INTRODUCTION
In October 2009, a Member of the Ugandan parliament proposed a legislative bill which would impose the death penalty on certain acts of homosexuality. In Uganda, homosexuality is widely perceived as a foreign threat which needs to be controlled so that it does not ‘infiltrate’ society.Footnote 1 In public Ugandan discourse, the attempts by human rights actors and ‘Western’Footnote 2 states to pressure Uganda into taking a more liberal stance on homosexuality are often interpreted as forms of ‘neo-colonialism’.Footnote 3 This debate corresponds to more general claims, both in African/Ugandan discourses and in post-colonial theory, that colonialism, and more recently human rights discourses, the aid industry and the global media, have created global hegemonic norms, which have been enforced on African and other non-Western societies (see Esteva & Prakash Reference Esteva and Prakash1998; Rahnema & Bawtree Reference Rahnema and Bawtree1997). Particularly in the field of gender, kinship and sexuality, several debates – often in the context of aid interventions – have been fought over whether the vigorous promotion of concepts like gender equality, the fight for Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Trans/Intersex rights, or the banning of practices such as female genital cutting – to name just a few – represent forms of imperialism or neo-colonialism (Abu-Lughod Reference Abu-Lughod2002; Mohanty Reference Mohanty1988; Njambi Reference Njambi2004).
This debate has often and too easily been framed in binary oppositions. A common claim, in public discourses as well as in some of the academic literature, is that there are two clear-cut and irreconcilable positions: on the one side, Western politicians, activists and aid practitioners, who claim the universality of human rights and the necessity to enforce them if non-Western states are unable or unwilling to implement them; on the other hand, critical scholars and African politicians, who argue that human rights are just another excuse for Western state and development actors to interfere with the sovereignty of African states, and thus a continuation of colonial politics. The perceptions and interpretations of the ‘target populations’, who – depending on the discourse – are to suffer or benefit from the imposition of Western norms and rights discourses, have often been ignored in these debates. My article addresses this ‘gap’ in the literature: I analyse how ‘Western influences’ on Ugandan society are framed and evaluated in contemporary discourses on social change in Uganda, particularly northern Uganda.
I argue that there are two different types of discourses: on the one hand, discourses on neo-colonialism, which mainly reflect negative perceptions of Western-influenced change and are used to blame the West for interference in Ugandan internal affairs; and on the other, discourses on Westernisation, which echo more ambiguous views of Western influences and are concerned with Ugandan society itself. I assert that both discourses are forms of social critique: one is more externally, the other more internally, oriented, but they are not mutually exclusive and they sometimes overlap. Both discourses are strategic and follow different lines of argumentation. They serve certain purposes, reflect different positions within Ugandan society, and are thus employed by different actors in different contexts and for different reasons (cf. Foucault Reference Foucault1990: 36ff.).
I argue that the discourse on neo-colonialism is highly politicised and addresses – sometimes in a populist manner – historically grown global power inequalities, Western aid politics and the processes of foreign-induced neo-liberal change. To some extent, this is an elite discourse, which is propagated by Ugandan leaders and intellectuals, and primarily targets Western politicians and development actors. Its main aim is to criticise the West and its continuing dominance in the world system, and to emphasise the sovereignty and autonomy of the Ugandan state despite its continuing aid dependence.
The discourse on Westernisation, on the other hand, is more internally oriented and comments on contemporary Ugandan society. It is less focused on the processes of Western interventions, but is rather concerned with the contents and manifestations of Western values, norms and concepts, and the consequences of establishing them in Ugandan society. The discourse is characterised by a common distinction between notions of ‘traditional’ society on the one hand, and notions of ‘Western modernity’ on the other. In using these benchmarks, Ugandans contest dynamics within their rapidly changing society. The token ‘Western’ is deployed, sometimes arbitrarily, as a crucial signifier, which can have both positive and negative connotations. Among the ‘ordinary’ population in northern Uganda, I found this discourse to be much more prevalent than the discourse on neo-colonialism.
This latter, more ambiguous, discourse on Western-influenced social change is often de-emphasised in the literature, which deals with the ways in which Western-induced neo-liberal reforms and discourses have affected norms and practices in Uganda (e.g. Cheney Reference Cheney2007; Tamale Reference Tamale and Mutua2009; Wiegratz Reference Wiegratz2010). This literature predominantly reflects the critical discourse on the role of the West, which undeniably is very present, but places less emphasis on the ambivalence and complexity of local discourses on Westernisation. Wiegratz (Reference Wiegratz2010: 123), for example, argues that the neo-liberal restructuring of the Ugandan economy and society under the Museveni regime has led to ‘a spread of destructive norms and practices’, and is ‘mainly driven by the interests, norms, practices and projects of sections of the domestic power elite, as well as foreign donors, organisations, corporations and special interest groups’ (ibid.: 133). This is a very important aspect, but it does not capture completely the complex processes of compliance and resistance within Ugandan society, particularly among the ‘ordinary’ population.
My aim in this article is to demonstrate that the ‘ordinary’ population is by no means a passive recipient of ‘foreign imports’, but actively and very critically engages with Western values, norms and practices. Local actors negotiate whether these are desirable or not. They do not generally portray themselves as victims of the West, but base their arguments on their position within Ugandan society, depending among other things on generation, social class and gender. The article shows how the blurred, multiple and contradictory ways in which Western concepts are rejected and embraced, enforced and enacted on the ground, by providing ethnographic material from northern Uganda.
My findings are based on eleven months of fieldwork between March 2010 and February 2011 in Gulu Municipality, where I conducted research on perceptions of cultural change and generational conflicts among the Acholi people in the context of post-conflict reconstruction after the 20-year insurgency (1986–2006). The main part of the research consisted of participant observation and regular conversations with urban youth, their families and friends. Most of my interlocutors belonged to what I would call the ‘ordinary’, i.e. non-elite, population. Most had a basic level of education and were able to speak English, but few had finished high school or gone to university. My regular ‘informal encounters’ and conversations, which I recorded daily in my field notes, constitute the most important basis of my data. I also conducted thirty-six ‘formal’ interviews: with male and female urban youth (twenty), staff from NGOs, CBOs and the local government (nine), an Acholi elder (one), and mixed groups of youth and elders in selected rural areas (six).Footnote 4 I also collected newspaper articles and other documents which focused on discourses of social change in Uganda as a whole.
During my research, and when coding my field notes and interviews, I found that Westernisation and modernisation represented central themes in the debates on social change. A common claim was that the younger generation, who had grown up in town and in refugee camps during the war, had ‘lost’ Acholi culture and was now engaging in a lifestyle copied from the West.Footnote 5
In the first part of this article, I introduce discourses on Westernisation among ‘ordinary’ people in Gulu. I show that perceptions of Westernisation are very ambiguous and connoted both negatively and positively, depending on the context and the speaker. In the second part, I discuss a more concrete example of a Westernisation discourse – contemporary debates on gender, kinship and sexuality – where changes proclaimed to be Western-influenced are particularly contested. Finally, I give an example of a neo-colonialism discourse – the current national debate on homosexuality – and show that the motives, arguments and strategies behind it are very different from the discourses on Westernisation.
Throughout, I concentrate on the discursive level. I scrutinise representations and perceptions of social change, and discuss the positive and negative implications that Ugandans attribute to externally induced changes by analysing quotations from interviews and conversations as well as statements in the media. In these, analytically problematic terms such as modernity, tradition, local and global are often used. These, however, are common emic or ‘native categories’ (Ferguson Reference Ferguson2006: 177) applied by Ugandans in discussions of cultural change and, unless stated otherwise, are to be understood as such.
DISCOURSES ON WESTERNISATION, MODERNITY AND TRADITION: AMBIGUOUS PERCEPTIONS OF SOCIAL CHANGE IN UGANDA SINCE 1986
Over recent decades, Uganda has experienced massive changes in the political, economic, cultural and social spheres. Since President Museveni came to power in 1986, these changes have been heavily influenced by Western state and development actors. The Museveni government has willingly succumbed to foreign policy interventions and accepted structural adjustment measures in order to receive international development aid, which makes up a large percentage of the Ugandan national budget (Ndikumana & Nannyonjo Reference Ndikumana, Nannyonjo, Boyce and O'Donnell2007). Furthermore, the high presence of Western aid workers – in all parts of the country and in northern Uganda in particular – and the expansion of the mass media have influenced the dreams and expectations of Ugandans and led to a change in consumer trends and popular culture (cf. Appadurai Reference Appadurai1996).
Whereas the Ugandan elites profited from these developments, poverty remains widespread, especially in rural areas and in the north (Ndikumana & Nannyonjo Reference Ndikumana, Nannyonjo, Boyce and O'Donnell2007: 21ff.), and levels of social inequality rose. The rapid processes of social change have created feelings of uncertainty and ambivalence among most of the population.Footnote 6 There are frequent discussions whether the rate of change is too fast, and whether it is actually for the better or the worse. Elderly people, in particular, fear that their ‘traditional culture’ is getting lost in the ‘modernisation process’ and that the young generation is being confused and destabilised by the lures of ‘Western modernity’.
However, not all values and products which are perceived as Western are also perceived as negative; on the contrary, some are very much desired. Neither can the debates about positive and negative impacts of Western-induced change be framed purely in generational terms. Social change is a very complex phenomenon, and positions regarding its desirability and extent depend on a number of factors: age, gender, educational background, class, setting (urban or rural), as well as changing circumstances and even situations, which cannot all be analysed in more detail in this article.
In northern Uganda, many of my respondents, notably youths, expressed a desire and a need for change. They feel unsatisfied with their current situation, and many believe that the adoption of Western models can help Uganda to become ‘modern’ and ‘progressive’. Despite some progress since the end of the war, the majority of the population still suffers from poverty, high unemployment rates and limited access to quality education (Branch Reference Branch2008). Daily realities contrast starkly with images of a ‘modern life’ presented in the media – of wealth, prosperity, consumer culture and individual freedom. Young Acholi still have faith in the promises of ‘modernisation theory’, namely that one day they will reach the same level of development as the countries in the West (cf. Ferguson Reference Ferguson2006: chs. 6, 7). However, in order to overcome ‘backwardness’ and the narrow confines of ‘traditional society’ – two expressions commonly referred to – they feel that they need to follow the Western model. The following quotation is typical:Footnote 7
If I can compare the now and the then generation, I can see there is some change we are getting, when I [compare it] to old stone age there … At least you can see some modern roads here, some machinery, you know those kind of things. In those days you couldn't see these things, they were backward, they didn't even know what education is … In some few generations to come we are at the same level with those white people … What I can say in Africa, more especially in cities, towns and centres, the Westerners, they are taking over, they are bringing their culture … The culture of Africa … it is going to get lost … Nowadays they say the world is just growing, and for you, you are still backward. Nobody wants to be called local, so people move away from their culture. And even when you know how to do something in this culture, you don't do it, you just run away to the Western life. (Morris 2010 int.)
The quotation reveals the ambiguity of change, the feeling of being ‘seduced’ to give up one's own culture in order to participate in ‘modernity’. Interestingly, the respondent does not blame the West for enforcing its culture. Rather, he describes the decision to move away from the ‘local culture’ as a conscious choice and therefore – implicitly – also as an expression of agency. He seems to have internalised the widespread narrative of Africa as a place that is ‘backward’ – economically, culturally and socially. He does not believe that traditional elements can coexist with elements of a modern, Western society, but rather that all spheres of life need to be modernised and Westernised in order to catch up and ‘grow’ with the rest of the world. Whereas this quotation connects Westernisation to economic development and prosperity, the next one points to another set of benefits commonly linked to Westernisation: independence, individual freedom, civic rights, and the possibility of overcoming patriarchal and gerontocratic structures:
There are three categories: first, the children of the rich, those ones, they are so Westernised and that is so fine – for me I don't see a problem there. Then, the middle ones, the ghetto dwellers, those who live in the ghetto [urban neighborhoods, slums]: those ones have both the local culture and the Western culture, and yeah – they are transforming and that is good. Then there is the other – the ones in the remote areas, the young people who are in the village. For them, they still have the culture thing in them, you can see them, the ladies are getting circumcised and they are not complaining; there are so many things happening to them, they are getting married young and they are not complaining. It is because their mind is still narrow, their thinking is still narrow, they are still focused on that thing … like ‘I want to be like my grandfather, he had twelve wives’ (John 2010 int.).
The respondent seems to embrace Westernisation among Ugandan youth. For him, ‘local culture’ is strongly related to the idea of being controlled, restricted and not being able to make independent decisions. He refers to young girls in the villages who are being circumcised or married off at a young age, probably partly against their will. He also refers to ideas which for him seem outdated, e.g. that a man has twelve wives, which was common in the past. He talks about young people living in rural areas in a very essentialist and also derogatory manner, which becomes obvious by his choice of expressions, especially the repeated use of the term ‘(culture) thing’.
However, despite the hopes of economic development and a liberalisation of society, that Acholi youth, in particular, connect with the idea of Westernisation, there are also doubts and fears of its potentially destructive effects. In many ways, the high pressure to change – which many people feel is a pressure to change according to Western ideals – also causes confusion and uncertainty among all members of society, and not everyone is ready to accept changes according to a Western model. Elders are very sceptical of youth's desperate attempts to copy Western modernity, due to the destructive elements which they see as inherent in Western culture: moral degeneration, individualisation, materialism and a breakdown of social ties.
While most Ugandans would probably like to have the economic benefits they associate with Western modernity (a common view is that people in the West are rich and live ‘easy lives’ due to their technical and economic advancement), people are very critical of adopting the Western model in social terms. Many Ugandans I talked to and interacted with in Gulu seemed to believe that Western society is materialistic, individualistic and ‘immoral’ – characteristics which are somehow linked to Western capitalism and economic success, although this was usually not explicitly reflected by my interlocutors. Elderly people often expressed a feeling of despair at the social changes which, according to them, were happening as a consequence of adopting Western culture. They were more sceptical of the promises of modernisation, which had remained largely unfulfilled for their generation (cf. Ferguson Reference Ferguson2006: ch. 7), and saw the only solution to contemporary problems in going back to their often idealised ‘traditional culture’. This reflects generational conflicts about ideals and expectations, but also a fear by elders to lose the control they originally had in society, which was based on principles of seniority. The following quotations are typical:
Youths today are very lazy, idle and disorderly. They are confused, they don't know what to do, they don't know what is the right way anymore, they are so full of confusion. Maybe that is also because they don't know how to combine human rights with their culture. Today, many children don't listen to parents anymore; when they are given some advice, they say ‘I have my own rights, leave me alone.’ That is making youths to be so unstable today because they don't have proper guidance. (Male elder 1, 2010 int.)
Respect is the biggest problem. The young people today are following the Western culture, whereby boys are wearing earrings and pulling their pants down. When the elders talk to them, they say ‘ah, for you, you are local’. (Male elder 2, 2010 int.)
The derogatory use of the word ‘local’, referred to in the second quote, reflects an internalised view of a widespread hierarchisation between global (equals modern) and local (equals traditional). Describing an elder as ‘local’ could imply that he does not have formal education, cannot speak English, or does not know about recent consumer trends and developments. These aspects were frequently discussed in the interviews I conducted with mixed groups of elders and youth. However, not only elders but also young people sometimes idealised the past and were desperate for more structure and elderly guidance in their lives as the following quotation shows:
This generation, I can see many young people floating… they are not going to school … [even] when they find good things they just turn their life to the worst, they don't see that they should reach some point … Mostly they turn out drinking, even you find some who come from a very good family, you find them floating on the street drinking … For theirs [parents' and grandparents' generation] it was good, it was better, in those times. Our parents always listened a lot to our grandparents, and when they [the grandparents] are teaching a lesson you find them sitting together’ (David 2010 int.).
Interestingly, while both groups – those who embrace Western modernity and those who reject it – feel somewhat determined by current processes of modernisation and experience confusion as a result of rapid social change, most of the people I interacted with did not explicitly blame the West for enforcing its concepts, norms and ways of life. Although this ‘neo-colonialism discourse’ was also present in northern Uganda (I sometimes encountered it among university students and other local ‘elites’), it rarely came up in daily conversations about cultural and generational change. There could be different reasons for this: for one, the ‘interviewer effect’, i.e. me being a Westerner. This, however, should have abated after some months of regular interactions, at least to some extent. A second reason could be that because of the war, the subsequent high levels of poverty, and the inability or unwillingness of the Ugandan government to help, most people in northern Uganda felt dependent on interventions by the West. Most importantly, however, I argue that in the current post-conflict phase the dominant discourse revolved around rebuilding Acholi society and was thus internally oriented. Obviously, Western actors were a part of this rebuilding process, therefore debates about the introduction of Western values, norms, consumer goods etc. often came up. But rather than criticising the West, my interlocutors blamed fellow Ugandans for trying too hard to imitate the Western lifestyle and values, which they considered not or not yet suitable for Acholi society.
When discussing the impact of humanitarian NGOs in Gulu, for example, my interlocutors often emphasised that the NGOs brought new concepts (like human rights) which in principle were very good. But then they went on to say that, because local people did not know how to use them properly, these new concepts were causing more harm than good, which is also expressed in the above quotation (‘Maybe that is also because they don't know how to combine human rights with their culture’). Westernisation does therefore not necessarily mean a process which is initiated from the outside, as the term might suggest, but rather something which is actively enacted by Ugandans. This is also evident in the quotation: ‘There are some people that are too modern, they are too Westernised. You know, we here just try to imitate the Western culture, but we could not really do it. … We call it half-baked: sometimes you pretend to be Western, but it will not fit you well’ (Olara 2010 int.).
Hence, the discourse on Westernisation is not about blaming former colonialists and other Western states for the current processes of change. It is a discourse directed at the Acholi/Ugandan population, and represents a debate about which norms, values and practices should prevail, and whether it is desirable to imitate a Western lifestyle. In using the term Western as a kind of benchmark, in both a positive and negative sense, Ugandans are trying to come to terms with their own society. There seems to be a prototypical (but nevertheless somewhat arbitrary) imagination of Western society, which is used as an external reference point. In discussing the desirability and undesirability of imitating this prototypical Western society, Ugandans are negotiating what they consider desirable for their own society. Thus, debates about the Westernisation of society represent a form of internal social critique. Images of an ‘ideal society’ are debated by comparing Ugandan society to an imagined other.
At the centre of this debate are power differences and conflicts within Ugandan society: between young and old, men and women, rich and poor, urban and rural populations, who all have very different imaginations of the ‘ideal society’. The critical question then is not how far Western actors are enforcing certain concepts on Ugandan society, although this remains an important issue, but how Ugandans are trying to negotiate critical issues such as norms, values and practical developments, which affect their everyday lives. Although many of these are shaped and influenced by trends and actors from the West, the discourse is not about processes of intervention but about the contents of Western models and the consequences of adopting them.
Furthermore, these local discourses and negotiation processes are expressions of agency, reflecting local appropriations of concepts which are labelled Western. Whether a ‘Western concept’ is adopted and becomes a social norm is not, as is often suggested, something which can be steered from the outside, but rather something which reflects positionalities and power differences within Ugandan society, based on age, gender or class. But although older, wealthier, urban-based men probably have more impact than young, poorer, rural-based girls in imposing new policies and related norms and practices, power relations are neither fixed nor all-encompassing, and agency can be exercised even by the least powerful (cf. Ortner Reference Ortner1999). A good example is debates about children's rights, also referred to in one of the quotations above. Elders and parents repeatedly complained to me that children were nowadays always talking about their rights – particularly their rights to education and leisure time. They complained that children rebelled if parents could not pay their school fees or when they were asked to work on the fields or in the household. In contrast, children and youth I spoke to questioned former, more authoritarian, educational methods and some scorned their parents for being ‘backward’ due to their lack of formal education. These debates reveal that children, who are generally seen as the least powerful members of society, actively use the discourses on children's rights to challenge established hierarchies and ideologies.
As Foucault (Reference Foucault1990: 93ff.) suggests, power consists of a multiplicity of force relations and points of resistance. Together, they constitute an overall strategy or system of power, which often produces unintentional outcomes. Many recent studies (e.g. Adogame et al. Reference Adogame, Echtler, Vierke, Adogame, Echtler and Vierke2008; Appadurai Reference Appadurai1996; Loimeier et al. Reference Loimeier, Neubert and Weißköppel2005; Rottenburg Reference Rottenburg2002) have shown that the outcomes of development interventions, globalisation, modernisation and Westernisation processes are often unintentional, and neither homogenising nor teleological (Adogame et al. Reference Adogame, Echtler, Vierke, Adogame, Echtler and Vierke2008: 4). On the contrary, through the encounter with the ‘new’ – through both active appropriation and passive alienation – boundaries can be redrawn and identities recreated (ibid.: 13). Thus, foreign influences as well as changing norms and practices are negotiated at all levels of society, and although policies adopted and promoted by elites have far-reaching consequences for the rest of Ugandan society, as the example of neo-liberal reforms shows, their influence is not all-encompassing.
The next section emphasises some of these points by analysing common narratives about Westernisation in Acholi discourses on gender, kinship and sexuality. Here, social norms and practices are particularly contested. I focus on debates among ‘ordinary’ people in Gulu, and show how the perceived Westernisation of gender, kinship and sexual relations manifests itself in a struggle between the older and younger generations, as well as between men and women.
DISCOURSES ABOUT GENDER, KINSHIP AND SEXUALITY IN UGANDA: WESTERN MODELS AS FUNDAMENTAL THREATS?
The complex and contested deliberations on Western models are particularly noticeable in the field of gender, kinship and sexuality. When discussing this issue with interlocutors in Gulu, they often claimed that gender roles and norms, dating/marriage customs and sexual practices had been Westernised. They related this to a variety of causes, most prominently media influences, the promotion of women rights, and also the insurgency (cf. Dolan Reference Dolan and Cleaver2002). Again, it was evident that references to Western influences were used to convey both positive and negative implications of these changes, the interpretation of which depended on the positionality of the speaker, as I will show below.
The positive aspects mentioned usually included: (1) more equality between the sexes and more chances for women (e.g. access to education/jobs and therefore greater economic and financial independence); (2) the decline of ‘harmful cultural practices’Footnote 8 (such as wife inheritance, which was most commonly mentioned, but also the reduction of polygamy, early or forced marriages); and (3) more personal freedom in relationships (e.g. to choose a partner, have more sexual liberties, and pursue the ideal of ‘romantic love’). The following typical example is an extract from an interview with a Ugandan woman, who was working in a project aimed at reducing sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in the Acholi sub-region. The project was supported by the Acholi cultural institution Ker Kwaro Acholi and focused on the need ‘to modify or update some of the cultural practices that do not promote women's human rights in Acholi land’ (Ker Kwaro Acholi 2010: 2). In the interview, Esther (2010 int.) explains the ambiguous effects of changing gender relations in northern Uganda, which she attributes to ‘the conflict and Western culture’:
In this generation now, there is gender equality, women can make their own decisions, things have generally changed. Formerly, there were cultural-based practices which were discriminating against girls and which are slowly changing today. But not all cultural-based practices were bad; some were also good which have been destroyed … There are definitely both – good and bad things [being imported from the West]. On the positive side: women's empowerment, valuing of women, equal rights for the girl child, and education. On the negative side: violence – in the movies, also the vulgar language which is taken up by some people (and it is worse if it is taken up by women); defilement; and also emancipation because it has gone out of proportion and has led to a loss of respect, especially in marriages, and thus also causes violence. The changes have come too fast and people couldn't adapt properly.
The ambiguity expressed in this quotation is typical: changes in gender norms are not necessarily negative, but have ‘come too fast’ and have ‘gone out of proportion’. The respondent stresses that not all ‘cultural-based practices were bad’, as might be inferred from Western discourses on gender equality, but they were ‘destroyed’ – she does not say why or how. Overall, the most common negative aspects of ‘new’ concepts such as gender equality and women's rights mentioned during my research were increased conflict and violence between men and women, a rise in immoral or inappropriate behaviour, a decline in social courtesy, and resultant instability in the community and society as a whole. I analyse these factors in more detail below.
My data reveal that debates about gender, kinship and sexuality are more emotive and fought along more essentialist lines than other discourses on Westernisation and social change. One explanation may be that these are crucial factors in social reproduction and, in the long run, societal survival. According to my findings, most of the concerns voiced about changes in gender, kinship and sexuality matters can be related to three fundamental threats, which are – implicitly or explicitly – feared: (1) a threat to the family and kinship system; (2) a threat to the moral integrity of society; and (3) a threat to established gender orders. All three are closely interlinked and by no means specific to the Ugandan case, but have been analysed with regard to other societies in transition to modernity (cf. Giddens Reference Giddens1991). In discussions about these threatening aspects of Westernisation and modernity, my interlocutors often contrasted ‘traditional’ Acholi/Ugandan/AfricanFootnote 9 society with an imagined ‘modern’ and Western other. By looking at three prototypical narratives, I show how these binary oppositions are used to negotiate generational and gender-based conflicts in Acholi society, and thus illustrate my argument that discourses on Westernisation are internally oriented and reflect internal conflicts and different interpretations of social change, rather than providing an externally oriented criticism of the West.
Narrative 1: Westernisation as threat to the African family and kinship model
Changing family and kinship relations were a common topic among my interlocutors, and were typically discussed by using the above-noted binary oppositions. According to the narrative, in ‘traditional African society’, marriage served to create bonds between different clans or lineages, and was not primarily seen as a relationship between two individuals; nuclear families were incorporated, supported and controlled by a huge network of relatives. Extended families usually co-resided and/or collaborated to guarantee subsistence. Relationships between proximate generations were reciprocal, i.e. children took care of their parents in old age. Descent was clearly regulated by patrilineality. Most importantly, African society was based on solidarity and communality.
In contrast, Western society was described as being individualistic, materialistic and unappreciative of communal values. My interlocutors claimed that these characteristics, which they saw as jeopardising and undermining the stability of the traditional system of social relations, were now finding their way into Ugandan society through the ‘modern and Westernised’ young people. The latter were accused of finding their marriage/sexual partners without consulting their parents and kin, moving away from the villages and trying to distance themselves from the large kinship network and the obligations that come attached to it. As a consequence of individualisation and selfishness, ‘these young people’ were no longer committed to their marriages and families, and just left to do their own thing as soon as problems came up. Therefore, divorces, which were formerly very rare, were increasing and early, extra-marital and/or multiple relationships were becoming more common. Furthermore, my interlocutors often related changes in African family and kinship systems to uncontrolled sexual behaviour among youth; particularly, young women were accused of being prostitutes.
Prostitution is a very strong image, which stands for society's loss of control over women's sexuality and fertility (Arnfred Reference Arnfred and Arnfred2004: 16), and which is evoked in many contexts, past and present, in Uganda and other African countries. Promiscuous sexual relationships of women pose a threat to patrilineal descent systems and societies that are closely interconnected through affinal ties. In present day Uganda, prostitution and similar phenomena such as ‘transactional sex’ (Hunter Reference Hunter2002) entail risks, which are even more concrete and whose impacts are experienced on a day-to-day basis: HIV/AIDS, abortion, and family break-up. However, from a women's perspective, the decision to have more than one sexual partner or to abort, can be regarded as expression of agency and in some contexts even as intentional strategy in the sense that women are consciously taking control of their own sexuality and fertility (cf. Hunter Reference Hunter2002; Silberschmidt & Rasch Reference Silberschmidt and Rasch2001). This poses a challenge to established gender orders (see below). The perceived increase in women's sexual freedom was also postulated as a reason for the ‘moral degeneration’ of Acholi society discussed in the following.
Narrative 2: Westernisation as threat to the moral integrity of African society
According to this narrative, moral correctness and integrity were particular ‘cultural strengths’ of ‘traditional African societies’. Respect (particularly of age and gender-based hierarchies) was often mentioned by my interlocutors as the single most important principle regulating every aspect of social life. Other important rules they pointed out concerned proper conduct in public life, for example decent dressing, or no showing of (sexual) affections.
In contrast, Western society was seen as decadent and ‘morally degenerated’, as ‘witnessed’ in Western movies, popular culture and the behaviour of Westerners (expatriates and tourists) in Uganda. Many respondents criticised the desire of Ugandan youth to imitate Western culture, and interpreted the changes in gendered and sexual behaviour as a sign of insetting moral degeneration of Ugandan society. The prototypical image of ‘indecency’ and ‘moral decay’ was the ‘miniskirt’, as reflected in this quotation by a male university student at a public debate:Footnote 10
You see someone putting on a miniskirt in the village there and so disgrace our culture. Honestly, we have lost our conduct, our cultural behaviour has really been lost … When we leave this town and go to the village, we shall really be so much discriminated, because we differ so much from those people in the village … They will begin comparing us to people who come from outside … because of the way we conduct ourselves.
Similarly, boys were blamed for wearing their pants low (‘baggy style’) and trying to look like American ‘gangsta rappers’. Other typical examples of ‘moral degeneration’, some of which I have already mentioned, included: children and youths have lost respect for their elders – they are rude, do not listen to advice anymore, do not help their parents and grandparents at home, and are too much money-minded; women have lost respect for their husbands and male relatives – they refuse to fulfil their roles in the household, quarrel all the time, and are also too much money-minded.
The descriptions of such ‘misbehaviour’ reveal that especially older people fear that fundamental social values are jeopardised which according them formerly served to create stability in the society. Both fears – regarding a Westernisation of African kinship and family systems as well as a moral degeneration of society – can be related to a third threat: the breakdown of gendered orders in Acholi society.
Narrative 3: Westernization as threat to African gender orders
Normative expectations of how men and women should ideally behave in Acholi society were distinguished from Western gender images, particularly regarding women. According to the narrative, in traditional African society, gender relations were marked by clearly differentiated, complementary roles and related gender and age-based hierarchies, which were perceived as very different from Western notions of gender equality. However, in contrast to common Western discourses, most elders – male and female – I talked to did not think that these former social structures were discriminatory or ‘gender-unequal’. An Acholi elder once explained to me: ‘This gender balance necessity is just being brought like that [but] the original respect was there, it was just natural, there was no question about it, you know this is for a woman, this is for a man’ (Opio 2010 int.).
The typical traditional African woman was depicted as a caring, loving ‘mother’, who respects her husband and in-laws, and behaves according to culturally defined gender rules. This image was contrasted with the typical white woman, who is not married to her sexual partner, does not have children, dresses and behaves inappropriately in public, and does not show respect for gender-based hierarchies. The ‘traditional African mother’ was also contrasted to the young generation of Ugandan girls, who no longer stick to established norms, dress codes and behaviours expected of women.
The typical African man was commonly portrayed as a well-respected protector and provider of his – ideally polygamous – family. This image was contrasted with the ‘irresponsible’ young generation of Ugandan men, who have multiple sexual relationships and father many children without being able to properly marry the women and provide for their families.Footnote 11 This selfish and irresponsible behaviour was seen as consequence of youth's desire for a Western, urban, hedonistic lifestyle, and refusal to work hard on the fields as their parents had done. Most of my interlocutors, however, also referred to underlying social dynamics such as poverty, unemployment and the subsequent inability of young men to acquire the bride price necessary to get married properly or to provide for a family (cf. Silberschmidt Reference Silberschmidt2001).
Despite rapid changes in Acholi society, images of gender roles and hierarchies have remained quite stable (Dolan Reference Dolan and Cleaver2002). However, a growing number of men and women can no longer live up to these expected norms. There are complex reasons for this that are linked – among many other things – to the introduction of capitalism during colonial times, subsequent neo-liberalisation, related factors such as poverty and unemployment, and also the war. The breakdown of hegemonic models of masculinity (and femininity) poses a great challenge to established social orders, and therefore to social stability (Dolan Reference Dolan and Cleaver2002; Silberschmidt Reference Silberschmidt2001), a concern which was also commonly expressed by my interlocutors:
The behaviour of women has changed these days and it is not easy to teach them anymore. They have started wearing trousers and always talk about women's rights. They don't respect and listen to their elders anymore, because of all these modern influences they are always rioting and referring to their rights and refuse to fulfil their traditional roles. (Male elder 3, 2010 int.)
You know these women of nowadays – you find the one who is educated enough: she is now doing her own job. You find that she will not mind of you, because … she only has her job, everything is in her hand: her salary, monthly… So what are you? What does she want? (James 2010 int.)
To a rural person, a woman remains a woman and she has to do all the domestic chores, and a man remains the head of the family and the breadwinner. And yet they are not now breadwinners, it is women who now struggle there at night to get something to eat for their children. (Julie 2010 int.)
The quotations express that the perceived breakdown of gender (and gerontocratic) orders, aggravated by the promotion of women's rights and education, causes uncertainty and instability as established hierarchies and power relations are being challenged. Men no longer feel valued, respected and needed; women experience that men can no longer live up to the role as main provider, which in turn forces them to look for alternative sources of income and take over the man's role themselves.
Analysing narratives on Westernisation as forms of internal social critique
The debates about the values of tradition and modernity, and the disparities thus invoked between African and Western gender images and norms, are hardly new. The famous Acholi poet and writer Okot P'Bitek (Reference Okot1989) took up very similar topics and images in his poem ‘Song of Lawino’ in the 1960s, shortly after Ugandan independence. In the poem, Lawino accuses her husband Ocol and her new co-wife Clementine of trying too hard to copy the lifestyle of the Whites, and defends Acholi customs by contrasting them sharply to Western culture. Indecent behaviour and dressing, sexual immorality, abortions, and even loss of masculinity (‘My husband has become a woman’, ibid.: 119), are only some of the issues she criticises as results of Westernisation in Acholiland. Lawino uses Western characteristics and behaviour as negative reference points in order to condemn unwanted dynamics in Acholi society. As in my examples above, positive ‘traditional’ values (e.g. authenticity, morality, communality) are asserted as a means to emphasise the dignity and sovereignty of ‘African cultures’, in a time when Africa is commonly depicted as a dark, backward, poor and dangerous continent – even by Africans themselves.
In the poem, Lawino takes pride in her Acholi culture and appeals to others to do the same. Interestingly, she does not criticise the Whites, but the Africans who are trying so hard to imitate them: ‘She [Lawino] thinks the customs of white people probably suit white people. She doesn't mind them following their own ways … But those Africans who insist on following the ways of white people are foolish, because they misunderstand their own ways and do not know themselves' (Heron Reference Heron and P'Bitek1989: 19ff.). This comment relates to my argument very well. It implies that complaints about Westernisation in ‘Song of Lawino’ are not about or addressed to the West, but directed at Acholi society, criticising those ‘Westernised Acholi’ who are repudiating their own culture.
In the preceding pages, I have outlined the complex and contradictory ways in which Western influences and social changes are reflected in Uganda. I have focused on discourses on Westernisation, and have argued that these are less about actions of Western actors, and more concerned with internal processes and dynamics within Ugandan society. Although these discourses acknowledge changes in Ugandan society as a consequence of adopting Western models such as capitalism, and often expose strong distinctions between Acholi/Ugandan/African and Western values and concepts, they do not present the West as forcing Ugandans to comply with Western ways of life. Rather, references to the West are used as a means to negotiate contested norms in Ugandan society. Especially among the younger generation, the frequent references to the West also reflect a desire to be ‘Western’ and ‘modern’, to engage in a lifestyle they know from Western media, and to overcome some of the constraints they relate to ‘traditional’ African society, such as being controlled by male elders in the family and clan, or to labour in the fields instead of going to school. In this sense, the given examples illustrate an extensive and conflictive inter-generational debate, which is taking place within Ugandan/Acholi society. This debate is inspired by the changes people are witnessing in their everyday lives, some of which – like HIV, teenage pregnancies, abortions, and decline in marriages – have very serious consequences for their communities. However, these debates also reflect internal power struggles about maintaining or challenging the status quo.
All in all, Westernisation seems to have very different implications from the discourse on neo-colonialism, which I introduce in the following section. Judging from my own data on northern Uganda, references to neo-colonialism are rare in discussions of social change among the ‘ordinary’ population. But there is one prominent exception: the recent debate on homosexuality. Here, claims of neo-colonialism and Western interference are explicit. In the following, I briefly examine this debate, and suggest reasons why homosexuality is so explicitly framed as a form of neo-colonialism.
HOMOSEXUALITY AS NEO-COLONIALISM
Ever since David Bahati, Member of the Ugandan Parliament, proposed a legislation bill in October 2009, which would impose the death penalty on certain acts of homosexuality, Uganda has been in the international headlines and on the agenda of human rights activists. The proposed law acknowledges the view of many Ugandans, who state that homosexuality is something unnatural and fundamentally un-African, which is being introduced in Uganda by Westerners, and poses a threat which needs to be contained. What is interesting in this debate is the way homosexuality is framed as something which is enforced by outsiders. A common claim is that young people are being corrupted into becoming homosexuals and will then ‘set upon’ other Ugandans. The fact that people are agents who can make choices is strongly de-emphasised in this discourse. Homosexuality is seen as a ‘structural force’, which is highly contagious and ‘automatically’ turns people into homosexuals if it is not stopped at once. In contrast to other concepts (e.g. gender equality etc.) discussed above, which are perceived as Western and viewed with some scepticism, but nevertheless debated and appropriated at the local level, homosexuality seems to be rejected completely and references to neo-colonialism are frequent in public discourses. In one of the two major daily newspapers in Uganda, New Vision, in an article entitled ‘Neo-colonialism fuels homosexuality in Africa’, Margaret Muhanga (Reference Muhanga2009, my emphasis), Member of Parliament for Kabarole District at the time of writing, claims:
The dependency syndrome has increased to the extent that the elite who should direct the affairs of the country have betrayed the cause of our forefathers and become spokespersons of Western ways. October 23 was one of the worst days of my life when I woke up to read, with disbelief a one-and-a-half page press release in The New Vision titled ‘Anti-homosexuality or anti-human rights Bill’ by a coalition of civil society organisations on human rights and constitutional law. What a tragedy for Africans who depend on others for a livelihood. The elite, including the women organisations, that sent this press release and paid handsomely for its publication, are slaves living under neo-colonialism. This is not their opinion or belief, it is their ‘sponsors’ who direct them what to do or say. What a disappointment we are to our society.
The claim that Uganda is forced to accept homosexuality due to its aid and economic dependency on the West is apparent in this statement. A further claim is that Ugandan civil society and elites are being co-opted by the West, and incited to ‘betray the cause of their forefathers’. Here we find an explicit allegation that the West is forcing Ugandans to repudiate their established customs, norms, and ways of living. Generally, this press statement seems to reflect a relatively broad-based consensus that homosexuality is difficult to reconcile with a ‘Ugandan’ or ‘African identity’.
The reference to neo-colonialism in this discourse constitutes a strategic difference from the discourse on Westernisation. Unlike the latter, which is primarily an internally oriented critique of Ugandan society, the discourse on neo-colonialism is explicitly about the role of the West. It is a form of external critique, directed at Western state and development actors who are trying to interfere with Uganda's national politics. Under the label of neo-colonialism, issues like international power imbalances, inequalities in the world market and monetary system, and the ludicrousness of development aid, are addressed. This is principally an elite discourse, which is referred to in different political and academic contexts, albeit rarely in ‘normal’ conversations by ‘ordinary’ Ugandans, as I have outlined above. The current debate on homosexuality, however, which was initiated in elite circles, was quickly taken up and discussed in all segments of Ugandan society, under the label of neo-colonialism. Obviously, this is a very complex matter which I cannot adequately discuss here. I do, however, want to briefly suggest two potential explanations.
The first explanation implies that discourses on homosexuality reflect real anxieties by the Ugandan population in the sense that homosexuality, in a very fundamental way, poses a threat to all the three areas outlined above: a threat to family and kinship models, to moral integrity, to gender orders, and thus, very generally, presents a threat to the constructed notions of ‘African identity’. This can be inferred from the article quoted above. The author provocatively asks: ‘If all of us were to become gay, where would the next generation come from? … These homosexuals cannot reproduce. They must recruit, and they want our children … Ugandans must rise up and fight all sources of evil no matter how much money the West sends. Human dignity must be protected’ (Muhanga Reference Muhanga2009). Here, homosexuality is perceived as a threat to the continuation of society as well as something immoral and against human dignity. The idea that homosexuality is something utterly un-African is reflected in the following quotations by male university students at a public debate:Footnote 12
Homosexuality, do you want to tell me that in African traditions, in African nations we had homosexuality? No, homosexuality is just being brought …
We should consider it within this context of morality: now when you talk of adopting homosexuality, my dear, you know it is quite wrong for a man to climb on the back of another man. In our tradition – that is wrong!
The ‘dangers’ of homosexuality are not only evoked in elite discourses, as the following example from my field notes (9.5.2010) reveals. I went to a three-day workshop organised by the Catholic Church on the outskirts of Gulu, where about 60–80 male and female students aged between fourteen and twenty-two came together to discuss issues affecting their everyday lives. Towards the end of the third day, male and female youth were separated into groups for an ‘advisory talk’. When afterwards I asked the Ugandan priest who had invited me to the workshop what sort of advice had been given to the boys, the first thing he mentioned – to my surprise – was that they had been advised to stay away from homosexuality. This example illustrates that the current discourse on homosexuality seems to resonate with ‘real anxieties’ in the Ugandan population.
The second explanation is based on the assumption that the discourse on neo-colonialism, like that on Westernisation, is strategic and must be analysed in the current political context. Despite Uganda's continuing dependence on Western support, President Museveni has increasingly resorted to anti-Western rhetoric in his speeches, and has asserted that Uganda is no longer willing to let Western nations dictate its foreign policy. He has used the neo-colonialism allegation as a populist argument and portrayed his firm stance against Western intervention as a sign of his strength and autonomy as president, for instance with regard to election issues,Footnote 13 and to the proposed homosexuality law, where the West exerted massive pressure in order to convince Museveni to withdraw it. Thus, it seems that the fierce debates about homosexuality are less about sexual practices and identities; rather, the discourse is a strategic and political one, which is used to stress the sovereignty and independence of the Ugandan government – also against critical voices within Ugandan civil society.
Nevertheless, the consequences of the discourses on homosexuality are very real. In October 2010, the Ugandan newspaper Rolling Stone published a list of one hundred alleged homosexuals, including their photos and a banner that read ‘Hang them’. In January 2011, the Ugandan gay rights activist David Kato was murdered. These and other cases show that the homosexuality discourse not only has consequences for Uganda's external relations. The evocations of hatred and widespread anxieties also provoke extreme reactions and trigger adversary dynamics within Ugandan society.
In this article, I have argued that there are two different types of discourse which engage with Western-influenced social change in Uganda: discourses on Westernisation and discourses on neo-colonialism. Both are strategic, and represent different forms of social critique, one internally, the other externally, oriented. They can be differentiated not only by looking at the terminology, but also because they have different underlying motives and follow different lines of argumentation.
The discourse on neo-colonialism, in Uganda and beyond, is highly politicised and criticises global inequalities, the continuing Western dominance in international economic and fiscal politics, and the hypocrisy of the development regime. It emphasises that external, structural factors are responsible for the current problems of African states, and legitimises practices by African governments, which defy Western understandings of democracy and human rights, as signs of their autonomy and sovereignty. This discourse is often depicted in post-colonial literature, and reproduces the binary opposition between ‘the West and the Rest’ (Hall Reference Hall, Hall and Gieben1992). Judging from my empirical findings in northern Uganda, however, this is largely an academic and elite discourse.
Discourses on Westernisation, on the other hand, are much more ambiguous. Here, references to the West are sometimes arbitrary, and can be connoted both negatively and positively, depending on the context and speaker. Based on my experiences, this discourse is predominant among the ‘ordinary’ population, which engages with Western concepts, values and practices very pragmatically, and discusses whether these are desirable or not for their own society, irrespective of the ‘mechanisms’ which led to their introduction, such as structural adjustment measures or humanitarian interventions. Although ‘ordinary’ people sometimes overlook the macro-political issues raised by intellectuals, they by no means just passively receive, but also actively negotiate, refuse and appropriate ‘Western’ concepts, norms and practices, and by doing so also negotiate different positionalities within Ugandan society.
This latter, more ambivalent, discourse, which is presumably present in many other African countries which have a long history of Western interventions, has largely been ignored in most of the post-colonial literature, including recent studies on Uganda. However, it is important to look at these non-elite discourses, because they may reveal new perspectives on the ‘foreign vs local’ debate in post-colonial societies: namely, that ‘ordinary’ people may have perceptions which differ not only from Western activists and development actors, who see them as victims, but also from African elites and post-colonial scholars, who romanticise resistance against the West (cf. Ferguson Reference Ferguson2006: 185ff.). Further studies are needed to see whether my arguments also apply to other African societies, and whether there are countries or regions where discourses on neo-colonialism are more dominant.
