The Golden Gal

http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/-/688334/926592/-/x087fw/-/index.html

We would like to heartedly congratulate Ms Nambooze on her win. She is a woman after our hearts. She loves her people, and she is not shy and apologetic about it. And that is how it should be. To love your family is not to hate any other family—that is just the way it is.

When she was haunted by the power that be, our hearts bled. Parliament will give her an opportune forum to shine, and shine we are confident she will. Go, girl!

The Prisoner's Dilemma

In a single combat, if the enemy is less skillful than ourselves, if his rhythm is disorganized, or if he has fallen into evasive or retreating attitudes, we must crush him straightaway, with no concern of his presence and without allowing him space for breath. It is essential to crush him all at once. The primary thing is not to let him recover his position, not even a little.”
(Miyamoto Musashi)

Humans are the champions of cooperation: from hunter-gatherer societies to nation-states, cooperation is the decisive organizing principle of human society. No other life form on Earth is engaged in the same complex games of cooperation and defection.”
(Martin Nowak)


In the hierarchical power-based societies of the chimpanzees, bonobos and gorillas, the weak can form coalitions to restrain support, or even drive out over-dominating superior
(Kaplan & Kaplan, 2009)
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In the days of the Shogun there was no greater samurai than Miyamoto Musashi. He won all of his major sixty battles, and none was more spectacular and finely executed than against the aristocratic Sasaki Kojiro.
Musashi’s first winning strategy was to make Kojiro wait thereby tactically getting him angry. Second, when he arrived by boat in the early morning dawn, he had his back to the rising sun which shone into Kojiro’s eyes.

Musashi exemplifies the essence of the zero-sum games that are germane to certain conflicts and competitions. But what separates him—a cultured, honorable warrior—and the common variety beastlike creatures, is not throwing sand into the opponent’s eyes—that is, he always played fair to the standards of a true samurai of his days. An honorable warrior doesn’t threaten to or closes radio stations (supposedly beneficiaries of his policies) just because he doesn’t want the hapless villagers to hear the other side of the truths of his rule. An honorable warrior doesn’t change the rule of the game midway so that he can always win. In The Last King of Scotland, Idi Amin Dada restrains an underling who was beating him in a staged swimming competition. Is that any different from bribing the legislatures to change the constitution for you? Only a gangster warrior concocts crimes against opponents in his perverted attempts to derail them.

While there are zero-sum games, there are also many occasions for non zero-sum games that call for cooperation. Thus we have coined phrases like: win-win, you scratch my back and I scratch yours, or one good turn deserves another or the Acoli’s “mon nywal ki wadgi” (literally: women can bear children with one another—improbable, but in impossibilities there lie discoveries, and that you could help one another when caught up in the same dire straights). Even zero-sum games may call for elements of cooperation, called, “taking whole.” Thus you do not beat your opponent to a pulp since, once he has learnt his lesson, you can turn him into an ally to achieve more.

A non zero-sum game can be illustrated by the Prisoner’s Dilemma. In its simplest form, if two prisoners cooperate with one another and don’t rat on each another, they have the best chance of getting the least time in jail. If both rat on one another they will both have longer time. If only one rats, he walks free, but the other gets the stiffest sentence. The dilemma is that since the two are isolated and do not know what the other would do, the best rational option—each man for himself— would be to rat. This last option is the behavior you would expect of the common variety goat thief. More sophisticated players would cooperate and follow the first option.

It is not an overstatement to say that the opposition is in a prison of some sort. The various political parties can choose to be capricious and behave lower than bonobos, or choose the path of collective survival against a formidable force.

Bidandi Ssali is not a cause for worry since he will get no more votes than his family and workers at his amusement park can provide. Even then, one would have expected this good man to lend his support to a collective cause. Instead he is just a whimsical prosaic old man buying a sports car and taking on a new bride—a futile middle-age crisis.

Nothing need be said about Mao anymore but watch him in amusement as he prances around with silly hyperboles that he is the most popular of the opposition candidates. We know better.

What Transforming Society?

At the core of Mr. Museveni’s National Plan is an ambitious dream of transforming Uganda society. Transforming to what? Supposedly it is tripling the per capita income (GDP/PPP?) to $900 by 2015.

Nothing is wrong with that, except the archaic top-down process of coming out with the plan. We cannot even guess the elements that were taken into considerations. Since you have not consulted widely you miss out important elements—besides the effects of the unknown Heisenberg uncertainty principle in play—and rendering the outcomes unpredictable if not rejected. The whole thing seems Newtonian linear thinking: Input these and you get these formulated results.

As I stated before, others have tried along the same lines. Believe it or not, Museveni himself has tried various schemes, which were effectively national plans. It is telling that none of them has worked beyond the catchy initial grandiose pronouncements. In a photo op the man was seen carrying AGOA shirts for exports to the US. If anybody has seen Uganda shirts in US stores, shout! Did I hear somebody just picked up a Kenyan pair of trousers from a US department store?!

Humans are complex, and Ugandans are no exception—even more so if you consider regional differences and aspirations. In addition, there is the mix of the endemic cultural confusion in the sense of self: What is the essence, if any, of being a Ugandan? So, without being sympathetic to complexities, any policy is dead ab initio.

Material well-being is a good thing. But focusing only on increasing ability to consume is really not transforming society's sustainably. It may end up creating a nation of desperate automatons, full of anger, lust, resentment, fear and depression with no sense of honor and community. And you heven't seen nothing yet of the lethal alienation of blighted forests of slums.

The universal traditional Uganda begins in the village. There is where a sense of honor and community can begin to be instilled and nurtured to translate into the whole country of Uganda—a bottom-up strategy. Anybody who can conjure up ideas about strengthening the spiritual (not necessarily religious) and material well-being of the village will transform Uganda for the better. This would be in accord with scientific evolutionary evidence of how man has managed to survive for millennia in the face of all manners of odds. If the village unit is strong and vibrant, the nation will be strong and vibrant. Chances are families will also be strong—raising strong children. It is so simple, it hurts!

Whose National Plan Is It Anyway?

Mr. Museveni unveiled his version of a Five-Year National Plan. What does that mean? He finally admitted that the wild-wild-west IMF/World Bank imposed prescription wasn’t delivering. He might have realized that, despite claims to rosy growth rates, many of the population of Uganda have been left in the dust and the infrastructures continue to go to the dogs.
“Adam Smith’s idea that self-seeking behavior of individuals would add up to the general welfare ----” has not worked. (Ehrenreich, 2009).

This is not the first Uganda plan. Obote I had his Common Man’s Charter and Move-to-the-Left, which Museveni now despises even when he might have welcomed it in his UPC youth-winger days. The swaggering early NRM had its Ten-Point Program, which has long been shelved.

So, today we have another plan which seems proprietary, designed more to score points for the coming elections. Mr. Big Man, the All-Wise Visionary One will just shove it down our throats. It will go down the way of the dodo, not unlike other similarly constructed prior plans.

The concept of a national plan sounds sexy, but the process of coming up with a plan is also a plan itself. There is a need for wide and inclusive involvement to garner emotional buy-ins: Has the question of environmental sustainability been considered with inputs from related experts and concerned civil society? What about the general national health of the population? Was regional equity factored into the equation? What about the messy urbanization with filthy slums?

There are numerous examples of planning processes on the Internet. Portland, a mid-sized US city is undergoing a 25-year plan exercise. Various local entities have been co-opted as Plan Partners. Residents participate through neighborhood meetings and surveys. The city’s last plan cycle produced a light-rail system that other cities are emulating, neighborhood associations, a quasi-government development commission, etc. Check it out at: http://www.pdxplan.com/ or
http://www.portlandonline.com/portlandplan/index.cfm?c=47906

The Hyenas Are Here

Senegalese Djibril D. Manibety’s portrayal in the Hyenas might as well have dramatized the present Uganda. In the movie a young girl who was violated by a now-local-celebrity comes back, physically broken but a millionairess, to the town of Colobane. The town has lost its former glory and is poverty stricken. The millionairess, who is richer than the World Bank, offers to rehabilitate the town on one condition.

Well, in the present Uganda you can just about buy anybody, village, town or even the country. Take the case of the Dutchman who asked some villagers to adopt his name for the price of pigs. Recently, a deputy speaker asked the Chinese to build for the country a new parliament building. Did she think these Chinese are fools to give anything for free? Then there is the case of MP Ogong: He is the Lango joker who made a show of competing against Museveni for the NRM flag honcho. Recently he had to kneel and beg Museveni not to shut his radio station for hosting Mr. Otunnu, the president’s virulent critic. Were the Ugandan MPs not bought for merely $5,000 to vote overturning a vital clause in the constitution?

If you lived abroad for a while, come home and sample the nature of people. It is assumed that you have money, and people will do anything to gain your favor. Some will narrate how much you loved them before you escaped your own demons. They don’t tell you they love you—probably hedging their bets. Once you seem not to deliver, all bets are off: you will begin to hear vicious rumors. The rumormongers are not at fault since they never said they loved you—you loved them and now you betrayed them!

Beware of the women. They will confess to loving you the first time you meet even before you open your mouth. Horny white guys are especially vulnerable. Our girls meet them on the Internet and lure them to Kampala. Did you hear of the Dutchman who was taken to the village and shown the grave site of his “son?” Apparently after a vacation of sizzling hot sex, he went back home. The lady who gave him a memorable Mandingo good time called to say that she was “pregnant” and would appreciate his financial support. The poor white boy was happy to oblige.

You want to be a king of your clan, don’t you? All you have to do is convince Museveni that your clan will be nothing but NRM territory and, viola; you have a district or a kingdom if you are so inclined. Now, you will be elected area MP for many election cycles to come. If your stars are well aligned, the appointing authority might even make you an assistant minister—or rather state minister. What is the difference? A minister is a minister to the clansmen. You are now a big man among big men. You might even enter the rarefied kitchen cabinet—the gang of untouchables who have the ears of the king of kings, and who might afford to be naughty jerks without consequences. Now, the villagers can dream of development that will be promised over and over at every election cycle. No problem—the masses can live on hope alone. Didn’t the king of kings tell you to stay alive and healthy for oil moneys will soon come gushing in?

The road from Kalingi to Zambala is full of lake-like potholes and is an amalgam of red muddy porridge when it rains. Send a delegation to Rwakitura to tell the president that you will not vote NRM if your important access to civilization is not paved. Suddenly, money will appear out of thin air—thanks to classified military and state-house budgets. And don’t forget the creative accounting that will go into projects up North. You have your shiny Kalingi-Zambala road.

If you are not yet amazed, check out the packs of super hyenas. These are the lots who tear to shreds moneys donated for treatments of Aids, malaria and tuberculosis. When the super hyenas loot and share the CHOGM heist amongst themselves, they dare anyone to question them about the thievery. Some have no qualm about looting workers’ life savings. Worse still, the hapless workers can do nothing about it because they are not organized. Instead they make it hard on us, the wanainchi: we have to grease their scaly palms at licensing offices; we are harassed by policemen unless we give them chai; and security personnel shoot at us for no apparent reason. Name it; we are the butt of every miserable worker’s angst. 

What Goes On In Milton Odongo's Head?

An inflated consciousness is always egocentric and conscious of nothing but its own existence. It is incapable of learning from the past, incapable of understanding contemporary events, and incapable of drawing right conclusions about the future. It is hypnotized by itself and therefore cannot be argued with. It inevitably dooms itself to calamities that must strike it dead.

Carl Jung

There is a dubious office created by Uganda’s Museveni, dubbed the Resident District Commissioner (RDC), which harkens to the days of the all-powerful colonial district commissioner. The docket of the office is supposedly security which, in context, means ensuring the president’s omnipresence and self-perpetuation. From observations it seems the office is a dumping ground for election losers and the dumbos in the Museveni’s NRM fiefdom. Now, give such characters access to the coercive security apparatus such as the army, the police and other opaque state tools, and some of them will throw their weight around to the chagrin of those not in the government camp.
The Grotesque Milton Odongo Looms over Bewildered Peasants
The name Milton Odongo may not mean much, but in the minds of local opposition politicians in the district of Gulu, Uganda, he is the personification of the Anti-Christ. He is the overzealous and overreaching Gulu assistant RDC, who for the last few years has been such a prick. He has jailed, harassed, and disrupted many opposition politicians—all for what?

Here are some unskillful incidences of assistant Gulu RDC in action:
Ordered local radio station not to host Dr. Besigye, the leading opposition presidential candidate

Assaulted Betty Aol, an area MP

Kissing Museveni’s butt in Kaberamaido

Ordered that drugs at a public hospital be given only to members of his party, the NRM

Shoves Gulu mayor in jail

Arrests a local journalist

Each of us has perceptions on how things should be, but as soon as we come into contact with others, we find that they may have different perceptions of their own. Determining whose end will prevail is what leads to conflict. And conflict is not bad in itself because often the end results are greater than the sum of the parts if handled skillfully. Our particular action to achieve our objective depends on our view of the world and how we have been conditioned to act aggressively, passively or respond skillfully. Incidentally, Odongo uses the schoolyard logic of: my way or the highway; heads I win, tails you lose; winner takes all; zero-sum game. Unfortunately, this is the environment which is far too common in the African political dance. Stripped of any semblance of organic traditional wisdom for consensus, we have the dualistic and competitive consciousness we learnt in centuries of western schooling.

The west can open its market; vast wealth can be dug from the rich African soil, but without a collective change in attitude, Africa will continue to spin on its wheel on a journey to nowhere. Milton Odongo, the Gulu assistant RDC, a cog in this wheel, is a poster child of what is wrong with Africa.

Looking is the Key

What is the sound of clapping one hand?
A Zen koan

Nasruddin, the Sufi was frantically looking for something under the street lamp. Some passersby asked him what he was looking for. He said that he was looking for the key to his house. The passersby joined him in looking, but soon tired, and one asked him where he actually lost the key. Nasruddin said he lost the key in the house!

Then there is the story of the Muslim who was put in jail for a crime he did not commit, and he wanted very much to escape. When a friend smuggled in a prayer mat , he was disappointed . He would have preferred a hacksaw or a knife. However, as he knelt in prayer and looked at the intricate patterns of the mat he saw the design for picking the lock in his cell!

Nasruddin was teaching that looking is the key to finding out about life. And the Muslim story tells us that we don’t have to look far to find reality and solutions to our problems—it is just under our nose.

As we navigate life (individually and collectively) we need to look—and not very far from where we are. Additionally, nobody can do it for us—we are solely responsible for our understanding and knowledge. This is the way of our ancestors and the great minds of old who looked and asked questions.

Here some questions that Ugandans need to ask to find answers to their myriads challenges:

1. Why has Uganda been having dictators since soon after Independence?
2. Can there be a solution to the continuing autocratic governance?
3. Why are there ritual murders in Buganda, the center westernized enlightenment in Uganda?
4. Why was Obote toppled twice?
5. Why did the Lutwa government crumble like a house of cards?
6. Why is Buganda the linchpin of successive governments and yet has not produced any charismatic inspirational national leader in spite of its relative wealth and western education?
7. Can westerners buck the culture of guilt-by-association and ward off revenge that might lurk in the dark minds of some Ugandans? Every other groups have been victimised. Will they be the exception?
8. Why have the Acoli suffered for over 20 years?
9. What is the real story behind the LRA and its phenomena ?
10. How does a supposedly Christian nation come up with an Amin, is corrupted from top to bottom, and is soaked with blood in its history?

The answers to the questions are right under our noses, if we can only look. For example, the Karamojong need to look at themselves and their actions if they are to come with any lasting solution to their challenges. The Munyankole woman is just looking for the interests of her husband, and she is not going to take them to the Promised Land.

“Qu'ils mangent de la brioche.”: “Let them eat cake,”

Both the man and his missus, accompanied by a bevy of courtiers of the baddest yellow girls in town, descended on Kyadondo. They warned, especially the youths, to vote “wisely” lest they plunge the country into the “bad old days.”
These people are really out of touch. Which 25-year old can emotionally remember the “bad old days?” Does this hearken to the last days of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette before they were guillotined? “Qu'ils mangent de la brioche,” (Let them eat cake) so unfeelingly uttered Marie Antoinette as the French peasantry starved—thus was born the French Revolution.

Using fear as a weapon worked in the past in the region. Will it work this time around? We are at a serious crossroad, and the voters should think about the future of Uganda which is at peril. But will the voters take control, or will they be led like sheep to the slaughterhouse of more of the same NRM? Let us see what transpires.

Can a Ugandan Journalist Predict the Future through a Seer?

Those who have heightened sense of consciousness probably could reach the rarefied spiritual world and predict the future. That is the world the prophets, including Joshua (aka Jesus), the Buddha and others likely reached with a lot of mental discipline. We know of how the Buddha abandoned a life of privilege to go isolate in a forest, reflect and reach a revelation. We don’t know about the life of Joshua for nearly thirty years until he burst into the Jewish world. He probably did the same thing.

That a journalist who affects some intellectualism now predicts the future through some unnamed seer is an overreach and should probably qualify for the entertainment section rather than a serious op-ed section. If he were to prognosticate by serious and rigorous extrapolations from events and actions, like an economist or a political scientist would do, may be he could be taken seriously.

Having said all that, I have a lingering awareness of a non-physical world which is influenced by our thoughts and deeds which, in turn, are manifested in the physical world—individually as well as collectively. Hence, such truisms as: we reap what we sow, or what goes around comes around. However, to explain world events in terms of this is best left for the Synagogue, Church, Mosque and other temples.