Chris Howles teaches at Uganda Martyrs Seminary and has a great blog at Namugongo Life which is well worth following. He recently posted this very intriguing piece and I asked him if I could repost it here as I’d love to know what you think – especially East African brothers reading this.
I was teaching about the Cross last week when I encountered a massive cultural difference that hit me square in the face:
I was trying to get over to them the idea of God’s justice in dealing with sin…it must be punished. I wanted them to realise that, as humans, we all long for justice to be done. I tried to ground this in real Ugandan life so asked them a question that I thought would resonate deeply:
“What would you want to see happen to Joseph Kony (Ugandan warlord who has been responsible for the rape and murder of thousands, currently on the run in the jungle) if he were caught and brought to Kampala”
I was expecting them to reveal the ‘innate’ human desire for justice…. jail him, hang him, make him pay back all the victims in any way possible.
Instead, the whole class agreed: Let him go. For free. No trial, no truth, no punishment. Just forgive him, and let him go.
Well that took my breath away (and scuppered entirely the point I was trying to make). I tried another one…what if your wife was raped? Same response.
This explains a lot of what we see here. Amongst Christians (and over 85% Ugandans describe themselves as Christian) there is a tendency to be reluctant to punish anyone. We know ‘Christian’ charity/aid/NGO/church workers who have stolen huge amounts of money, been involved in huge sex scandals, or even child abuse, and rarely face any censure. The worst that happens is often they get moved to a different role within the same organisation. It’s almost unheard of to find someone losing their job here.
When you see a huge corruption scandal in Uganda (and believe me, rarely a day goes by when you don’t) often the response is simply that the person has to pay back the money. OK, at least that is a punishment, but given that this is sometimes years later, and they have made loads of money on it by investing it, it doesn’t seem much of a punishment or deterrent.
So, what’s going on? I don’t know. I think partly it’s a misunderstanding of the Cross, whereby there’s the thought that God forgives us by just forgetting. I think it’s partly a shame-based culture thing, where actually just the sheer publicising of the sin is considered punishment enough. I think it’s partly a misunderstanding of God’s provision of government to bless and punish, and I think it’s partly an effort, so common here, to try and out-do others in terms of holiness.
One of our observations of parenting here (generalisation alert: I know, I know) is that it ranges between extreme harshness (severe beatings, quite nasty language and brutal tone) and extreme freedom (many parents seem desperately reluctant to inflict any punishment on any kid, and tend to just give in to whatever they want). The latter would fit with this idea of ‘we must forgive, and forget, and not punish’.
My students were aghast, quite genuinely aghast, when I suggested that I could forgive someone who did something terrible against me or my family, but still testify against them in court. We spent an hour debating it, but they still looked at me with complete horror at the thought.
Finally, this is also a culture where regularly, regularly, without any trial, explanation, and sometimes in cases of misunderstanding or mistaken identity, suspected thieves (note ‘suspected’) are chased down by strangers on the street and beaten to death. Doesn’t even make the news when it happens here. I’ve seen it happen (and I’ve also thought that, if I were mugged, I’d think twice about calling out for help). So this idea of forgiveness, leniency, and no punishment doesn’t seem to apply here. Quite the opposite.
Which means, like almost every aspect of Ugandan culture, I get so muddled up mentally with apparent contradictions and confusions that I give up even trying to figure it out and quickly retreat into my well-worn cosy mental shell of ‘I just don’t get Uganda’.
And you know, I really don’t.
What do you think?
- Does this resonate? Do you see similar issues in other parts of East Africa – esp. re. corruption and violence?
- How would you explain the response of these students? And the apparent cultural contradiction?
- What do we understand by ‘forgiveness’ – ours or God’s – what does that actually mean?
- What actually happened at the Cross? And how can we explain it so it cuts home?
(I know this is very sensitive territory so let’s be super gracious and careful in our comments even as we try to get to the bottom of this…)
fidelnyikuri
iServe Africa Webmaster
Utumishi Blog 
This is stuff worth a postgrad research/thesis. How do you explain the election of the current Kenyan leadership on the backdrop of indictment on charges against humanity? How do we explain the everyday impunity in top government circles and the same leaders are elected? Is the communal instinct stronger/more important than our sense of justice? As we evaluate the African worldview on Justice we must also ask: What does Jesus mean when he says – I condemn you neither, go and sin no more? Could there also be a lack of confidence in the State as the bearer of the sword of judgement? Since many have escaped judgement through corruption historically, could that have eroded confidence in our judicial systems and also impaired our view of justice/ Could there be a sense in which we rely more on supernatural justice – Among my people we say – Wathi urihagirwo thi – which literally translates whatever happens here on earth will be repaid on earth, usually a misfortune to the offender. Could we be more inclined to the Mercy side of judgement rather than retribution?
More questions are emerging.
I’ve certainly heard a lot of appeal to Judgment Day and lack of confidence that there will be any earthly justice. I suspect, in general, the West puts an overemphasis on/overconfidence in earthly justice (someone must be to blame for everything, someone must be sued) and forgets eternal justice while here it is the other way around. A couple more questions: (1) is impartial retributive justice a uniquely biblical thing – in other words, should we expect pre- and post-Christian societies to lack any real concept of real justice; and (perhaps this is asking the same question another way) (2) is the desire for justice and fairness an innate human characteristic / image of God thing or is it something learned from the Bible or a culture deeply influenced by the Bible?
[…] Chris Howles started a conversation about the concept of justice East Africa and lots of questions emerged from the discussion: […]