African Humanism un Uganda: An Ethnographic Study

在过去二十年中，撒哈拉以南非洲出现了一场世俗的人道主义运动。乌干达的情况尤其令人震惊，乌干达现在是非洲大陆上人文主义机构最多的国家。在全国各地社区组织的共同努力下，建立了人文主义中小学、成人职业培训中心、青年赋权方案、广播节目、杂志和公众反迷信运动。这一运动的理念通常被其支持者称为“非洲人文主义”，促进人权、性别平等、科学和理性在日常生活中的实际应用，以及将人类价值观置于任何宗教道德之上（Mukasa 2011; Lukyamuzi 2013; Ongere 2014; Musubaho 2016 a）。用一位主要发言人的话来说，“我们在这里看到的是人文主义在其普遍承诺、可能性和适用性方面的发展”（Igwe 2012 a：2）。最近对世界各地人文主义组织进行评估的研究完全忽略了非洲（例如Bullivant &鲁塞2013; Copson & Grayling 2015）。与此同时，欧洲大陆经常被世俗化理论的批评者援引为宗教持续公共意义的典范（Engelke 2015 a）。此外，基督教在撒哈拉以南非洲的当代作用已成为人类学研究的一个突出主题（例如Engelke 2007; Boylston 2015; Haynes 2017），学者们最近将乌干达的公共领域称为“五旬节化”，以反映魅力教会的影响（Bompani & Brown 2015：100）。问题是，有一种单独的倾向，将非洲描绘成一个独立和特殊的世界，在这个世界上，“被施了魔法的宗教想象”（Gifford 2015：14）盛行，精神被认为居住在“眼前的现实中，就像石头，河流和山脉”（Taylor 2007; Meyer 2012）。然而，人道主义团体继续在乌干达成倍增加，而此时正在开展前所未有的进步社会运动，宗教行为者的公共作用正面临新的抗议。例如，乌干达的女同性恋、男同性恋、双性恋和跨性别者（LGBT）运动在2016年成功地发起了一场运动，起诉了一名美国牧师，因为他参与制定了恐同立法（Valois 2015; CCR 2016）。总的来说，人道主义机构和LGBT权利的出现都要求“民间社会运动在乌干达和其他非洲背景下前所未有地维护其政治身份和权利”。（Bompani & Brown 2015：111）.这一人种学项目抓住机会研究乌干达人文主义运动的文化和政治影响，尽管有近20年的发展，但没有得到学术界的关注。这项研究与最近出现的无神论，人文主义，理性主义和其他类型的非宗教的人类学研究相一致（例如Schielke 2012; Quack 2012; Engelke 2014; Blanes & Oustinova-Stjepanovic 2015），同时也极大地扩大了这个新子领域的地理范围和理论关注。它通过将非宗教研究的重要见解扩展到乌干达的背景下，以开发一种新的方法，专注于有组织的世俗人文主义的内部特征。

In the course of the past two decades, a secular humanist movement has emerged in sub-Saharan Africa. The case of Uganda-now home to the greatest number of humanist institutions on the continent-is particularly striking. The joint efforts of community-based organizations located throughout the nation have led to the establishment of humanist primary and secondary schools, adult vocational training centers, youth empowerment programs, radio productions, magazines, and public anti-superstition campaigns. The philosophy of this movement, often called "African humanism" by its proponents, promotes human rights, gender equality, the practical application of science and reason in everyday life, and a prioritization of human values over any religiously grounded moralities (Mukasa 2011; Lukyamuzi 2013; Ongere 2014; Musubaho 2016a). In the words of one leading spokesperson, "what we are witnessing here is the unfolding of humanism in terms of its universal promise, possibility and applicability" (Igwe 2012a: 2).Africa is completely omitted from recent studies that take stock of humanist organizations across the world (e.g. Bullivant & Ruse 2013; Copson & Grayling 2015). At the same time, the continent is often invoked by critics of secularization theories as the exemplary example of the continued public significance of religion (Engelke 2015a). Furthermore, the contemporary role of Christianity in sub-Saharan Africa has become a prominent topic of anthropological research (e.g. Engelke 2007; Boylston 2015; Haynes 2017), and scholars have recently labeled the public sphere of Uganda "Pentecostalized" to reflect the impact of charismatic churches (Bompani & Brown 2015: 100). Problematically, there is a separate tendency to represent Africa as separate and exceptional, a world where an "enchanted religious imaginary" (Gifford 2015: 14) prevails and spirits are thought to inhabit "immediate reality, like stones, rivers, and mountains" (Taylor 2007; Meyer 2012). However, humanist groups continue to multiply in Uganda at a time when an unparalleled number of progressive social campaigns are taking place and the public role of religious actors is facing novel protests. For instance, the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) movement in Uganda led a successful 2016 campaign to prosecute an American pastor for his involvement in the creation of homophobic legislation (Valois 2015; CCR 2016). Taken together, the emergence of both humanist institutions and LGBT rights claims exemplify "civil society movements asserting their political identity and rights as never before in Uganda and in other African contexts" (Bompani & Brown 2015: 111).This ethnographic project seizes the opportunity to study the cultural and political impact of the humanist movement in Uganda, which as received no scholarly attention in spite of nearly 20 years of growth. This research is in tune with the recent emergence of anthropological studies of atheism, humanism, rationalism, and other types of non-religion (e.g. Schielke 2012; Quack 2012; Engelke 2014; Blanes & Oustinova-Stjepanovic 2015), while also critically widening the geographical reach and theoretical concerns of this new subfield. It does this through extending crucial insights from studies of non-religion to the Ugandan context to develop a new approach that is focused on the internal features of organized secular humanism.