Preserving our built heritage good for pocket and posterity

Going by public sentiment, last weekend’s razing of Benedicto Kiwanuka’s house in Kampala over an unpaid loan outraged many.
This was the family home of a key player in the lead-up to independence, a man who also starred as Uganda’s first Black chief justice only to be “disappeared” in that role in 1972.

Was the wanton act — occasioned by unbridled pursuit of political office by an heir and of cash by a moneylender — what we needed to trigger the appreciation of our built heritage?
Kampala’s Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago was touched. As a result, he may just save a few books and papers from the house and Kiwanuka’s Mercedes Benz UVD325.

The government panicked. I read embarrassment in the way it rushed out ministers Jeje Odongo and Godfrey Kiwanda to the scene.
Let me repeat myself. I don’t know why this government seems to perceive development in very narrow political and economic terms despite the provisions of its own National Culture Policy (2006).

The policy says: “Culture concerns itself with socially transmitted behaviour patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions and all other products of human work and thought. Culture includes intangible and tangible heritage, which is varied, complex, and in constant evolution. The tangible heritage includes monuments or architecture, art and crafts, sites, manuscripts, books and other objects of artistic and historical interest. The intangible heritage includes language, oral traditions, performing arts, music, festive events, rituals, social practices, traditional craftsmanship, knowledge and practices concerning nature.”

Despite that neat articulation, talk of culture in official Uganda seems to revolve around traditions and rituals. And because it is assumed a vast majority of Ugandans know their cultural norms and mores, why bother. We simply need a new highway and a new airport and 20 million bags of coffee a year and an expanded parliamentary chamber. That is development.
The policy speaks to architecture and monuments. So, let’s see how we are doing.

A story published in Daily Monitor on February 27, 2016, starts thus: “Both the Chwa Building and Muteesa I Dormitory at Mengo Primary School in Kampala have cracked walls, crumbling plaster and roughcast, very old timber, doors and paint, and damaged verandas as a result of rainwater.”

These buildings date back to the close of the 1890s — during the reign of Ssekabaka Daudi Chwa. “The Chwa Building was the first formal education building in Uganda … This was followed by the Muteesa I Dormitory, both buildings having thick walls made of mud and grass bricks.”

More recently — on April 3, 2018 — Daily Monitor columnist Muniini K. Mulera bewailed the state of the homes of Kigezi’s foremost leader, Paulo Ngorogoza.
Here is Dr Mulera: “[Ngorogoza] was buried at his home in Bukinda, about 30km south east of Kabale. He built that home in 1948. Its red roof tiles and its glass windows were a major statement of affluence and sophistication. As recently as 1992, the house was still intact, its living room piled high with his papers and books…

“Today, the house is in ruins, a large section of its roof collapsed, and almost certainly unsalvageable.”
The 2016 story quotes a paper by Dr Fredrick Okalebo of Makerere University outlining why things are terrible in the area of preservation of cultural and historical buildings and monuments in Uganda: limited national budget allocation to the sector (Kenya allocates about 2 per cent of its budget; Uganda 0.1 per cent); archaic heritage legislation; limited expertise; weak institutions; and fragmented custodianship where the Ministry of Gender oversees the National Theatre and Nomo Gallery, whereas the Ministry of Tourism is in charge of the Uganda Museum.

The Mengo school buildings are some of the tens of buildings and sites in Kampala earmarked for preservation by the Cross-Cultural Foundation of Uganda, Uganda Tourism Board, Buganda Heritage and Tourism Board, Uganda Museum, and Kampala Capital City Authority.

This partnership failed to save Ben Kiwanuka’s home. There is, however, no reason to lose other such properties again anywhere else in Uganda. It is therefore sensible that the partners involved in the Kampala project expand their work to cover the whole country. Then we can talk of real cultural tourism. And good money too.