Views from Fiona: Beauty

Personally for one to be described as beautiful the inner self must reflect the outer appearance, beauty pageants often come short of that- with girls whose smile often does not reach their eyes, and is strained or does not bring light to her facial features.

In Genesis we are told that God created all things beautiful and in his likeness. Honestly I find this ambiguous since some are definitely ugly. When appreciating beauty everyone has his or her yardstick. Humans & beauty do evolve and I want to compare to earlier traditional beauty with the modern types. For example the Banyankole and the Hiima sect had their own cutting edge on who was beautiful or not in regard to their girls and wives.

The Bahiima men had to be strong, tall, and able to defend their household and know how to recite okwevuga especially the day of give-away. This eloquence would often make them stand out from the crowd. Their ladies were the epitome of beauty and what was considered to be beauty were shapely legs, a firm big butt, slender waist, face of course, a natural gap between the upper teeth and black gum. If the women were too small, two months to the wedding, they fed the girl with lots of yoghurt and other fatty eats to put on weight. The act was known as akwarika and by D-day she would be fat. Now that was beauty to them. Today this practice is frowned on as backward.

With the ushering in of western culture and modern times, obesity is now a disease and has no place in today’s beautiful woman.

However beauty pageants have distorted the ideal African woman. It is now mud and wattle. In a bid to look European, pencil like women is the in thing, which gives the African girls no sleep being on regiments on how to loose weight to fit the bill. This probably it explains why the MNet, Nokia face of Africa and the Ford modeling contracts have been illusive to Ugandan girls. The MNet talent scout, Jan Malan, when asked why our girls were not qualifying he said; “They are too short or fat which usually eliminates them.” This has led the girls to diet or drink Chinese slimming herbal tea, or even worse, use creams and gels to fight cellulite exposing our girls to anorexia or cancers.

The Miss Uganda beauty pageant is an important event on the social calendar where the organizers choose the beauty queen. Their slogan “Beauty with a Purpose” has seen the queens falling short of it. Yes, they have represented this nation on Miss Universe events but nothing much comes out of it. It is not only being slender, with a flawless skin and height, but these competitions require a bit of brains. Actually the slogan should be changed to “Beauty with Brains”.

Of late more people are organizing beauty pageants that they have lost meaning, Miss Bwaise, Miss Nakulabye etc… But the most astounding one and degrading was recently held in the IDP camp in Gulu for the most ugly woman. Rose Ocwee 35, a mother of one, beat some nine contestants to the crown and won herself a Nokia cell phone- courtesy of Celtel. The absurdity of it is her ugliness was caused by a disease. Instead of the suspicious organizers MEGA FM giving her a phone, they could have offered her medical treatment to restore her eyes.

The meaning of beauty has been distorted but in all fairness, I hate forlorn figures in the name of beauty. Let us practice healthy living like exercises, jogging, and sit-ups for those with tummies or better still avoid fatty foods. Keep the figures trim and definitely they will remain beautiful.