Ugandan poet with warnings about dictatorial regimes

Last year, Annah ‘Ashanah’ Ashaba fled Uganda for Israel after writing an erotic satirical poem about its long-serving president.

After some time in Tel Aviv, the 24-year-old sees similarities between both countries’ paths. In 2021, Ashaba’s erotic poem about President Museveni went viral. The poem humorously describes the writer’s desire to become the president’s “side chic,” so she can use her body and seduction to improve her country.

“I want to let him touch, touch me slow and then when he’s charged for action, I tell him that the education crisis dried my feelings,” it reads.

Uganda’s security forces were less amused, however, and poet Annah “Ashanah” Ashaba soon found herself being interrogated by the head of internal security. Under pressure, she left her homeland to Israel, where she is currently finishing a master’s degree in African Sustainable Communities at Ben-Gurion University of the Desert, Be’er Sheva.

Not Jewish herself and without ties to the country, the young activist opted to study in Israel after hearing about the program from a friend. Ashanah, 24, recalled a life of activism and repression without ever losing her smile while speaking at Tel Aviv’s House of Solidarity recently.

She spoke at the event out of concern about changes she sees occurring in Israel. In recent years, Ugandan activists like Ashanah are increasingly being forced to flee their homes as repression grows. Fellow activist and writer Kakwenza Rukirabashaija fled Uganda in 2022 after being imprisoned and allegedly tortured for insulting the president’s son.

Dr. Stella Nyanzi, meanwhile, was imprisoned over her poetry and fled to Germany in 2021. While the East African nation holds regular elections, it has been ruled by Museveni since 1986. Corruption is widespread and the country has some of the most stringent anti-LGBTQ laws in the world, including the death penalty.

Those “promoting homosexuality” – a vaguely defined term encompassing any kind of positive mention of the topic – could face a 20-year prison sentence. Ashanah fears this law could be applied to herself due to a satirical piece she published on how the legislation would “magically” allow Museveni to “defeat homosexuality” and make the country bloom.

Recently, a filing was submitted to the International Criminal Court accusing the Ugandan president and his son, Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba, of the torture and killing of opposition figures in the months before and after the 2021 elections.

“Coming from a country that has lost the rule of law, where it’s a one-person decision kind of thing, the government does as it pleases. They pass laws; they remove the age limits and term limits,” Ashanah says, referring to the 2005 amendment to remove term limits in Uganda and the 2018 bill removing the presidential age limit that allowed Museveni, now 78, to stay in power.

“So, I keep telling my [Israeli] friends: Israel will go the same way if people don’t stop this,” she says – the “this” being the Netanyahu government’s plans to strengthen the powers of the ruling coalition at the expense of the judiciary.

Israel was never part of Ashanah’s plan. She applied to numerous universities around the world, and would have been happy to stay in Uganda if she could. But this became impossible after her poem went viral. She lost friends and was afraid of “disappearing,” like other fellow activists. Even finding employment became a problem.

“I remember I had applied for a job which I know I was qualified for,” she recounts. “The human resources manager said, ‘You’re a good writer, but because of that poem we cannot risk having you.’”

ASKING THE WRONG QUESTIONS

After her poem “side chic” made headlines in Uganda, she says she was taken to a military compound where her interrogator tried to bribe her, as is often the case with activists. He explained why it was important not to “talk ill” of the government, and that talented writers like her should work with the government, not against it.

“I told him: ‘I’m a writer, I cannot give you my freedom – that’s the only thing I have,’” she recalls.

She was instructed not to write anymore, something she found difficult to do. Ashanah has a history of standing up to authority, which began in high school when she led a rebellion of schoolgirls against the most feared teacher. She successfully overturned a policy that forced girls to go back to their dorms in the evenings to sleep when they wanted to stay up to study while boys were allowed to watch soccer games.

At Makerere University, her activism intensified after joining a student union known as “The Guild.” In October 2019, she and a group of women students led high-profile resistance to the university’s decision to increase tuition fees.

“They underestimated what the girls could do,” she smiles.

While protests are technically legal in Uganda, they require special permission. Often protesters are tear-gassed and arrested, with the police blaming the violence on the protesters, she explains.

She and her friends were arrested and detained for 10 hours. Some students were charged with “inciting violence” while others were suspended from the university. The police later tear-gassed and beat students. The education minister in Uganda, Janet Museveni – who is the president’s wife – called the student protesters drunken drug abusers and a nuisance.

Dr. Sethunya Mosime, a visiting scholar at Ben-Gurion University from the University of Botswana, has taught Ashanah this year.
According to her, the poet “is oblivious to anything that tries to stop her. She doesn’t see anything as an impediment to her voice.”

She adds that Ashanah’s audaciousness has continued to land her in trouble in Israel, citing the example of her questioning a university program donor about his investments in Africa – a topic that no other student dared raise during the event.

“My father told me to be careful because I asked the wrong questions,” Ashanah says. She grew up with her father, a science teacher who passed away in 2020. He always supported and encouraged her, despite their disagreements about politics.

His generation had lived through the military dictatorship of Idi Amin in the 1970s and generally believed the Museveni regime had brought peace and stability. But she had other ideas.

“Museveni must go,” she says when asked about aspirations for her homeland. “That’s my slogan and [it is shared by] many others. … All institutions are under state capture; they are not independent – the judiciary, the police, everything.”

BACK TO SURVIVAL MODE

The last time Uganda held elections in 2021, Museveni faced off against a former pop singer, Bobi Wine, who symbolized a hope for change.

“He was a candidate who for the first time rallied the youth. The young people were so excited to participate in the elections,” Ashanah says. His loss was hugely disappointing and led many to return to “survival mode” rather than think about the next election, she adds.

Ashanah has been actively trying to learn about Israel and its complexities during her time here. During a tour by antioccupation group Breaking the Silence to the West Bank, she says she was “disturbed” to learn about a South African apartheid supporter, Yaakov Talia, who became a settler.

“I still think that apartheid is the best thing in the world,” Talia reportedly told an Israeli journalist after he first came to Israel in the ’90s. And while she participates in the Be’er Sheva protests against the judicial overhaul and worries about it being passed into law, she has also been surprised by how little the occupation is discussed by demonstrators.

“It will get worse for Palestinians and no one is talking about it,” she says.

Perhaps the most striking similarity between her home country and Israel, Ashanah says, is their long-standing heads of government. Both Benjamin Netanyahu and Museveni are “selfish, power hungry and greedy leaders. Even a good dancer has to leave the stage at some point.”

The story first appeared on Haaretz, a media house in Israel