When bishops eat your tax

Glance at the Middle East. When the earth was still very thinly populated by humans, why was God so apparently short of land that He allocated to His special (Jewish) people a small patch their descendants and their (Arab) cousins can only fight over like savages?

Well, the inventors of God did not think of that.

Anyhow, God is now in a state of Divine rest. We no longer seriously hold Him responsible for our deeds.

When, for instance, an African runner or a Black American tennis star prays for victory, 21 Century man is inclined to look at them dimly. They become icons of ‘primitive’ Black people still steeped in superstition.

Yes, superstition. Praying may indeed have a subtle effect; but not because Jesus (really) lives out there, but because of the faith (in the brain) of the athlete.

They are already technically very skilled and physically very strong. If they believed that touching a rhino-horn talisman in a bracelet or getting a smear of oil by a pastor was the effective enhancer, faith in these acts of witchcraft would be as effective as a prayer to Jesus. 

Indeed, the time they technically or physically drop below par, no prayer or witchcraft will make them win.

There are far more sporting champions who learn to work scientifically on their mental strength without resorting to prayers or witchcraft.

Similarly, if Ugandans mastered the knowledge and invested in the skills and tools that propel modern nations to great competence and prosperity, they would not fool themselves after 61 years of independence that religion and its pedlars would become the agents to turn the trajectory of our national development upward.

A pack of high clerics now periodically bury their hatchets and their contempt for each other, mutually ganging up as an inter-religious outfit to influence government policies and, increasingly, to milk the taxpayer, masquerading as business consultants and intermediaries, but enriching themselves.

A thoroughly corrupt government is happy to patronise prominent clerics to hush their voices. In other societies, they could have been critics urging those with power to deliver more social justice.

In Uganda, they have assimilated the doctrine of the vampire State and been incorporated in the fabric of exploitation.

Nobody, for instance, satisfactorily explains why taxpayers’ money is used to buy Shs300 million luxury vehicles for bishops in a country where it is still normal for children is some government schools to sit on bare earth floors to get their education from teachers earning $100 (Shs370,000) per month; and where the poorest people have virtually no healthcare.

Where is the constructive morality of the bishops? Where is their conscience to counter the degenerate State?

In Uganda, almost all types of religious operators are free to fleece their followers any way they can.

And they do. That is why our established religious organisations and their affiliated commercial enterprises are not collapsing like many other business entities; and why most of the pastors you can think of habitually brag in their sermons how religion has made them very rich.

In a society where many people still fear to criticise religion and religious leaders, it is dangerous to incorporate them in the machinery of the State, which is supposed to be accountable in the secular space. They will mask and strengthen corruption, not fight it.

Mr Alan Tacca is a novelist, socio-political commentator.
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