Resisting the hegemony of lumpen intellectuals

LUMPEN INTELLECTUALISM

The uproar against Andrew Mwenda's controversial views, such as questioning whether corruption is detrimental to economic development of a Nation, may not, after all, be worthy. However, the vigor with which some Ugandans have taken to opposing Mwenda shows that there is more than the issues he raises, that is being resisted.

There is an online petition, which is almost reaching 4000 signatories, requiring that NTV removes Mwenda from its news night analysis. It was not until this morning when it downed on me that there is a prevailing hegemony perpetuated by crops of Uganda's lumpen intellectuals, thus, the resistance.

The online dictionary defines hegemony as "political or cultural dominance, or authority over others". The concept of cultural hegemony (dominance) has roots among communist intellectuals such as Antonio Gramci (1891-1937), Karl Marx (Theory of Alienation), and others.

Gramci, in particular, maintained that the working class and the peasantry depends largely on the intellectuals produced by their society. He distinguished between bourgeois-class intellectuals and working-class intellectuals in his theory of cultural hegemony. Intellectuals in every society are active ingredients in determining the dominant cultures of the time.

From Marxist perspective, cultural hegemony involves manipulation of a culture by the dominant groups (ruling class), such that their worldview is imposed and accepted as the cultural norm.

From Marxist perspective, the role of the media as a social institutions is to ensure that the working class remains contented with their working conditions even with the injustices of the capitalist system. The ideology of such groups is perpetuated through lies, deceptions and misinformation, such as those that characterise our analyses in the media to create false consciousness. The uproar against Mwenda's brand of intellectualism therefore arises from his followers refusing to accept a false consciousness, for instance, that corruption is Ok, it does not deter equal distribution of opportunities or resources.

The NRM ideology as a whole, is encumbered on perpetuating false consciousness that is how we have lumpen intellectuals baying for it. Gramci proposes that prevailing bourgeois cultural hegemony must not be perceived as natural and inevitable, but as an artificial social construct. He recommends a vigorous investigation of each to discover their philosophic roots, which are their instruments of social-class domination.

The defeat of those who perpetuate false consciousness is eminent with the advent of social media and globally accessible information portals such as Google, Google Scholars and so forth. These scientific innovations should achieve the end of liberating the dominated since it enhances timely access to factual, researched, and corroborated information. The real problem is ingrained in the minds of the dominated, which, because of a history of subjugation and being dominated, rely entirely on the lies of the ruling class and the lumpen intellectuals to appreciate their pitiful social conditions.
The media is not an ally of the working person or the proletariats; it is an instrument of domination. The institution of the media is owned and controlled by the ruling class to serve the purpose of misinforming and alienating the oppressed so as not to organize and rise against the status quo.

Uganda's population is now more elite with youth literacy rates of 89.6% among males and 85.5% among females, with overall literacy of 79% (UNICEF, 2013). With more enhanced access to the internet and education, the youths, who are more tech-savvy should be the liberating force of this country from the grip of lumpen intellectuals. 

Instead of petitioning to have Mwenda removed from NTV, these people should invest in countering obscurantism. Without presenting informed counter arguments, the rascals will dominate the intellectual space to cultivate false consciousness. It is an imperative of each listener to practice tolerance and where possible, resort to challenging old traditions to break the dominance of the status quo from the minds of its victims. It is through questioning, challenging, and engaging the system that we can become fully conscious and liberated.

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How the war on terror is shaping Africa's despotic landscape

LIFE PRESIDENTS

One of the key messages of Dr. Kiiza Besigye, during his nomination campaign around the country for FDC flag bearer position is about removing power from the guns and restoring it in the hands of the masses. The role of the military in entrenching tyranny and dictatorship is a widespread problem in Africa. President Museveni's strength is organized around his monopoly over the military that he uses to coerce voters and rig elections. Unless the partisan use of the military in politics is resolved, it will continue to perpetuate the abuse of peoples' power.

In this respect, Dr Kiiza Besigye's struggles is legitimate and must be contextualized for us to fully, or partially understand the magnitude of militarization of democracy in Africa and how it affects human rights and the enjoyment of fundamental human liberties.

The rampant emergence of new breed of tyrants who want to rule for life in Africa is perpetuated in part by the U.S. war on terrorism. President Obama administration's strategy on war against terrorism in Africa has created allies among tyrants by beefing up their military capabilities that in turn, is used to suppress internal democracy. Ken Opalo at Stanford University, wrote an excellent piece on the consequences of the U.S war on terrorism in Al Jazeera which attracted my attention. 

According to Opalo, the Obama administration's approach to fighting terrorism was designed to build "new, effective and efficient small footprint locations and developing innovative approaches to using host nation facilities or allied joint-basing". What this "new, effective and efficient small footprint" means is that, the US will sell to these countries weapons, train their soldiers in commando counter-terrorism and military surveillance. This means reducing the presence of American soldiers in front lines with terrorists. A handful of countries; Uganda, Ethiopia, Djibouti, South Sudan, Mali, Mauritania, Kenya, the Seychelles, Niger and Burkina Faso, have already embraced this policy.

Recently, President Museveni's son, the Commander of the Special Forces, Brigadier Muhoozi Kainerugaba was shown walking alongside Brig. Gen. Bolduc of US Special Operations Command Africa at Sera Kasenyi Special Forces training school in Entebbe after completing a year-long pre-mission counter terrorism training. 

It is important to understand that the U.S war against global terrorism, however noble, entrenches dictatorship in Africa. This fact should feed into the ongoing debate on whether President Obama's recent admonition of African leaders who overstay in power, had some authenticity to it. Arguably, President Obama's utterances only served to arouse false hope and excitement among the population that the US values human freedoms, supports genuine democracy, and good governance in Africa, when in reality, their policies are designed to achieve the opposite.

We ought to appreciate the formations of US policies on Africa, its motivations, applications and effects since the cold war era. What has never changed is that no leader in Africa is bad in the eyes of the US as long as the tyrants can posture as puppets to its interests. Opalo argues that in exchange for their cooperation, "the US consistently looked the other way in the face of gross human rights violation and anti-democratic tendencies of its allies". Incidentally, all US allied partners in the fight against terrorism have either scrapped Presidential term limits (or are in the process), the Presidents have served for more than 15 years, conduct rigged elections, arbitrary arrests, detention and torture of opposition and media, and known for restriction of human liberties and freedoms. 

In conclusion, Dr. Besigye may be a charismatic visionary leader, however, his mission requires more than the grass-root mobilization of the oppressed masses. With the Anti-terrorism and Public Order Management Acts, there is no chance for a democracy in Uganda. Such campaigns must extend to the US State Department, Congress or Senate, and to the doorsteps of every global powerhouse that have perpetuated tyranny in Africa. Incidentally, the Museveni greedy lobbyists at Washington, London, Beijing, and The Hague, should be exposed and shamed for their roles in oppressing Africans.

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Andrew Mwenda's public execution

IMPERIALISM

The Proprietor of the Independent News Magazine, Andrew Mwenda is not a vulnerable person who warrants my defence on matters of geopolitics. He is capable beyond doubt, to run down his critics and haters, verbally and in writing, moreover with much ease. But vengeance, and not systematic intellectual rebuttal, only fuel the mediocrity that has afflicted our everyday life. However, the social media onslaught on the character, rather than the issues raised by Mwenda in his Al Jazeera opinion piece titled: "Obama, mind your own business", should require someone to stand up for objectivity before it dies from amidst us.

People who have feasted on social media by lambasting Mwenda, appeared to not have read Mwenda's article critically. That they could lash out at the Messenger is typical of African tradition. Some would rather kill the messenger, instead of dealing with the delivery or the enemy who sent the message. Little wonder that the risk averse job of "Messenger" has not attracted payment as a profession, given the over reliance on word-of-mouth in African society.

Indeed, Mwenda's article carried nothing new and spectacular that warranted such global anguish, except for those in denial of the ugly truth in it. It appeared to me that commentators took issues more with the character of the writer, than the content of his writing. In the process, they ended up revealing their own contempt for the man. In essence, they exposed the very vice that Mwenda and Timothy Kalyegira have always written about – lack of emotional and intellectual depth.

While I acknowledge that Andrew Mwenda has been overly dynamic and indulgent with African despots, one would accord due decorum to the fact that Mwenda, just like everybody else, has evolved from the favourable image of him as an activist, to the one who is a ferocious apologist for tyranny. In his own previous discourses, Andrew Mwenda recognizes his own growth by acknowledging that he has evolved from an idealist, to a realist. 

The problem is that we are stuck with a favorable image of an idealist activist, Mwenda, sitting and peeving from behind the jail-bars as a victim, and expected him to have grown into a hateful and subjectively repulsive of the tyranny.

To the contrary, Mwenda has tasted the perks of power through his activism. He has become an independent businessman, who is fully fitted in the neo-liberal parlance where the trade in ideas is lucrative. His connections to the tyrants, arises from his appreciation of the mismatch between idealism of being none state operator, with realities he sees with state operators. And, every trader has to be paid. And, every businessman has to show loyalty to his clients. Those are the basic rules in business that Mwenda has had to contend with.

On his blog, "Rising Continent: Lions on the move", Francis Xavier Ndagabamye Muhoozi takes exceptions at Mwenda for appearing often, and sitting through Rwanda's Cabinet meetings chaired by what he called "the most vicious tyrant". We are not told why Mwenda sits in Kagame's Cabinet meetings in as much as former British Premier, Tony Blair. What we know, is that Rwanda is better governed than Uganda.

Critics of Mwenda should desist from going personal and appearing trivial in the process. People need to understand that everyone who writes, or participates in public discourses, does so for personal interests.

Therefore, irrespective of Mwenda's known capitalist ambitions, and what others may consider a flip-flop on key policy positions, his works have profound importance in the struggle against neo-colonialism of Africa and challenges the systematic brainwash of Africans.

Mwenda raises critical issue of moral discrepancies in respect of how US foreign policies on Africa are designed. They are racist, denigrating and continue to perpetuate suffering, rather than liberating. Mwenda highlights the way America treats its blacks and indigenous population there, annihilating other races and dominating survivors everywhere. Using statistics, Mwenda demonstrate how the US has incarcerated nearly three-thirds of its black population, and kept the other two thirds in utter humiliating poverty and deprivation. The racist police with a penchant for killing blacks on the daily, have not made the living conditions for blacks in America any better than it was back in the days of lynching and slavery. 

How then can Obama effectively preach the high standards of human rights practices when Guantanamo smacks in his backyard, and George Bush literally ruled America without "winning" elections? 

Andrew Mwenda reminded us that the same US that now castigates African leaders for becoming life Presidents, is the same power that provides them with the muscle – arsenals and coverage to achieve their ends. They funded terrorist organizations such as UNITA, assassinated progressive African leaders like Patrice Lumumba; blacklisted ANC and Nelson Mandela as terrorists, openly supported apartheid regime in South Africa; benefited from slave trade and has never apologized, nor compensated Africa for that. In retrospect, the white Americans are so paranoid and hateful of blacks as if it were the blacks who enslaved, colonized, and annihilated the white race. 

I concluded that Andrew Mwenda was spot on. His critics were indeed, the pseudo-intellectuals who have internalized the ideology of the conquerors and have become the engine of apology for the empty rhetoric of the conquerors. For sure, Mwenda's article was not an indictment of President Obama, per se, it was a reflection of the riff-raff predatory relationship that USA has with Africa. Their policies installs and sustain bad governments, escalate human rights abuse, hasten environmental degradation, alienates and annihilate indigenous peoples with their cultures, etc. Now, every freedom fighter is tagged a terrorist and yet it is the US spending billions of dollars to strengthen the military used to suppress black Africans by US allies (dictators), so that US military footprint in the continent is kept at bare minimum.

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President Museveni's dishonesty on northern poverty

BLAME GAME

While northern Uganda has totally transformed through its twenty years of conflict experience, clearly, Museveni’s scheme for the North has not changed even one bit. His intentions to grab land, enslave the people on plantations, and subjugate northerners, are revealing.

Many people, including Kilak County MP, Gilbert Olanya, were shocked when the President blamed the MP for causing poverty in Amuru (DM, July 23, 2015). Hon Olanya was probably 8 years old when the NRM came to power in 1986. He was there when cattle rustlers ransacked Amuru. Probably, he was one of the survivors of internment or abduction by LRA. To grow up in conflict and become an MP, Olanya demonstrated unimaginable resilience. He emerged from the traumatic upbringing in which threats of death, deprivation and humiliating poverty dominated his formative years. The experiences of poverty and a desire for social justice are probably Hon. Olanya’s inspirations.

Typical as Amama Mbabazi said, the President excels at apportioning blames to others, for his pitiful failures.

I have always wanted to write a book titled, "The 10 Commandments of Failures" that explores the collapse of the NRM's 10-points program. The failures of those programs would reveal the duplicitous nature of NRM and its leaders. One of the highlights of the NRM's botched promises was to transform Uganda from a pre-industrial society (primitive) to industrialized nation with modern manufacturing (advanced modes of production). Over the years, we have heard about programs like "Modernization of Agriculture", "Rural Electrification", "Wealth for All", "Operation Creating Wealth", etc. For all purposes and intents, the living conditions in the countryside have regressed even with these programs. People are still poor that they confirm a decline in human civilization.  Instead, we have de-industrialized, and now exporting human labour to Saudi Arabia!

The pervasive nature of poverty in the countryside is embarrassing such that some NRM MPs just wail over it.  In Mawokota North, Hon. Amelia Kyambadde felt dizzy one day and sobbed uncontrollably when confronted with the ugliness of rural poverty at Namabo Primary School in Kafumu Parish. Mawokota, like the other 250 plus constituencies, that elects NRM endures humiliating poverty with broken down social services just as Amuru and areas that are pro-Opposition. Ms Kyambadde wondered why her government’s efforts were not materializing for her constituents.

Moreover, Mawokota constituency is in Buganda - a place that was peaceful since 1986. The South and Western Uganda have been economically productive since and people lived in their homes, cultivated their gardens, educated their children, and voted for their government that brought sleep, at 99% rate. They are still as poor, deprived, and disenfranchised. This story is constant everywhere, even in places like Bunyoro, Toro, Busoga, Ankore and Kigezi where the NRM scores over 90% at elections. Adverse poverty beckons viciously at every ordinary Ugandan alike.

In contrast, North and Eastern parts of Uganda that suffered war of attrition for twenty years, remained unproductive, and will remain so for quite a bit. First, the cattle rustling broke their economic backbone. Then the indiscriminate bombing of villages that led to Mass displacement and subsequent internment of the entire population. Now we hear that nearly 1.5 million lives were lost in the 20 years. There could be more, but the regions lost majority of its productive middle-aged population that will take a minimum of 50 years to reconstitute. After the war, northern Uganda was reduced to post slave trade era Africa. The survivors were weaklings that became dependent on handouts from benevolent foreigners. Now the President exploits this fragility with brown envelops and mockery to coerce them into endorsing his life presidency project.

The tragedies of Northern Uganda are too fresh in our minds to contort it as if we are referring to distant French revolution. The current generations of youths who are now of voting age, are first generation survivors of the policies of acrimony pursued viciously by the Museveni's regime that made every ordinary Ugandan poor. Blaming the MP for poverty in Amuru is dishonesty.

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Dr Kiiza Besigye's fate depends on the change we want

UGANDA ELECTIONS 2016 

The debate whether Rtd Col. Dr. Kiiza Besigye should contest, after three previous unsuccessful attempts in 2001, 2006 and 2011 is now immaterial. Going by the mass response to his candidature, Dr Besigye is officially the President of the people. The feasibility of his candidacy squarely depends on how we define the change that we want.

Given the constraints imposed on the Opposition, and on Dr. Besigye himself, he has demonstrated that jumping the traps of the tyrant requires perseverance.

Since 1999, Dr. Kiiza Besigye showed consistency and insistence, which affirmed his resolve to cause change. By challenging the status quo, Besigye exposed it adequately. In the process, Besigye paid the price, but gained rhythm with the disenfranchised masses.

Besigye has the mastery of invoking this sense of vulnerability in President Museveni that renders the President helpless, aggressive, and morose. Each time Museveni gets a competent opposition, he panics, to respond by mobilizing violence against the opponent. Besigye's public humiliations - flogging, teargasing, curtailing, detaining, violating, false charges etc – attests to this rudimentary anti-democratic tradition. Even with those adversities, Dr Besigye showed inconceivable resilience to stay afloat and relevant to the causes of the people. It is such qualities that the masses admire about him!

In the last fifteen years, Dr. Besigye endured torture that became the trademark of the partisan Ugandan Police. By torturing Dr. Besigye, the state was creating a Messiah – someone whose experiences allowed the masses to witness and understand the excesses of a dictatorship. Torture made Besigye stronger and more resolute in his mission.

Despite all these, Dr Besigye talks about his experiences without acrimony in his voice. If Dr. Besigye were that angry a person, surely, his supporters could have attacked the likes of Arinaitwe and Afande Omalla. Instead, Besigye always explained that these Officers are pandering for survival, a condition he plans to change through the ballot. Under Besigye’s situation, it would be easy to understandable getting angry with the Police and State agents for their violation of human rights. It is even harder to understand Dr Besigyes exercise of self-constraint. Ugandans must embrace those revolutionary traits.

Then there are those who discounted the impact of Dr. Besigye's activism and self-sacrifice in the struggle against dictatorship. For them, wresting power from a tyrant is equitable to a romantic affairs complete with bouquet of Red Roses and dinner.  If theirs is not an illusion, then what is it?

Dr Besigye's activism is yielding him unrented support during these nomination campaigns. While the Musevenists are renting the crowd and using photoshop to enlarge the crowd size, Besigye’s are an organic mammoth crowd. Besigye has even set a new milestone with a massive and unexpectedly donations of food and money to support their President.

This is a new phenomenon in Uganda's politics where voters were undermined with petty bribery of little money, salt, sugar, soap and empty promises. The strong show of the crowd to Dr Besigye wherever he goes signifies the admiration for the man as an instrument of change. The masses are saying openly that they will collect from the corrupted State and fund their revolution. After all, President Museveni steals money from the poor to lavish the rich. This is how you know that the zeal for change is no longer an abstract, obscure agitation - it is real.

The major task of the Elect Besigye Team now is to design and communicate to the masses concrete strategies to avert election rigging from the polling stations. With the era of social media, the opposition can have an on-the-spot monitoring and reporting of vote tallies by way of text and video. The people should be guided to protect their votes from the NRM vultures by any means possible.

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Without Electoral Reforms, 2016 is Meaningless

UGANDA ELECTS

The news that the NRM dominated Parliament rejected all the seventeen (17) proposals, containing the core areas recommended for electoral reforms, leaves this country in a dire strait. It also offers no credibility to the current Electoral Commission, and does not guarantee that the 2016 general elections will be free or fair elections.  Without dialogue and reforms to the electoral laws, the 2016 elections are meaningless.

Going into 2016 for the Opposition looks like a free man willingly ceding his freedom to a tyrant. Let us not mince words; without elaborate and widely agreed upon electoral reforms, there is no pretence about the quality or manner of conduct of any elections in Uganda.

I envisage tough times coming ahead of Ugandans after 2016 if this elections were to be mishandled. These are critical moments for Ugandans to rise up in defence of the ongoing peace and tranquil. One needs to understand that the concept of national security is not about the presence of armed men loitering villages and manning major highways with weaponry. It is about the conviction among citizens, that their living conditions are just and tenable. When citizens feel that they have control over their destinies, and can freely negotiate for common goods and to share liabilities, then we, as a nation, will enjoy stability.

The Uganda that is evolving under the NRM regime is that nurturing intolerance and greed around safeguarding power. The People of Uganda are feeling the emptiness associated with disempowerment. And yet, we have a regime that is constipated with power. These disparities are the ingredients that feed the seeds of violence and instability in society, however sophisticated it is.

I prophesy that, if we continue on this path, Uganda will slide into a graveyard in the near future. Unless Museveni wants to transform Uganda into a prototype of North Korea, there is no way he will continue with this belligerence. The Civil Society and the Opposition have endured the pain of providing alternative policy proposals to government. At least they have played their roles. A healthy democracy is adjudged by the vibrancy of its opposition and civil society. 

A government which fears competition will also thwart any possibility for highlighting its oversights.  Without these options, a balancing act in governance cannot obtain for public good. No one has monopoly over righteousness and no one person, least for a corrupted regime, to be right at all. The essence of democracy is that dissenters are treated with decency, humility, and respect for the beauty of diversity.

Rejecting the reform proposals also indicate that the Parliament is in contempt of the will of the people. It is becoming apparently clear that the regime would pander to reforms proposed by America or Britain, but will reject those from its own people. It just starts to feel that we are in the era of slave trade where the Chiefs conspired to sell its own people. By dis-empowering its people, modern slavery or savagery has become the novelty of the NRM regime.

Intolerance though, is a recipe for disaster because it alienates agents from the mainstream to the periphery, eventually excluding them. When the locus of dissent realigns itself, and finds a new shape outside the shades of the state, then other forms of liberation modalities may be chosen over a stale democracy.

The problem of a military dictatorship is that it is inundated by its investments in the industry of coercion. History has shown to us that no amount of weaponry and coercion can restrain a critical mass with full consciousness of their repression.

President Museveni is a legend of a revolution with contempt for democracy and elections. He scorns the ballot for the bullet. Demanding for free and fair elections is a waste of time. The fear of internal democracy within NRM demonstrates that the Presidency is up for grabbing, forcefully.

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No-Term Limit debate: What really is Africa's problem?

No -Term vs Term Limit

The debate over term limits has taken a new twist in Rwanda where the Parliament is debating whether to remove or retain it. If, it were removed, President Paul Kagame will have a free ride as President for many more years to come. Rwanda’s Presidential terms are seven years long.

Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame has exceeded expectations of a new breed of leaders of Africa. He has done a tremendous job in piecing together a country that was fragile - broken apart by the 1994 genocide. Rwanda’s economy is now a class apart, compared to that of Uganda. Public institutions in Rwanda functions; healthcare systems address the health needs of its people, and so, are the schools, and transportation system. Most, or all of Rwanda’s public services function to near efficiency, compared to its regional neighbors. Should term limits force Kagame to retirement?

The problem of Africa is not term limits. In fact, President Museveni’s credibility underscores his assessment of Africa’s problems as that of leadership. His stinging attack on leaders who stay in power for too long was the mainstay for the justification of term limits in the 1995 Constitution.

Africa is the only continent that has inexhaustible resources, having been exploited for nearly 1000 years. On its own, the continent has shown tremendous resilience. Paradoxically, Africa is also the continent that accommodates the poorest population in the world. Most of them are sickly, dying young and living precariously in degraded environment.

This begs the question: what really is Africa’s problem?

The case for term limits, or no-term limits to me is immaterial. Africa has had leaders who have ruled for life and died as Presidents. Their records should argue it out for the no-term limits’ proponents. Africa has also endured its brand of democracy, where countries have changed leaders very often under strict term limit; Tanzania, South Africa, Rwanda, Burundi, Zambia, and Kenya. There are enormous opportunities in those countries for us to study and draw a conclusion either in support of, or against term limits.

While we may turn to term limits as a panacea to some of our problems, let us also examine whether its shortcomings emanates from our brand of democracy. If not, then we have to take a conscious exploration of whether, as Africans, we do fully understand the art and science of governance as a whole, and the value of the wealth, Africa as a continent, has for us.

The glaring convergence of the term vs no-term limit debate is that the predicaments of all these states are nearly the same. All African states are susceptible to incurable poverty, death from avoidable diseases, broke-down public infrastructure, widespread corruption, sectarianism and nepotism,and untenable environment. More-so, historical blemishes from slavery and colonial era, remain etched in the conscience of these nations, indelibly.

The proponents of term limits have valid points, given our circumstances: Term limit allows a break in a vicious cycle of bad governance and warped ideologies. One of the theories of healthy public policy posits that, policy opportunities usually arise by the punctuation of the equilibrium after a period of stasis. Without a disruption in this stability, policy modifications are disenchanted. This gives rise to the “No Change” sloganeering of NRM. Term limit allows for fair distribution of resources because African leadership inherently attracts nepotism. Today, the Banyankore, or “westerners” are viewed as people who have “eaten things”. A change of government would shift the locus of benefits to areas that are perceived to be deprived. Term limit allows the nation to experience peaceful change of regime. Such, is a strong indication of a nation’s stability or cohesion. Term limit allows the nation to discover from within it, limitless possibilities. By drawing from its talent pool of innovators, a nation nurtures competent and patriotic leaders. It is also a guarantee that access to top leadership is open to everyone, not ring-fenced. The people’s power materializes when they are able to cause, witness, and experience peaceful change in governance and their realities. Therefore, term limit is critical, but merely part of, not the solution in itself, to Africa’s problems.

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