Development Partners; What Development Partners?

 “…The lust for power is not rooted in strength but in weakness. It is the expression of the individual self to stand alone and live. It is the desperate attempt to gain secondary strength where genuine strength is lacking.”
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“The function of an authoritarian ideological practice can be compared to the function of the neurotic systems.
Such symptoms result from unbearable psychological conditions and at the same time offer a solution that makes life possible. Yet they are not a solution that leads to happiness or growth of personality. They leave unchanged the conditions that necessitate the neurotic solution.”
                Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom
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They nurtured and coddled him. Slick Willie dubbed him one of the “new breeds” of African leaders, and patted him on the back with a power visit, with all the trimmings. It couldn’t get any better for a psychotic son of a peasant. In Washington his apologists fought for his swanky new jet even as his dirt poor nation was being forgiven its unsustainable debts. Even the Queen of the mighty has-been empire dropped by as her prime minister plunked down millions of pounds into the black hole of aid.

Mr. Museveni was being rewarded for a job well done of a vassal:
• Over enthusiastic support against terror and being counted on votes in world bodies
• Stability by whatever means necessarily to ensure success of the wild-west economic exercise--to prove that the shock theraphy of the Chicago Boys works.

But once he allowed multi-party elections, the contradictions with his true instincts became apparent, and meant that something has to give.

Mr. Museveni subscribes to the Noble Lie, a nihilism concept described by Loyal Rue in By the Grace of Guile: The Role of Deception in Natural History and Human Affairs. Despite his show and claims, Museveni really doesn’t believe in a God. If not Mulookole, the Christian charismatic and evangelical faith of his upbringing, then what? Socialism failed him with the death of the Soviet Union. There is nothing else but another lie as western capitalism won the day: the only visionary that can save physical needs instead of the elusive souls. It is, however, pitiful to see him jump from one fanciful scheme to another in futile attempts to find his groove. He needs compassion rather than blame. He can't help himself. Only drastic surgery can free us from the tumor.

(You may notice that Otunnu has a similar Mulookole background, but I suspect that he genuinely believes in his Savior. Despite its political implications, he could not carry out an Acoli ritual in his native Mucwini. Effectively saying: politics be damn, I am saved! His Father’s house of worship at Christ the King could not be dishonored with a political meeting if he had anything to say about it. Fault him for anything else; here is a true believer!)

So, now given that the country has less debt to service (thanks to debt forgiveness) and the widening internal revenue sources, Mr. Museveni is emboldened. Mind you, he doesn’t believe in anything. There are possible sources from the East even if they are harder to con since they don’t carry the western guilt. He could play it just as hooligans such as Siad Barre and Mobutu did in the Cold War days. The west can go hang. He is going to run the country in his image. He is not about to lose face by succumbing to some two-bit ambassadors’ demand to reconstitute the Electoral Commission.

In 1501 Cesare Borgia was appointed duke of Romagna by his father, Pope Alexander VI. The duke, in quick succession, soon acquired several Italian city-states under his dominion. He was described by Machiavelli as someone who “must be regarded as a new power in Italy.” (Notice the resemblance to Slick Willie’s “new breed”). Sooner or later, however, Borgia’s luck ran out as he miscalculated some moves and failed to accommodate his personality to the exigencies of the time, but tried to reshape the time in the mold of his personality. (Skinner ’10).

Museveni has had a good run –mostly based on his astuteness to read the times and improvise on the fly. In his hubris, one of these days, not unlike Borgia, his luck will run out. So far he has played in the mold of the wise Pandolfo Petrucci, the lord of Siena, who told the Florentine Machiavelli: “Wishing to make as few mistakes as possible, I conduct my government day by day, and arrange my affairs hour by hour; because the times are more powerful than our brains.”

Unfortunately for Machiavelli, his employer, the republic of Florence did not read the times correctly. She stayed aligned with France as Pope Julius II adroitly signed a treaty with Spain, and the Spaniards, a powerhouse at the time, made a mince meat of the French in Italy. The Florentine republic was dismantled, and the Medici came back. Checkmate! Machiavelli lost his job and, in a groveling attempt to gain favor, penned and dedicated it to the Medici the famous, The Prince—a compilation of his observations as ambassador to the various courts.