In the mind of a nude protestor

Women in Apaa village on the Amuru-Adjumani border strip in protest of a decision to demarcate the border of the two districts as they feared it would lead to mass evictions last year. Monitor photo

What you need to know:

Frustration. On Monday, Makerere University don, Dr Stella Nyanzi, stripped at Makerere University Institute of Social Research protesting against being locked out of her office by the institute’s director, Prof Mahmood Mamdani.

Less than a fortnight ago, Makerere University scholar, Dr Stella Nyanzi, took to her Facebook account to give indications of a fast-developing rift at the Makerere University Institute of Social Research (MISR); claiming that her boss, Prof Mahmood Mamdani, the institute’s executive director, was threatening to illegitimately evict her from her office, many of us didn’t pay attention.

But shortly after, when she took to the same social networking site saying that her office had been closed with an ugly padlock and calling Prof Mamdani names, we knew the battle lines had been drawn.

And early Monday morning right outside the director’s office and in front of news crews, Dr Nyanzi gave an ultimatum, asserting that either her office be opened in three hours or she will strip in protest. Empty talk we thought.
Well, little did we know the stage had been set until the curtains fell, and we found ourselves being treated to Dr Nyanzi the sequel, starring Nyanzi as herself and the rest of us forming the large and shocked audience.

First off came the blouse, and before we could even deal with that, the trousers and a chain of other garments were on the floor.
In no time, a Whatsapp video recorded by the controversial scholar in her birthday suit was already making rounds, attracting a media and online frenzy, and drawing the attention she wanted.
By the time the curtain was pulled down, Dr Nyanzi had got her keys back.

The changing trend of protests
Marches, rallies and of course riots, those are the main forms of protests you will find when you take a four-decade walk down memory lane.
When rights were violated, freedoms denied, property seized and people got generally disgruntled, they held massive rallies or marched out on the streets in protest, their message emblazoned on large placards and sometimes punctuating all this with songs to draw attention.
Of late, however, perhaps because the conventional methods of protest are common place and arguably not drawing as much attention, people have turned to other forms of protest they believe will quickly turn the spotlight on the issues at hand.
In 2010, anti-government protesters in Thailand poured more than 300 liters of human blood outside the country’s prime minister’s residence.
Around the same time, Belgian farmers angered by the collapsing milk prices marched into the capital, Brussels, together with their cows, pouring milk all over the streets and even squirting milk straight from the cows’ udders to the anti-riot police. And the string of bizarre protests has carried on.
However, in some instances, when perhaps all of the other protest options do not seem viable, people choose to go nude.
And though the naked strikes are only recently gaining traction, history shows they are not exactly a new phenomenon.
At the beginning of the 20th Century, a Christian sect of the Doukhobors in Canada began marching naked in the streets to protest against discrimination.
In 2008, FEMEN, a Ukrainian group of topless female activists, began doing international topless protests to spread awareness of sexual tourism, sexism and other issues.
And in 2010, another group of artists and activists launched the World Naked Bike Ride, an event that had been launched in 2004 where participants ride bikes either partially or wholly naked.
The 2010 event was staged in 74 cities, 17 countries including the United Kingdom, United States, Paraguay and Hungary.
Coming back home, last year, women in Apaa village on the Amuru-Adjumani border stripped and demonstrated before Lands minister Daudi Migereko and then Internal Affairs minister, late Aronda Nyakairima, following the minister’s decision to demarcate the border of the two districts as they feared it would lead to mass evictions. And now, most recently, well, Dr Nyanzi.

Getting into the mind
As the nude protests have come under the spotlight, many have been quick to bring the psychology of such protests under the microscope.
Society has often written off all those that turn to showcasing their birthday suit in protest as mentally incapacitated.
But a question is asked; is one mad to go nude in protest?
The answer, according to Dr Peter Baguma, a psychologist at Makerere University, is no. Actually, these people are in their right state of mind.
“Mad people are those that strip for no reason. They will not put their clothes back unless they have been forced to do so. But many times the nude protesters are in their right state of mind. They do this for a reason and normally when their goal is met, they put their clothes on and move on. That is not how you would expect a mad person to act,” Baguma explains.
He points at frustration as usually the main reason people will turn to nudity to draw attention, noting that these people are always well aware that even though nudity is our most basic state, there are not many other things that cause the same extreme mixture of titillation and horror and will thus attract as much attention.
“Extreme frustration is the reason people will turn to this form of protest. After trying all other means and using all other forms of protest to no avail, they will employ nudity as the last resort.”

Great impact
Such protesters usually subscribe to the view that the more unconventional the style of protest, the more likely the media coverage, a belief that is perhaps right because, relying on recent events, a single naked person can easily draw more attention than 100 clothed men marching on the streets.
Nicholas Mugoya, a counselling psychologist at Kula Uganda, also points at extreme frustration as usually the eventual root-cause of nude protests. But says the environment is in all cases the main catalyst for such frustration.
“Normally when the system in the institution is seen as corrupt or ineffective, people get a feeling that the normal democratic processes will not work and therefore resort to protests,” Mugoya explains.
“And when the normal conventional forms of protests such as rallies and marches are frustrated by authorities perhaps through stringent rules on the conduct of such protests, or when a chain of such protests have in the past not been listened to by those responsible, people turn to nudity, considering it a more effective method.”

The Boobquake
Boobquake, which took place on April 26, 2010, was devised by Jennifer McCreight, a blogger who was then a senior in the Purdue University College of Science, in response to news reports that Iran cleric Hojatoleslam Kazem Seddiqi had blamed women who dress immodestly for causing earthquakes. On April 19, it was reported that Seddiqi advised his listeners that “Many women who do not dress modestly lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which increases earthquakes” and Iranians should “adapt their lives to Islam’s moral codes” to avoid being “buried under the rubble”. The day that Seddiqi’s comments were reported, McCreight encouraged her blog’s readers to help her poke fun at Seddiqi by dressing “in your immodest clothing to represent Boobquake”, an invitation then extended to the world via Facebook. She described Boobquake as a scientific experiment: “With the power of our scandalous bodies combined, we should surely produce an earthquake. If not, I’m sure Sedighi can come up with a rational explanation for why the ground didn’t rumble.” McCreight’s idea was popularised by prominent blogs and soon caught the attention of the international media.