Yesterday was the first time I sat down to hear Kizza Besigye, the former face of Ugandan opposition, speak. A quick google search later and I was listening to this speech he gave at the Oxford Union just last year.
“We (Ugandans) have no control over our citizenship.” he said as I nodded my head in approval.
In a somewhat omniscient fashion, he prescribed the reason for our misfortunes as a country to the unequal distribution of rights. As in most cases, it starts with the British who brutalised, defiled and subsequently colonised the territories we now call Uganda. The people living here were stripped of their rights all in the service of her majesty Queen Victoria. Flash forwards to a postcolonial Uganda in which no transition of power over the presidency has eluded bloodshed. In the 58 years of Uganda as an independent country, millions of Ugandans have been the victims of political violence.
President Museveni’s forceful takeover of the government in 1986 promised an introduction of sanity and dignity within the Ugandan political sphere. As he swore in as President, he gave this speech where he proudly declared that; “This is not a mere change of guards. I think this is a fundamental change in the politics of our government.” How wrong we were.
34 years later, this “fundamental change” has a Uganda in which Museveni still retains the Presidency. Keep in mind, this is the same man who in 1986 wrote that: “The problem of Africa in general and Uganda in particular is not the people but leaders who want to overstay in power.” So much for the so-called “fundamental change”.
Uganda’s history has been fraught with this same senseless violence of who gets to control the masses. Besgiye ascribes this to the fact that this attitude is a colonial remnant. A seed planted by the British as they pillaged Uganda over control over its people and resources. In short, our citizenship was lost. We lost control over our political, social and economic destinies as a people from the time the British missionaries landed in Uganda till now. Once colonialism “ended”, power was merely shifted onto those that sought to equate themselves to the level of the former colonial masters. Those unlucky to be part of the elite were excluded from having their citizenship. They, the majority of Ugandans have been denied the right to demand more from their leaders.
I recognize that this diagnosis of Ugandan electoral politics glosses over the complexities present within the country. However, it is an angle that allows us to understand the root of the problem. For once we realise this, we will realise that we are a nation in need of healing our shared colonial trauma.
Luckily Franz Fanon left us with some fragments of a solution:
“To politicize the masses is to make the nation in its totality a reality for every citizen. Just as every fighter clung to the nation during the period of armed struggle, so during the period of nation building every citizen must continue in his daily purpose to embrace the nation as a whole, to embody the constantly dialectical truth of the nation and to will here and now the triumph of man in his totality.” (p.140)
(Fanon, F. (1969). The wretched of the earth. Grove Press)
Hi, my name is Peter. English, Old enough to have watched Idi Amin on TV, realtime. I married my Ugandan bride last month in Kampala so have looked into Ugandan history with an interest.
I don’t see your Colonial Trauma as meriting a headline.
The British arrived in an Uganda that did not exist, we wanted to trade. This was post british slavery transport west africa America. The slave effect in “Uganda” was african capture sell to arab.
The “country” was run by so many kings. Oh yes men who would carpet the ground in front of their house with the skulls of his neighbours.
What about “pre colonial trauma”?
Uganda should be lucky, climate variation and soil quality you can grow everything there, nobody needs to be poor. Except for the dictators
I count three, so far.
Are they the fault of the colonial powers?
Well I can’t fix that for you
To take example, both the british and the french cut the heads off kings, however we took hundreds of years, you don’t have hundreds of years.
Sorry, wish you luck
Excellent piece. Colonialism must be confronted.
Great website you have here. You have such a beautiful way of writing. Excellent article and a really helpful one, thanks for sharing.
Karya Bintang Abadi