Women, the Musevenis & Their Hangers-on

 *The New Year Sacrifice is a Chinese heart-rending story of Xianglin’s wife. It is placed just before and after the Revolution of 1911, when the Qing Dynasty was overthrown.

The story is no different from that of many Ugandan women. They toil and toil. In the end what do they have to show for it but distraught faces of poverty and misery?


*No wonder, one woman commented that reading the bible is more traumatic than breast cancer.
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With some token posts and no significant power to influence anything worthwhile for their species, some women prance around in yellow garbs. They shamelessly shout: “No change!” Right! For them the NRM (aka Museveni) brings home the bacon.

Is that it? Just a means to personal ends for groceries? Is this not, effectively, just a case of the oldest trade? Look around you. You look but you don’t see. The US army’s attorney once observed rhetorically to Joseph McCarthy, the communist witch hunter of the 1950s: “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at least?” What about you, women of the so-called Pearl of Africa? Have you asked yourselves why the legislation for marriage reform has languished and stalled?

That is right; the man is taking you for granted. He is just stringing you along. Any man who does not know the game, if he ever had raging hormones to just get into the pants of the fairer species, is a klutz. Issues that are important to him have come and gone through the rubber stamp parliament. What about yours? One would have expected his partner in crime, Janet Museveni to be at the forefront for women’s rights. No, Jose’. Both are Mulookole, which means they adhere to literal interpretations of the bible—every word in the bible is from the God of Israel. Anything else is blasphemy and heresy. So, if you really want to know what the power couple thinks about you women, here are “the most influential and damaging bible verses about women.” (Gaylor, 97).

• Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. (Genesis 3:16).

• Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. (Exodus 22:18).

• But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of every woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God…For the man is not of woman; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man. (1 Corinthians 11: 3, 8—9).

• Let your woman keep silence in the churches; for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home; for it is a shame for women to speak in the church (1 Corinthians 14: 34—35).

• Let the woman learn in silence in all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in transgression. (1Timothy 2:11—14).

So, there you have it. No wonder, one woman commented that reading the bible is more traumatic than breast cancer. Ladies, what is your biblically anointed place in the Musevenis & Co’s world? Be silent and be in subjection. And that is the “gospel” truth—the true spirit of the NRM, which only exists in the image of one Museveni. It’s time to wake up! Join hands with the progressives and others who have woken up to operate in the realms of reason rather than some dubious edicts of “faith, authority and tradition.”

Who can help the woman’s cause against the new wave of violence on their persons and children? Violence so heinous, our ancestors are turning in their graves. This is the culture of violence precipitated by the belligerent default mode of Mr. Museveni. His violent spirit seeps down to your family.

With the changing society a woman is often left a destitute after years of contribution to a marriage. She has no right to property. Who is likely to listen to her plight and do something about it as a matter of urgency? Museveni has had a generation to do something beyond cosmetic stop-gap measures. Get out of the NRM abusive relationship!

It is your children who die on the poor roads, are subjected to human sacrifices—a macabre practice that is as quintessential to Museveni era as the heaps of skulls of Luweero—and are semi educated in the rush to free education for political capital. Who will help protect them, and do the right thing by you? The NRM has had twenty plus years. This marriage has gone to the dogs. Let them go!

In 1885 Helen H Gardener said in Men, Women and Gods:

“This religion and the Bible require of woman everything, and give her nothing. They ask her support and her love, and repay with contempt and oppression.”

Of course, she was talking about the strident fundamentalist strains to which the Musevenis & CO subscribe. So, when your sons and daughters march in protests, they are shot dead. When your sons and daughters want to communicate to you their points of view, the radio stations are cowered and threatened. When your sons and daughters write the truth that is not palatable to the regime (meaning to Museveni), draconian laws are used to harass and drag them courts.

You are not daughters of slaves. If you are your real fathers’ daughters, do something about your fate: vote these rascals out!