The Missionary Podcast Reporters Respond
White Donors, Local Recipients, and Asking the Right Questions
Rajiv Golla, Halima Gikandi, and Malcolm Burnley, the three reporters of The Missionary Podcast have answered your questions. I love this, their answers are helpful and thoughtful.
I’m so thankful for their willingness to join us in our exploration of these topics and will just jump straight into their answers. (The original questions are in italics.)
- In the final episode, Rajiv says, 'if Renee wanted to make a difference, then she should go to jail for it'. Could you elaborate on how her going to jail is connected to her wanting to make a difference? I couldn't quite connect the two and would like to hear more.
So this line in the last episode actually came from Malcolm, so I asked him to respond. Here’s what he had to say: “We chose our words carefully. Jail is not the same as prison. We were not passing judgement on if she should be sentenced or what that should be. Rather, saying the best thing for the betterment of the world would be if Renee went to jail for running an unlicensed clinic, because it would create a precedent. It would suggest that what happened should not have happened, and there needs to be legal recourse in a situation like this.”
- In your time in Jinja, did you witness any positive impact coming from this case, in terms of other people or groups changing the way they carry out their work with a desire to adhere more closely to legal requirements, to use more highly qualified staff, to give more voice to Ugandans, etc. If not, what do you think will make people carry out the self-reflection necessary to see these improvements?
I’ll speak to the missionary community of Jinja, rather than larger bureaucratic organizations like World Vision or the UN. (Rafia Zakaria’s piece in the Baffler about those organizations is quite insightful. Michael Barnett’s book, Sacred Aid, and The Tenth Parallel by Eliza Griswold are some of my favorite books on those topics.) Many of the organizations in Jinja were the creations of ambitious 20-somethings in the early 2000s. Like most fledgling projects, there’s been a learning curve. Goes something like this: After a few years of giving it their all, the founders of an NGO will step back and reassess. They will realize they don’t want to spend the rest of their lives in Uganda. Or they realize that they want to develop their organization with more consistent and serious funding. The answer to both of these is professionalization. These inexperienced founders will step aside, take board level positions, and allow Ugandans to run most of the daily operations. Higher level functions remain in the hands of expats, but technically qualified ones. Some more progressive organizations have an eye to replacing those high-level expats with locals as well. But this is a trajectory that had been underway for years before Renee’s case hit the media. To keep progress pointing in this direction however will take increased education of rural Ugandans and the strengthening of Ugandan oversight. Fortunately, these have been steadily improving over the last few years as well. The end result will be a system that will not allow inexperienced people to go through “trial-and-error” before they hit on something productive and sustainable. Trial-and-error in these cases is a question of life and death, not just numbers on a quarterly report.
- How did you come across the story in the first place? In the beginning, it sounded like NWS (No White Saviors) approached you, or was it the other way around?
I actually traveled to Uganda to write a book about modern Indian immigration to the African continent. But that project took the backseat pretty quickly after I got wind of Renee’s case. Before I left for Kampala, a friend of mine linked me to the NWS Instagram page. Their work was interesting and I saw they were based in Kampala, so I reached out before I arrived. We decided to meet for coffee and it was then that they shared all their information about the case. Hit the ground running after that.
- How much were NWS involved in the reporting/research process?
In the early days of reporting, NWS played a large role in connecting us with the families of alleged victims and other missionaries in the community. They'd done a lot of groundwork already, and it was a good place to start. But once I got my bearings and developed an independent rapport with these sources, NWS’s role faded away quite quickly. They were never given access to our reporting, recordings, or documentation, and we operated wholly independently from them after that initial introduction to the story. And the same went for Renee’s side of the story. She and her mother introduced us to characters on their side of the narrative, but our investigations were entirely independent and no materials were shared from our side.
- Do you think (this is pure conjecture, I know) there are underlying relational hurts that have contributed to some of the bitterness and gossip of the American women? I didn’t notice that same catty attitude in the Ugandans, but it felt pretty strong with the Americans.
Like any small town anywhere in the world, the Jinja community was full of gossip and cattiness. The reason that came out more on the “white” side of the story than the Ugandan side, was that the interpersonal facets of their case were only apparent to those white folks. To be sure, there was quite a bit of bitterness and gossip among the current and former Ugandan employees which did not end up making the cut, but that was not the main focus of the Ugandan view of this case. As an example: When I went to the police station in Jinja to access documents related to Renee’s case, the police commanders had no clue what I was talking about. I told them about a White woman whose illegal clinic had racked up at least 100 fatalities over the last ten years, and they did not believe me, saying “We would’ve heard about it.” Finally, we found another police commander who was familiar with the case and referred to it as the “Mzungu fight in Masese”.
- If you feel comfortable speaking to this: What do YOU think is the role of a white foreigner in Africa in 2020?
What does a white donor bring to the table? What does a local recipient bring to the table? Before someone goes abroad to do “good” in Africa in 2020, they need to answer that simple question. Because development at its best should be a cooperative and symbiotic effort. If they can’t answer those questions, they will almost undoubtedly do more harm than good. If a white donor wants to go and do something for a foreign community but can’t answer those questions, then they should go and learn. There’s no harm in going to a place, just to see it, to experience it, to ask questions, and learn from locals. Sometimes, the first step to doing good is doing nothing. To just observe and take notes and reconsider your assumptions. Find local allies, make friends, trust them to make decisions that are the best for themselves, and develop a skillset to cater to their needs.
- I don’t know the legal realities, so maybe this is a silly question, but if Renee were convicted in Uganda, would the US have to extradite her there in order for her to serve her time or is there no possibility of her serving time since she has left the country?
I’m not too familiar with that part of the legal stuff either. But I think there was only ever one other American tried under Alien Tort Law, a minister named Scott Lively – as luck would have it, also for alleged crimes in Uganda (he had a large hand in "Hang the Gays" bill).
- Do you feel like you learned anything personally profound, or were changed in any way by doing this reporting? What was the experience like for you?
I’ll be unpacking the things I’ve learned over this process for years to come but I think the greatest lesson I learned still has to do with Sister Gracy. The fact that she was torn to pieces trying to figure out what the right thing to do was and whether she was making any difference. She would never see the fruits of her efforts like an outsider would. That self-doubt and humility is necessary to doing good because righteousness is not a single action, but a way of life that requires constant sacrifice. The pain comes from never knowing what the right thing to do is, but that doubt is what keeps those decisions deliberate and refined. (I wrote a longer piece about my time with Sister Gracy here)
- There is obviously a lot that is broken about the missionary approach. But did you see any examples of missionaries doing overall positive work? You touched very lightly on international adoption and how many missionaries adopt from the country the work in. How do you think this kind of adoption is related to the issues the podcast identified with the mission approach?
I’ll admit that I’m not too much of an expert on international adoptions but Al Jazeera and Vice have done really great documentaries about it. But I do believe there’s a “fashionable” aspect of a white family adopting a black child is something that’s got quite a bit of currency in these missionary communities. And yes I do think there are plenty of people out there doing incredible work, you just have to dig around to find them because they’re rarely making a large fuss about themselves or trying to chase recognition and acclaim. They’re too busy doing the work. But they’re out there. If you’d like to support some of them, I can’t give names or anything, but just hope people are a bit more careful about who and how they support development work abroad after having listened to the show.
(note: here’s a video clip Rajiv shared about adoption in Uganda on YouTube)
- Do you think Renee might have ended up as a scapegoat for all that is wrong with the missionary community in Uganda? Are we focusing too much on one woman and not the larger issues?
To change a system, you tackle the people that are actively constructing it. I don’t see a way to change a system without holding to account the people that have preserved and profited from it. Someone’s always gotta pull the short straw and end up being the first on the stand. But that doesn’t make them a scapegoat. And from a media perspective, larger issues are most effectively brought into the mainstream through the lens of smaller stories. What makes those issues real, what gives them weight, what gives people hope about a coming change, are the stories of individuals: the ones that make mistakes, the ones who are affected by them, the ones who fight for the affected. That’s what a system is composed of.
- Lastly! What had to be cut from the podcast that you wish you could have left in if only there had been room for it?
I wish we could’ve talked about Cicely Williams a bit more in the malnutrition episode. She was a white Jamaican nurse that traveled to Ghana and was the first woman to define Kwashiorkor. She was disgraced for her theories and sent off to Malaya. There, she discovered that Nestle was dressing women up as nurses and sending them out into maternity wards to sell powdered milk. But powdered milk was leading to malnutrition deaths. So she delivered a fire and brimstone speech against those companies. Then WWII came, she was held prisoner and tortured by the Japanese for years. When she was released, she was appointed the head of Maternal Health at the WHO. Just an absolutely incredible story.
Isn’t this incredible?! I hope you’ve read all the way through. These answers are right in our sweet spot at Do Good Better. What a gift, to hear directly from the reporters on this project.
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Wow--these questions and answers were really fascinating to read. I appreciate Rajiv's responses very much. I couldn't help noticing that many of the questions _seemed_ to be trying to find a silver lining to this story, while also acknowledging the difficult realities of Renee Bach's actions. I identify with this as well, having been in situation overseas that now, looking back, make me feel uncomfortable at best, guilty at worst. So I also hope for some vindication, some sense that maybe I judged my younger self unfairly; but the fact is, because children died and families were actually harmed in Jinja, the stakes are simply higher. Though I haven't been able to follow this thread as much as I would have liked, I appreciate the introduction to such a complex and important story.