Réflexion historique sur des martyrs africains

In 1886 some fifty Christians of Uganda were put todeathforhavingrefused to deny their faith. If for their part, the motivations were wholly religious and won for them the appellation of martyrs in the proper meaning of the word, one can inquire about those of the Kabaka (king) and his principal chiefs who took such a decision. In the absence of sources which could provide us with reliable information in this respect, we can presume them by placing Buganda in a wider context. In a first period, threats against the independence of this country were coming from Muslim Egypt which was seeking to extend his domination in the Sudan to the sources of the Nile. At a particularly critical moment, about one hundred Muslim Baganda were executed. We must see in this the consequence of a certain conception according to which religion is not a personal act of faith, but the manifestation of a sociological membership : adopting that of a potential invader is therefore regarded as a rallying to this latter and a rupture in the cohesion indispensable to face up to him. The same motives would have provoked, it seems, a similar reaction vis-à-vis local Christians some ten years later. The Europeans were at that time extending their hold from both sides of Equatorial Africa in a constantly increasing movement. Adopting the religion to which they claim, at least on the surface, would seen to open the way to them, something that had to be prevented at all costs. In fact the situation did not present itself in such decisive fashion, since the Christians were living their faith without giving up anything of their quality of Africans and they remained totally loyal towards the Kabaka, who moreover did not start a systematic persecution against them. This latter rather reacted blindly at the prospect of an invasion threatening the collapse of a whole traditional world

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