OKELLO DIXON COLUMN! Government Should Censor Pornographic Music Videos, Sexual And Violent Lyrics.

By Arthur Katabalwa.

Let me take the reckless decision of yet again crossing swords with the indomitable Dixon Okello. Yet again he writes about issues which are close to his heart and the way he believes. Whereas Dixon and I are childhood friends (hence my bravado in taking him on), we have agreed to disagree on so many issues. That is the bedrock of our mutual respect. It is also borne out of our history from the debating club of our former school, Kings College Budo.

Panadol W'abasajja

In his latest installment, he writes about the indignity of some Ugandan musicians who lashed out at The Minister for Ethics and Integrity, Father Simon Lokodo for ordering the arrest of the "singer"  commonly known as Panadol W'abasajja. I have very deep personal misgivings about Lokodo as a person and as a Minister. Maybe he was given a poisoned chalice with that ministry but as a person he is a difficult one. I don't rate him highly. And that is a personal opinion. But on the arrest, I would match with him to go and arrest this lass. It wouldn't be, however for the video but for her lack of any musical talent. I have watched about 33 seconds of the song she did recently and it was awful to say the least. Absolutely awful. And she isn't much of a looker anyway so next time, keep your clothes on love. 

But back to what Dixon wrote; I have problems with censorship. You see, I believe in the right of a person to be immoral. As long as they do not infringe on my liberties, anyone can be as immoral as they want. This, I know goes against the grain of current Ugandan law. In the anti pornographic law, pornography is not allowed. In his submission, Okello writes; "Glorifying pornographic music videos and violence in music is never good for a civilized society." He continues "Whether its gangster rap, hip hop, kadongo kamu, or any other type of music, if the lyrics of the song promote, glorify, or portray violence, racism, drugs and sex, in a favorable light it should be censored."

I agree to two issues here; violence and racism. The two should be tackled head on. Especially violence. But racism is subjective. Many people actually don't understand racism. Recently I employed a white man and the uproar it caused even from some of my learned friends was breathtaking. The main issue was that I had over looked black people. Yet many of us who have had the chance to work abroad have cried foul at the same. Just the other way round. The muzungu I employed has lived in Uganda most of his life and his family own land in Luwero. He actually has a Ugandan passport. So, can we have some music videos dealing with the kind of racism that I saw on my pages?

"Music censorship will just prevent people from saying horrible things." Dixon, people have said horrible things right from Adam and Eve. On that hot afternoon while the two were lounging about the Garden of Eden naked, Eve was tempted by the serpent and she told Adam to eat t he apple. That is when it all started. We don't need government censorship of what the artistes sing about or act about. We need people to be educated. The people of Uganda are old enough to keep a secret they can therefore differentiate between a really bad song and harmful lyrics. Let us defend our civil society from government creep, where we have the likes of Lokodo telling our ladies to wear long skirts. (Lokodo by virtue of being a man of the church isn't allowed to look anyway.) We will soon have a nanny state where we are told what to do. Let the people, like me, work out that that song was incredibly bad and with education, let the youth be told of the problems associated with violence and racism. Censorship has no place in a civil democratic society like Uganda. But neither does the decent artistic world have a place for Panadol W'abasajja.

Apologies for the segmentation in the article. It is due to a technical fault that I cant resolve at the moment. AMMK.