‘The Freedom!' Ugandan Activist On Radical Rudeness And Being Safe In Germany

The first few days of Stella Nyanzi’s new life in Germany have not been without their challenges, from navigating the TV and internet in a different language to finding the right school for her three teenagers.

- Lizzy Davies

On the second day, the family went shopping for clothes – “thick jackets , mittens and scarves” – to see them through the fierce Bavarian winter. For her 14-year-old twins, who have lived their whole lives in sub-Saharan Africa and who insisted on wearing Crocs with no socks on the flight over, the sub-zero temperatures were a rude awakening.

At the centre of it all, however, has been deep sense of relief. Nyanzi, a 47-year-old outspoken scholar, poet and human rights advocate whose irreverent writing about Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni, has led to her being jailed twice , decided enough was enough. She has been accepted on a writers-in-exile programme run by PEN Germany, and has no intention of returning to Uganda while the 77-year-old Museveni is in power.

And while there are many concerns about how she and her children are going to settle into Munich life, the sense of freedom is powering her on.

“Because I’m very much a freethinking, loud-mouthed, crass woman who boldly speaks her mind, I think one of the greatest joys is to be able to criticise Museveni’s dictatorship and not fear for my life,” she said.

“To not have thick-voiced men breathing down my telephone. And to be threatened online, but to know that the threats won’t reach me, is really relieving. I know it’s going to be difficult [with regards to] the practicalities. But, Jesus, the sense of freedom! The freedom from fear of retribution and reprisal and punishment, simply because one refuses to only praise the dictatorship, is to die for.