This conversation happened recently at a place near you
between people you probably know.
Tom: Kampala will never been the same again, what with this
anti-pornography law
Dick: Ridiculous! Now we are going to have police measure
skirt lengths … I should join the police
Harry: You are taking a rather narrow view of the law. The
intention – and a noble one at that, was to restrict the publication of sexual
explicit material, curtail sexual exhibitionism and in so doing prevent such
crimes as human trafficking, prostitution and other related organised crimes.
Tom: Huh?
Dick: The classic case of trying to kill a fly with a
hammer, machine gunning chicken or using a tent to safeguard ones decency …
Harry: Maybe but the issues of organised crime and illicit
trade are not the proverbial fly and yes we need machine gun fire to stop it in
its tracks and if we have to protect our children using tarpaulins so be it.
Tom: Huh?
Dick: That’s all very nice my complaint is with banning mini
skirts .... so by banning mini skirts who is the law protecting? The women
wearing the mini-skirts or the people – men and women watching the women in
their mini skirts? Who is the victim?
Harry: As I said that’s a narrow view of the bill. But yes
maybe the women need to be saved from themselves and the viewers – especially
men need to be delivered from temptation.
Tom: Huh?
Dick: Are you listening to yourself. So the women know not
what they are doing and the men are such brainless Neanderthals, with no
control over their baser instincts that a show of flesh by the odd woman will
set them off on a lustful rampage?
Harry: Well I wouldn’t put in such colourful terms but Yes,
something like that …
Dick: You are speaking for yourself assume?
Harry: (Pause) First of all there is no explicit mention of
miniskirts. People have their knickers in knots over the interpretation of
pornography … means any representation through publication, exhibition,
cinematography, indecent show, information technology or by whatever means, of
a person engaged in real or stimulated (sic) explicit sexual activities or any
representation of the sexual parts of a person for primarily sexual excitement ….
Tom: Huh?
Dick: That is even worse than hunting mini-skirters … so now
the full force of the law is going to bear on judging what is sexually
titillating and whether the offender is doing it primarily to cause sexual
excitement (shakes his head). So if for example I walk around in a vest and
shorts flashing my biceps and calves – some women I hear swoon at the sight of
these, I am in danger of breaking the law?
Harry: (with a straight face) Yes!
Tom: Huh?
Dick: This is incorrigible …
Tom: Huh?
Harry: Look it is important for public decency and order to
be maintained beyond the precincts of the churches and mosques. Who is better
suited to do this than the government?
Dick: You are in danger of me unfriending you, you might
lower my IQ … So on a practical level you will have to find people who were
sexually aroused to testify and then do we have to determine the extent of that
sexual arousal?
Harry: As I said you are taking a narrow view of the law.
The law also has provisions prohibiting child pornography and the transmission
of porn on the internet, it actually strengthened an existing law …
Dick: Aha! So you are refining an existing law that was not
being applied or enforced isn’t that the height or depth of redundancy?
Harry: No, this law has also created a committee which will
police these issues …
Dick: Do you know how ridiculous that sounds? Is this a
national priority that we should spend tax payers’ money legislating against,
having our honourable members debate etc
Harry: Think what you may, at least the law is there and we
can act against such transgressions.
Dick: Not to weep more than bereaved I started out thinking
this was a law made by male chauvinists to keep women in their place but now I
see it is worse than that, it is not even a law to safeguard public morality –
after all it is unenforceable …
Harry: So are you saying because a law is unenforceable we
should not have it?
Dick: That should be obvious …
Tom: Can I say something?
Harry: You arguing as if you are unaware of the great threat
to the moral fiber of our society …
Dick: Women – and men dressed in sexy wear, mostly after
dark, is threatening our moral fiber? More than the thieves who walk among us
denying, babies of drugs, children of a future and the rest of us a chance to
better ourselves… if the ministry of ethics really wanted to make an impact
shouldn’t it focus there?
Harry: Now you are being melodramatic…
Tom: Me thinks this flurry of controversial bills before
Christmas and presidential nominations is to divert our attention from more
serious issues like what is going on in South Sudan!
