Uganda/Denmark: A Danish artist insults the dignity of the Ugandan people!

Lose your name, adopt mine “Hornsleth” and get a pig or a goat as a gift, a Danish artist is reported to have asked the people of Uganda!

A Danish artist Kristian Von Hornsleth has angered a Ugandan minister who has accused him of being racist for asking Ugandan villagers to adopt his name in order to be given a “goat or a pig.

“The criticism comes as an exhibition of Kristian Von Hornsleth’s photos from the village of Buteyongera opens in the Danish capital, Copenhagen.” 

But according to BBC, “Hornsleth, however, says he is trying to help the villagers by highlighting the failure of international aid. The exhibition is called: “We want to help you, but we want to own you.” 

To further his argument explaining why he has done what he did, he told BBC that, ”After 50 years of Third World aid, Africa is still poor.” 

But the Ugandan Ethics minister Nsaba Buturo is not amused, reacting that the idea was “demeaning” and “racist.”

Complaining further she told BBC that the Danish man, “is playing on the plight of some of our people by telling them a lie – by giving them a piglet, they will come out of the poverty he says they are in.”

It is however, reported that the Danish is not about to stop his activity of exchanging a pig or a goat with anyone in the Ugandan village who accepts to change their Ugandan name and have the Danes name. He has told BBC, “that 100 villagers already have identity documents with their new name and a further 207 are having them processed. He said his proposal to the villagers was an example of free trade, which left the villagers better off.”

Hornsleth has told BBC that the villagers back his campaign. This is the new type of ID card being issued with the Danish man’s name “Hornsleth.”

He has stated that his aim is to have the village name eventually changed as well.

This is an insult to the people of Uganda. The thinking of the Danish man does not make sense at all. By asking the whole village to adopt his name in exchange for a pig or a goat is an abuse.

Now that he says he wants the village to change the name also from what it is now called is a search for glorification.

Imagine if an African asked a Danish village to change the name to an African one. The Danes would feel insulted.

The Black people in America taken as slaves were forced to change their names adopting that of their master. This thinking of the Dane in question is very cruel, a reminder of the slaves who suffered being under-fed, forced to serve their masters and loosing their rightfull name. It is unbelieveable that such a thing can happen in the 21st century. All the villagers with the same name because of one pig?

By Korir, African Press in Norway, APN

africanpress@chello.no

Source: BBC

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