Can Ugandans One Day Proclaim: Gotov Je?!

“Gotov je!” (Serbian for: He is finished) was the euphoric battle outcry of the Serbian students’ non-violent movement, Otpor (Resistance). That was in the pre- and post 2000 election uprising. By June 2001, the fascist Milosevic, the Butcher of the Balkans, was in jail in the Hague—one more testimony to what the people can do without carnage if they could only understand their power. His successor was a mild lawyerly type under whom all the many disparate political parties rallied.

In post independent Uganda the use of violence has developed into the standard mode of acquiring and maintaining power. And the present leadership subscribes to that mindset. We, the people sustain it by our tacit acquiescence to the same notion. Why is that? Are there other viable means?

Looking back at Uganda history and the cultural milieu in which all the political theatre is playing can give us some clues.

To the major groups in Uganda power was monolithic. Other smaller groups were brought into the same mindset by the equally monolithic British colonial power.

The monolithic model presumes that the government is a strong, independent, durable (if not indestructible) self-reinforcing and self-perpetuating force. Fear, habit, morality, self-interest, psychological identification with the ruler, indifference, and lack of self-confidence keep the masses in check. And by the same token, accordingly, therefore, the people believe that the only means of opposing such a power structure is with overwhelming destructive force which no one has access to.

So, when Museveni adroitly acquires and successfully uses the “overwhelming destructive force” to change the government in his image he becomes a mythic figure. However, if we understand the nature of power, we can burst the myth that he acquired his dictatorial powers all by himself. The fact of the matter is: we have given him our support by our bewilderment, uncertainty and passivity. He needs the cooperation of those around him if he is to rule at all. Without the passivity of the population and the blind support of his agents (cabinet members, aids, legislative body, police, military officers, the church, LCs, etc) Museveni would just be another megalomaniac crackpot with dreams of a life presidency.


Where then can we go from here? We have to decide that enough is enough. All we need to do is withdraw our support. But, it is not that simple. We need organization and education on the efficacy of non-violent resistance movement. History tells us that in Buganda it was once used successfully in the colonial period when Indian shops and British import and export firms were boycotted. May be Olara Otunnu and Dan Muliika are on to something. For Olara, if he is to gain credibility in this arena of activist advocacy, he needs to demonstrate that this is not another avenue on which to build his partisan UPC.

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* Ref: Fragments Website by James VanHise

The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Gene Sharp

Managing Complexities

The most powerful armed force in the world strikes, destroying everything in its wake, dismantling the perceived enemy regime, and declares victory. It is, however, victory-but—a Pyrrhic one. The natives do not show up with confetti, ululating and cheering in welcome of the “liberators” as envisaged by the architects. Instead, clandestine insurgencies become the order of the day, and will continue with no end in sight.

We have seen Clausewitz’s logic of Schwerpunkt at play: attack the enemy at its weakest point with overwhelming force and victory is assured. But is it?

The eagle glides in the sky, surveying the terrain from a mile away, and sizing up the mark undetected. Then, in an instant, it swoops down at high speed for the catch—it is precise and surgical—no peripheral damages except the dinner object.

A snake stares at the prey as if looking through its eyes and beyond. The prey freezes. It is at a loss and in fear just as the snake strikes. Again, it is precise and surgical.

In living memory the Israelis have always been successful against its Arab enemies. But the recent encounters with the Hizb’allah have been different with many Israelis killed and no definitive victory. This has helped pave the way for a return of the hawkish Netanyahu—probably with the same classical Newtonian Schwerpunkt mode of operation as compared with the Hizb’allah’s quantum mechanical adjusting on the fly as the situation warrants.

The “new” reality of the world is that you cannot tell with certainty what the outcome of an enterprise will be. However, all along that has been the state of nature as revealed by the notion of Chaos Theory, which seems counterintuitive in our yearning for certainty of outcomes.

Taking Whole is a concept attributable to the Chinese sages of antiquity. After endless wars and sufferings somebody had to come up with ideas to manage man’s affairs beyond exhorting and appeasing the gods.

So, you look around, observe and take the enemy at the neural cortex. That is, you win before the battle. You take out the enemy whole with little destruction—surgical and precise—even turning him into partner in mutual survival.

Taking Whole calls for resilience. And resilience calls for adaptability. Resilience asks such questions as: How much disturbance can a system sustain before it breaks down completely beyond repair— a resulting hysteresis—too late to recover? Can the system survive and even win at the jaws of defeat?

The head of the NRM who is the de facto NRM, Mr. Museveni, has often touted his scientific prowess. He has convinced himself that the building blocks he calls “cooking stones” are in place and all will work well for him like a Newtonian clockwork. However, recent chaotic primary exercise seems to tell a different story. Are the negative variables of the contradictions in pretense democracy finally playing itself out? Other than ability for Schwerpunkt, the NRM may not have the immune systems necessary to renew itself, and may have become too brittle to survive unpredictable events.

We Get the Leaders We Deserve

It couldn’t get any more dysfunctional—the NRM primary, that is. The fracases were not about outrage on the pervasive poverty, mistreatment of the Kabaka, Karamojong women begging on Kampala streets, the deplorable state of public hospitals, the gagging on free speech, the sectarian law that proscribes speeches against One Crazy Dude, the lake-like potholes even on the streets of the capital city of Kampala, nor were they about any of the myriads of ills that bedevil the republic of Uganda. These were scrambling for the gravy train. In other domains you make your money then you go into politics or sponsor some weasel to whom you are the puppet master. In Uganda you go into politics then, Brakabrakabara!—the money faucet opens up as if by magic. That is the reason behind the ruckus in the NRM household. The underlings saw it from the Oga (Nigerian for Big Man) himself. He has clung to power like a tick on one of his cows. They witnessed him in sheer panic at the onset of the Dr. Beisgye’s phenomenon. They saw the skulduggery and the concocted criminal lawsuits against the brave man—the first man in Uganda to break away from a ruling party on principle.

http://www.monitor.co.ug/-/691150/997166/-/crp3ye/-/index.html
(A man walks passed Nakawa Ntinda stretcher pothole which has turned into a Map of Africa. PHOTO BY JOSEPH KIGGUNDU. )

So, what else is new? Go into any of the UG chat rooms or cyber forums, and you see a reflection of the state of the nation. We talk passed each other like ships in the night, bent on our point-of-views however ridiculous and illogical, while oblivious to the concerns of others, or even hostile for no apparent reason other than tribe or political affiliation.

What else is new? Look at the yet-to-bear-fruit nascent oil industry. A permanent secretary (effectively just an accounting officer with no elective mandate) does his shady deals under the nose of his substantial minister—all supposedly because he had access to the Oga. What is the result? Heritage Oil skipped town with half a billion $s in tax revenue—banoti banoti that could have done a whole lot of good, like prenatal care that could have turned up a genius instead of the half-wit who kneels in front of a vote-hungry politician instead of the other way around. Meanwhile the dirty white boys (some charcoal dark ones in Uganda too) of Heritage are now lounging in the Riviera, sipping Dom Pérignon or buying blood-diamond for their pale-assed missuses.  http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/-/688334/1005152/-/co9fkaz/-/index.html

So, in the final analysis, a river cannot rise above its source. Or as they say in statistical analysis: the result of a sampling study is no better than the sample it is based on.

Who are we? Where are we coming from and where are we going? If we cannot answer these questions with any degree of conviction and relative certainty, then we deserve any hoodlum who comes along and dazzles us that he is the best thing since the invention of sliced bread.