{UAH} RESPONSE TO THE MONITOR ISLAMOPHOBIA STORY ABOUT HIGH RIDING MOSQUES

RESPONSE TO THE MONITOR ISLAMOPHOBIA STORY ABOUT HIGH RIDING MOSQUES

By Yusuf Serunkuma (PhD)

The Islamophobia in the Monitor article on funding of mosques: (six major assumptions, sins editors committed)

1. You cannot ask a rich man or a non-suspicious/settled member of the community for the sources of funds for their real estate projects or any other projects. Because you are content they are capable and are not suspicious of wrongdoing, there is no need to ask.  Who is funding Uganda's new high rise mosques starts from the assumption, confirmation and stereotype that Ugandan Muslims are poor to fund their projects. But also, if they did manage to mobilise funds, they need to be closely scrutinised. This quickly feeds into other hateful tropes that Muslims remain mostly uneducated, backward, violent, and are "the other."  The entire idea of investigating new high-rise mosques not for their architectural grandeur, or their claimed religious and other contribution to society but rather from the vantage point of "where is the money coming from?" is nothing but hateful.

2. The article goes ahead and profiles Muslims starting by offering a headcount. "Currently, there are about 5,000 registered members of the Muslim community in Lira Municipality alone." And continuing that "there are more than five other high class smaller mosques in Lira Town." This is a clear case of profiling "the other" – the alien in our neat society.  See, Muslims do not register to belong to a Muslim community. They simply belong.  Perhaps more details would have helped about this specific registration process, and community in Lira, since there cannot be just 5000 Muslims in Lira.  [Recall that Muslims have a history of being deliberately misrepresented in the demographics by the national census].

3. Relatedly, it is only a poor man that can be asked about the source of funds for his many estates. This is because they have become too many for his level of income, which then makes him suspicious.  If he had perhaps constructed one, that would be fine, but these are too many.  Who therefore is funding him?  Does this funder mean well for all of us? It is the same with the emphasis on "high rise," and "high class," which springs from the understanding that they are too good for them.  Because there are simply more new mosques that aren't high-rise, and these seem all right.

4. Without any connection to the story, quotes on security come to conclude the narrative.  Or this was the entire ambition behind the story? Whilst it might appear that Monitor sought to clear the names of the Muslims organisations funding the constructions as having no relation to insecurity (terrorism, radicalism), they actually confirm and propagate the stereotype. The idea that Muslim have to explain their innocence since they remain perpetual suspects is simply Islamophobic.

5. There is a difficult history to funding Muslims projects in Uganda – by friends of Muslims – that the Ugandan government halted at some point on some inexplicable connections with Islamic extremism. What now explains this renewed interest in recounting funders, called "international friends" in quotes, as if Monitor is suspicious of these international friends.  What explains those quotes on the part of the Monitor editors? This reads like continuity of the secular state/ secular public vigorously scrutinising their Muslim compatriots – for they do not trust them very much.

6. In the context of Covid-19, and the scientific elections, how did Monitor pitch a story to investigate the sources of funds for the high rise mosques. News is gathered in a context – and we are right now in a Covid-19 world: What is this context, the urgency for this story angle – especially as ambitious as that? What is Covidic about it?

Kalema, Ahmed, Mbabazi, this is a very elaborate write-up. Do we expect an apology of sorts from Kiyemba's Daily Monitor?

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