Is there a place for silence in African Politics?

POLITICAL STRATEGY

Last week Marxist scholars almost butchered me for loosely using the word “class” in reference to elites. This week, I discuss “silence” with much caution. The application of silence as exemplified by John Patrick Amama Mbabazi (JPAM) is a strange concept in Uganda’s politics of patronage. An evaluation whether deliberate use of silence has a place in Uganda’s politics may be warranted. For now, the influence of oral tradition in the body politics of African society discourages silence as a mode of communication as illustrated by JPAM’s predicaments.

Silence in African justice system signifies implicit admission of guilt. Most Africans I know like to plead out their cases with eloquence and bravado. Ugandans in particular, are generally loud people. They like shouting and dramatizing situations with vigor. A good example of a typical Ugandan politician is Hon Ken Lukyamuzi who even goes far enough to speak in strange tongues, when pressed for accountability.  Quiet people in our communities are always a subject of suspicion, often lowly regarded as bereft of virtue, intelligence or ambitions. Only in Asia and western society, is silence valorized as a trait.

The tranquil exemplified by JPAM during his Kangaroo trial before the NRM machination illuminates both the potential and limits of silence in African politics. The art of silence have been common among career philosophers, innovators and monks – not politicians. In Uganda, if you cannot speak when occasioned; make a no-show when anticipated; and contract when expected to expand, then your credibility is often judged harshly.

The reorganization of the NRMO Party towards the end of 2014 exposed an opportunity for analysts to critically examine the effectiveness of silence in body politics of Uganda. In his silence, JPAM stirred discomfort and made powerful men equally anxious, puzzled and enraged. Many desired to attack and destroy, and yet found themselves in very awkward position with no justifiable trigger to attack JPAM. In destabilizing the chauvinists from their comfort, the strength of silence was uniquely precipitated.

Leaving everyone tensed and speculative was probably the only benefit of that silence as a strategy. In that silence, he softened the zeal of evil and unmasked the faces of his nemeses. Even the President, on many occasions did not know what to do with JPAM who had neither confessed, nor denied espousing any ambitions to stand for President in 2016.

The silence worked for only a while but JPAM stretched it to extremes. The backlash proved that one cannot sustain silence in politics without a meticulous organizational structure like those operated by the Illuminati and Mafias. The limit of silence was apparent as it militated against JPAM’s own interests. In that silence, he disengaged with his core supporters allowing the opportunistic youths to jump ship. There were people already set for a political brouhaha to elicit change within the NRMO. The silence disengaged them and they lost the confidence to act in the absence of a clear messaging from their prospective leader. Certainly JPAM could not have thought that his followers were telepathic or prophetic to somehow connect intuitively with whatever was going through his mind.

If there are lessons learned, we now know that it takes a revolutionary zeal to employ silence where the politics of patronage reigns. In the short run, it saves you from annihilation, in the long run; it effectively disengages the actor from his followers. JPAM is probably not the first person to have attempted to use silence as a revolutionary tool in vain. But if his agenda was to provoke the wrath of the regime to cause him harm to attract sympathy from the populace, then his agenda fell flat. Principally, it would take a lot, including skinning JPAM alive, for many Ugandans to feel a sense of remorse for the man from Kinkizi West.

But yes, silence is detrimental to anyone’s ambitions. Not only does it portray a lack of seriousness. It casts the silent politician unfavorably as insensible, irresolute, and pusillanimous!

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Charlie Hebdo: Religion, Faith and Value clashes

RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE

As a child, my Catholic upbringing taught me that a good Christian is a kind, caring, loving and forgiving one. The Ten Commandments were drummed into our ears that killing was ungodly!  We were taught Christian values that everything on earth and every action of mankind came from God to fulfill the purpose of creation.

Only the world of children appears suitable for this kind of teaching. As a child, we are guarded from the vagaries of the world and smothered with proximity of a caring adult.

But as one grows and begins to learn history, the stark reality becomes clear that the Church's teaching of loving caring is a double edged sword. It was patronizing and coercive within the duality of Heaven and Hell.

The advent of religion has a bloody history which refuses to disappear.

I had the opportunity to study the evolution of Catholicism and the split of the Church during the times of King Henry VIII, Martin Luther and so forth. These were bloody times in the world that was dominated by the Church. In fact, one can claim that some of the most horrifying tragedies in the world emerged under the rule of the Church in the name of advancing its legitimacy.

Many people are ensconced in their faith today due to the tyranny of the Church which charged and murdered people for questioning its action. Back in the days, the charge of heresy attracted cruelty and death. The Church issued and exacted death penalty on none believers and belligerent Christians with impunity.

When Pope Benedict XVI decried the state of violence in the world as piece meal world war, he was being reflective. There are sporadic acts of violence in the world which are being fought on the basis of religious mores and faith. In this world, there appears to be no issue that man cannot resolve, but matters of faith and religion.

It is a pity because those who orchestrated the Charlie Hebdo on January 7, 2015, in which 17 people were killed at a satirical newspaper office in Paris, claimed they did so in the name of religion.

Here again we face a dilemma. All religions claim purity and claim that they are peaceful. These faith institutions startle when its followers commit senseless atrocities such as Charlie Hebdo, planting bombs in public places, spraying bullets in Malls or abducting innocent non-combatants.

Religion alone is not enough for someone to conduct themselves that way. However faithful you are, none of these religions actually sanctions the murder of the innocent bystanders, aka, collateral damage. There must be an underlying motive for which religion is an excuse.

Let us do some thinking. Religion and faith have only been used as a façade for a far deeper grievances created by unequal global system. Fanatics have only realized that through religious institutions, they easily attract alliances to advance their causes.

Imagine that we lived in a world where there are no Muslims, Buddhists, Christians or Animists, but people of the world. What other excuses would we have to justify the violence and destruction of lives?

Well, there is the freedom of speech. Persistently discrediting someone's religious figurehead may not have been the best use of that freedom. Every Right has a limit, and so is freedom. That precisely is the reason there are infringements and rules.

However, every conflict in this world occurs on similar accounts; indifference, oppression, repression, greed, inequities and indignation of others' values. Charlie Hebdo highlights the indifference in value systems between the West and the East. France is the zone of that conflict. Paris was the frontline where values classed tragically.

The lessons are there for us to learn. Globalization has made conflicting value boundaries fluid. They can meet and clash anywhere, at any cost, in the name of religion and faith.

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Uganda's Elite lacks clear class consciousness

CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS

I previously attempted to explain the origins of the prevailing deficits mode among Uganda's elites as a function of a highly liberalized education system. I argued that the society operates in deficit mode because of intellectual obesity resulting from fast food type education being offered by the numerous private schools.

In this article, I will attempt to examine the nature of elite in Uganda in an attempt to hypothesize on their non-responsiveness to social change. I will reiterate that the lackadaisical nature of the elites signify a low degree of class consciousness, which as a result, has affected the extent of class political organization to challenge the status quo.

The non-responsive nature of the elite in the struggle for social transformation requires a critical study from sociologists. In the absence of such highly specialized authority, many cynical commentators have resorted to ridiculing the Opposition as a group whose singular mission is to wrest power from Mr. Museveni. In this rather plain and simplistic excuse for their cold feet, the overarching urgency of transforming this society for posterity's sake is compromised.

Scholars in sociology aver that elites are seen as inevitable part of every society. By elite, they mean the enlightened, educated and those in positions of power. Some scholars like J. Allen Whitt (1982) observed elite mannerism and deduced that the character of the elite determines the direction and character of western societies such that, social change comes about when the elites embrace it. However, Whitt argued that where power stability is in the offing, change happens incrementally, sometimes very slowly, since the elites are the very beneficiaries of institutional powers. Could this analogy be applicable to our situation in Uganda?

The relevance of Whitt's argument is that it contextualizes the nature and character of the Ugandan elites, exposing their dual identities, contradictions and seeming inertia – their resistance to the forces of social transformation.

Another Elitist theorist, Thomas Dye (1976) observed that Elites are those who occupy positions in large institutions and influence it. Dye identifies the institutional bases of elite's power as industry, finance, utilities, government, the news media, laws, foundations, civic organizations and Universities. Thus far, these institutions are in critical areas of socio-economic well-being of our nation. Ironically, their services are delivered with distinctive deficits in quality and quantity to the public.

The state of public service today is in contemptible shape. There is a nationwide crisis in public service characterized by discourteous, unkempt, irritable, belligerent, unethical, sluggish, indifferent, blatantly corrupt, and incompetent servants. They serve as if their jobs were a form of punishment. They feel no obligation to the public. Every person in the workforce is there for the benefits and the associated prestige of the office – not service. Today, more educated people are dropping off resumes in search of jobs to proprietors who are modestly schooled because intellectual obesity deprives them of the capacity to innovate and compete in the markets of deficits.

The more sophisticated the qualification, the higher the deficit in services delivered. This explains why architects build houses that sink, road constructors build potholes, Prosecutors and Judges convict suspects in wrong jurisdictions, Nurses inject clients with infected blood, teaches award marks for sex or without reading scripts, police officers operate by brutality, quality of legislation is daunting, electricity and water are occasional, and so forth.

The class dialectic theorists have studied such deficit phenomena and have questioned the ability of such elites if it is befitting of their societal prestige. Unfortunately, it is the deficit mode which also shapes the consensus processes within the elite strata. Whitt and others argued that the elite consensus process is inherently contradictory because the range of disagreement among elites is generally narrow. And, even then, the disagreements are generally confined to means rather than end. This is because the degree of class consciousness is ordinary such that it affects the extent of political organization and their vision of society beyond the existing hegemony.

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Uganda's Intellectual Obesity and the Problem of Deficits

MEDIOCRITY

The allure of liberalization movement of the 90s forced governments to renege on its responsibility of providing quality social services to its citizens. In Uganda, liberalization caused a decline of quality in the education sector leading to growing concerns over intellectual obesity and problems of societal deficits.

Before liberalization, the traditional education system in Uganda was rigorous, a where schools across the country competed to deliver well-nurtured intellectuals. Although the colonial education system remained stagnant and outdated to compete in the globalization milieu, the most special thing about it was that it provided a stable structure for foundational learning. The sector prepared learners comprehensively for the tasks ahead, such that its Ordinary and Advanced level graduates could contribute substantially in the workforce. Not now!

The structure of schools changed with the emergence of private schools and subsequent collapse of public institutions. Emerging private schools' main objectives were to absorb the new generation kids who were not fitting or accommodated in traditional schools. These kids were surging in numbers, and yet multiple media, which transmitted foreign cultures into their living rooms, had impaired their attention span and compromised their levels of engagement.  The private schools therefore provided a more liberal environment and more focused agenda of passing national exams. Private schools did shape the contours of education in Uganda with their stunning success.

In that sense, private schools became the fast foods of education. They admitted every child who could afford the high tuition, trained them through short cuts and at the end; the kids who would not succeed in traditional schools were able to excel to dominate institutions of high learning, and social domain. The products of this fast food type education are now fully in charge of the country.

Over the years, this channel of education produced more generation of intellectually obese characters into the workforce. They have little value for due diligence, professional ethics, professional code of conduct, or the concept of accountability. Because they were trained to pass exams, they have transitioned to the workforce as clueless, unskilled, uninformed, unsophisticated, and uncritical professionals where there are no exams to pass. The path to their qualifications have been equally treacherous; exchanging marks for sex, paying for assignments, hiring exam mercenaries, and when it comes to research, numbers and figures are botched at will.

The problem of intellectual obesity is evident in the widespread mediocrity in public discourses; the deficits in public accountability and the mindset that working smart means doing little of quality for inflated costs to the public. In essence, the quality of human resource has significantly declined and yet the façade - delusional consumerism, and clamor for materialism, have peaked. In this country, literacy levels and socio-economic regression have an indirect correlation.

The intellectual obesity has generated narcissistic tendencies among the elites at the expense of social capital – the fundamental social values of reciprocity and trustworthiness. Under their wings, the illusion for materialism and self-aggrandizement shapes the contestations over social spaces. Here and there, we hear in songs, how one artist is wealthy, and another is barely scratching the surface, then the nudity and auto-tune!

Then there is the menacing problem of the "Abasama" - the young diasporans who return home to showcase their accomplishments – a form of social class assault on the psyche of impoverished locals.  

It does not get any superficial and problematic than this since most of Ugandans abroad are actually not wealthy anyway. Wealthy people hold themselves with humility and are not fascinated with pomp and lavish parties.

 

The liberalization of education created a bellicose of intellectually obese generation. Their insatiable desire for spontaneous gratification has supported the assault on traditional and destruction of social institutions. The inevitable outcomes are the deficits we experience in trustworthiness, reciprocation, philanthropy, public debate, innovation, accountability, commitment, responsibility. The unconscionable aggrandizement of social status makes us appear a nation indisposed!

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After Neutralizing Mbabazi, removal of Art 102(b) is next on Mr. Museveni's agenda

CONSTITUTIONAL AMMENDMENT

The year 2014 ended dramatically and with political ruckus in NRMO Party. Three characters dominated news in the last months of the 2014; President Museveni, Amama Mbabazi and the Four Stars General, David Sejusa aka Tinyefuza.

The year 2014 also got Mr. Museveni to demonstrate his characteristic trait of revolutionary patience especially with internal dissent, but responded with a reciprocated show of the mastery of Uganda’s political arena. The way President Museveni has played his cards in the face of his adversaries reaffirmed that none of his contemporaries actually know the President or understand fully how he conceptualizes society. He also demonstrated that his politics is about self preservation and longevity, after-all, success of a politician is measured his inherent ability to dominate others in contested social, physical and political spaces.

We learnt quickly that the President understands political economy differently – the man has idealized the use of resources to dismantle his opponents decisively. But in his end of year maneuvers, the President also demonstrated that no one person in his Party or in Uganda can challenge him as an individual, more-so, with weak financial muscles. His, is the art of meticulous organizing, duplicity, resource mobilization, isolating his adversaries, and subsequently devouring the opponents naturally.

Mr. Amama Mbabazi became an exemplar, albeit an expensive one who cost the Party and the Nation, a whooping 76 billion shillings, going by The Observer’s estimates (refer to: The cost of neutralizing Mbabazi, Dec 28, 2014). Here, we learnt something  spectacular– that  if you want to extract money from President Museveni, even for repairing potholes, fixing bridges or  a broken sewer system, just threaten his stronghold on power and he will break the bank to neutralize you!

The second and most unusual patience was extended to the innately impulsive renegade Gen. David Sejusa. Many commentators have called on the regime to discipline this man who has broken all laws but is still at large, making partisan political statements in the media – a wrong platform for serving Officers, we were told. The army has tried to tell us that they have no ground for arresting the General. This failure or rather lackadaisical response also shows the double standard of application of military code of conduct and the limit of much coveted professionalism of this UPDF.

We recall that in 2005 Brigadier Tumukunde was charged for making public statement contrary to military code of conduct. Prior to that, the now retired Colonel Dr Kiiza Besigye in 2000/2001 suffered hell on earth for speaking straight to the powers. Given the two examples, we can say that Gen. Sejusa has received differential treatment as if he serves in a different army than the UPDF.

One question that lingers in our minds is why has the army and their Commander-in-Chief tip-toed around Gen. Sejusa? 

There could be only few plausible explanations; one is to make the General’s purported political clout to get deflated so he can fizzle out quickly to oblivion. This option though is politically astute, also sets bad precedence for the army and challenges the very notion of its professionalism and non-partisan image that the Army Spokespersons always parrot about.  Another possible explanation is that President Museveni is playing tribal cards where he is too afraid to touch Sejusa else he irritates the Bahiima and his Tutsi bases in the army, security and western Uganda. Lastly, the President desperately would like to use Sejusa to occupy and galvanize productive spaces that the Opposition should be filling heading towards the treacherous 2016.

Any political analyst would predict that Uganda will pay dearly for these random acts of benevolence that the President is demonstrating. After nominating Mbabazi to the CEC, I predict that the President’s next major political move is to amend the 1995 Constitution to remove the Presidential age limit Art.102(b) to allow his life Presidency project to sail through.

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Best Wishes for 2015

Dear Esteemed Readers,

The year 2014 has come to an end. For me, it was a year full of challenges, learning and giving. The one gift that I have been able to share with all of you, is this critical analysis of issues and events in Uganda and in global health. I will continue with this spirit in 2015 so as to grow intellectually and as a knowledge Philanthropist.
I appreciate all your readership although for many reasons, among them fear - very few of you are providing feedback to the quality of my articles, the nature of debate, its relevance and influence. I would greatly appreciate a line or two from you.
The year 2015 is a very special year for many of you. It is a year that Uganda will prepare for yet another potentially bloody elections in 2016. This therefore presses a natural demand on us to escalate the distribution of details, facts and evidences to foster informed debate which will then lead to informed voters' population.
I am forever indebted to you, for whom my ink bleeds. I am hoping that we can find a much more commonly inspiring moments of reflection which inadvertently will elicit spasmodic intellectual intercourse and subsequence orgasmic resuscitation of our conciousness towards a more stable society.
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