3 - The Crisis

Summary

At particular times, single individuals are able to gain a certain freedom, detachment, or separation from hitherto dominant ideas and practices. Ardener calls such times ‘periods of singularity’ (1989: 148). They are characterized by paradigm shifts and epistemological fragmentation. At such times, prophets become noticeable, ‘because a category for the registration of the condition then becomes a necessity’ (ibid). Prophets appear at other times as well, but find no, or only limited, recognition; they remain silent.

This chapter elaborates on some characteristics of the ‘period of singularity’ that led to the emergence of the Holy Spirit Movement. First it describes the political history that provided the preconditions for the catastrophic situation in Acholi, and thus for the emergence of the HSM. Then - in contrast - it presents two discourses which attempt to explain the misfortunes and violence in northern Uganda from a local perspective. In a sense, they are local crisis theories. At the heart of the first are ideas of witchcraft that pin the blame for the misfortunes on relatives or neighbours. At the centre of the second, carried on primarily by the elders, are ideas of purity and impurity, the latter originating in violations of the moral order.

The third part of the chapter relates a story which became the official myth of the origin of the Holy Spirit Movement. In this ‘Story of the Journey to Paraa’, Alice - or rather the spirit Lakwena, who took possession of Alice - describes the crisis in Acholi. Reinhart Koselleck has elucidated in an essay the semantic field of the term ‘crisis’ (1982:617ff.), including its juridical, theological, and medical usage. In the story of the journey to Paraa, crisis is used primarily in its juridical meaning, as a decision in the sense of administering justice and judging, in a manner properly termed critique. In Paraa, Lakwena sat in judgement, like a rwot or chief, over man and nature, handing down the decision to combat sinners. But an aspect of the theological meaning of crisis also shines through in the metaphor of the courtroom. For this court is, in a certain sense, a preliminary Last Judgment which also contains a promise of salvation.