Alice Lakwena and the Holy Spirits: War in Northern Uganda, 1985–97

by Heike Behrend

In August 1986, Alice Auma, a young Acholi woman in northern Uganda, proclaiming herself under the orders of a Christian spirit named Lakwena, raised an army called the “Holy Spirit Mobile Forces.” With it she waged a war against perceived evil, not only an external enemy represented by the National Resistance Army of the government, but internal enemies in the form of “impure” soldiers, witches, and sorcerers. She came very close to her goal of overthrowing the government but was defeated and fled to Kenya.

This book provides a unique view of Alice’s movement, based on interviews with its members and including their own writings, examining their perceptions of the threat of external and internal evil. It concludes with an account of the successor movements into which Alice’s forces fragmented and which still are active in the civil wars of the Sudan and Uganda.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Anthropology

224 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have rather mixed feelings about this book:

On the one hand this book is an academic book, and the author is definitely writing for and to anthropologists (with many references to anthropological thought and other anthropological works). Personally I'm not an anthropologist, and I have no intention of becoming one, so if you're like me you have to be willing to slog through some dry parts. There were whole sections of the book which I found largely unenlightened, something which I think most will find true.

However on the other hand this academic side is also one of the strong suits of the book, as it seriously examines the underpinnings of the Holy Spirit Mobile Forces (HSMF) and looks beyond the myths and flat out lies. This book was the first place I found a serious treatment of the subject (everywhere else Alice Lakwena seems to be dismissed as, quite literally, a crazy witch). It's very interesting to get the real story, and to get the insider's view as well.

My other complaint is that I rather disagree with her take on spiritual things. She is an anthropologist, and I would say also nonreligious, so she treats spiritual things as human and cultural constructs and nothing more. So while she has some interesting insights to share, and she does write an interesting and helpful history of Acholi and Christian thought in Uganda, I largely distrust the conclusions she reaches on spiritual matters.

So the book is good. It has some definite insights into the HSMF, and is the only book I have come across which treats them seriously and takes the time to try and understand them. It really opened my eyes, because I think most assessments of the HSMF get it completely wrong. But it's also a bit of a hard read at time, and requires quite a bit of sifting to get the interesting insights from the academic verbiage. Definitely only for someone with a real interest in Uganda -- and Ugandan history at that. This is not a good book to read if you're interested in learning about the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). They're mentioned at times, but the sections on the LRA are dated and incomplete.

[Joshua Lister · Rating 1 out of 5]

Somewhere CS Lewis shrewdly points out that when a scientist claims that an animal acts in a particular way because of "instinct" , what he is really saying is, "I don't know why an animal acts that way".
I think the same line can be applied to Behrend's book. Using phrases like, "refractions of social reality", "mimetic representations of an indigenous ethnography", or "exoctic reductions" to describe spiritual possession only reveals that modern scholars have no clue how to explain what was going on in Uganda.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting perspective on the conflict in Uganda. Well presented. Lots of new information to take in!