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The Ugandan Diaspora in Britain and Their Quest for Cultural Expression within the Church of England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2009

Amos Kasibante
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Abstract

The article examines the Anglican identity of two Ugandan immigrant communities in Britain and the congregations they have formed in order to foster their social, culture, and spiritual well-being. The two communities are the Acholi, who hail from the northern part of Uganda, and the Baganda from the central region. The former have formed the Acholi London Christian Fellowship while the latter have formed two distinct, yet similar, congregations in two separate London parishes. These are Okusinza mu Luganda (Worship in Luganda) and Ekkanisa y’Oluganda (the Luganda Church). The second is an offshoot of the first one. This article illustrates that religion and ethnicity are often inextricably intertwined, and that for the immigrants, Anglicanism does not merely displace or replace their native culture, but gives it a new sense of direction as they also shape it in the light of their aspirations. In this sense, we can speak of religious ethnicity, which refers to cases where an ethnic group is linked to a religious tradition shared by other ethnic groups.

Keywords

AnglicancultureDiasporaethnicityidentity markersimmigrantsreligionlanguage
Type
Introduction to Postcolonial Articles
Information
Journal of Anglican Studies , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , May 2009 , pp. 79 - 86
Copyright
Copyright © The Journal of Anglican Studies Trust 2009

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Footnotes

1.

Amos Kasibante is a Doctoral Researcher at the University of Birmingham.

References

2. Others include the Catholic Uganda Martyrs Community of Britain and Ireland, the Seventh Day Adventists, and various Pentecostal Churches.Google Scholar

3. Luganda is the language of the Baganda (people) and Buganda is their traditional kingdom or region.Google Scholar

4. Uganda Census Report, 2002.Google Scholar

5. Most of those attending the Pentecostal churches in Britain or in Uganda have a background in the Church of Uganda or have a foot in both camps rather than in the Catholic Church.Google Scholar

6. I am working on a longer article that gives more detail about the shifting grounds of politics in post-independence Uganda as background to the experiences and concerns of Ugandans in the Diaspora, which I hope will be published in the future.Google Scholar

7. UNLA is the Uganda National Liberation Army. It was formed as a front of the forces in exile that joined the Tanzanian army to oust the dictator, Idi Amin, in 1979. But it remained the name of the national army even after it had splintered after the disputed elections of 1980 that brought Milton Obote to power a second time.Google Scholar

8. The NRA was the former guerrilla army led by the current President of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni. It has since changed its name to Uganda People’s Defence Force (UPDF), and efforts have been made to give it a national character. It has also amalgamated elements from other armed groups.Google Scholar

9. Due to the lull in fighting occasioned by the intractable peace negotiations between the government and the LRA, many people have started leaving the camps to settle back into villages, although lack of resources, the presence of landmines, and insecurity mean that the process is slow.Google Scholar

10. Misson at Home and Abroad, (Acholi London Christian Fellowship Annual Report, 2005), p. 4.Google Scholar

11. The Church of Uganda is ‘low church’. However, despite its recent position on the question of sexuality and the thrust of the East African Revival (Balokole), the Church of Uganda cannot be described as conservative evangelical.Google Scholar