Distrust as a tool of creating a paradoxical society - part 1

Paradoxicals

The amount of time we spend protecting our integrity and reputation in a paradoxical society, is testimony of a crisis.

 Liberalism has taught us well, to detach from every social and adhere to a pursuit of materialism. To dismiss the public for private, and the social for individual. Incidentally, we attempt to adhere to traditions while denying that these changes have shifted power bases away from traditional power brokers.

 As a people, we build our public profiles over years and hope to cash in on it as social capital. Integrity and reputation are about consistency, but also about how the public value it. These values , as currency for procuring social capital, are validated through socialization.

 Social capital as a concept has been in circulation since 1890 and used in social sciences until about 2000 when American political scientist, Robert D Putnam popularized it in his nonfiction book: Bowling Alone: The Collapse and revival of America and has since been used widely in health studies to explicate social inclusion as a prerequisite for health. The book highlights the perils of neoliberalism in perpetrating social isolation and exclusion.

 Basically, social capital are the networks and relationships among individuals who work and live together. These relationship are the drivers of social cooperation needed for proper function and efficient functioning of society.

Aspects of social capital are everyday values such as trust, reciprocity, information sharing and cooperation that are associated with cohesive social networks and societal harmony.

 A strong social capital highlights strong social inclusion factors – that people trust each other and make deliberate effort to do good or less harm to each other. Information they generate is intended for the good of society, inclusively. We anticipate that low levels of distrust, for instance, would make a community confident and trusting with each other to accept reciprocation. A cooperative society is a progressive and often healthy society.

The reverse is true – Putnam demonstrates scenes of social isolation among seniors in respect of low levels of social capital. In addition, distrust for one another and apathy towards social institutions engenders apathy, leading to social isolation. Distrust is a potent chalice for killing cooperation in society.

 Cooperation is diminished further when information is subverted, concealed, distorted or apportioned to manipulate society for the good of a few.

 Information is the string that coordinates society, communities, families and relationships at every level. Without a clear information sharing system, distrust and anxiety fetters, and that can collapse a society (crime, war, discrimination, xenophobia etc).

 This is the case for Uganda – low levels of social capital – distrust for one another that has stifled cooperation at every level of society leading to pervasive corruption, theft and impunity.  

 Everyone in Uganda is a suspect by default.

You do not have to do anything. Just show up in any social gathering or town looking different or speaking with a unique tongue - you are a suspect. Everyone in an office is precisely a suspect of corruption; anyone doing better than the other is a suspected mole of the regime.

 This mole labeling affords this regime a right of hegemony and unnecessary credit accorded to greedy politicians who scheme for opportunities to benefit individually out of public efforts.

 Distrust is most intense among those in opposition. Besigye, Mao, Bwanika, Muntu and everyone underneath their ladders are all painted with the mole brash to stir public distrust against their efforts at challenging status quo.

 What is the purpose of this labeling, and who benefits? What is the basis of this charge, anyway?

 Uganda’s society is where Police officers are also the highway robbers, exhibits thieves, illegal gun traders; where bank tellers steal customers' deposits; teachers de-school students by defilement and a sitting president is an exhibit in another country!

This is a paradoxical society where everyone is distrusted. Ironically, even with sch distrust levels, business goes on as usual.  

 Distrust is an ideological device being used artfully to prevent opposition from organizing at any level of society. Students of political science could interest themselves with this phenomenon - distrust that creates a paradoxical society like Uganda!  

End

The political economy of deaths and funerals in Acholi

POLITICS & DEATHS

The most rampant deaths in Acholi are for older adults who pass for the elders of the community. 

These people became elders in the community by virtue of surviving the two decades of war of annihilation in Northern Uganda. Many of these men and women are young, in their 50s and 60s, who inherited the burden of lifelong grief and stress during the conflict made worse by slow post-conflict renewals. Many became parents at tender age, providing for orphans of war, and offered little to themselves – health, education or ambitions.

Sadly, most of these deaths are preventable, and primarily accentuated by perpetual poverty and degraded environment, inaccessible healthcare system; and neglect by family members.

The post-conflict Acholi is a place subtle mired in misery and destitution. Rural life is rough, and contrasts sharply with the urban glitters of possibilities. Across Uganda, poverty is more concentrated in Northern Uganda and worst in Acholi region. This poverty is cofounded with fast degrading environment, shorter and very intense episodes of rainy season and sporadic loss of ground cover. The combination of poverty and environmental degradation are self-reinforcing with disease and misery as natural outcomes.

Further, the liberalization of Uganda’s economy has exacerbated the commodification of healthcare services making it very expensive and inaccessible. The challenge of a timely and regular interfacing with qualified medical practitioners, and the bureaucratic corruption in the system have generated apathy towards seeking healthcare. Many locals are reverting to cheaper local herbs and mysticism which have accentuate mortality among children, pregnant women and older persons.

Incidentally, the generation of post conflict Acholi youths are equally as helpless as their guardians in a zero-sum situation. Those out of the zone care little other than for their ill-begotten wealth in Kampala, Jinja, Mbale, Mbarara or Gulu.  

Those at home still endure undiagnosed forms of debilitating mental health challenges secondary to post-traumatic stress disorders. Studies show that stress and psychological trauma are transmissible across generations. These circumstances pan out in Acholi region and has driven maladjustment behaviours to the roof. Acholi youths are less likely to be employed in formal sector other than low paying precarious jobs such as security.

 In Acholi, social infrastructure needs urgent overhaul. Incidentally, the minds in charge seems overwhelmed or compromised with politics and corruption.

The Acholi older persons suffer alone, afflicted with a deep sense of personal loss, they become susceptible to preventable early demise. At times, these elders die in the hospital due to delays to get them there, or even the thoughts of the cost of treatment, once well. Their death may even be a form of chocking from hopelessness. If they have no pensions, they must sell land, or food reserve to reach a hospital to afford a patch-up.

Incidentally, I found that deaths in Acholi is increasingly getting popularised. In some communities, death is strange and received with shock, awe and a sense of loss. In Acholi, death has its own political economy. Some people even look forward to the next death or facilitate death by poisoning one another when none is happening

These funerals are important social and political places for politicking and reaffirmation. It is at the funerals that one’s political worth is measured through financial, material or leadership contributions. People fight to get their names on the contribution list and for their names to be publicly announced!

These days, funerals have taken political rally status fraught with political speeches. And, you attend funerals if you belong to the political inclination of the deceased or one of their prominent relatives.  Sometimes, mourners from other political parties are blocked from attending funerals.

Far from politicians and policymakers working hard to improve living conditions to eliminate preventable deaths, they rely on deaths to make empty political statements. It is the absurdity of our generation!

End.