Mbeki persisted that Aids was not caused by the HIV virus: it was all a Western conspiracy. The sad result was the loss of lives that could have been extended by proven scientific cocktail medications. To this day there are people who are convinced that there was a CIA-Mafia-Cuban connection to President John F. Kennedy assassination, that landing on the moon was but a US brainwashing—it never happened, and 911 was a US government construct. Then, of course, in the murky opaque world of Uganda, conspiracy theories can run amok.
Why is conspiracy theories so enticing to some people? And what goes on in the minds of their purveyors? Is it a healthy avenue for truth for the powerless? Is it a conspiracy of conspiracy of the powerful to dupe and confuse the masses?
In the present stage of human development conflict is inevitable. More so where there are no credible ground rules and there are lots of mistrusts. Soon conflicts deteriorate into degrees of warlike atmospheres. And in war there are always the orthodox and the unorthodox strategies. The latter is shady and is noted for shock effects meant to demoralize and create fears. So, you chopped up dispensable targets, cook them up and blame it on your enemy to engender hatred from a sympathetic population. Or kill civilians in a war zone for similar effects. Or you go to a negotiation table and, while your adversary is sleeping in his high-minded stupor, you outflank his unprotected rearguard, sending him deliriously in exile, not knowing what hit him. And, since the winners write history, losers are left with whispers of anecdotal unofficial evidence they don’t have the sophistication and the wherewithal to get to the bottom of. Thus conspiracy theories are born.
It is good to doubt and ask questions. That is the mark of an inquisitive mind that may lead to the truth. Often, however, you have to make an educated guess and come up with a reasonable working hypothesis that can be revised when new evidence comes up. Or you can get bogged down with the search for a mirage of absolute truth.
Take the case of the 7/11 bombings; there are already rumors and gossips galore. Masters of conspiracy theories are having a field day. They are encouraged by weirdo followers who think the serpent headed wiseacres are the true anti-establishment radicals. They throw all kinds of mud on the wall, hoping they stick—even when there is mounting tentative persuasive evidence of radical militant Somali involvement. In the end, you can take the prevailing evidence in the public domain, or keep on wondering, losing sleep, and you might end up in Butabika.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Ultimately Museveni is to Blame
• Somalis. People times ten. From grief to laughter, from love to hate Somalis seem turbo-charged. Hyper-driven with life force. Dowden, ‘09
•The trouble with the United Nations is that if we ask them for help, they will send us some African who has already destroyed his own country and will come and mess up ours too.
A Somalia Minister of Tourism & Wildlife
-----------------------------------
The blame game is quintessentially Musvenian: All his failures are the faults of his “enemies” and detractors. Whereas his stances are cowardly, evasive and tacky attempts to duck realities, we indulge in the blame game for cause: his recklessly bringing the curse of Somalia to our doorstep.
The dismembered state of Somalia is a morass that had the so-called only Super Power scrambling out of there on the double with bruises to its ego. The ferocious Somalis had shot down two Black Hawk helicopters in which eighteen young Americans died horribly. Reuters showed us all how one dead American was dragged through the streets of Mogadishu. These events did not play well at home. And the immediate casualty might have been 1994 Rwanda in which the UN was shy in any more African “misadventures.” (Dowden, 09) “Leave African solutions to Africans” was the new wisdom.
Somalis are a hardy lot, weaned by a landscape that is “craggy, hard, arid, a vast griddle, scoured and scorched daily by the sun for thousands of years.” Somalis are Cushitic speakers with relatives in Ethiopia—a language as harsh as their nature. They don’t regard themselves as Africans. In fact, in pre-colonial times they raided what is now Northern Kenya and took away African slaves. When these slaves were freed by the coming of European rule they were never incorporated into the Somali clan networks.
Imagine simmering of inter-clan hostilities among some Uganda tribes; multiply that by one hundred, and you get a sense of the spirit of Somalia. Siad Barre tried to ban clans and family groupings, and even any mentioning of them. But, like many African Big Kahunas, his Marehan clan was top dog. As soon as he was chased out of town the chess game unraveled: Hargersia, capital of the north was in rubbles. So was Mogadishu. Clan fiefdoms sprouted overnight.
And this is the milieu in which Museveni, in hubris high, having routed some confused and disorganized tribes in Uganda, thought he would be a “peace-keeper.” Restless because there were no more armed challenges at home and because of a necessary desire to win kudos from Massa as insurance, he couldn’t help himself. To the wind went the old masters’ maxim of a true warrior: know thyself, know thy enemy, and know your AO (Area of Operation) and the rest will only be details against one as against a thousand. And another 76 innocent Ugandans perished because of the reckless decision of one man. When will this stop? Now, if he is wise, he should count his losses and, with his tail between his legs, leave Somalia to Somalis. Ugandans will appreciate it with their lives.
•The trouble with the United Nations is that if we ask them for help, they will send us some African who has already destroyed his own country and will come and mess up ours too.
A Somalia Minister of Tourism & Wildlife
-----------------------------------
The blame game is quintessentially Musvenian: All his failures are the faults of his “enemies” and detractors. Whereas his stances are cowardly, evasive and tacky attempts to duck realities, we indulge in the blame game for cause: his recklessly bringing the curse of Somalia to our doorstep.
The dismembered state of Somalia is a morass that had the so-called only Super Power scrambling out of there on the double with bruises to its ego. The ferocious Somalis had shot down two Black Hawk helicopters in which eighteen young Americans died horribly. Reuters showed us all how one dead American was dragged through the streets of Mogadishu. These events did not play well at home. And the immediate casualty might have been 1994 Rwanda in which the UN was shy in any more African “misadventures.” (Dowden, 09) “Leave African solutions to Africans” was the new wisdom.
Somalis are a hardy lot, weaned by a landscape that is “craggy, hard, arid, a vast griddle, scoured and scorched daily by the sun for thousands of years.” Somalis are Cushitic speakers with relatives in Ethiopia—a language as harsh as their nature. They don’t regard themselves as Africans. In fact, in pre-colonial times they raided what is now Northern Kenya and took away African slaves. When these slaves were freed by the coming of European rule they were never incorporated into the Somali clan networks.
Imagine simmering of inter-clan hostilities among some Uganda tribes; multiply that by one hundred, and you get a sense of the spirit of Somalia. Siad Barre tried to ban clans and family groupings, and even any mentioning of them. But, like many African Big Kahunas, his Marehan clan was top dog. As soon as he was chased out of town the chess game unraveled: Hargersia, capital of the north was in rubbles. So was Mogadishu. Clan fiefdoms sprouted overnight.
And this is the milieu in which Museveni, in hubris high, having routed some confused and disorganized tribes in Uganda, thought he would be a “peace-keeper.” Restless because there were no more armed challenges at home and because of a necessary desire to win kudos from Massa as insurance, he couldn’t help himself. To the wind went the old masters’ maxim of a true warrior: know thyself, know thy enemy, and know your AO (Area of Operation) and the rest will only be details against one as against a thousand. And another 76 innocent Ugandans perished because of the reckless decision of one man. When will this stop? Now, if he is wise, he should count his losses and, with his tail between his legs, leave Somalia to Somalis. Ugandans will appreciate it with their lives.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Playing by the Numbers
• I think chance is more a fundamental conception than causality; for whether in a concrete case, a cause-effect relation holds or not can only be judged by applying the laws of chance to the observation.
Max Born
• Manche menschen andern sich nie. (Some people will never change)
Die felten Jahre sind vorbei! (Your days of plenty are numbered)
Film, The Edukators
-------------------------
Probabilities are everywhere and, yet for some evolutionary primordial reasons, aided by medieval theology or juju imperatives, we rarely take heed of them in our survival enterprises. Why is that? Modern education doesn’t seem to help either. Most of us can’t see sense beyond the classical Newtonian physics and Euclidian geometry of our education, literally and figuratively.
In the 19th century Pascal and gambling informed of us some explanation in natural phenomena by probability. Since then some elegant laws have been expounded and, if we choose to use them, our lives’ ventures could be less unpredictable. And we could dispense with human sacrifices to bend fate, or be less caught up in sweaty tribal jingoistic emotions for a particular homeboy presidential candidate.
When we set out on a venture, most of us often do not ask the question: What are the chances?
When I was a kid, a neighbor retired and decided to invest all his retirement moneys in a car. Those were the days when having a car in my village meant you had arrived. Soon the car broke down and there were no spare parts. The poor guy began hoofing the village paths like the rest of us. I often met him walking, head down, thinking, seemingly oblivious to the customary greetings as one passed by a person. We kids soon gave up and watched somberly—testimony to our psychological mirroring. Other naughty tykes would have thrown stones at him, and he wouldn’t have cared.
The question is: What would have been the result had he worked out some kind of subjective decision tree with some equally subjective probabilities? His decision would have been wiser and, assuming a constant of objective, he could have got himself a new bride, a few heads of cattle, or a small dry-goods dukan (store) in the ‘hood.
In launching his candidacy, homeboy Barack Hussein Obama, smart as he is, probably asked: What are my chances? He saw a chance if he played by certain game rules. Thus we could see candidate Obama emphasizing his white maternal side exclusively. His middle name “Hussein” was, prior to election, nowhere to be seen except in the pens or mouths of his detractors. He threaded the race—which is effectively tribal—question gingerly. The rest now is history, and the salient tacit fact remains that he played by the numbers.
In Uganda we can holler and bend out of shape but let us be clear about the objective: Is it about getting rid of the quarter century ignominious Museveni rule? Or is it about indulging in our fancy of one form or another? Either way, Moses will have to go to the Mountain by the numbers—the Mountain will not come to Moses—prayer or no prayer; juju incantations or no juju incantations. Once the objective is clear, we can then work on improving the chances of our candidate in the probability distribution scale, and not act crazy after the fact.
Max Born
• Manche menschen andern sich nie. (Some people will never change)
Die felten Jahre sind vorbei! (Your days of plenty are numbered)
Film, The Edukators
-------------------------
Probabilities are everywhere and, yet for some evolutionary primordial reasons, aided by medieval theology or juju imperatives, we rarely take heed of them in our survival enterprises. Why is that? Modern education doesn’t seem to help either. Most of us can’t see sense beyond the classical Newtonian physics and Euclidian geometry of our education, literally and figuratively.
In the 19th century Pascal and gambling informed of us some explanation in natural phenomena by probability. Since then some elegant laws have been expounded and, if we choose to use them, our lives’ ventures could be less unpredictable. And we could dispense with human sacrifices to bend fate, or be less caught up in sweaty tribal jingoistic emotions for a particular homeboy presidential candidate.
When we set out on a venture, most of us often do not ask the question: What are the chances?
When I was a kid, a neighbor retired and decided to invest all his retirement moneys in a car. Those were the days when having a car in my village meant you had arrived. Soon the car broke down and there were no spare parts. The poor guy began hoofing the village paths like the rest of us. I often met him walking, head down, thinking, seemingly oblivious to the customary greetings as one passed by a person. We kids soon gave up and watched somberly—testimony to our psychological mirroring. Other naughty tykes would have thrown stones at him, and he wouldn’t have cared.
The question is: What would have been the result had he worked out some kind of subjective decision tree with some equally subjective probabilities? His decision would have been wiser and, assuming a constant of objective, he could have got himself a new bride, a few heads of cattle, or a small dry-goods dukan (store) in the ‘hood.
In launching his candidacy, homeboy Barack Hussein Obama, smart as he is, probably asked: What are my chances? He saw a chance if he played by certain game rules. Thus we could see candidate Obama emphasizing his white maternal side exclusively. His middle name “Hussein” was, prior to election, nowhere to be seen except in the pens or mouths of his detractors. He threaded the race—which is effectively tribal—question gingerly. The rest now is history, and the salient tacit fact remains that he played by the numbers.
In Uganda we can holler and bend out of shape but let us be clear about the objective: Is it about getting rid of the quarter century ignominious Museveni rule? Or is it about indulging in our fancy of one form or another? Either way, Moses will have to go to the Mountain by the numbers—the Mountain will not come to Moses—prayer or no prayer; juju incantations or no juju incantations. Once the objective is clear, we can then work on improving the chances of our candidate in the probability distribution scale, and not act crazy after the fact.
Friday, July 2, 2010
Cultures, Rituals and All that Jazz
They demonstrated. They were angry. In answer to a reporter’s question, one dude spitted:
“It is about our culture. Museveni violated the pillar of our culture—the Kabakaship.”
One would hope that, beyond the flaming emotion, there was a genuine and salient understanding of the importance of culture to a people. It was an outrage that, in a sense, many non-Baganda were empathetic, with the tacit understanding that it was an assault (besides the murders) on the core of a people’s essence. Odo me goyo nyeki bigoyi bene. (The cane for beating your co-wife will likely be used against you. So, don’t rejoice at the pain of the other woman).
We are all born into some group or another. We had no choice about it—it was a crapshoot, a lottery draw of nature. The group defines us, gives us a basic formative view of the world from which we set our sails to navigate the often treacherous terrain. The group is also supposed to protect us from forces within and without.
Whether be it family, clan, or tribe, the group is a function of social evolution that took thousands of years to build its characteristics. And, like all evolutionary processes, an ingredient for survival has been competition resulting in wars, trade, espionage, exploitation, domination, slavery, alliances, strategic cooperation, deception, humiliation, abuse, etc.
In this milieu of competition the outcome for a group generally hinges on the strength of its culture—the way of life, clear understanding of its place in the universe, and availability and use of resources. So, when you take away a man’s culture you “set about distorting [his] version of reality, figuratively and literally destroying his trust in the world and his confidence in himself.” (Lung & Prowant, ’02).
Besides superior firepower, or arrow-power, or rungu-power, accomplished mind-slayers know that the key to winning is through the mind-gates of eyes, ears, the nostrils, the mouth, the urethra and the anus. Through these orifices they adroitly undermine a culture and literally destroy a people, leaving them quarrelling among themselves, distrusting one another, resorting to self-abuses of all kinds—basically becoming dysfunctional.
For example, this can be done by the use of symbols that cause our minds to involuntarily form thoughts and images, symbols that trigger responses within us whether we want our minds to or not. Why is that? Symbols bypass the critical and logical conscious part our minds and talk directly to the nonjudgmental subconscious levels of our minds. (Lung & Prowant, ’02). The slayer then can insert anything he wants at will.
Any culture worth its salt has rituals: for marriage, coming-of-age, settling quarrels and mistakes, forgiving, groveling for favors and appeasing the gods, etc. A good mind slayer will put a different mind filter that junks your rituals and reconstructs your mindset, often resulting in a dysfunctional confusion. Is there any wonder that we find ourselves spinning our wheels in a journey to nowhere?
Take the example of the ritual of coming-of-age which was supposed to instill a sense of such qualities as honor, identity, group coercion and solidarity, responsibility and all the good stuff. It has been subtly replaced by western education, Christianity and Islam. The latter two being, in reality, just merely other peoples’ mechanistic mind inferences to experiences with existential phenomena. (Boyer, ’01). If this replacement was good for us, overall, what are the results?
“It is about our culture. Museveni violated the pillar of our culture—the Kabakaship.”
One would hope that, beyond the flaming emotion, there was a genuine and salient understanding of the importance of culture to a people. It was an outrage that, in a sense, many non-Baganda were empathetic, with the tacit understanding that it was an assault (besides the murders) on the core of a people’s essence. Odo me goyo nyeki bigoyi bene. (The cane for beating your co-wife will likely be used against you. So, don’t rejoice at the pain of the other woman).
We are all born into some group or another. We had no choice about it—it was a crapshoot, a lottery draw of nature. The group defines us, gives us a basic formative view of the world from which we set our sails to navigate the often treacherous terrain. The group is also supposed to protect us from forces within and without.
Whether be it family, clan, or tribe, the group is a function of social evolution that took thousands of years to build its characteristics. And, like all evolutionary processes, an ingredient for survival has been competition resulting in wars, trade, espionage, exploitation, domination, slavery, alliances, strategic cooperation, deception, humiliation, abuse, etc.
In this milieu of competition the outcome for a group generally hinges on the strength of its culture—the way of life, clear understanding of its place in the universe, and availability and use of resources. So, when you take away a man’s culture you “set about distorting [his] version of reality, figuratively and literally destroying his trust in the world and his confidence in himself.” (Lung & Prowant, ’02).
Besides superior firepower, or arrow-power, or rungu-power, accomplished mind-slayers know that the key to winning is through the mind-gates of eyes, ears, the nostrils, the mouth, the urethra and the anus. Through these orifices they adroitly undermine a culture and literally destroy a people, leaving them quarrelling among themselves, distrusting one another, resorting to self-abuses of all kinds—basically becoming dysfunctional.
For example, this can be done by the use of symbols that cause our minds to involuntarily form thoughts and images, symbols that trigger responses within us whether we want our minds to or not. Why is that? Symbols bypass the critical and logical conscious part our minds and talk directly to the nonjudgmental subconscious levels of our minds. (Lung & Prowant, ’02). The slayer then can insert anything he wants at will.
Any culture worth its salt has rituals: for marriage, coming-of-age, settling quarrels and mistakes, forgiving, groveling for favors and appeasing the gods, etc. A good mind slayer will put a different mind filter that junks your rituals and reconstructs your mindset, often resulting in a dysfunctional confusion. Is there any wonder that we find ourselves spinning our wheels in a journey to nowhere?
Take the example of the ritual of coming-of-age which was supposed to instill a sense of such qualities as honor, identity, group coercion and solidarity, responsibility and all the good stuff. It has been subtly replaced by western education, Christianity and Islam. The latter two being, in reality, just merely other peoples’ mechanistic mind inferences to experiences with existential phenomena. (Boyer, ’01). If this replacement was good for us, overall, what are the results?
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
The Follies of Decisions without Wisdom
• The function of intelligence is characterized as focusing on questions of how to do and accomplish necessary life-supporting tasks; the function of wisdom is characterized as provoking the individual to consider the consequences of his [or her] actions both to self and their effects on others. Wisdom, therefore, evokes questions of should one pursue a particular course of action.
---Vivian Clayton
---
Who you become depends to a great extent on what you decide--but who you are and what you value frequently determine what the best decision is.
---James Stein, '10
--
http://www.answers.com/topic/iphigenia-film-1
In the film Ephigehnia depicting a Greek mythic story, the Athenians are stranded at Aulis, Agamemnon having killed a deer sacred to Dianna. Dianna stopped the wind and the Athenians can't sail. So, the men are getting restless. They want to go fight Troy to recover Helen, who had eloped with Paris. The sheer, Calchas consults the oracle and recommends that Agamemnon kill his beautiful daughter Ephigehnia before the wind could come. Meneleas, the cuckholded husband, and other generals pressure Agamemnon while his wife Clytemnestra pleads. What would you do?
---------------
“You are what you decide,” (Stein, ’10) may be a philosophical haiku of sorts that informs a universal truth, loaded with stuff. If we stopped and reflected on it, we might learn something of ourselves. We might see that our social, professional financial and, in fact, our station in life might have been decisively decided by decisions made. Some memories of such decisions might at times gnaw our hearts with regrets: if only in the fork in that road we had taken to the right instead of the road to perdition! Not individuals only are faced with “fork in the road” challenges, but also do groups, institutions and societies at large.
I have seen people who take almost eternity to make up their minds. There are others who never make up their minds—effectively deciding not to decide. While, others (yours truly included) make impulsive snap decisions with regrettable consequences at times.
We marvel at the guy who jumps on top of the child in the path of an on-coming train and lies on top of him until the train passes, thereby saving the child’s life—and his, of course. That is a snap decision. Where does it come from?
Then there is Barack Obama, Mr. Cool. While everyone is fidgeting and getting red-faced about BP oil-spill, he seemingly is not ruffled. Then, he does his magic with a strength that few see: The $20 Billion “shake-down.” The “shake down” according to one legislature, who was forced to withdraw his statement, was probably more the truth than not.
It seems that there are situations that require snap decisions, and there are others that require deliberate reflective analysis. Knowing the difference is probably a mark of wisdom, and may lead to good decisions, which lead to successes in our enterprises.
Decisions also seem to be made relative to an environment, the philosophical settings, or the zeitgeist of the time. And often the wisdom of a decision is evaluated in retrospect, in hindsight—hence, the adage that “hindsight is twenty-twenty,” implying you see more clearly after the fact.
While there are now mathematical models for making deliberative analytical decisions as in Decision Theory, some ancients made very wise decisions while others made disastrous decisions seemingly by the seat of their pants. Whether using decision theory or otherwise, making a decision is generally about payoffs: what do I get if I do this? The “what” is a critical payoff factor that may go into determining the wisdom or not of our decision. Is the payoff factor “my success,” meaning soothing my ego, or is it “community harmony?”
In Uganda many epic decisions were made by our leaders. If wise decisions increases the probability of success, implicitly, our failures, traumas and the state of our nation has corollary in unwise decisions based on selfish and misguided payoff factors: I must rule until I croak; pay me, and I will change the law for you because I am just a little rat; the nation’s coffer is my piggybank; if you are with me do whatever you want, and I will look the other way; successes are mine, and for failures blame others; if I don’t win, I take the gun; get out of town because this is my dominion; etc, etc, etc. Is it now a time for a paradigm shift of some sort?
---Vivian Clayton
---
Who you become depends to a great extent on what you decide--but who you are and what you value frequently determine what the best decision is.
---James Stein, '10
--
http://www.answers.com/topic/iphigenia-film-1
---------------
“You are what you decide,” (Stein, ’10) may be a philosophical haiku of sorts that informs a universal truth, loaded with stuff. If we stopped and reflected on it, we might learn something of ourselves. We might see that our social, professional financial and, in fact, our station in life might have been decisively decided by decisions made. Some memories of such decisions might at times gnaw our hearts with regrets: if only in the fork in that road we had taken to the right instead of the road to perdition! Not individuals only are faced with “fork in the road” challenges, but also do groups, institutions and societies at large.
I have seen people who take almost eternity to make up their minds. There are others who never make up their minds—effectively deciding not to decide. While, others (yours truly included) make impulsive snap decisions with regrettable consequences at times.
We marvel at the guy who jumps on top of the child in the path of an on-coming train and lies on top of him until the train passes, thereby saving the child’s life—and his, of course. That is a snap decision. Where does it come from?
Then there is Barack Obama, Mr. Cool. While everyone is fidgeting and getting red-faced about BP oil-spill, he seemingly is not ruffled. Then, he does his magic with a strength that few see: The $20 Billion “shake-down.” The “shake down” according to one legislature, who was forced to withdraw his statement, was probably more the truth than not.
It seems that there are situations that require snap decisions, and there are others that require deliberate reflective analysis. Knowing the difference is probably a mark of wisdom, and may lead to good decisions, which lead to successes in our enterprises.
Decisions also seem to be made relative to an environment, the philosophical settings, or the zeitgeist of the time. And often the wisdom of a decision is evaluated in retrospect, in hindsight—hence, the adage that “hindsight is twenty-twenty,” implying you see more clearly after the fact.
While there are now mathematical models for making deliberative analytical decisions as in Decision Theory, some ancients made very wise decisions while others made disastrous decisions seemingly by the seat of their pants. Whether using decision theory or otherwise, making a decision is generally about payoffs: what do I get if I do this? The “what” is a critical payoff factor that may go into determining the wisdom or not of our decision. Is the payoff factor “my success,” meaning soothing my ego, or is it “community harmony?”
In Uganda many epic decisions were made by our leaders. If wise decisions increases the probability of success, implicitly, our failures, traumas and the state of our nation has corollary in unwise decisions based on selfish and misguided payoff factors: I must rule until I croak; pay me, and I will change the law for you because I am just a little rat; the nation’s coffer is my piggybank; if you are with me do whatever you want, and I will look the other way; successes are mine, and for failures blame others; if I don’t win, I take the gun; get out of town because this is my dominion; etc, etc, etc. Is it now a time for a paradigm shift of some sort?
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Putting Leaders to Ridicule
In Acoli, just as in many other progressive traditions, leaders were in the real sense servants of the people. And the example of Rwot Awic of the Payira personified that trait.
Leadership came out of demonstrated competence and personal qualities that included a balanced temperament. Respect was earned, not bestowed by birth, neither by skills alone. Woe unto the leader who overreached his power or was incompetent. Soon the poets would fill the air with songs of ridicule that brought the culprit down to earth or put fire under the wayward loser.
Fast forward to present-day Acoli: how does this tradition translate? The traditional leadership, as encouraged by the present government, has little influence, if any, on people’s lives. Now, the leadership that really counts, apart from may be the Church, is the elected officials from local to national offices. While the playing field has changed, and there are temptations to cultish personality adoration, it is a pleasure to see that we can still put aspirants to leadership through the wringer.
Some would say that the ridicules amount to demeaning of our own in a neighborhood in which we, as a people, have been under intense put-downs for years. Effectively, this would amount to a counter-productive exercise of demeaning the community, so the wisdom goes. As the man is fond of saying, this is an exercise in obscurantism. Whatever the challenges of the Acoli, personality cultism is not the answer to the solutions. In fact, as witnessed by history, it is a recipe for disaster.
Practices that can build and uplift the community includes ability to laugh at ourselves—not excluding our leadership. If others join us in the laughter but with ill will, they will be mistaken. The last laugh will be on them when we rally behind the son or daughter who has passed the test of fire.
At issue was a picture of Mr. Otunnu staging a mock fight with a caricature of a traditional shield and a spear. In a chat room, some guys supposedly mocked Otunnu’s holding of the shield and the spear. The political correctness police jumped on their case. All kinds of disjointed and disconnected issues inundated the exchanges which amounted to much ado about nothing.
Otunnu has a stellar resume for himself. It is not uncommon and it is understandable that he has a hold on some people’s emotion and imagination. But what these people should understand is that not all of us share the same fascination—at least, not yet consideration the impacts of his past records to the community. We consider any ridicule of him is not equivalent to a ridicule of Acoli, as a community. While we are proud of his personal accomplishments, he is not the definition of Acoli. So, even any endorsement of him for the IPC top dog by a group of some whimsical old men with over-inflated view of their self-importance is just a fancy which they are free to exercise. But any claim to clout is a figment of their imagination.
Friday, June 18, 2010
O, God Could You Replace Museveni?
• I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.
Hittler
• Gott mit Uns! (God is with Us)—Inscription on Nazi’s army belt
• The facilities should be separate. When God has drawn a line of distinction, we should not attempt to cross the line. The true Negro does not want integration.
Rev. Jerry Falwell
---------------------------
My friend and I laughed our heads off when we saw the heading:
National prayers set for Sunday
"WITH so much sin taking place in the country, the President has declared Sunday, June 20, a national day of prayer and repentance. "
http://www.newvision.co.ug/detail.php?mainNewsCategoryId=8&newsCategoryId=13&newsId=723079
“Is it April Fool’s Day?” Ojukkwe asked cheekily as he bent over in stitches and peals of laughter, slapping his thigh.
“It isn’t funny,” cautioned our resident savedee, Caroma Atim, while feigning a look of seriousness.
We could not believe what we were reading: Museveni, of all people, asking the nation to pray to God to save itself from the numerous ills, most of which are a function of his providing the negative atmosphere. So, in answer to His Excellency’s call to the Prayer Day, we decided to coin a hymn of our own in celebration of this auspicious occasion bestowed upon us by none other than his sweetheart, Lady Janet.
Prayer Day Hymn pa Soko and Ojukkwe
God, whoever you are,
You are regally patched up there,
Or wherever you may be,
Since nobody knows exactly.
[Confused us, Bewildered us
We grasp at anything
To be free and happy
But in vain]
People talk of you
As if sure
But nobody ever saw you
This side of life
But they swear
They kill
They hate
All in the name of various versions of you
[Confused us, Bewildered us
We grasp at anything
To be free and happy
But in vain]
It is said you created our world
Including our beloved Uganda
Why then leave it in the hands of
Hustlers, brigands and psychopaths?
[Confused us, Bewildered us
We grasp at anything
To be free and happy
But in vain]
We prayed for democracy
We prayed for a civilian government
We prayed for good roads and hospitals
We prayed and prayed
We only hear your silence, O Lord
Instead, our brothas and sistas
Of the yellow persuasion
Taunt us and foam in their mouths
Chanting: No Change!
[Confused us, Bewildered us
We grasp at anything
To be free and happy
But in vain]
Take this Museveni guy
He is very clever
He is obsessed with power
He uses your name in vain
To score points
He bullies radio stations
His street gangs beat up Dr. Besigye
He harasses journalists
The famous OO got the brunt of it
He kills demonstrators
Then he turns around and says:
Let us pray
What the f—k is that?
Excuse our German.
[Confused us, Bewildered us
We grasp at anything
To be free and happy
But in vain]
Lord, twenty-five years is a long time
A generation was born and grown
Enough is enough
We implore you to get rid of Museveni
If you can’t, then Lord,
With due respect, leave us alone.
You have done so from time immemorial.
This leaves us to face reality sans false hope.
We refuse somnambulistic veneration of a God
Whose cruel joke is:
To allow the Holocaust
To allow The Rwanda Genocide
To allow forceful herding people
Into death-trap camps
To allow Polpot's killing fields.
We can turn to the pristine Mind
That which unlocked the codes of Nature
[Confused us, Bewildered us
We grasp at anything
To be free and happy
But in vain]
Yes, the mind
That fascinating thing
It travels everywhere and nowhere
It elevates and it destroys
Those who know can move mountains
The ignorant are bewildered.
With mind we devised the family
We corralled families into the community
Of clan, tribe, kingdom and state.
We lived happily and well
Then plunged into orgies of violence
Lord, you had nothing to do with it
We were just being bad dudes and gals.
[Confused us, Bewildered us
We grasp at anything
To be free and happy
But in vain]
We know the codes that bring
Peace, harmony and tranquility
But not enough of us buy into
Or are just plain ignorant
Hence, we have a dictator
He shits and pees on us
We wince, confused
As he cynically asks us
To pray for our transgressions
Can you believe that, Lord?
[Confused us, Bewildered us
We grasp at anything
To be free and happy
But in vain]
Hittler
• Gott mit Uns! (God is with Us)—Inscription on Nazi’s army belt
• The facilities should be separate. When God has drawn a line of distinction, we should not attempt to cross the line. The true Negro does not want integration.
Rev. Jerry Falwell
---------------------------
My friend and I laughed our heads off when we saw the heading:
National prayers set for Sunday
"WITH so much sin taking place in the country, the President has declared Sunday, June 20, a national day of prayer and repentance. "
http://www.newvision.co.ug/detail.php?mainNewsCategoryId=8&newsCategoryId=13&newsId=723079
“Is it April Fool’s Day?” Ojukkwe asked cheekily as he bent over in stitches and peals of laughter, slapping his thigh.
“It isn’t funny,” cautioned our resident savedee, Caroma Atim, while feigning a look of seriousness.
We could not believe what we were reading: Museveni, of all people, asking the nation to pray to God to save itself from the numerous ills, most of which are a function of his providing the negative atmosphere. So, in answer to His Excellency’s call to the Prayer Day, we decided to coin a hymn of our own in celebration of this auspicious occasion bestowed upon us by none other than his sweetheart, Lady Janet.
Prayer Day Hymn pa Soko and Ojukkwe
God, whoever you are,
You are regally patched up there,
Or wherever you may be,
Since nobody knows exactly.
[Confused us, Bewildered us
We grasp at anything
To be free and happy
But in vain]
People talk of you
As if sure
But nobody ever saw you
This side of life
But they swear
They kill
They hate
All in the name of various versions of you
[Confused us, Bewildered us
We grasp at anything
To be free and happy
But in vain]
It is said you created our world
Including our beloved Uganda
Why then leave it in the hands of
Hustlers, brigands and psychopaths?
[Confused us, Bewildered us
We grasp at anything
To be free and happy
But in vain]
We prayed for democracy
We prayed for a civilian government
We prayed for good roads and hospitals
We prayed and prayed
We only hear your silence, O Lord
Instead, our brothas and sistas
Of the yellow persuasion
Taunt us and foam in their mouths
Chanting: No Change!
[Confused us, Bewildered us
We grasp at anything
To be free and happy
But in vain]
Take this Museveni guy
He is very clever
He is obsessed with power
He uses your name in vain
To score points
He bullies radio stations
His street gangs beat up Dr. Besigye
He harasses journalists
The famous OO got the brunt of it
He kills demonstrators
Then he turns around and says:
Let us pray
What the f—k is that?
Excuse our German.
[Confused us, Bewildered us
We grasp at anything
To be free and happy
But in vain]
Lord, twenty-five years is a long time
A generation was born and grown
Enough is enough
We implore you to get rid of Museveni
If you can’t, then Lord,
With due respect, leave us alone.
You have done so from time immemorial.
This leaves us to face reality sans false hope.
We refuse somnambulistic veneration of a God
Whose cruel joke is:
To allow the Holocaust
To allow The Rwanda Genocide
To allow forceful herding people
Into death-trap camps
To allow Polpot's killing fields.
We can turn to the pristine Mind
That which unlocked the codes of Nature
[Confused us, Bewildered us
We grasp at anything
To be free and happy
But in vain]
Yes, the mind
That fascinating thing
It travels everywhere and nowhere
It elevates and it destroys
Those who know can move mountains
The ignorant are bewildered.
With mind we devised the family
We corralled families into the community
Of clan, tribe, kingdom and state.
We lived happily and well
Then plunged into orgies of violence
Lord, you had nothing to do with it
We were just being bad dudes and gals.
[Confused us, Bewildered us
We grasp at anything
To be free and happy
But in vain]
We know the codes that bring
Peace, harmony and tranquility
But not enough of us buy into
Or are just plain ignorant
Hence, we have a dictator
He shits and pees on us
We wince, confused
As he cynically asks us
To pray for our transgressions
Can you believe that, Lord?
[Confused us, Bewildered us
We grasp at anything
To be free and happy
But in vain]
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Mao's Game
“All movements, however different in doctrine and aspiration, draw their early adherents from the same types of humanity; they all appeal to the same types of mind.
--“Not so obvious is the fact that religious and nationalist movements too can be vehicles of change. Some kind of widespread enthusiasm or excitement is apparently needed for the realization of vast and rapid change---“
Eric Hoffer, ‘51
----------------------------
I want, I want, I want: this is the constant chorus we hear in our hearts day in day out from the moment we pop out until we check out. Even a dog hears the same. Don’t forget your plant at the window wailing out for water and mineral nutrients.
Unfortunately we don’t always get the objects of our desires. Why is that? It is simple but profound. And like many aspects of us, we don’t take time to reflect on it. Most things are limited in supply, and others are also clamoring for the same. So, what to do? We play games.
Gaming is probably more pervasive than we are wont to admit. Unless you believe that some supernatural being put us ready made in this form, scientific evidence says that we acquired survival characteristics over millions of years. And gaming is one of those acquired traits that have become instinctive imperatives.
In gaming we do everything to get what we want: sex, food, power, you name it. We can use brute force if we think we can get away with it. Or we can use clandestine means of ruses and deceptions. Or like the hyenas (my favorite strategists and tacticians in the caliber of Sun Tzu), you can go on a joint hunt, isolate and fell a wildebeest, a thousand times your individual body weight.
The hyenas are on to something that we humans not only use it instinctively but have the added advantage of rationality, a feature of consciousness that might have arisen out of the competitive need to size up the other person in our gaming (Barash, ’03). In our evolved consciousness we are often aware that a community’s welfare also means our individual survival. So, rather than pursue only our self-interests until hell freezes over, we cooperate for the greater whole.
It is not that simple, however. I wish it were, then we would all be singing Kumbaya and smiling to one another as brothers and sisters, happy to be here in this fascinating earth. Now, if everybody pursues his or her individual interests exclusively, what we get is communal disaster. Isn’t it the reason Somali has redefined a dysfunctional nation state in the 21st century? What about the family that falls apart because of internecine bad blood? Do you know of a community that can’t get its acts together and is always complaining about how others, but themselves, from without are doing it to them?
Let us cut to the chase, and check out Mao’s gaming for the presidency. He is going to pursue it no matter what. He is the wayward alpha male hyena with the toughest jaw who takes it upon himself alone to bring down the toughest wildebeest in the plain. So, he comes up with some arcane algorithm which he only understands. The idea being that not joining the IPC pack (which all objective calculations point as, short of unforeseen occurrence, the only strategic chance probability of unseating the Mighty One) is a better strategy.
Here are some aspects of Mao’s reasoning:
1. The IPC is an outfit to promote Dr. Besigye, and not a genuine joint venture.
As a Dr Besigye’s enthusiast my response is: What is wrong with that if it helps change the political landscape? The man has paid his due more than any political operator has ever had in Uganda. His numbers are far ahead of most of the potential opposition candidates. Intuitively we should know that numbers represent reality, but illusions and dreams have a stronger hold on us to our detriment.
2. In Mao’s math Museveni will win, no matter what. It is only Mao, who has the magic wand to bring down Museveni’s tally below 50%, in which case he, Mao would then be the king maker by throwing his vaunted weight behind the opposition, coasting it to victory in a rerun.
This is pure fiction. Show me the money. Where are the polling data that supports this claim? Let us give Mao the benefit of the doubt. Supposing Mao’s scenario works at the initial round, why waste time with all the rigmarole? Something smells fishy here.
3. The IPC is a killer of parties, and Mao’s DP doesn’t want to become a dodo.
The reason the various political parties are entrenched in older democracies is a function of time. These parties have undergone all kinds of permutations to emerge into their present forms.
In business, mergers and acquisitions are germane to growth and innovations. The message being to let other synergies come into play otherwise atrophy sets in and you perish.
Many Ugandans know what it is to be free and happy—the basic purpose of life. Translated into a national aspiration, it is about democracy and dignified access to goods and services. On this altar they will sacrifice DP for the greater good. And Mao can go hang.
4. The IPC is another movement politics of yore, and we don’t need it.
Perhaps Mao uses “movement,” not in a generic but in a disparaging manner of uncle Museveni who cleverly uses words to skewer opponents in guilt by association. If so, then my brother has sunk very low. All for what—ambition?
The NRM may have been a revolutionary movement of sorts, but it never achieved a definitive national mass movement status. It is unlikely that was its aim either, since it showed its true colors in tribal chauvinism and apelike desires for trinkets (read corruption).
A movement is a collective enthusiasm, fueled by a collective desire for change. This is the only way drastic change can be made. Right now there is a national feeling that something is terribly wrong. The privileged don’t want change, and the uninformed are bewildered, uncertain that they could take control of their fate. That is why the Mighty One bullies radio stations not to air opponents who might reveal the SECRET. Now than ever we need “masters of the act of ‘religiofication’—the act of turning practical purposes into holy causes.” (Hoffer, ’51).
Apparently Mao doesn’t need a movement—only his greatness will do the trick. To which we say: Bury your head in the sand, Mr. Mao. When you wake up, with or without you, there will be a new president come 2011—we hope, and we will work on it.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Soko's Primer on Strategic Self-Defense
•If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?
Rabbi Hillel, 2nd Century CE
•All I say is by way of discourse, and nothing by way of advice. I should not speak so boldly if it were my due to be believed.
Montaigne
--------------------------
Okay, you’re on the mean street of Everywhere town. A wicked dude blocks your way and acts belligerently. You’re at a rally in Museveni’s Fiefdom and attack dogs swarm on you wielding sticks. The difference is the same. What do you do? Everyone, even cats, get into the primordial mode: freeze-fight-flight.
Attack dogs (AD) or street urchins bank on fear and anonymity—your fear and they are not your next-door neighbor. Soko’s strategy presupposes that you have done your mental preparation: you have a firm believe in the sanctity of yourself that I talked about earlier. This means you overcome fear—even death—in the freeze stage in seconds. With fear and death out of the way, you are in the empty, in the void and your mind is spacious for speed sizing of the situation clearly. The situation can range from mild verbal assault to vicious physical confrontation. This requires reactive skills since the initiation comes from a potential adversary. Your sole objective is not to become a victim, and you can escalate your tactics from verbal skills and bodily posture to outright physical damage.
Let us say an attack dog comes at you furiously with a stick (kiboko) and shouting insults at the same time. This is a form of what is called in Game Theory, a Game of Chicken, similar to an armament race (In the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Soviets chickened out—avoiding being fried. Barash, ‘03).
You: Pretend weakness
AD: Reaches close
You: Move away suddenly
AD: Hesitates for a moment because his rhythm is off
You: In the moment of hesitation, attack forcefully and gain the initiative from him
You: If you cannot move away—stay with him and attack forcefully enough to disrupt his timing and cause him to change his approach
AD: Timing is disrupted
You: Sense a change in approach, move quickly to take the initiative and defeat him.
Contacts with AD should be at the Nerve Centers and Pressure Points. That is your homework to find out what these are. Suffice to say: apply proportionate force to the centers and points because they could result in death or permanent crippling just by using bare hands, feet, knees and elbows. The damage Soko did to someone nearly ended in the worst possible outcome. We will leave it at that.
If you don’t have the heart, do yourself a favor. At the sight of an attack dog, just run for your life! While you are at it, pray to the spirit of Akii Bua—it might add some wind to your flight!
------
Bonus
This is an amazing movie: high-level corruption in Europe and Africa. In it all, the dredge of African society are taken advantage. Courage, intrigue, deception and greed play out incredibly. A must see.
Rabbi Hillel, 2nd Century CE
•All I say is by way of discourse, and nothing by way of advice. I should not speak so boldly if it were my due to be believed.
Montaigne
--------------------------
Okay, you’re on the mean street of Everywhere town. A wicked dude blocks your way and acts belligerently. You’re at a rally in Museveni’s Fiefdom and attack dogs swarm on you wielding sticks. The difference is the same. What do you do? Everyone, even cats, get into the primordial mode: freeze-fight-flight.
Attack dogs (AD) or street urchins bank on fear and anonymity—your fear and they are not your next-door neighbor. Soko’s strategy presupposes that you have done your mental preparation: you have a firm believe in the sanctity of yourself that I talked about earlier. This means you overcome fear—even death—in the freeze stage in seconds. With fear and death out of the way, you are in the empty, in the void and your mind is spacious for speed sizing of the situation clearly. The situation can range from mild verbal assault to vicious physical confrontation. This requires reactive skills since the initiation comes from a potential adversary. Your sole objective is not to become a victim, and you can escalate your tactics from verbal skills and bodily posture to outright physical damage.
Let us say an attack dog comes at you furiously with a stick (kiboko) and shouting insults at the same time. This is a form of what is called in Game Theory, a Game of Chicken, similar to an armament race (In the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Soviets chickened out—avoiding being fried. Barash, ‘03).
You: Pretend weakness
AD: Reaches close
You: Move away suddenly
AD: Hesitates for a moment because his rhythm is off
You: In the moment of hesitation, attack forcefully and gain the initiative from him
You: If you cannot move away—stay with him and attack forcefully enough to disrupt his timing and cause him to change his approach
AD: Timing is disrupted
You: Sense a change in approach, move quickly to take the initiative and defeat him.
Contacts with AD should be at the Nerve Centers and Pressure Points. That is your homework to find out what these are. Suffice to say: apply proportionate force to the centers and points because they could result in death or permanent crippling just by using bare hands, feet, knees and elbows. The damage Soko did to someone nearly ended in the worst possible outcome. We will leave it at that.
If you don’t have the heart, do yourself a favor. At the sight of an attack dog, just run for your life! While you are at it, pray to the spirit of Akii Bua—it might add some wind to your flight!
------
Bonus
This is an amazing movie: high-level corruption in Europe and Africa. In it all, the dredge of African society are taken advantage. Courage, intrigue, deception and greed play out incredibly. A must see.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
In Self-Defense against the Attack Dogs
The sanctity of my body is sacrosanct. So is my mind, which may be centered in the physics, chemistry and biology of the brain, heart and associated organs. Amazing web of neurons and a brew of complex chemicals do their things beyond my consciousness, enabling me to carry the job of living. They are gifts of evolution that took millions of years to realize the me of today. I almost didn’t make it, but I won the lottery! There is nobody like me, and there will never be—same with you.
Once I came to that realization, it opened up a vista of outlook for purpose, responsibility and my relationship to the universe around me. I am in awe. I, therefore, while threading lightly, take life very seriously. In this realm I won’t allow anybody to abuse this precious body and mind. I equally respect that of others. However, in the per chance that some ignorant hoodlum initiates any unprovoked and unwarranted verbal, physical and mental assault I have seen it fit to learn the art of self-defense and conflict management. Armed with lethal techniques, tactics and strategies I will not permit any low life goons to entertain themselves at my expense.
This brings us to the case of the so-called Kiboko squad that assaulted Dr. Beisgye. To even elevate them to a squad is to give them credence. These are dangerous attack dogs which are parallel enforcers of the Museveni agenda. There is no way in Uganda that someone would take the initiative to carry out these acts of assaults without the node from Museveni. This is an outcrop of Kakooza’s KAP which has terrorized citizens for years.
The actions of these dogs and the KAP gives support to the notions that some of the things that were done in Luweero and the North were too dark for the rather timid Ugandans to have carried out. Only a sociopath could carry out some of the gruesome acts. And anecdotal evidence points only in one direction.
So, based on the past, the opposition should have been hardnosed to have known and prepared for these kinds of eventualities. If not, they should now. At the least they should prepare themselves and their security details with the skills of martial art—more specifically the art of street fighting. It is not against the law to carry sticks or even pepper sprays for self-defense. Self-defense is a human right. Anybody who messes with you should be met with a discouraging force before guns start blazing to the detriment of all. It is mental. These goons are not fearless—blood streaking down their faces is bound to give the desired effects.
Once I came to that realization, it opened up a vista of outlook for purpose, responsibility and my relationship to the universe around me. I am in awe. I, therefore, while threading lightly, take life very seriously. In this realm I won’t allow anybody to abuse this precious body and mind. I equally respect that of others. However, in the per chance that some ignorant hoodlum initiates any unprovoked and unwarranted verbal, physical and mental assault I have seen it fit to learn the art of self-defense and conflict management. Armed with lethal techniques, tactics and strategies I will not permit any low life goons to entertain themselves at my expense.
The actions of these dogs and the KAP gives support to the notions that some of the things that were done in Luweero and the North were too dark for the rather timid Ugandans to have carried out. Only a sociopath could carry out some of the gruesome acts. And anecdotal evidence points only in one direction.
So, based on the past, the opposition should have been hardnosed to have known and prepared for these kinds of eventualities. If not, they should now. At the least they should prepare themselves and their security details with the skills of martial art—more specifically the art of street fighting. It is not against the law to carry sticks or even pepper sprays for self-defense. Self-defense is a human right. Anybody who messes with you should be met with a discouraging force before guns start blazing to the detriment of all. It is mental. These goons are not fearless—blood streaking down their faces is bound to give the desired effects.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Acoli Jokes
• Did you hear the one about the Ganda man who divorced his new Acoli bride on the night of their honeymoon? She had everything a Muganda man would die/kill for—huge rear-end, money, cars etc—except the deal breaker— “lips!” Oh! Where are the bassenga?!
• Who was the first Acoli Catholic Bishop? Nobody
• Two Acoli, three opinions
• Where did Acoli warriors win a war? In their mouths
• What does Acoli: “Ribbe aye tekko” mean? I will cooperate/unite with you iff (if and only if) you agree with me
• What is the difference between an angry Acoli woman and a Tasmanian devil? I plead a fifth because my life will be in danger. I will only answer if I can get into a witness protection program
• Who was the first Acoli Catholic Bishop? Nobody
• Two Acoli, three opinions
• Where did Acoli warriors win a war? In their mouths
• What does Acoli: “Ribbe aye tekko” mean? I will cooperate/unite with you iff (if and only if) you agree with me
• What is the difference between an angry Acoli woman and a Tasmanian devil? I plead a fifth because my life will be in danger. I will only answer if I can get into a witness protection program
Monday, June 7, 2010
Women, the Musevenis & Their Hangers-on
*The New Year Sacrifice is a Chinese heart-rending story of Xianglin’s wife. It is placed just before and after the Revolution of 1911, when the Qing Dynasty was overthrown.
The story is no different from that of many Ugandan women. They toil and toil. In the end what do they have to show for it but distraught faces of poverty and misery?
*No wonder, one woman commented that reading the bible is more traumatic than breast cancer.
---------------
With some token posts and no significant power to influence anything worthwhile for their species, some women prance around in yellow garbs. They shamelessly shout: “No change!” Right! For them the NRM (aka Museveni) brings home the bacon.
Is that it? Just a means to personal ends for groceries? Is this not, effectively, just a case of the oldest trade? Look around you. You look but you don’t see. The US army’s attorney once observed rhetorically to Joseph McCarthy, the communist witch hunter of the 1950s: “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at least?” What about you, women of the so-called Pearl of Africa? Have you asked yourselves why the legislation for marriage reform has languished and stalled?
That is right; the man is taking you for granted. He is just stringing you along. Any man who does not know the game, if he ever had raging hormones to just get into the pants of the fairer species, is a klutz. Issues that are important to him have come and gone through the rubber stamp parliament. What about yours? One would have expected his partner in crime, Janet Museveni to be at the forefront for women’s rights. No, Jose’. Both are Mulookole, which means they adhere to literal interpretations of the bible—every word in the bible is from the God of Israel. Anything else is blasphemy and heresy. So, if you really want to know what the power couple thinks about you women, here are “the most influential and damaging bible verses about women.” (Gaylor, 97).
• Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. (Genesis 3:16).
• Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. (Exodus 22:18).
• But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of every woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God…For the man is not of woman; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man. (1 Corinthians 11: 3, 8—9).
• Let your woman keep silence in the churches; for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home; for it is a shame for women to speak in the church (1 Corinthians 14: 34—35).
• Let the woman learn in silence in all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in transgression. (1Timothy 2:11—14).
So, there you have it. No wonder, one woman commented that reading the bible is more traumatic than breast cancer. Ladies, what is your biblically anointed place in the Musevenis & Co’s world? Be silent and be in subjection. And that is the “gospel” truth—the true spirit of the NRM, which only exists in the image of one Museveni. It’s time to wake up! Join hands with the progressives and others who have woken up to operate in the realms of reason rather than some dubious edicts of “faith, authority and tradition.”
Who can help the woman’s cause against the new wave of violence on their persons and children? Violence so heinous, our ancestors are turning in their graves. This is the culture of violence precipitated by the belligerent default mode of Mr. Museveni. His violent spirit seeps down to your family.
With the changing society a woman is often left a destitute after years of contribution to a marriage. She has no right to property. Who is likely to listen to her plight and do something about it as a matter of urgency? Museveni has had a generation to do something beyond cosmetic stop-gap measures. Get out of the NRM abusive relationship!
It is your children who die on the poor roads, are subjected to human sacrifices—a macabre practice that is as quintessential to Museveni era as the heaps of skulls of Luweero—and are semi educated in the rush to free education for political capital. Who will help protect them, and do the right thing by you? The NRM has had twenty plus years. This marriage has gone to the dogs. Let them go!
In 1885 Helen H Gardener said in Men, Women and Gods:
“This religion and the Bible require of woman everything, and give her nothing. They ask her support and her love, and repay with contempt and oppression.”
Of course, she was talking about the strident fundamentalist strains to which the Musevenis & CO subscribe. So, when your sons and daughters march in protests, they are shot dead. When your sons and daughters want to communicate to you their points of view, the radio stations are cowered and threatened. When your sons and daughters write the truth that is not palatable to the regime (meaning to Museveni), draconian laws are used to harass and drag them courts.
You are not daughters of slaves. If you are your real fathers’ daughters, do something about your fate: vote these rascals out!
The story is no different from that of many Ugandan women. They toil and toil. In the end what do they have to show for it but distraught faces of poverty and misery?
*No wonder, one woman commented that reading the bible is more traumatic than breast cancer.
---------------
With some token posts and no significant power to influence anything worthwhile for their species, some women prance around in yellow garbs. They shamelessly shout: “No change!” Right! For them the NRM (aka Museveni) brings home the bacon.
Is that it? Just a means to personal ends for groceries? Is this not, effectively, just a case of the oldest trade? Look around you. You look but you don’t see. The US army’s attorney once observed rhetorically to Joseph McCarthy, the communist witch hunter of the 1950s: “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at least?” What about you, women of the so-called Pearl of Africa? Have you asked yourselves why the legislation for marriage reform has languished and stalled?
That is right; the man is taking you for granted. He is just stringing you along. Any man who does not know the game, if he ever had raging hormones to just get into the pants of the fairer species, is a klutz. Issues that are important to him have come and gone through the rubber stamp parliament. What about yours? One would have expected his partner in crime, Janet Museveni to be at the forefront for women’s rights. No, Jose’. Both are Mulookole, which means they adhere to literal interpretations of the bible—every word in the bible is from the God of Israel. Anything else is blasphemy and heresy. So, if you really want to know what the power couple thinks about you women, here are “the most influential and damaging bible verses about women.” (Gaylor, 97).
• Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. (Genesis 3:16).
• Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. (Exodus 22:18).
• But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of every woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God…For the man is not of woman; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man. (1 Corinthians 11: 3, 8—9).
• Let your woman keep silence in the churches; for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home; for it is a shame for women to speak in the church (1 Corinthians 14: 34—35).
• Let the woman learn in silence in all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in transgression. (1Timothy 2:11—14).
So, there you have it. No wonder, one woman commented that reading the bible is more traumatic than breast cancer. Ladies, what is your biblically anointed place in the Musevenis & Co’s world? Be silent and be in subjection. And that is the “gospel” truth—the true spirit of the NRM, which only exists in the image of one Museveni. It’s time to wake up! Join hands with the progressives and others who have woken up to operate in the realms of reason rather than some dubious edicts of “faith, authority and tradition.”
Who can help the woman’s cause against the new wave of violence on their persons and children? Violence so heinous, our ancestors are turning in their graves. This is the culture of violence precipitated by the belligerent default mode of Mr. Museveni. His violent spirit seeps down to your family.
With the changing society a woman is often left a destitute after years of contribution to a marriage. She has no right to property. Who is likely to listen to her plight and do something about it as a matter of urgency? Museveni has had a generation to do something beyond cosmetic stop-gap measures. Get out of the NRM abusive relationship!
It is your children who die on the poor roads, are subjected to human sacrifices—a macabre practice that is as quintessential to Museveni era as the heaps of skulls of Luweero—and are semi educated in the rush to free education for political capital. Who will help protect them, and do the right thing by you? The NRM has had twenty plus years. This marriage has gone to the dogs. Let them go!
In 1885 Helen H Gardener said in Men, Women and Gods:
“This religion and the Bible require of woman everything, and give her nothing. They ask her support and her love, and repay with contempt and oppression.”
Of course, she was talking about the strident fundamentalist strains to which the Musevenis & CO subscribe. So, when your sons and daughters march in protests, they are shot dead. When your sons and daughters want to communicate to you their points of view, the radio stations are cowered and threatened. When your sons and daughters write the truth that is not palatable to the regime (meaning to Museveni), draconian laws are used to harass and drag them courts.
You are not daughters of slaves. If you are your real fathers’ daughters, do something about your fate: vote these rascals out!
Friday, June 4, 2010
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.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Is It God or Is It Us?
Snack for Thought: We are in the age of the unthinkable (Ramo, ’09): terrorists that are willing to die for a cause even if they have as yet to strike us, diseases that can spread quickly by planes, and the clamors for resources to satisfy unbridled consumerism resulting in cataclysmic ecological upsets. If we are still stuck in the mundane struggles with a medieval peasant dictator, how are we to handle these challenges that can even disorient established democracies?
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The other day Janet Museveni thanked God for making her minister of the Karamojong—those naked, clitoris-chopping barbarian cattle thieves. Did she really expect us to believe her? If she did, then may be she thought that, after letting her bo rule us with an iron fist for so long, we are just plain stupid. Is that assessment far from the truth? The last time I saw, the man was walking one step at a time like the rest of us—nothing celestial about him.
Let us come down to earth—in the realm of humans. The appointment was a calculated move to lock the Jong votes comes 2011—plain and simple. And may be, in addition, it was a training ground for bigger things to come. The Lesson: The next time someone ladles to you a toxic brew of politics and religion the way this couple does, grab your voter card and run for the hills—far away as you can. Their intent is to numb your senses and make you dumb and mute to their manipulations. In one hand they have the bible, in the other the sword, and in their mouths loads of your taxes to do with as they please.
Then before we know it, as the Acoli try to find their bearings, one so-called bishop goes about in Acoliland and proclaims: the problems the Acoli face is because they have veered away from God. Come again, bishop—I object.
The Acoli problems run deep. Yes. But God has nothing to do with it. A people fail or succeed based on how they organize themselves. They have to ask themselves: Are our systems—social institutions and cultural values—resilient and adaptive? Can the tree bend and come back to the original form when the gales have passed? The same applies to individuals. If you organize poorly, you get poor results and inability “…to withstand surprises…” or “…to absorb the worst nightmares.” (Ramo, ‘09). If you organize smartly and consciously, your probability of succeeding increases. If you are just wandering about and leaving things to chance, you are at the mercy of chance and those who organize well. It is GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out).
Soon there will be Martyrs Day. Men and women of faith will walk hundreds of miles to Namugongo with serious conviction and devotion to the people who were roasted by a crazy tribal king more than two centuries ago. There will be pageantry and celebrations. Beyond the exciting spectacles, the camaraderie and health benefits of walking many miles, may be every other year we dedicate to mourning in memoriam of the inauspicious beginning of what came to be known as Uganda. In the process, we should leave God and the saints out of it and question ourselves man-to-man, woman-to-woman, clan-to-clan and tribe-to-tribe as to why ever since we have had leaders who abuse us and kill us. When or if we find the answer, may be we can find the solution and free ourselves from oppressions.
What about if we begin by taking to heart the seemingly sappy notion of: I am my brother’s keeper. At least that brought us from the caves amidst scary thunders, lighting and wild beasts from which, in fear, we conjured up the ideas of a god or gods. Thereafter the clever ones amongst us usurped the gods and gained control over our minds and dominion over our physical bodies and resources. And many still do in various guises. We can pray all we want until the cows come home. No can do. It is us and our minds. Add to that a belief in duty to society and pursuing our individual interests in congruence. God has nothing to do with our fates and conditions.
Clarity about causes and effects is another area that can help. We need intellectual honesty. If a person says, for example, that the reason the peasants in Buganda are joined to the hip of Museveni is because of such atrocities as “panda gari” or injustices by some UPC apparatchiks, she is mentally lazy. The periods of contentions with the “Anyanyas,” who purportedly perpetrated these atrocities are very brief in the annals of the 500-year history which Buganda is very proud of, and which formed the Ganda psychic. Besides, the Anyayas were decisively routed. There must, therefore, be something else at play. Could it be that the Museveni rule resembles the autocratic, all-powerful mode a peasant Ganda is more familiar with? The Museveni power touches them up close in the LC system. Big Daddy is watching!
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
The Golden Gal
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)
----------------------------------------
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.
(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)
----------------------------------------
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.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
A Vote for Mao is a Vote for Museveni
For those Northerners who see a Great North Hope in Mao, when will you ever learn? Think again. For the Baganda and others who think a DP led by Mao would deliver them from Beelzebub, don’t be duped. I was once also dazzled by the Mao phenomenon—but no more.
I developed my awareness of Uganda politics in the 90s when Mao’s oratory and writings were legendary. In fact, he never fails to remind others how powerful his class of parliamentarians was in the so-called 6th parliament—the days of no-party and individual merit. But individually what did Mao achieve, and what price did he pay for his stances, if any? For example, Museveni never targets him on the controversial Bujagali dam impasse’. Instead, names of people, like Lukyamuzi comes up, and he paid the political price. Reagan Okumu paid with jail time on some trumped-up charges.
During this period, star struck, in an online chat group, I proposed a Mao Scholarship. In hindsight, I am glad that those who knew better shot the idea down. Later on I collaborated with him on one or two projects. In time I peeled the onion of Mao’s personality and got smatterings in my eyes. It is all slick and slyness, and about Project Mao.
You can see Project Mao heading to Yale for a one-year junket even at the height of great sufferings in his constituency due to the LRA war. Is this the man you would want on your side in times of your greatest need? The Yale experience is a wonderful one, but the timing speaks of the man.
And speaking of the LRA; now he is seen as a champion of the peace process. On the same online group I once asserted that the LRA had already lost and should give up and stop the sufferings. They did not occupy any piece of real estate in Uganda and were venting their anger on the people they alleged to liberate, so I innocently opined. I opened a hornet’s nest. The level of hostilities surprised me, and Mao was no exception. Surprisingly now he gets the credit for bringing peace, while many I know who worked behind the scenes to curb the LRA atrocities are instead vilified.
In parliament Mao was part of a shady “Christian” MPs. A similar group of US state legislators once invited him, and that was where I first met him. He was forceful and assertive with his views. My LRA stance was still in his mind, and he sought to correct me that the LRA was not defeated since theirs was a hit-and-run strategy. Duh! I did not pursue the matter further. To the audience of his host family he lauded his sponsoring of school children in Uganda. What was that about? I left disappointed.
There are many incidences that make me distrust Mao completely.
Some Acoli group had invited him to grace their meeting in Toronto. Instead Mao chose to attend the Banyakigezi function in Washington DC. There is no problem with that; after all he is a Munyankole nephew and aspires to national leadership. How would you have handled it? Even a political novice would have found a solution without spurning one group: a simple drop-in at each venue. Apparently he saw no political leverage with the Acoli group, and he shamelessly did what he did just as he is behaving now.
If Mao and Museveni had their way, Museveni’s concentration camps would have become towns, leaving vacated lands for commercial farming. The idea of consolidating land for large-scale farming was a concept floated by a Museveni’s American advisor. Mao fell in lockstep with the inimical plan that would have made millions destitute.
Who will not remember Museveni’s brother with his schemes for Acoli land? Thanks for the outcries; he is now doing it quietly, and at smaller scales through Acoli sisters who find him attractive. No problem with that. Acoli always believed in strengthening the gene pool from without. We don’t marry cousins. But that is another story.
The original vehicle for land acquisition was Divinity Corporation of which Mao had a role. Mao only resigned when it became public knowledge, and he sensed that, while Acoli could be easily divided in other areas, land was a no-go area.
Appearance and perceptions are important for confidence, or lack thereof, in public service. No politician does anything for nothing. So, if you are an opposition heavyweight, how can your wife be employed by your opponent’s wife, who is also politically active? Mao’s wife is or was employed by Museveni’s wife. What is going on here? Some dark stories are already in the air, and Mao maybe at ransom to do Museveni’s biddings.
And the list goes on. Ugandans, Mao candidature is not about you; it is about himself. He is a spoiler, who is beholden to Museveni: Museveni’s win is his win. Don’t be fooled by his slick language. Kill the Mao Project for your own good--abort it still-born!
I developed my awareness of Uganda politics in the 90s when Mao’s oratory and writings were legendary. In fact, he never fails to remind others how powerful his class of parliamentarians was in the so-called 6th parliament—the days of no-party and individual merit. But individually what did Mao achieve, and what price did he pay for his stances, if any? For example, Museveni never targets him on the controversial Bujagali dam impasse’. Instead, names of people, like Lukyamuzi comes up, and he paid the political price. Reagan Okumu paid with jail time on some trumped-up charges.
During this period, star struck, in an online chat group, I proposed a Mao Scholarship. In hindsight, I am glad that those who knew better shot the idea down. Later on I collaborated with him on one or two projects. In time I peeled the onion of Mao’s personality and got smatterings in my eyes. It is all slick and slyness, and about Project Mao.
You can see Project Mao heading to Yale for a one-year junket even at the height of great sufferings in his constituency due to the LRA war. Is this the man you would want on your side in times of your greatest need? The Yale experience is a wonderful one, but the timing speaks of the man.
And speaking of the LRA; now he is seen as a champion of the peace process. On the same online group I once asserted that the LRA had already lost and should give up and stop the sufferings. They did not occupy any piece of real estate in Uganda and were venting their anger on the people they alleged to liberate, so I innocently opined. I opened a hornet’s nest. The level of hostilities surprised me, and Mao was no exception. Surprisingly now he gets the credit for bringing peace, while many I know who worked behind the scenes to curb the LRA atrocities are instead vilified.
In parliament Mao was part of a shady “Christian” MPs. A similar group of US state legislators once invited him, and that was where I first met him. He was forceful and assertive with his views. My LRA stance was still in his mind, and he sought to correct me that the LRA was not defeated since theirs was a hit-and-run strategy. Duh! I did not pursue the matter further. To the audience of his host family he lauded his sponsoring of school children in Uganda. What was that about? I left disappointed.
There are many incidences that make me distrust Mao completely.
Some Acoli group had invited him to grace their meeting in Toronto. Instead Mao chose to attend the Banyakigezi function in Washington DC. There is no problem with that; after all he is a Munyankole nephew and aspires to national leadership. How would you have handled it? Even a political novice would have found a solution without spurning one group: a simple drop-in at each venue. Apparently he saw no political leverage with the Acoli group, and he shamelessly did what he did just as he is behaving now.
If Mao and Museveni had their way, Museveni’s concentration camps would have become towns, leaving vacated lands for commercial farming. The idea of consolidating land for large-scale farming was a concept floated by a Museveni’s American advisor. Mao fell in lockstep with the inimical plan that would have made millions destitute.
Who will not remember Museveni’s brother with his schemes for Acoli land? Thanks for the outcries; he is now doing it quietly, and at smaller scales through Acoli sisters who find him attractive. No problem with that. Acoli always believed in strengthening the gene pool from without. We don’t marry cousins. But that is another story.
The original vehicle for land acquisition was Divinity Corporation of which Mao had a role. Mao only resigned when it became public knowledge, and he sensed that, while Acoli could be easily divided in other areas, land was a no-go area.
Appearance and perceptions are important for confidence, or lack thereof, in public service. No politician does anything for nothing. So, if you are an opposition heavyweight, how can your wife be employed by your opponent’s wife, who is also politically active? Mao’s wife is or was employed by Museveni’s wife. What is going on here? Some dark stories are already in the air, and Mao maybe at ransom to do Museveni’s biddings.
And the list goes on. Ugandans, Mao candidature is not about you; it is about himself. He is a spoiler, who is beholden to Museveni: Museveni’s win is his win. Don’t be fooled by his slick language. Kill the Mao Project for your own good--abort it still-born!
Sunday, May 16, 2010
A Loser's Game
Chameleon in Cahoots with BeelzebubWhat is DP’s rationale for going solo—a lone ranger? If we are to believe, we are told it is on account of past experiences with coalitions. If DP got the short end in past bargains, whose faults were those? Of course, if you piously proclaim that you are a party of diplomacy, and war is off your table, what do you expect in a neighborhood where muscles garner respect? Deal with what is—not what will be or should be—and you might fair better.
In the playground, after many sleepless nights, little Okello takes on the local bully. It is not a foolhardy gambit sans scheming. Often than not the bully has his nose rubbed in the sand.
So, even if you have only sticks for artillery, you boldly declare: As to war, we keep our options open. That speaks balls rather than the wimpy, wet sissy talk of diplomacy ad infinitum.
Like all constructs of nature, all indications are that the NRM has run its course—has atrophied. All that is left are the gasps of a dying horse. But don’t be fooled—it is still a dangerous, formidable House of Museveni. However, all the talk of the army firmly in his grip should be taken cum grano salis. Of course, the image creates an aura of invincibility that is music to Museveni’s ears. Statistically, the military mirrors the general population, and there is a predictable percentage of service personnel who would be happy to let the dog go.
Most political parties do not seem to have their heads in the clouds. They are realistic, hence the birth of the IPC. They know that the NRM—now House of Museveni—has had a head start, and there are entrenched self-interests inextricably linked to it. For these self-interests, it is not about ideological pursuits, nor any transcendental fidelity to principles for the good of the country. For them it is about their stomachs. Theirs is an existential enterprise, the fruits of which are power, wealth and privilege.
This is a tough nut to crack, and the IPC should be commended and rewarded for cobbling a strategic game plan for ousting Museveni and his cabal. It is not for its sake, but in the interests of saving the country from further ruin.
DP, on the other hand, is full of itself. Blinded by ambition it would rather sacrifice an opportunity. Mao’s signature is written all over the charade. The artifice of consulting with lawyers was a camouflage. We get a glimpse of the preordained stance from a series of speeches Mao made. According to him he is still young, and will still get his chance in future elections cycles. Why not then join the IPC? In his mind, he is the heir apparent to Museveni. In his calculation, even if Museveni could win now, he would be too diminished the next time around and, he, Mao would be a shoe in. On the other hand, an IPC candidate’s win might mean ten more years of waiting, and by that time Mao would be a doddering old man. So, why not urinate on the IPC idea and act as the spoiler?
This fancy Mao footwork might blow up in his face. The reported tenuous support in the North might not hold that much water in votes. The IPC simply need to work to blunt the contrived Mao’s razzle-dazzles. The IPC candidate has a chance to take Buganda considering all the NRM bumbling in the region. Where necessary, the IPC can make informal strategic alliances with the likes of Nambooze, a proven known quantity for goodness. If these scenarios hold, Mao will be a Ralph Nader of Uganda—a spoiler who will be shunned into a nonentity with no forum for his agenda—which is himself.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Tactical Superiority Makes the Difference
• Herod’s Law: You fuck them, or you get fucked.
Let us face it: conflict and competition are the staples of existence. Losing can have dire consequences. While winning can mean having an harem to sire progenies to ensure genetic immortality. So, winning is the only thing that matters—it is everything. Draws are simply wins on both sides, and they may not resolve matters—ultimately one side must win—as per Amin Dada’s “completely, and also.” Caution: this does not mean barbaric destruction and/or humiliation. It is about taking whole.
A master carpenter sets out to make a chair. He has a way to create a masterpiece. Like the carpenter, a master tactician also has a way. His masterpiece is a clear, unequivocal win.
The way of winning is being nimble on one’s feet, using ad hoc tactics from moment to moment as the occasion calls: sometimes offensive; other times defensive; and, at times, it pays to stay put and neutral. All this in the context of a mind that is spacious, rhythmic and orderly flexible, while taking into account a given REACT (Resources, Environment, Attitude, Concentration and Timing). (Krause, 1999).
To the master tactician knowledge is an indispensible resource—it’s worth its weight in gold bullion. Many sage tacticians of antiquity can’t overemphasize enough the importance of knowledge of self and the adversary. Take the case of Museveni who has ruled Uganda for nearly a quarter century: other than the confused multitudes that he manipulates at will, those who want his job have sacks of information to work with. Instead, he is left to frame the debate and set the tone. When he punches, some are left bleeding and react like amateurs.
At every opportunity, Mr. Museveni rails against the opposition, calling them liars, when, in fact, his lying is legendary. With his status, of course, the peasants get to believe authority! It is not too late to start defining him as a liar. There are numerous examples available. Don’t assume that the electorate should know. Constant reminder is the key to getting to them. Of course, as we all know, he is wont to get angry. That is the point: get him angry into reaction modes.
Surprise, fear, deception and disruption are all tools to throw an opponent off his game. So, when an also-running dude says he is compiling a list to use against Museveni, where is the element of surprise? If he meant to threaten and create fear, the man is probably in Memsahib’s boudoir and derisively telling her: Look at this joker! If you are going to praise the man’s contrived National Plan as the said also-running fellow did, why is he then running anyway? Why not call him “Uncle,” and let us go home?
Now, the buzzword is "societal transformation." How many cockamamie high-sounding schemes have been peddled for decades without measurable results? If you cannot point this weakness and offer concrete alternative vision, do not waist anybody’s time.
In the final analysis, it is Herod’s Law: You fuck them, or you get fucked.
Let us face it: conflict and competition are the staples of existence. Losing can have dire consequences. While winning can mean having an harem to sire progenies to ensure genetic immortality. So, winning is the only thing that matters—it is everything. Draws are simply wins on both sides, and they may not resolve matters—ultimately one side must win—as per Amin Dada’s “completely, and also.” Caution: this does not mean barbaric destruction and/or humiliation. It is about taking whole.
A master carpenter sets out to make a chair. He has a way to create a masterpiece. Like the carpenter, a master tactician also has a way. His masterpiece is a clear, unequivocal win.
The way of winning is being nimble on one’s feet, using ad hoc tactics from moment to moment as the occasion calls: sometimes offensive; other times defensive; and, at times, it pays to stay put and neutral. All this in the context of a mind that is spacious, rhythmic and orderly flexible, while taking into account a given REACT (Resources, Environment, Attitude, Concentration and Timing). (Krause, 1999).
To the master tactician knowledge is an indispensible resource—it’s worth its weight in gold bullion. Many sage tacticians of antiquity can’t overemphasize enough the importance of knowledge of self and the adversary. Take the case of Museveni who has ruled Uganda for nearly a quarter century: other than the confused multitudes that he manipulates at will, those who want his job have sacks of information to work with. Instead, he is left to frame the debate and set the tone. When he punches, some are left bleeding and react like amateurs.
At every opportunity, Mr. Museveni rails against the opposition, calling them liars, when, in fact, his lying is legendary. With his status, of course, the peasants get to believe authority! It is not too late to start defining him as a liar. There are numerous examples available. Don’t assume that the electorate should know. Constant reminder is the key to getting to them. Of course, as we all know, he is wont to get angry. That is the point: get him angry into reaction modes.
Surprise, fear, deception and disruption are all tools to throw an opponent off his game. So, when an also-running dude says he is compiling a list to use against Museveni, where is the element of surprise? If he meant to threaten and create fear, the man is probably in Memsahib’s boudoir and derisively telling her: Look at this joker! If you are going to praise the man’s contrived National Plan as the said also-running fellow did, why is he then running anyway? Why not call him “Uncle,” and let us go home?
Now, the buzzword is "societal transformation." How many cockamamie high-sounding schemes have been peddled for decades without measurable results? If you cannot point this weakness and offer concrete alternative vision, do not waist anybody’s time.
In the final analysis, it is Herod’s Law: You fuck them, or you get fucked.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
All the Facts, Miss
Selective perception confirms our prejudice; then selective memories reassure us that this prejudice is consistent with experience—and it flows along automatically, leaving us a clear conscience. Kaplan & Kaplan
Human intellectual progress, such as it has been, results from a long struggle to see things “as they are,” or in the most universally comprehensible way, and not as projections of our own emotions. Ehrenreich
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The other day a lady from West Nile wrote in local daily. She felt that a prospective presidential aspirant was not being completely forthright. He supposedly asked for investigations into some of the murkiest past atrocities which the winners and losers alike get red faces to distance themselves from: You did it. I did not; you did it.
Our fair lady’s problem was that the said aspirant did not mention the traumas of her people in the immediate post- Idi Amin. For example, you could feel her pain as she told of her people going into exile as the winners terrified the people of West Nile. No excuse here. But the lady did not mention the nine years of Idi Amin’s horrors in which some West Nilers are perceived to be culpable. Unfortunately, the wrong-headed dynamics is that a people carry the sins of its sons. All the facts, miss.
Then, comes the recalcitrant ex-FDC lady—she of the federalism crusade. Check out some of what she had to say.
She declared: The problem of Uganda originated with the British ferrying resources to Britain. Now, the unitary Uganda government is doing similarly as it sucks taxes from the regions to the seat of power in Kampala. This sucking will not stop with federalism. In fact, the taxation structures will become more complex: The states and kingdoms will have to exact their pounds of flesh, and the federal government its loot.
Surely, our cotton found its way to Lancaster. Our tea supplemented the Indian tea just as Gandhi was shaking the status quo. Copper was a good conductance required to electrify the imperial palaces. While we are at it, let us not also forget the schools, hospitals, roads and the administrative structures that we all agreed were the best in Africa, South of the Sahara, excepting the Boer’s South Africa. Nothing comes from nothing.
Talking about Uganda’s problems; what about that business of protecting one kingdom from another? That single act came to haunt the newly minted independent nation. Did it not galvanize the 1966 crisis, reverberations of which still linger to today? What is that break-away kingdom within a kingdom? What is its paramilitary training all about? I don’t want to imagine even the potential rivers of blood. What is the craze for districts if not fiefdoms which may create more bad blood?
And don’t forget the loss of self-confidence which sends us in a frenzied search for meaning in all the wrong places. If Creflo Dollar jets into town and peddles his bizarre “Christian” wealth credos, even generals pay homage. We subscribe to the violence of our former colonial masters instead of condemning it as no less barbaric than the rut war of chimpanzees answering to primitive instinct to perpetuate genes. What is to be said about a nation whose parliamentarians are bought on the cheap to change a key tenet of a constitutional mandate?
Our esteem lady goes on to say that the calls to get rid of Museveni is misplaced. She can’t get over being “betrayed” by her former FDC boss. But the question is: Mr. Museveni opposes federalism; why not gang up against him instead of going off in a tangent in a fit of egocentric emotions?
So, ladies, the passions deserve A+ but, for credibility sake, give all the facts and let the chips fall where they may—just the facts, mums!
Human intellectual progress, such as it has been, results from a long struggle to see things “as they are,” or in the most universally comprehensible way, and not as projections of our own emotions. Ehrenreich
------------------------------------
The other day a lady from West Nile wrote in local daily. She felt that a prospective presidential aspirant was not being completely forthright. He supposedly asked for investigations into some of the murkiest past atrocities which the winners and losers alike get red faces to distance themselves from: You did it. I did not; you did it.
Our fair lady’s problem was that the said aspirant did not mention the traumas of her people in the immediate post- Idi Amin. For example, you could feel her pain as she told of her people going into exile as the winners terrified the people of West Nile. No excuse here. But the lady did not mention the nine years of Idi Amin’s horrors in which some West Nilers are perceived to be culpable. Unfortunately, the wrong-headed dynamics is that a people carry the sins of its sons. All the facts, miss.
Then, comes the recalcitrant ex-FDC lady—she of the federalism crusade. Check out some of what she had to say.
She declared: The problem of Uganda originated with the British ferrying resources to Britain. Now, the unitary Uganda government is doing similarly as it sucks taxes from the regions to the seat of power in Kampala. This sucking will not stop with federalism. In fact, the taxation structures will become more complex: The states and kingdoms will have to exact their pounds of flesh, and the federal government its loot.
Surely, our cotton found its way to Lancaster. Our tea supplemented the Indian tea just as Gandhi was shaking the status quo. Copper was a good conductance required to electrify the imperial palaces. While we are at it, let us not also forget the schools, hospitals, roads and the administrative structures that we all agreed were the best in Africa, South of the Sahara, excepting the Boer’s South Africa. Nothing comes from nothing.
Talking about Uganda’s problems; what about that business of protecting one kingdom from another? That single act came to haunt the newly minted independent nation. Did it not galvanize the 1966 crisis, reverberations of which still linger to today? What is that break-away kingdom within a kingdom? What is its paramilitary training all about? I don’t want to imagine even the potential rivers of blood. What is the craze for districts if not fiefdoms which may create more bad blood?
And don’t forget the loss of self-confidence which sends us in a frenzied search for meaning in all the wrong places. If Creflo Dollar jets into town and peddles his bizarre “Christian” wealth credos, even generals pay homage. We subscribe to the violence of our former colonial masters instead of condemning it as no less barbaric than the rut war of chimpanzees answering to primitive instinct to perpetuate genes. What is to be said about a nation whose parliamentarians are bought on the cheap to change a key tenet of a constitutional mandate?
Our esteem lady goes on to say that the calls to get rid of Museveni is misplaced. She can’t get over being “betrayed” by her former FDC boss. But the question is: Mr. Museveni opposes federalism; why not gang up against him instead of going off in a tangent in a fit of egocentric emotions?
So, ladies, the passions deserve A+ but, for credibility sake, give all the facts and let the chips fall where they may—just the facts, mums!
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