Why Anita Among must be Museveni’s favourite speaker 

My friend, novelist Kakwenza Rukirabashaija (and several other folks) love to ridicule speaker of parliament Anita Among for skin lightening as some form of fakery or lacking in sophistication.

They have thus called her names from “Mrs Mekako”, after a particularly renowned skin-lightening cream, to “Queen Elizabeth II” that she attempts to look like a white woman. But while I understand their intention to portray her as fake, sufficiently colonised, that is, embarrassed of her Africanness and skin colour, I think these slurs are inaccurate, lacking in context and terribly sanctimonious.

First of all, beautifying themselves through––permanent and temporary––bodily modifications such as tattooing, skin piercing, skin lightening, ear and nose piercing, braiding, and many others have been part of the womenfolk for millennia.

In Europe and North America—and also in several African cities including Kampala—women are thickening their lips and bottoms, while others are taking sliming pills. Consider labia elongation among East Africans. About 10 years ago, my friend, Dr Yahya Sseremba wrote a wonderful pan-Africanist, anti-colonial pro-labia-elongation essay when the WHO attempted to lump it under genital mutilation. Dr Sseremba was furious.

Thus, if beautification takes many forms, it would only be fair to say that in lightening her skin, the speaker actually is a product of our society and thus represents many women that we dearly love. I am not sure comrade Kakwenza has been downtown—or even in semi-upscale places such as Acacia mall or Forest mall— and seen the beautification industry.

It is big business, and was never started by sister Anita Among. That notwithstanding, I perfectly understand brother Kakwenza and co.: there is a degree of fakeness that comes with choosing permanent skin lightening. It speaks to a still- not-decolonised mind.

But again, this ought not to be blamed on Anita Among. This is a national condition. As a country, right from the top, we are still in awe with whiteness. Indeed, the joke goes that if you want to meet Mr Museveni in two days, show up with white skin. (And I am not saying this was the speaker’s trick after realising the president’s weakness with whiteness).

NIGHT STREET VENDOR

From her love affair with skin-lightening creams, it is arguable that sister Among actually understands the streets. Yes, most skin-lightening girls tend to be the most street-smart. Have you not seen Bad Black? But sister Anita Among isn’t a Bad-Black.

She is calmer and somewhat more sophisticated. She is like a market vendor who runs a mostly night kiosk selling sweets, liquors and cigarettes. (Maybe Bad Black would be her client). She has hanged out with genuine folks painfully eking out an existence (such as boda-boda riders).

She has also dealt with hardcore thieves, muggers, and soft pickpockets who see her as family as they have enjoyed free liquors, and sometimes, cigarette on credit. She has worked with gossipy colleagues, and has made peace with them. Her other clients include ladies of the night from the nearby red town, and she has carefully studied their clientele as well.

She could be lacking in cosmopolitan pretentions, but she knows these streets in and out. This is Museveni’s Anita Among—and that 11th Parliament being a modernised version of Kikuubo of the 1990s, sister Among is clearly cut for it. She is the night street vendor with a 24-hour kiosk who got to be elected RC I. To this end, she is executing her duties with utmost smoothness and precision.

Indeed, for her incredible success with silencing folks in the opposition—tactfully seducing them into NRM ranks while at the same time keeping their opposition faces— some people have called her a witch; that she is the priestess of the biggest shrine in the Teso subregion. I disagree.

This woman is only a smart street gangster. She could be rough sometimes, as she was with my friends, journalist Agartha Atuhaire or youthful legislator Francis Zaake. But she is smooth and sleek.

WITCHCRAFT OF THE STREET

It is my contention that had the Age limit bill happened under Anita Among’s speakership (and I am osmotic friends with Mama Kadaga), there would never have been need for SFC to enter parliament. Because what Museveni realised late on—that he could actually, simply buy opposition folks into smoothly opposing the amendment—Anita Among lives this life every day.

With the floods of cash in parliament, there would be no need for breaking anyone’s bones. A little street smoothness would suffice. Ever wondered why she was voted for en masse, the first time she went out for deputy speakership? She knows this game.

Sister Among knows the genuinely broke folks struggling to eke out an existence through politics. She knows indebted ones, the hungry ones, the muggers, the pickpockets, the egoistic clients of the redlight district, and all—because she runs the 24-hour kiosk at the end of the street.

The wall whisperers say she started her RC term by seducing potential sources of conflict onto her side: from our smartest opposition legislators—mostly lawyers and orators—to the Leader of Opposition himself, comrade brother Mathias Mpuuga.

Not only is she ready to offer these difficult colleagues of hers with any comforts of work they needed, but was ready to constantly seek their guidance. (That is a gangster street move).

Consider this, the wall whisperers say, sister Among phone-calls brother Mpuuga every morning, to both check on his health as a colleague, and also discuss the order paper, if need be. She will go ahead and share any possibly contentious items on her NRM side, and offer some mild concessions as well.

On the floor of parliament, it is all smooth-sailing. Tell me if Museveni would wish for anyone better after 35 years in office. She takes the crown!

yusufkajura@gmail.com

The author is a political theorist based at Makerere University