Cannibalism in Uganda: Lack of critical perspective

Cannibalism

I have spent quite some time studying the depth of news reporting in print media in Uganda. I am a scholar and researcher trained from the critical pedagogical slab. I contend that our perception of nature is uniquely flawed and varied. Through critical analysis we are able to question the seeming imperfection to unveil the true-ness of it, which makes sense to us, from our standpoint. Uncritical consumption therefore, is associated with oppression and unconsciousness that has no place in postmodernist world.

This brings me to the purpose of this article, which is to evince the lack of critical analysis in print media today. In particular, I have been awed by a rather strange subject - cannibalism - in Uganda. I find that the reporting of this subject is utterly shallow, not analytical of all the facts of cannibalism and does not offer a rationally unified picture of the nature of cannibalism claims in Uganda.

There is need to classify here that this article recognizes the role of journalism in as far as being objective as well as being a conduit through which societal issues are brought to public realms. However, the subject of this article is the lack of critical analysis of the issues in a manner that gives it proper context, shape and texture.

In addition, it is worthy recognizing that the subject of cannibalism is startling. To know that section of our society is still practicing cannibalism in the twenty-second century despite the advent of empirical science and technology is indeed a major setback to our civilization.

The online dictionary and Wikipedia all posit that cannibalism is the “act” or the “practice” of humans eating human flesh or body organs. The numerous media reports such as “scary cannibalism story exposes many in the district” (NV, Sept 23, 2013); “Kibaale, the hub of cannibalism” (NV, Sept 29, 2013); “Uganda: boy leaves schools over cannibalism” (NV, Oct 27, 2013); “Two in Kasese arrested over cannibalism” (URN, Nov 24, 2010), etc.., are so shocking.

However, the missing critical perspective in these stories is the glaring lack of empirical evidence of the “act” or “practice” of cannibalism. The stories neither, provide a possible explanation of the purpose for which, the main antagonists are found with human body parts or are associated with exhumed graves or disappearances.

As a Ugandan, I am concerned because it becomes very difficult to promote my country as a tourist destination of choice for fear that tourists may fall prey to cannibals. Tourists from Europe, America, Australia or Asia cannot distinguish between the different tribal entities in Uganda. Reports of cannibalism become a subject of generalization that incites fear in as much as the viral outbreaks of bird flu or Ebola have, elsewhere. Therefore, the records need to be set straight, thus the call for a more critical and contextual reporting on this subject.

Here and there, villagers report suspicion of one another, of having been in possession of a corpse; that someone has exhumed a grave; that bodies are missing from a grave; that a person from the neighborhood has disappeared and therefore must have been “eaten”….etc. These are the common narratives – speculations, unsubstantiated claims, assumptions and rumors are what characterize these stories, just like all petty daily talks of Ugandans.

None of the stories above provide valid empirical evidence of someone having been seen gathering, cutting, preparing, seasoning, boiling, serving, munching, swallowing, disposing human wastes, such as human bones, nails, skulls - cooked or roasted etc. None provide testimonies, confessions, revelations or any such narratives from persons suspected of the act of cannibalism.

Herein lays the dilemma, the paradox of ignorance, superstition, mysticism and the limitation of traditional belief systems. On the part of the reporters, the question of “what it is” vs “what it is not” comes to play.  

Human body decomposes relatively quickly and with high temperatures in Uganda, most bodies begin to smell after three days before maggots appear on them. Bodies that have been processed in the morgue and treated may take up to five or more days. However, in the cannibal stories, most of these corpses are not processed or treated with any preservatives. This implies that they must have depreciated and rotted fast. The critical question to ask then is, why would someone exhume a rotten corpse that stinks to eat? Of what benefits would such a diet be? How is it processed and how long would such a process take a villager such that no one can detect it?

I believe that a responsible reporting should have explored the true nature of this cannibalism claim, rather than report the myths about it. By doing so, we have missed the epistemological significance of this practice associated with disturbing graves and possession of body parts irregularly.

Finally, it is important that we do not exclude non-diagnosed mental illness in this subject because cannibals that eat decomposed bodies are insane. Further, alternate sources of “disappearance” must be investigated. Trade in human organs and because of the intimacy these communities have with nature, some people may have been genuinely killed or eaten by wild animals. I hear some snakes swallow human beings and wild animals for sure, do attack humans for food.

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Bureaucratic Capitalism in Uganda: A pathway to Aristocracy

FAMILY RULE

The Independent news magazine of March 11, 2009 revealed how President Museveni has conspicuous involved his family, relatives and acquaintances in exploiting Uganda. Ever since this article, “Family Rule in Uganda” was published, there has been limited audit of the progress, expansion and legitimization of this family rule in Uganda. In essence, the 2009 list may require revision since individuals like the President’s brother; Gen Saleh has long relinquished his portfolio in cabinet. Other activists have since attempted to expand this list of the Museveni family influences into the army, police and other facets of civil service.

Recently, the London (UK) based veteran Journalist, Dr. Vincent Magombe reignited this debate of family rule in Uganda in an article which featured in both The London Evening Post and Black Star News of New York, titled: “How Museveni is Turning Uganda into Personal Business” and  “How the Country Named Uganda became Museveni Family Incorporated” respectively.

The merit of this debate is not merely to haunt the First family or their established influences in politics, economy and in social life. Since some of them have become Ugandan citizens by marriage or birth, their constitutional rights to freely and fairly explore these realms of society are entrenched in the 1995 NRM constitution as amended. However, the centre of contention arises when conflict of interest, political patronage and sectarianism underlie these influences.

Family rule in Africa and elsewhere is nothing new. In Uganda, it only confirms an increasing bureaucratic form of capitalism which is being used to buttress false nobility. This trend is worrying because of the exploitative nature of this influence and the creation of unequal society insulated underneath a wealthy aristocracy. Pundits have argued that, like all other African leaders, past and current, the entrenchment of family rule in a country enables the ruling president personalize the state; monopolize the economy and its politics, thereby securing a lease for life presidency.

Evidently, Uganda is a classical case of a bureaucratic capitalist state, where state operators – most of whom are related to the president; openly use their political power to also dominate all the facets of the economy. For instance, members of the President’s family are entrenched in many private businesses, such as managing Uganda air services and major airport like Entebbe; some own security agencies, transportation franchises, beverages manufacturing, oil, mining and mineral exports, telecommunication, banking, military hardware, agriculture and so forth.

Maurice Jerome Meisner (RIP), a Sinologist, studied this concept of bureaucratic capitalism in China and wrote a book: “The Deng Xiaoping Era – An Inquiry into the Fate of Chinese Socialism 1978-1994”. According to Meisner, Bureaucratic Capitalism is used to refer to the use of political power for private pecuniary gain through capitalistic or quasi-capitalist methods of economic activity.

In his study of Chinese quasi-capitalist success story, Meisner discovered prevalence of a traumatic underside to the quasi-capitalistic model of the Chinese economy as characterized by considerable economic inequality, wide gap in wealth distribution between rural and urban workers, a rise in crime and unemployment, rampant job insecurity and poor social benefits. Meisner concluded that such incongruous economic progress and social deterioration are not only common in capitalist societies, but is also very specific to the traits of bureaucratic capitalist practices in Communist China from the Deng Xiaoping era to 1994.

Reasoning from a Marxist lens, Meisner argued that people cannot avoid the painful vicissitudes of Capitalism because of its exploitative nature. Here and there, the regime’s centric bureaucrats will, at liberty, misrepresent the strength of the economy so that the exploited people begin to feel a pervasive sense of improved economic conditions. At the bottom of it all, the exploiters are intent at extracting from the repressed masses to keep them impoverished, needy and dependent on that very class that control both the economy and the polity.

Au Loong Yu, the author of “China’s Rise: Strength and Stability” who claimed that China has become the industrial complex of the world, observed that Chinese bureaucratic capitalism enables bureaucrats at all levels of government to run companies, profit from them and are rarely prosecuted. This is because the bureaucracy has completely monopolised state power, thereby enabling the bureaucrats to rise above all classes. In such a case, one could even say that the bureaucracy has privatized the state.

For Uganda, the analysts cited above aver that the bureaucrats and key players in private sector are intricately linked to the ruling family, either directly or otherwise, through political patronage. Given their principal location at major joints of the economy and political structure, they determine which private sector player stays afloat or is suffocated, purely using political yardstick. This is how they monopolize the economy, the military and subsequently hold on to political power that they will bequeath to their offspring as if it were a birth right.

In other-words, with the politics and economy safely secured and guaranteed, the militarized regime can now amend the constitution of Uganda to provide for an article which reads: There shall be a President of Uganda and that President shall be Yoweri Kaguta Museveni and bloodline.

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African Liberation is a vehicle to westernization of society

WESTERNIZATION

The ideas that we are religious, civil, educated or democratic are all measured ideals for which the colonial objectives were primed. In history, we learnt that at the advent of missionary expeditions into the hinterland of Africa, religion was advanced to introduce civility to the backward savages there. With religion, came western education and the reinforcement of colonial language as the authenticated instruments of dominion. Everything else African or black was subordinated and derogated as primitive, insufficient and backward, while an adult African, however grown, was viewed as a big inferior “child” incapable of truth telling and self governance, fit for menial undertakings.

Such Black people’s history is buried in a hip of tragic episodes, often romanticized by victors of colonial advents. In the colonial narratives, our tragic history is disguised as deliberate investments to enlighten backward people, no matter the cost. This is unfortunate because the black consciousness often requires a revisit of its heartrending history in order to make sense of it. It is this historical fact that also drives the consciousness. Without such courageous effort to revisit the past, the black consciousness would remain a recycling of internalized colonial distortion of us, something which we are not.

In the pecking order of global challenges, the Black race has seemingly lost the ideals of the original struggle for liberation that Franz Fanon and others advocated. If African liberators are still trying to stay visible, then their efforts are not paying off. For, we cannot claim to be struggling for liberation if we continue to use the very colonial systems, methods and objectives that were applied against us, which dehumanized us. Shamelessly, we often juxtapose ourselves between capitalism and socialism as contending ideologies to liberate Africans. In reticence, by embedding our conscience in western ideologies, we placate our nerves to subdue the intractable history of the loss of our identity, intellect, virtues and values.

Through liberation, we westernized. We appear to be fully complacent to the western ideals such that we now struggle to manifest within westernized mainstream to proclaim liberation. We continue to subvert our own cultures and make little effort to modernize it because we have come to look at it through the same lens that the colonialist used – primitive and savagery! Westernization as such has dictated the way we valorize our own languages, religious practices, industries, lifestyle, laws (norms and traditions), economic activities, consumption, alphabet and others.

It is strange how in Uganda today, we have abandoned our languages and yet we can neither speak nor write any foreign language fluently; We have abandoned our religion, yet we lack in Christian faith; Religion has not helped us, instead, it has diminished our collective values and  heightened our indifference to our needy neighbors. Western religions have scared us inflexibly from our roots, consequently eroding our traditions and values.

An increasing body of scholarship has recognized the acculturation of the black society through Christianity. Scholars have argued that it is the dereliction we accord our social-cultural institutions that also augments our westernization.

Africans today, for instance, have conceded most of their values, identities, and the control of their environment to agents of colonialism, (now increasingly to Chinese). The footprints of monetized Christianity in all these are evident.

Christianity itself is not a culture, but a belief system that is transmitted through existing culture modes and structures. Left unattended, this powerful belief system has the capacity to dismantle indigenous cultures, rendering it near obsolete. Christianity is strong in that it is transmitted through the very instruments of colonialism where they augment and replenish each other’s legacy.

For instance, to be considered civilized, an indigenous person was expected to identify as Christian, must speak fluent colonial language and must flaunt colonial formal education. Each of these is primed to invalidate the African cultural institutions of language, knowledge and its very existence.

How then can true African liberators possess all the traits of the oppressors? They are Christians (Catholics, Protestants or evangelicals), speak and identify with the colonialist (English, French, Portuguese etc), espouse colonial ideologies of social transformation (capitalism, socialism, libertarianism etc), all conspired to advance colonialists and imperialist objectives – to enlighten and therefore “liberate” the primitive savages (in modern terms, those living under $1 a day)

Hitherto, it is mundane to declare that contemporary African liberators are colonial mercenaries who continue to represent the very ideals of those who stole the humanity of the oppressed. Their struggles represent the distorted vocation of re-humanizing the black race. These vain efforts have manifested in westernization rather than modernization of African cultures.

END.

Uganda Elites are Sympathetic NRM Cadres

POWERLESSNESS

The impact of sustaining the NRM regime on tax payer’s money has come to bear down on national morale across the civil service. In every work place, there is bickering about low pay, poor working condition, inadequate income, and arrogant political appointees who disrupting professionalism and so forth. The state, by appointing political stooges into civil service, has also diminished the level of professionalism and morale.

The root of this problem can be traced back to the 1990s and earlier times when the NRM ferried students and public servants to Kyankwanzi for politicization and indoctrination. Here, prospective government employees were groomed through the rigors of revolutionary intellectualism and a cocktail of Marxism. Participants were given vague pictures of a rather complex, colorful, hopeful, peaceful, prosperous and equal society which would be cured of sectarianism, obscurantism and chauvinism.

Ultimately, words have meanings, and words usually leave lasting impression on the minds of those with faith. As such, Uganda was a country of devoted religious people who had faith in various systems. Ugandans in the 90s were a vulnerable people who had just emerged from turmoil and ready to embrace a new beginning. For once, the ideology of the NRM was assuring and appealing to a common conscience. The 1990s was also a decade in which Ugandans were able to reinvent their efforts meaningfully towards discovering the essence of being in Uganda – as Ugandans as such.

Today, the experiences of the 1990s are inverted after every promise was reneged on; every progress reversed and every collective gain, usurped by the despots. The common dreams that were nurtured for posterity have been squandered. The regime that everyone proudly identified with has retracted, transforming itself into predatory a system that is exploitative and prejudiced. This has rendered members of the civil service helpless and ideologically disoriented

The opposition groups view the elites and those in the civil service with much scorn. This may account for their conscious redundancy in pushing for political change in Uganda. A general consensus is that a change of regime is inevitable as precursor to improving the social conditions of the working poor. On the one hand, the opposition frustration is genuine because every sane person now feels the utmost urgency and necessity for regime change. However, a thorough analysis of this behavior of the elite ought to be unpacked systematically if the opposition groups wishes to espouse them.

Dr Kiiza Besigye, a leading opposition activist once described the elites of Uganda as selfish, opportunistic and self-serving groups that collude with the military to perpetuate President Museveni’s grip on power. Some quarters have dismissed the elite as never becoming a critical mass because of the persistent duality of elite-cum-peasantry that pervades them. A critical mass is adopters of innovation in a social system - a necessary requisite threshold for change to occur. There are those who recognize that the elites have conspicuously absconded from shaping socio-political landscape, thereby relinquishing politics and intellectual discourses to vandals.

This article argues that the remarkable absence of the elites and members of the public service from public discourses is rooted in the traditions of cadreship of the 90s. These groups have been bred to identify with the regime; to provide the ground substance on which the regime is firmly supplanted in Uganda. This attitude manifests in the rather timid approaches taken by the various Unions that represent professionals in civil service. There is this aura of guilt and betrayal between each of them whenever the need to demand for improved working conditions arises. They show the kind of guilt a prodigal son endures when demanding for his fair share from family fortunes. The teachers Union or market vendors will not join the picket line when the Health Workers’ Union is agitated and vice versa - It is this rather false sense of matrimonial loyalty to NRM as cadres which also compels these groups to subvert the forces of change for themselves.

However, a fault line is beginning to emerge, which confirms that a scintilla of change in attitude is beginning to take shape with the elites. This is largely because the civil servants and some elites are becoming conscious of the distinction in their adverse social conditions under the NRM regime. They are now and then confronted with breakages in the distribution of public goods which would otherwise benefit the public. 

It is also important to note that because of the numerous political posturings, the regime has made it obvious that the civil workforce is disposable. President Museveni threatened to fire all the striking teachers so that young, inexperienced, untrained jobless youths could take over the teaching jobs. It is this same attitude which ensures that inept, inexperienced political cadres are appointed ahead of career professionals to mess up with professional traditions.

However, the fact that teachers and health professionals can take industrial action illustrates a stride toward gaining higher self-consciousness. The just concluded teachers’ strike is a confirmation of how the regime continues to undermine formal institutions which employ the bulk of its cadres. 

The government is now conspiring with informal groups which also operate the informal economy, such as the boda bodas, illegal traders and the crooked middle class that evade taxes. These are the groups that have curved a symbiotic relationship with the state at the expense of those operating the formal institutions. This also explains why public utilities have endured depravity, while private investments in the same industries are thriving.

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