Stella Nyanzi’s Transformation of Protest
Molly Whittington, Online Staff Writer
March 13, 2021
Photo Credit: Chapter Four Uganda, May 3 - Human Rights Convention, 2018 (Day II)
Feminist activist Stella Nyanzi has now fled Uganda, but her impact on the country will remain.
Nyanzi is an academic and scholar who has established a new form of protest, known as “radical rudeness”, this type of protest is to critique the human rights violations of the current administration in Uganda. While she now fears for her safety in her country, her activism has inspired a bold new way of protesting for human rights.
Nyanzi, a Doctor in medical anthropology, has taught and researched women’s health, conducted HIV/AIDS research, and studied sexuality at the Makerere University in Uganda until 2013. She has been a pioneer in activism for the LGBTQIA+ community in Uganda and has advocated vocally against the Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2013. Additionally, Nyanzi began a campaign to provide schoolgirls access to sanitary pads. However she is most known for her “radical rudeness” and its often shocking and scandalous forms of protest against President Yoweri Museveni. Most famously she wrote a poem published on Facebook on the President of Uganada’s birthday, using expletives and vulgar language, resenting that his mother had given birth to him. After its publication, Nyanzi was imprisoned for eighteen months under Uganda’s Computer Misuse Act, as Human Rights Watch alleged that she was denied access to lawyers and was abused while in prison.
This type of protest began during Uganda’s resistance against colonial powers, and is used as a way to hold those in power accountable for their actions by publicly insulting them, as well as performing acts that are considered incredibly inappropriate, especially for women, such as stripping during court hearings and using insulting language. Nyanzi has now become the modern face for this tactic; inspiring a string of other radically rude protests across the country, and promoting activism as an everyday part of life. She is quoted as saying "I don't get inspired by high and mighty women, it's everyday women. It's grandmothers, stepmothers, second wives, all swearing at their men".
After being released from prison in February of 2020, she ran for parliament, in a campaign met with intense scrutiny by the Museveni administration. Although she did not win, her voice in Uganda’s political environment has not been silenced. As of February 24th, 2021, she has fled the country to live in exile in Kenya. In an interview with CNN, Nyanzi alleged that her loved ones had been endangered, claiming that her partner was abducted and tortured by government forces in January 2021. In a phone interview with CNN, she stated, “I fled to get my voice back. I fled to get my mind back. I fled to get my freedom back”.
Nyanzi was originally jailed in 2017 for thirty-three days, when she publicly insulted the President after he broke his promise of delivering sanitary pads to school girls across the country. Since then, she has been involved in radical rudeness on many occasions, through vulgar poems, stripping and yelling expletives in public, and posting online. Nyanzi’s scandalous forms of protest have brought to light deep gender inequalities in the country, a lack of women’s control over their sexuality and sexual encounters, and the legislation that continues to oppress homosexual people in the country. The administration’s reactions to her public criticism have also highlighted a lack of freedom of expression in the country, especially for women. She has received international recognition for her poems, awarded with The Oxfam Novib/PEN International Award for Freedom of Expression in 2020, writing her acceptance letter from prison.
Museveni has been the President of Uganda for the past 35 years. Upon assuming the presidency he altered the constitution to remove the age limit on the president, allowing him to stay in power. Uganda’s constitution had an age limit of 75 years old on Presidential candidates. 74-year-old Museveni would have been restricted from running in the 2021 election if he had not removed this clause. The January 2021 election took place amidst a ban on social media. Upon Museveni’s sweeping victory, his closest opponent, Robert Kyagulanyi, claimed it was a rigged election that involved fraud and intimidation.
Human Rights Watch also alleges that the weeks leading up to the election have been covered in human rights abuses and violence perpetrated by the government and military. Free speech and journalism have been long standing issues in the country, and criticisms of the President have been met with intense punishment. In January of 2021, the Media Freedom Coalition released a statement announcing their concern over reports “ of attacks and harassment of journalists” and the “impacts of these attacks on the development and maintenance of a healthy civic space.” These attacks make the work of critics of the government, such as Nyanzi, even more dangerous.
Although Nyanzi has left Uganda, her voice has not been silenced. She is a pioneer in the form of rude protesting and has paved a pathway for women to fight for gender equality in the country. While she now lives outside of the country, her message of equal rights will live on.