It is difficult to articulate the place and position of Dr. Stella Nyanzi, medical anthropologist and women’s and LGBTQ rights activist, in Ugandan politics in the current moment. I view that place—as she articulates in this interview carried out by writer Arao Ameny—as critical of the office itself as an instrument of power, and the ways that power has been abused. Not only by those in office for decades, but also by women leaders, especially, who have been given a seat at the table. What Dr. Nyanzi articulates in this interview is important because it suggests that the women’s rights struggle is largely incomplete, and will require the efforts of a younger generation to be fully enacted. Dr. Nyanzi, who emerged onto the political scene through her Pads4Gals campaign in 2017, is currently running for the office of Woman Member of Parliament for Kampala Municipality in the 2021 elections.

The emergence of several political movements in the last two decades shows the changing terrain of politics in Uganda, and simultaneously reveals the changing laws of Uganda with notable constitutional amendments that reflect a tightening hold on power, or what can be argued is the instrumentalization of the law in countering political activism in unconventional spaces. Thus, Dr. Nyanzi is concerned with the institutionalization of women by and large: “That is another form of women’s participation in politics: that they may come and sit at the table, using whatever means, but when they get to the table, they forget the core values of women empowerment, feminist agendas, and they participate with those who oppress us through models of patriarchy and misogyny that must be combated.”

Recent activism has taken place in the era of social media, that is, after 2006, when Facebook first launched. Prior to this, Uganda was said to be “progressive” in multiple cases citing the 1995 Constitution, which made provisions for gender and women’s education, among others. Similarly, Uganda’s inclusive politics such as having a first woman Vice-President as early as the mid-1990s, has been lauded by various Western governments and international NGOs. Yet in recent years, the inclusive politics of the 1990s has appeared to be primarily benefitting the incumbent National Resistance Movement party, rather than effecting any real change amongst what Stella Nyanzi calls “the masses.” Dr. Nyanzi is attempting to forge a new working class-oriented politics.

That working class activism has taken place within unconventional spaces such as the entertainment industry or the university, and as such the music collective Firebase Crew is notable in the emergence of the “ghetto youth” movement in Kampala between 2000 and 2010, of which dancehall musician, Member of Parliament, and current Presidential hopeful Bobi Wine (Robert Kyagulanyi) is a proponent. There are also the various feminist and women’s rights campaigns that took place in public spaces of Kampala streets; the LGBTQ Pride Parades which took place in semi-public gardens in Entebbe and elsewhere; and a growing youth movement in Uganda. This is important because according to census statistics, the majority of the country is below the age of twenty-five but its leadership averages above sixty. On the other hand, the increased influence of the Christian Evangelical Protestant church dominating not only spaces of worship, but corporate spaces as well, has pushed its own agendas in the House of Parliament. These various movements have shaped recent politics in such a way that has prompted the government to aggressively counter the various youth, artistic, feminist, and queer movements.

The introduction of the Computer Misuse Act in 2011 is an example. Under this law Dr. Stella Nyanzi was detained and charged for cyber harassment after calling the president of Uganda a “pair of buttocks” on Facebook.

Similarly, other laws such as the Public Order Management Act targeted students protesting fee increments in the compound of Makerere University, and the Act was instrumentalized to shut down LGBTQ Pride Parades. The law was introduced in the aftermath of the Walk to Work protests in 2011, launched by long time opposition leader Dr. Kizza Besigye, and predominantly supported by the youth movements in the country such as the dancehall musicians and Lugaflow community. The Anti-Homosexuality Act, 2014, was introduced by Christian Evangelical Protestant politicians in the parliament of Uganda. By doing so, they hoped to use the law to enforce conservative Evangelical Protestant Christian values. This is contrary to the 1995 Constitution which provides that the Ugandan republic is not beholden to a singular religion.

Similarly, the Communications Act 2013, and the Anti-Pornography Act 2014, have targeted musicians, artists, theatre makers, and the arts industry at large. “These laws have been widely criticized for violating individual’s right to privacy on the internet,” notes a recent CIPESA study. The latest in these is the Excise Duty (Amendment) Act, 2018, known most commonly as the “social media tax”, which introduced a social media tax for Ugandan citizens.

In the following interview, Dr. Nyanzi locates herself within a broad range of women participating in Ugandan politics. She demarcates this field of participation through distinct groups: the group of elite “first women” who were appointed to office in the 1990s validated by the Yoweri Museveni regime; the second group of women who made their own way to the office through affirmative action, or family ties, or education privilege; the third group of women who use the office not to counter oppression but rather to enable those who are oppressed, suppressed, abused; the fourth group of women who are not in elite circles, and have a particular focus on women’s rights and cultivate an intimacy with the masses; the fifth group which consists of women predominantly outside of office in unconventional spaces of activism, consisting of majority young Ugandan women.

While this is narrated in the interview for purposes of her own rhetoric and how she places herself on the spectrum of Uganda politics at large, Dr. Nyanzi’s points are significant, such as mentioning the tendency of the Uganda government to rest on laurels of progressive inclusive politics, while the office itself is attributed mere symbolic power and financial capital. This implies that despite the 1995 Constitution and its provisions for women’s rights, it is still a major area lagging behind, as Dr. Nyanzi proved with her own Pads4Gals campaign.

The 2017 Pads4Gals campaign was aimed at school-going girls discouraged from attending classes for lack of menstrual towels or sanitary pads. In response to Dr. Nyanzi’s arrest on April 7, 2017, Amnesty International’s Muthoni Wanyeki issued a statement on April 10: “Lack of sanitary towels is one of the leading causes of girls dropping out of school in Uganda. Dr Nyanzi has led a campaign to ensure girls continue to attend school with dignity during their periods and, instead of commending her, the authorities have harassed, intimidated and now arrested her.”

In the following excerpt, I have transcribed an interview which took place via Zoom and Broadcast Live on Facebook on Friday July 24, 2020. Organized by writer Arao Ameny, it was advertised under the theme of “women in politics.”