Martyrs Day, Eid al-Fitr and demands for decency

Bernard Tabaire

What you need to know:

  • Preaching. Apart from preaching the message of love and prosperity, it would be a beautiful thing if the sheikhs and priests stood at the pulpit and denounced hate, greed, and bigotry in all forms. A vast majority of Ugandans visit the mosque or the church at least once a week. They need to hear a message that is edifying.

For the first time in a while, Martyrs Day and Eid al-Fitr fall within days of each other, effectively making this a holy week. Monday is Martyrs Day and (very likely) Wednesday is Eid al-Fitr. Both are public holidays. For the lazy amongst us, this is a godsend.
Essentially, Christians will celebrate the martyrs while Muslims will celebrate the end of the month of fasting — Ramadan. To be sure, there are Muslim martyrs too, except that they have not yet captured the public imagination. That may change soon.
At an Iftar dinner at State House on Tuesday, President Museveni promised Muslim leaders that he would help establish a Muslim martyrs’ shrine at Namugongo, to join the Catholic and Anglican sites.

About 70 Muslims were killed on the orders of Kabaka Muteesa I about 1877, while the 45 Christians were put to death nearly a decade later on the orders of Mwanga II. That the Christian martyrs are better known than the Muslim is a matter that invites investigation. It may well be because the Christians, with support of their European (especially British) enablers, ended up as rulers in Buganda and later Uganda. It appears the victors from the religious wars of the 1880s, like all victors, chose to tell their story and either ignored or completely downplayed the other. The more one examines the foundations of “modern” Uganda, the more intriguing the story.
War. Authoritarianism. Marginalisation/exclusion. Greed.
Religious leaders, and a smattering of politicians, will implore us on either big day to abandon our bad ways and do good by God/Allah and by fellow human beings.

Ramadan is a time for “prayer, reflection, community”. These are things to embrace and live by daily and Ramadan offers the opportunity for enhancement. If we suffered from a good dose of angst about our society, we would not need to be reminded of these values.
We need not die like the religious martyrs but, like them, it is good to have some cherished values.
Getting on and up in life animates us. But must pursuit of one’s happiness come at the expense of many other people? Think corruption in all its grand manifestations.

If all authority comes from God, then I suppose those who wield it should do so not with the devil’s grip, but with humility while promoting the common good.
No to marginalisation and exclusion of any sort: ethnic, gender, religion, region, race, sexual orientation.
No to taking advantage of others. Yet rape and defilement are all too common. Sexual assault, and its variant harassment, even more so.
Apart from preaching the message of love and prosperity, it would be a beautiful thing if the sheikhs and priests stood at the pulpit and denounced hate, greed, and bigotry in all forms.

A vast majority of Ugandans visit the mosque or the church at least once a week. They need to hear a message that is edifying. Instead, they are regularly subjected to homilies steeped in soft bigotry and ignorance. Dare you say you are gay, for example. You could be skinned alive at high noon at Kampala’s City Square.
The good books ultimately speak of love yet we speak and act out of rank malice. And lately we have evidence in Kampala that even pastors are not immune. Nothing is too little to be stolen, nothing is too small to be trashed and expended with.

The martyrs were done in largely on the whim of the Kabaka of the day. Whimsy is not always a good thing.
The pages at the Kabaka’s court may have been roasted at the stake for their inflexible will and sense of purpose, but we do not need a repeat today. Even dishonourable people should unfailingly be subjected to due process.

Ultimately, we should be about decency in both public and private life. Right should be right and wrong, wrong. The month of Ramadan compels us to reflect on that. The martyrs suggest that there are some larger things worth dying for. Even if you don’t agree with the martyrs, this stuff is worth contemplation.

Bernard Tabaire is a media trainer and commentator on public affairs based in Kampala.
[email protected]
Twitter:@btabaire