial aspects that we humans sometimes take so much pride in. I look at people from their actions, how they talk and react with me and other people. We all have different roles on this earth and this comes on different levels.

We all come from different backgrounds. I come from a polygamous background where it is okay for a man to have as many women as he pleases though he can only marry one (the irony). Almost every influential man in my country has illegitimate children or a string of affairs that can even be publicly known. It is very easy to have siblings you do not know about in my culture. When I mention that to some of my European friends here, they are amazed, sometimes shocked. That is when I also say.." When I tell my friends back home that in Europe, when your parents start getting old, they move out of your house or theirs and you put them in an old people's home where they usually spend the rest of their life......their jaws drop to the floor."

We all come from different backgrounds. I come from Uganda where we are not only governed by the Constitution but also Culture and Religion. This makes the society some what conservative. Much as people are opening up to many things, some things are rather still closed. Especially when it comes to sex. For instance, a prostitute's chances of ever getting a man to marry her are as slim as the chances of finding a needle in a haystack.

Even though prostitution is the oldest profession there is on this planet, it has failed to evolve into an actual profession where I come from. Despite survival knowing no dignity or shame, there are some things that are a cultural and social NO! Because where I come from, I had never met anybody who went into prostitution because it was a career option, but rather a means of survival or out of lack of employment or job skills.

On the other hand, in the Netherlands, prostitution is an actual profession where taxes are paid. Many prostitutes are even wives and mothers. Compared to Uganda where the whole community would only look at you as a prostitute and nothing else. Whatever you would do, you were still a prostitute. A woman that is selling her body.

Much as poor countries have no influence on rich countries, they are always expected to follow the richer nations in many aspects. Does that mean that for instance Germany has nothing to learn from Mali? Or that Canada can not learn from the Philippines? Isn't that an even bigger form of labeling and discrimination?

They want me to learn from them constantly, they want me to live as they live but they call my lifestyle primitive just because as a woman I chose to cover my whole body in clothing or if I decide to have concubines that could fill up a football field.
It is give and take...... You teach me something, learn from me as well. But also it is not by force, if I want you to learn about me and you are not willing, that is your right! You can take a donkey to the river, but you can not force it to drink!!

If someone does not get the concept of same sex marriage, it is does not necessarily mean that they are homophobic, maybe they just did not grow up with it. And if they want to stay in that state, that is their choice. If they do get to be open about it, well and good, if they do not...it is also their right. Do not label people homophobic when you do not know their history.

In my traveling, I have met so many incredible people and if I was so focused on their skin colour or sexuality or any other superficial aspect, I would be like a spider caught up in its own web. People are much more than the labels they are given. I want to work with all people from anywhere but when I hear people saying they want diversity in their companies so they will hire more blacks, gays and more women. I am like...... really? Hire people because they are that good not all this propaganda nonsense.

It is not entirely true that if you go to Rome, you do what the Romans do. But you can learn to live side by side with the Romans. I have lived in Holland for 6 years, I have failed to eat the slimy raw herring with raw onions, a typical Dutch culture but I also managed to some how learn the language.

I do not want this article to be one of those posts I see on Facebook where people are fighting against each other because with such topics, there are always the ones that support and the ones that are against. Why is everything black and white? There so many grey areas in life and in these grey areas, it makes us human beings. We are not robots that are programmed to only have one track opinions or go with the masses. We are all unique much as we are all under the same sun.