Talk:Uganda Martyrs

homosexuality
http://www.buganda.com/martyrs.htm if this is so its noteworthy that a gay king killing christians because of their antohomosexuality. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.231.182.113 (talk) 07:52, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I think its inaccurate to say that it is about homosexuality or antihomosexuality, per se. My understanding is that the king required his subjects to perform a sexual act of homage and that the Uganda martyrs were put to death for not doing it.  Thus, it is about the institutionalization of sexual predation rather than about a particular sexual orientation.  Bob99 (talk) 20:15, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Why?
So why were the martyrs killed? An explanation is given only for the English bishop, not for any of the natives. 02:03, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Power. And the new religions as sign of changing leadership. --Franz (Fg68at) de:Talk 01:45, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
 * As noted above, the issue was, at least according to my understanding, that the king required his subjects to perform a sexual act of homage and that the Uganda martyrs were put to death for not doing it. Thus, it is about the institutionalization of sexual predation (and not about a particular sexual orientation).  Bob99 (talk) 20:17, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Minor Grammar Issues
1. That the former Kingdom of Buganda is now part of Uganda is noted in the 1st ¶, so it′s redundant in the 2nd. 2. Shouldn′t the Kingdom of Buganda have a capital K? ☺ Dick Kimball (talk) 13:34, 3 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I have acted on the first point. The second, I think, is not so clear.  As it stands, it means "Buganda, which was a historical kingdom".  Capitalized, it would mean that the correct title was "Kingdom of Buganda", not just "Buganda".  Which is better?  Esoglou (talk) 14:00, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Block quotes
Esoglou, would you mind if we tried to summarise the two block quotes in the middle of the article? I generally think articles read better if they draw upon sources rather than repeat them word for word. I've had a go but would welcome your thoughts in case you think any important point has been left out. At the same time I've moved some of the text about to try and make it flow better. It's also a bit tricky to try and tease out the elements of the story. I think it would help if we had a better set of sources - at the moment they are made up of blogs and articles. I've added the Dictionary of African Historical Biography which might be a start. The challenge is to get to the historical facts. The motivation for the slaughter seems motivated primarily by political concerns rather than Mwanga's personal caprices (although that's important) - indeed there is evidence that he promoted Christians to important positions before and after the massacre. Contaldo80 (talk) 08:03, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
 * We must keep to what the sources say and not advance our own personal interpretations of the motivation. Your attribution of political motivation for the killing of the martyrs is undermined by the very point you make: Mwanga's appointing of Christians to important positions suggests that his action was not directed against Christians as such. It supports the interpretation expressly given in sources such as Gay Star News (which can scarcely be suspected of wishing to downplay the homosexual motivation that it attributes to Mwanga) that his action was prompted by personal motives.  Esoglou (talk) 14:56, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Ok - I've made a couple of minor improvements but otherwise think it looks fine. It's interesting, however, that the Dictionary of African Biography - which seems the most respectable source we have so far - says nothing at all about the Uganda Martyrs. Maybe in the scheme of things they just weren't that important. Who knows how many people were killed in various tribal kingdoms at the whim of the king or chief? Church missionaries would want to play up the story, but was it significant in domestic terms? Instead the Dictionary places Mwanga at the centre of a colonial power struggle, in which Christian and Islamic missionaries were a type of advance guard. But as this article is inevitably of a religious/ ecclesiastical aspect then coverage at this level of detail seems sensible. Contaldo80 (talk) 15:33, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
 * If this article were about the history of Uganda, it would give very little space to the Martyrs of Uganda. But the article is about the Martyrs of Uganda.  Esoglou (talk) 19:31, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's true. But in the text you suggest that they were recognized as martyrs almost immediately. That may be right, but we don't have a clear source that supports that. I think it would be good if we can get one. I've also amended the wording to change "homosexual" to "sexual" to address neutrality. If he had tried to rape a group of women I doubt we would have written that they had resisted his heterosexual advances. Contaldo80 (talk) 08:32, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
 * You seem to be confusing recognition as martyrs with beatification and canonization. The Catholic Church recognizes that there have been more martyrs in the last hundred years than in the whole of the preceding centuries (cf. this), but very few of them have been or ever will be canonized or even beatified. Just keep to what the cited source says.
 * The cited sources use the word "homosexual". Keep to what they say.  Esoglou (talk) 11:08, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Esoglou the source - the Buganda home page - doesn't seem to be a particularly robust one to me. Do we know who's even written it? It sounds like someone's random website with a collection of their musings. The other source - the media source, Gay Star News - doesn't make the claim that the pages resisted the king's "homosexual" advances. I'm not even sure he was homosexual - he had plenty of wives and children. Would it be truer to say they resisted his "bisexual advances". Probably not. That's why "sexual advances" avoids us having to unpack all that. If you really think we need to explicitly refer to "homosexual advances" then I'd be comfortable with a better - ideally academic source - to support. It's the same for the issue of when they were recognized as "martyrs". It's likely for a while that they were actually recognized locally as trouble-makers or traitors. Who first made the suggestion they were actually martyrs? Can we get a better source please. The Buganda Home page is pretty flimsy and wouldn't stand up if challenged. There's also a risk that describing them as fitting the Catholic dictionary definition of a martyr is original research - because it's us that have made that link. I don't necessarily mind leaving in the reference to the film 'Millions' but it's a bit over-done and arguably marginal. A couple of black missionaries appear briefly in the dream of a young boy who is pleased to see the "Uganda Martyrs of 1881". They don't appear in the film longer than that and the date is clearly incorrect. Seems a bit tenuous doesn't it? Contaldo80 (talk) 12:06, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Mwanga's advances regarded a homosexual activity, whatever his personal orientation. It made no difference to the martyrs or their faith whether Mwanga was a homosexual, a heterosexual, or a bisexual.  What did matter was his demand that they participate in a homosexual activity, which their faith forbade.  Since you consider the cited source insufficient, I must cite for you one or two more that state this obvious fact. Esoglou (talk) 16:24, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Who first made the connection between their being killed for their faith and being martyrs? Themselves, of course.  Do you think their teachers failed, in spite of their obvious danger, to let them know that?  Then, as you say, other local Christians, together with the Catholic and Anglican missionaries there, saw them as martyrs.  Then people in England who were informed by the Anglican missionaries.  And, no doubt, people in France, who were informed by the French Catholic missionaries.  Then Christians much more widely.  It's as the cited source says.  It doesn't say that there was nobody then or that there is nobody now (I name no names) for whom they were only trouble-makers or traitors.  It doesn't say that everybody recognizes them as martyrs.  It only says that they are recognized as martyrs.  Haven't they been so from the beginning?  Esoglou (talk) 16:24, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Until you removed the mention of Millions, I hadn't noticed its presence in the article in an extremely inconspicuous position. I had never heard of the film.  But you led me to find out more about it.  I discovered that it is an object of study, with special reference to the Uganda Martyrs, in quite a serious book, which I have cited.  The existence and content of the film surprised me by showing that the fame of the Uganda Martyrs is wider than I thought, and is not limited to those who might celebrate them liturgically.  That has been reinforced by finding that Muslim sources speak of "the Uganda Martyrs" of their faith.  So it is much wider than I imagined.  Esoglou (talk) 16:24, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
 * I can live with the reference to Millions. I still think its tenuous though. If there is a book that preceded the film and says more, then maybe that's what the sentence needs to say - the reference in the film itself is fairly fleeting and irrelevant. On the issue of "martyrdom" this remains important. Of course those that died didn't regard themselves as martyrs as they weren't around after their deaths to think about it. The key point is at what time did others begin to call them martyrs - immediately or later? Clearly Mwanga and his ministers - and most Ugandans - would have just viewed them as traitors to their kingdom, and defiant to their king. But the cult of martydom served the purposes of the churches and the imperial powers. I'd be interested in being clearer on this. The "martyrs" served a wider political purpose - and continue to do so today. I suspect the establishment of the Uganda Martyrs Guild is the first time the link is explicitly made. Unless we have references to say that someone before that considered them martyrs, then I suggest we use the Guild as the reference point. Finally I think the bit about "homosexual advances" is over-laboured. If we look at articles of female virgin saints being forced to submit to various men - we don't say they were martyred for resisting "heterosexual advances". It isn't the orientation that's the issue - it's the point about violation, rape, and sex outside of marriage. Or are you saying that it's really the fact that it was male on male that made all the difference? That's a strong claim to make I think. Contaldo80 (talk) 11:03, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
 * You have given many statements of your opinion here. I know of two missionary priests who were in danger of being killed, and one asked the other, "If we are killed, do you think it will be in odium fidei?", ("for hatred of the faith", a theological condition for Christian martyrdom). That is enough to show that you don't have to be dead to be thinking about being a martyr.  If those whom Mwanga killed in 1886 were referred to as martyrs in a secular newspaper in that same year - well, I don't need to finish the sentence.  We should keep to what the cited sources say, without replacing that with statements of our own opinions, no matter how good we think our arguments are.  Esoglou (talk) 14:17, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
 * The problem with that is that the Catholic Church doesn't recognise people as martyrs because they themselves think they are being killed for their faith. Otherwise I'm sure plenty of people might have thought that before going to their deaths, but few would have been officially recognised as such. It is only in retrospect that they become recognised as martyrs. I think we need to distinguish between personal opinions and the acts/ official recognition of the church. If there is a secular paper that calls them martyrs from the same year then great - that's what I'm suggesting we need. An unambiguous statement from a third party.Contaldo80 (talk) 08:21, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Homosexual advances
I remain concerned about the over-labouring of "homosexual" in the text. The previous version has: "Ward states: "The immediate cause of the killings was the refusal of the pages to engage in homosexual practices." Other sources too say that Mwanga ordered the execution of the Christian converts who, in line with the teaching of their new faith, "resisted his homosexual advances", his action being "sparked off by the Christian pages' repulsion of his homosexual advances"."

Aside from saying the same thing three times, I think it is simply unnecessary to use the word "homosexual" when "sexual" will do. And it's not sufficient, I'm afraid, to say that this is the wording in other sources (besides which the GSN quote is from a guy called "Junior Mayema, an African LGBTI activist" - hardly authoritative and the rest of the article tallks about "gay sex"). I have seen nothing to suggest that the fact that this was one man having sex with other men that was specifically contrary to the faith of the martyrs. But rather the violation, rape and murder of the individuals that was abhorrent. It's true that the majority of sexual violation resulting in Christian martyrdom and sainthood have historically been heterosexual, and therefore it helps to make plain to the reader that this was different - the pages were male. That's why I'm willing to accept Ward's quote at the start. But then to say it two more times risks taking a discriminatory and heavy-handed approach. In which case I would expect that all articles that have a man violating a Christian woman on wikipedia use terminology around "heterosexual advances" to ensure balance. The risk is this plays to a politicising narrative that has gay men exploiting poor innocent African believers. A narrative that has been demonstrated to be wrong because we know that the context was one of resisting colonialism and the defiance of authority.

Please take my opinions into account. I'm trying to be collaborative and constructive. If you think we need to refer to "homosexuality" again and again then either please clarify that it is homosexuality that is particularly important in terms of the martyrdom (and not rape), or commit to amending other articles to distinguish that the violations were of a heterosexual character. Contaldo80 (talk) 08:40, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
 * The article does give the context. When you went to school, you learned to distinguish between the remote causes of a war and the immediate cause, the spark that set it off.  The article indicates both kinds of causes of the events of June 1866.
 * It is not constructive to put in Wikipedia something else in place of what the cited sources actually say. Report them faithfully.  Or find a reliable source that says what you want Wikipedia to say.  If you desisted from putting your own ideas in place of what the sources say, the number of citations would be much less.  Your persistence makes it necessary to add more until even you recognize their weight.  Perhaps you will find interesting today's additions, which include more than one testimony to the fact that the women and girls at the court who became Christians were not punished.  The Gay Star News report is there so as to try to remove any idea that Mwamga's proclivity for homosexual activity was unrelated to what happened, an idea whose existence might seem to be suggested by the efforts made to remove or at least limit any mention of it.
 * I must thank you for being the occasion for me to learn increasingly more about this group of Christian martyrs who I knew existed but of whom I had nothing of the detailed knowledge you have helped me to gain about some fascinating aspects and to put in the article. I look forward to learning yet more.  Esoglou (talk) 18:12, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Sure, great that we're learning things. I've made some small amendments and think I'm happy as things are now. Contaldo80 (talk) 08:50, 20 October 2014 (UTC)


 * I would like to report here that, for whatever reason, in 2021 the words 'homosexual' and 'gay' do not appear in the article at all. Ypna (talk) 04:56, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Tightening article
I've made some amendments to the article to ensure it reads better as some of the material was repeating itself. If anyone has a problem with these changes then please state clearly what they are otherwise we can assume that they are fine. Reverting the material without engaging on the talk page will be seen as a disruptive act and will be referred to administrators. Thank you. Contaldo80 (talk) 09:21, 19 October 2015 (UTC)


 * There is no "assuming" that edits are fine. You cannot make changes without gaining consensus first. 75.34.101.57 (talk) 23:53, 24 October 2015 (UTC)


 * I think you'll find that I can. But for the sake of being constructive I have now explained why I made the changes that I did. If you want to over-turn them then perhaps we can debate them line by line here. Contaldo80 (talk) 09:07, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

ugandan bois
dey knew de wae — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dren5144 (talk • contribs) 22:22, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

Katongole 197.239.7.6 (talk) 20:10, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

revise claim for reference [11]
I am a student studying Bugandan history. The article and claim in question are not related. There is nothing sexual in the demands of pages claim, it is purely a test of political nature, whether they hold the Kabaka or God first. Also, is it appropriate to use a heavily Muslim biased source? One that directly pulls from another secondary source with no citation? 69.80.87.58 (talk) 20:27, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Are martyrs worthy to be emulated
Repentance 41.210.147.96 (talk) 18:48, 1 June 2023 (UTC)