Pastors, witchdoctors and sex in a dishonest society

Pending Executive approval, Parliament has made a law that, among other provisions, forbids pastors and witchdoctors from touching, fondling, hugging or caressing women in ways that amount to sexual harassment or exploitation. Stiff prison sentences await offenders.

Uganda is a funny place. It is one of those countries where legislators may celebrate making a law that addresses a persistent problem, and also where those who break the law will be happy because they do not expect the law to be enforced. A win-win situation.

We have laws against murder. There is a whole shelf of anti-corruption, land ownership, environment protection and human rights laws. To that heap, you can add speed governor and boda boda helmet laws. Then polythene bag laws, garbage laws; plus the Covid-19 presidential regulation-cum-decrees. 

These laws exist, although some are gradually melting away. But their enforcement is often a joke.

The law breakers are sometimes powerful people enjoying their impunity; or people willing to bribe their way out of trouble; or people in an environment where that impunity and that corruption have weakened all enforcement and judicial processes.

In our taxi parks, and on open streets down-town, women are being treated shabbily – especially verbally – on a fairly regular basis, in spite of existing laws. Occasionally, law enforcers take action.

So, when you identify pastors and witchdoctors as special problem groups, what you are really saying is that our lawmakers and law enforcers are too incompetent to interpret the actions of spiritualists in the context of the existing laws.

I won’t say, Africans; but many Ugandans seem to have a problem with abstract concepts and categories, and the internalisation of general principles.

That may partly explain why our Constitution is so detailed, and why we have many overlapping and redundant laws.

Pentecostal pastors and witchdoctors manipulate their clients (or congregations) in very similar ways. They work on the usual senses (sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell) and the residual memories of their clients to generate heightened emotional states. 

Both the pastor and the witchdoctor depend on the common lie that these emotional states are evidence that the spirits (including demons and the Holy Spirit) have descended on the client and taken control.

It is important to remember that the client has generally yielded to the supposed power of the pastor/witchdoctor. Almost anything the ‘master’ does or suggests is permissible. The client believes it is authentic.

In this enterprise, minding-bending lighting (or darkness), music, and even drugs, can help the master to manipulate his client(s). Yes, and touching, especially mind-altering erotic touching. This is what the pastor or witchdoctor sometimes exploits to satisfy their own sexual needs. 

Some prosperous pastors are now said to have government security men (presumably paid by taxpayers) doing private (?) guard duty in the churches. Very likely, most are vanity fixtures, to show how powerful the pastor has become. I greatly doubt whether any of these security men is going to start arresting a wealthy ‘man of God’ – who is also his special boss – for sexually molesting his clients, except perhaps in the extreme case of rape.

It may be more effective to introduce enlightening content in our school and general public education system.

Just as women are cautioned to avoid dark street corners in crime-prone zones, where they could easily get molested, they can be taught that some pastors and witchdoctors’ shrines are on the list of ‘risky destinations’. That is, until a more honest government is sworn-in and deals more seriously with all criminals. 

Mr Tacca is a novelist, socio-political commentator.

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