Source of witchcraft in Uganda and how it has found its way into the Church

By Dr. Grace P’Karamura

Since my recent article on witchcraft in church, I have been inundated with responses and requests to write about the reasons behind its resurgence at such a time in the 21st century.

Your guess is as good as mine. I request readers of this article to critique it mercilessly to enable an informed debate on this sensitive topic.

The world has become a global village. Communication, travel and access to information have become so easy that what took us a month to get 20 years ago, takes us seconds these days. With such global association, there is the inevitable influence, imitation and acquisition of some of the foreign social/cultural habits either knowingly or not. So, in my opinion, one of the contributing factors to the resurgence of witchcraft in Uganda is the ease of travel and the resulting opportunity to visit other African countries where witchcraft is rife.

This is obviously a sweeping, patronising statement and I apologise to anyone that may feel offended. But countries such as Nigeria, Sudan, Congo and some South African countries were known for their adherence to such traditional beliefs, rituals and practices.

With easier travel and improved communication, some of these countries have become conduits consequently rubbing their influence on some of the already willing Ugandan customers.

For those of you who have watched Nigerian movies and soaps, you may have noted witchcraft as a recurrent theme. Usually films and soaps are made drawing from issues that affect that society! Yet we still expose such to our families and children forgetting the psychological influence they may have on them. The global village has also ushered in a different strand of Christianity. It is a miracle- oriented brand that only glorifies a theatrical Jesus. With such artistic performances, the historical Jesus sometimes gets tired of being taken for a ride and refuses to perform at the whims of the pastor’s commands.

Consequently, some of them resort to applying artificial gadgets that will prompt some believers into hysterical actions with electric shocks as evidenced by the Nigerian pastor who was arrested at Entebbe airport a few years ago.

I heard of a story where a pastor asked those in the congregation who wanted to give $1,000 to the church to raise their hands. Apparently he had wired the chairs with live wire. As he said it, he pressed the button. Obviously there was an overwhelming response!  Take away the miracle factor, some of these churches would simply evaporate.

Uganda has come a long way both politically and economically. I can’t tell you how proud I am that, unlike before, I don’t have to buy anything whenever I am returning from UK. All I need is here.

The same goes with security. Apart from petty thieves here and there, I don’t have to worry about government soldiers and spies coming to eliminate me in the evening. But a closer look reveals a cosmetic nature of things. There are some sectors like education and health that still need more attention. In my opinion, this too has somehow contributed to the matter.

There was a time when health services functioned to the advantage of the poor. Medicine was available and treatment guaranteed. Today, with a seemingly privatised health sector, most people can’t afford private clinic bills or flying to India unless they are politically well connected! Consequently, some of them have resorted to the easier alternative — a witchdoctor. Moreover his charges aren’t astronomical, his prescription and medicine is instant and sometimes he may even offer a house call – in the evening.

Someone once said that people are walking civil wars. They are burdened. They have psychological, physical, social and economic burdens that sometimes they have nowhere to turn to. In the absence of social workers, the Church, amidst its own challenges, has tried to fill the gap though the task is enormous. The majority who have no church connections still have to look for a listening ear somewhere else. That is why I believe that witchcraft is a psychological issue; the state of one’s mind.

When the young, handsome, confident, determined NRM force won the bush war, they came with, what I believe, a genuine Marxist ideology that was pro-the poor.

They viewed organised religion as divisive and simply a ploy to exploit the masses. If you remember, some of them were more comfortable to identify themselves with traditional rather than western names. Because of their ideological conviction, they came in denouncing Christianity while praising the indigenous religion. Initially they held the church at arms length until the return of multiparty politics!

They did a kind of Okot p’Bitek in their denigration of the church. This is when words like okusamira, etc. began to come to the fore. Even during some early NRM sensitisation programmes, they would openly tell us of their bush encounters with witchdoctors.

But because they were largely an educated force, unlike Lakwena’s, the witchdoctors were left alone to exercise their freedom in the bush as they didn’t interfere with the war strategy. No wonder then that when it came to debate the Traditional Healers Act much later, it sailed through moreover in a predominantly Christian/Islamic parliament!

In the early 1990s, Parliament passed the restoration of monarchies/kingdoms for those regions that wished to have them. The restoration of such institutions obviously came with their cultural rituals of which the witchdoctor is the chief priest.

Regardless of where and how such rituals are performed before the king’s coronation, we find ourselves already participating inadvertently or otherwise. The bishop will crown the king well knowing what he was involved in the previous night. It would only take a bishop of the calibre of the late Festo Kivengere to dare question it!

Of course, I feel for the Church. It is overwhelmed from all sides. Apart from what I have stated above, the country has been invaded by a new brand of Pentecostalism that survives on a prosperity gospel ticket which appeals to most Ugandans as we emerge from years of social and economic deprivation. Such upward social mobility to some, tantalises their curiosity to test and apply anything that promises a better life. That is partly the reason they will pay money to the witchdoctor to make them rich or pass exams without even stopping to ask him how many of his children are graduates or millionaires! Because traditional healers are a registered right in their own, the Church, in my opinion, is rather hesitant to be seen raising its voice against them. Fair enough. But unless the Church makes its stand known, very soon traditional healers and witchdoctors will demand to join the Inter Religious Council.

Even more interesting, soon we shall see the head of the traditional healers association in Uganda seated alongside both Church of Uganda, Roman Catholic archbishops and the Imam as equals at national events.

The writer is a Ugandan living in UK