Bridging the Gap

Ankole society has long suffered religious and communal sectarianism. In the 1950s, the Bairu versus Bahima and Roman Catholic versus Protestant rivalries were intensified by the emergance of political parties, and then compounded by the violent upheavals of the 1970s and early 1980s. In this book James Kahigiriza describes his struggle against sectarianism and violence in Ankole and explains how he tried to bridge the gap between rival communities by containing the voices of extremism when he was the Enganzi of Ankole from 1963 to 1967. A victim of state sponsered violence in the 1970s and 80s he tells of his missio to revive Ankole's cultural heritage through the restoration of the Obugabe.