NUDITY DEFIANCE
Dr Stella Nyanzi’s undressing at Makerere Institute of Social Research (MISR) has placed Uganda under a moral siege of sort. Public opinion appears swayed against Dr. Nyanzi, but in her act, she was only conforming to Makerere University’s tradition of bad decisions leading to strikes and violence.
In Uganda, issues of sex and sexuality as a mode of resistance is taking a proper shape – from Amuru to Makerere University. Ugandans are still afraid of nakedness and naked bodies compels them to start talking, acting. Undressing as a form of defiance and resistance among disempowered women in the face of adversaries has proven really effective.
Bear breast nakedness seemed to be a matter of grave concerns among the immoral, charlatans, Luciferians, Priests, the corrupt, and the mute. The real people who are accustomed to living in the absence of government, now accept the institutional decay as a norm. They appear to understand that in contemporary Uganda, nothing works; and authorities are reactionary rather than proactive. If an act of nudity elicits an action in the right direction, then who should care?
It is a common experience that each time a person approaches public institutions; s/he is transformed into a victim. You either become a victim of a pathetic customer service, obsessed bribe seeker, the indecisive boss, the unethical sex-for-service, the no-service due to no-equipment situation like in hospitals, the moving office syndrome (ie, boss is in the village, or out of the country), and the “Come Tomorrow” syndrome, or “machine not working” narrative, among many. These problems are only symptomatic of a bigger problem of poor governance, misrule, militarism, and violence in society.
People no longer bother to follow due process for fear of being defined as the problem for which they seek redress. Being a victim is indignifying enough, however, being defined as the problem for which you seek solution, is dehumanizing and objectifying. The indignity embedded in pursuing due process causes the chronic distress among Ugandans that makes them apathetic and suicidal. Taking actions that are characteristically extreme and outside of the box, like undressing, mob justice, or committing suicide, seems to be the only turning point for many Ugandans. That is why automobile operators no longer obey traffic rules in their suicide pursuits!
The Dr. Nyanzi’s debacle teaches us that no matter how legitimate one’s battles are, one should rather die than undress, even if undressing were the last stage in your struggle before your death. In her simple defiance, Dr. Nyanzi is comparable, to civil rights icon Rosa Parks. Dr. Nyanzi staked her dignity to win a more important war of getting MUK to investigate relations at MISR, something she claimed had been a nightmare for the last six years of her employment there. Only her nakedness caused that critical threshold for investigation to get done, just as Rosa Park’s mere sitting on a bus seat reserved for white folks redefined the civil rights movement.
Moralists can go hang!
People should learn to ease up on Dr. Nyanzi’s undressing act. That neither defines her in totality, nor her moral values. Rather, her bold act evinces her strength and courage as an oppressed woman. After all, Ugandans generally need 24 hours distress call services to salvage them from such chronic frustrations and potential suicide.
Uganda is in a very delicate situation where nearly everyone is frustrated, disgruntled, hostile, distrustful, deluded, emasculated, fearful, and hopeless. That is what has become of us in the last 30 years. Ugandans have endured a steady decline in their relationship with the government. That relationship has ebbed at its lowest and fear is what still hems them together. The NRM government has broken down public institutions and squandered public trust. The widespread systemic and structural failure ensures that nothing works on merit, everything operates on sectarian basis and highly politicized to cause dependence on the state as a benevolent giver, moreover to a selected few.
Dr. Nyanzi’s undressing was an act of courage in a chain of unattended to grievance filed in 2014. She deserves our respect within the context of ensuing systemic and structural failures within our public institutions, and particularly at Makerere University. Most importantly, it challenges our sincerity as a nation on our violent nature - strikes to solve problems.
Makerere University may not even have the moral authority to condemn Dr. Nyanzi’s stunt, given their record of encouraging strikes every year. One must strike to get a problem solved at MUK. It is stressful, and the anticipation of such violence can make one become as innovative and as belligerent as Dr. Nyanzi.
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