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Religion Didn't Fit in This Story
23 November 2004As part of a series on the "children of Africa" (a sentimental ploy we'll forgive them for paying attention to Africa at all), The Boston Globe sent John Donnelly to Uganda, where he recounts in brutal, horrifying detail the story of a boy pressed into the rebel Lord's Resistance Army. It's a scary, worthwhile report, but we were confused by this graf: "[Rebel leader] Kony has said his goal is to seize power in Uganda and govern it according to the Ten Commandments. But no one outside his inner circle takes his religious talk seriously. He is more credible as a killer." There's no disputing that last statement -- Kony is as murderous a man as walks the earth -- but by disregarding his vicious theology, Donnelly does the reader a disservice. Nor does Donnelly pay any more attention to the evangelical revival sweeping Uganda, of which dictator Yowero Museveni is a leader. There are religious politics in Uganda's awful war, but religion -- like less-sympathetic adult Africans -- is relegated to a few facts dutifully noted before the main event of a sad child made victim and killer.
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