EPISTEMOLOGIES
Recently Mr. Museveni reignited the debate of marginalizing Arts in society by claiming that sciences are more important for national development. In one short video clip that I saw, Museveni asked a rhetorical question, something like, “How does reciting Shakespeare or Macbeth help a nation?”
I suspect that Museveni’s persistent marginalization of arts is borne out of fear for the evolution of new and attractive ideas for reimagining Uganda beyond him. Mr. Museveni understands that works of Art are what inspired his revolutionary mindset. The younger Yoweri was a staunch Marxist and inspired by thinkers like Fidel Castro, Franz Fanon, Machiavelli, European history, and the cultural history of the Bachwezi dynasty and recited their ideas for decades. I have never heard Museveni reciting the works of science other than the Luwero methods or military science!
If Arts did not matter, why was the younger Museveni and now the de facto lifelong president, not inspired by great scientists like Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, and others? Arts and science are siblings – one inspires the other and one cannot live without the other. The desire for wars and conquest led man to develop the war industry; the desire for food security led to the invention of hoes, farming industry, and seeds genetic sciences; the fear of plant diseases led to the science of developing disease-resistant crops. Science responds to material human fears communicated discursively and textually. Literacy is a requite for sciences!
Clearly, Mr. Museveni’s mission is as obscurantic as it can get and is steeped in averting national and civil consciousness arising from his distortion of history, material marginalization that Ugandans are experiencing, denial of space for the voice of reason and counter-reasoning, as well as the pervasive human rights violation which have become the landmark features of his administration.
The young Yoweri used his knowledge of arts and humanities, mostly to question society and create space for new ideas for nation-building. Museveni has bragged about losing thirteen of his early years in fighting Amin’s and Obote’s governments. Once he ascended to power, Museveni embarked on fighting something strange (not imperialism for sure) under the auspices of Pan Africanism, as a cheerleader of global neoliberalism in the continent.
I have never heard a speech in which Museveni does not project an issue to an ideological realm. Infatuating with an idea for years and implementing is, constitutes sciences. If there is any success of Arts, Museveni and Nollywood are its truest revelation. However, as we know, the older Museveni is now rejecting the ideals of the younger Yoweri which was inspired by arts and humanities. I conclude, therefore, that this debate is not so much about marginalizing Arts, humanities, and their teachers – a great travesty in modern unequal society. This agenda is Museveni rejecting himself and projecting it onto arts teachers and people in the humanities. Is it a surprise that his actions follow restructuring and clumping down on civil society organizations? Undermining arts is an ideological ploy to suppress the emergence of new ideas that are critical to his rule and threaten to puncture his equilibrium!
While we recognize the imperatives of sciences in driving socio-cultural revolution – like the times of renaissance, sciences do not happen in a vacuum as an end to itself. Science is not a discrete happening. Good science is not an event of discovery and technology either. Science is a continuum of everyday social life and it becomes relevant when science is used to produce knowledge and utilities that are socially relevant. There is science in arts, for instance, the methods of inquiry in arts are scientific, methodological and knowledge from it is transferrable beyond geographies. Sciences is not limited to assembling boda-bodas and buses.
The science that is separated from the everyday social events becomes anathema to that society and so will be the scientists. Overemphasis on science will attract students who lack the skills and interests in the field, graduates who will later suffer in their career due to a mismatch of skills. Most of our young professionals already suffer in the job field because the education and the career choices or types are too limited. Added the vice of sectarianism in the workplaces, many people end up in jobs they have no clue about. This is where the debate should focus – how do we structure our education system to offer a wide range of career training programs?
I must remind Mr. Museveni that creating inequalities in the classroom is not a wise decision. Teachers with the same qualifications and years of services must be paid the same, whether they teach arts/humanities or sciences. People in the arts do pay taxes, raise their families, and run governments and businesses. They deserve the best and equally motivated teachers.
