Recommend Mandatory HIV testing for Couples

HIV - PMTCT

The proposed HIV Prevention and Control Bill is before the public for consultation. One of the contentious issues in it is the mandatory HIV testing for pregnant women during uptake of ante-natal care (NV July 18th). This proposal has generated genuine concerns over ethical principles, notably; autonomy, confidentiality and informed choices. The civil society organizations have picked on these issues well. Our moral sense must be governed by categorical imperative not to harm the unborn fetus and the mother.

 The civil society organizations also highlighted several social-cultural imperatives that places the woman at a heighten risk of vices such as domestic violence, stigma, victimization, alienation from marital home and property; and getting punished unjustly physically and emotionally by the social system that views women as sole gateway to HIV infection.

Arguably, there is a moral to the perspectives of the civil society organizations, but there is also an imperative on the side of government to take bold measures to curb down the rising trends of HIV infections. No doubt, installation of mandatory testing requirements creates many barriers to using healthcare services; it is unethical and violates many international standards. But this is also the ethical dilemma that a need for such drastic measure may generate.

The underlying reason for the provision of mandatory testing during interface with the healthcare system is because Uganda has enrolled in the WHO option A of the Prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV. This option requires the measure of CD4 before a mother or anyone as such, can get enrolled for the Anti-Retroviral Treatment (ARTs).

Recognizably, there is pressure on most sub-Sahara Africa to put in place frameworks to reduce the transmission of HIV from mother to Child. Significant results have been recorded already in this area in Malawi and Botswana where there is an increased uptake of HIV testing by over 93% of pregnant women. Malawi now boost of 3% reduction of mother -to-child HIV infection through its bold implementation of WHO recommended ART B/B+ option treatments, despite having this measure in only limited number of districts.

HIV testing is a tough personal and intrusive process that plays out on the human emotions and generates fear. Laws requiring mandatory HIV testing become insensitive to the autonomous nature of humankind. It deprives one of pre-testing services and violates the principles of confidentiality.

Best practices world-over is such that everyone is accorded a just environment to make informed decision during such moments of vulnerability. Therefore this debate is indeed an ethical one which must be handled rationally and with an ethical decision making framework for its a buy-in and sustainability.

There is merit for every pregnant woman to know her health status and this includes her HIV status. This merit extends beyond the pregnant woman but to the general populace. When the pregnant woman comes to know her HIV status, she begins ante-retrovirus treatment (ART) early with a possibility of experiencing less stressful pregnancy. This also benefits the mother-child dyad by enhancing the prevention of transmission of the virus from mother to child.  

To add value to the proposed Bill, a national consensus has to be built around early detection of HIV and sexually transmitted diseases to reduce the rampant maternal-child mortality that has haunted our society. A regular, at least thrice a year complete medical examination including HIV status must be encouraged for a population that exists in precarious moral situations like it is in Uganda.

The Bill’s focus on HIV prevention must be rooted in social cultural realities that focuses on four players; the unborn fetus, the mother, the father and the community from which the couple belong.

The intricate complexities involving these players, ensures that HIV prevention is not merely a medical issue, but a social one as such. To provide effective HIV testing and prevention services, there is need to move the services to the communities because it is within these communities that issues of stigma and victimization takes place.

Further, reports show that men tend to resist HIV screening, as a result, statistics show disproportional numbers of women to men, as living with HIV and yet it is more likely that a man uses multiple partners than a woman. There must be HIV family centre testing requirements that compels every couple to pre-test counseling and HIV testing irrespective of pregnancy. This approach may lessen the blame burden on the woman and provides her with the confidence to enjoy her reproductive rights without fear.

Case studies

Lessons from Malawi, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Botswana can attest to these. In Malawi the controversy over mandatory testing was resolved by creating an alternative pathway service delivery in their PMTCT national guidelines. Each pathway is provided with pre-test counseling services for individual and family to attend clinics with their sexual partners. A pregnant mother is offered counseling before testing, if they consented to testing and found to have positive HIV results; they were put on WHO option B+ ART therapy and provided support by trained community agents through the pregnancy. The mother remained on ART for life.  

The Option B+ does not require CD4 count like it is for Option A that Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and South Africa are adopting, and it is cheaper to administer. In the second pathway option, pre-counseling was provided to the pregnant women and family irrespective of level of literacy. If she or her family declines, she is processed through the system and provided counseling at every point of contact with the healthcare system while being reminded that they can decline to HIV tests. These services extend to the community.

According to UNICEF and UNAIDS 2013 reports, Malawi’s approach initially reduced the uptake of antenatal services, but after a short period, a surge was registered because of the benefits that some of these communities started seeing – that children are being born without HIV while the mothers on ART remained healthy to nurse and nurture their children. Over 90% of women are using HIV testing services and are getting enrolled and the Maternal-Child transmission has reduced to <5% in both Malawi and Botswana.

While there is a focus on ensuring that pregnant mother's get the treatment that they need, and that HIV transmission to the child is prevented, the law must propose a comprehensive family oriented approach. To ensure that women do not become victims of HIV testing, the law must encourage couples to undergo tests during visits to ante-natal clinics following counseling.

In places like Canada, once found to have any sexually transmitted disease, one is required to disclose recent sexual partners for follow-up by public health. This is largely because it is against the law to knowingly infect another person and is punishable by jail if found to have been negligent.

Uganda may not be bold enough to enact such a law, but under the current situations, there must be an integrated approach to HIV care which combines a number of fronts and yet very rational and ethical in all its vestiges.

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Ticker: Exploring Critical Issues on HIV/AIDS Fight in Uganda

HIV/AIDS

The cloud of gloom has yet transcended upon Uganda as global experts fear that the country is losing its gains in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Over the years, experts like Festus Mogae and Stephen Lewis have shown pessimism that Ugandans have become complicit to the advent of anti-retroviral medication that provides hope for a prolonged onset of AIDS. Further, the political will that previously elevation and sustained a high profile of HIV/AIDS among the population has been usurped by corruption and ideological disunity that threatens human rights.

This article intends to bring a critical perspective in the HIV/AIDS discourses and it intends to point out the critical gaps where current health service orientations have been unable to cover. There are fundamentally three areas that requires urgent attention if Uganda is to gain its stead to return to its glory path of curbing HIV. These areas are an investment in an integrated behavioural change approaches; adhering to strict and accurate data collection and management and; expanding existing healthcare systems to care for communities, rather than individuals.

Behaviour change

The Daily Monitor newspaper on May 18^th, 2013 quoted Mr. Musa Bungudu, UNAIDS country coordinator as casting fear on the rising prevalence rate of HIV in Uganda.  New cases of HIV infection show an increasing trend, from 124,000 in 2009 to 145,000 by 2011. On the average 353 Ugandans are infected daily and over 60,000 Ugandans die annually from HIV/Aids related ailments. Prevalence rates continue to vary from place to place, peaking at fish landing sites, conflict studded areas and urban centers. These are not small numbers, but they also don’t tell the entire truth due to many factors, but mostly that many Ugandans are still not testing their status.

Further, complacency to anti-retroviral medication treatment, sustained beliefs in mysticism and witchcraft as well as partaking in risky sexual expeditions are key domains of Uganda’s regular lifestyles. And yet it is empirically known fact that the most common route of HIV infection is through the sexual route and blood transfusion. Somehow, irrespective of unintended accidents, HIV can majorly gain entrance in the human body through the body fluid – blood.

In the early 90s, it was excusable for anyone to conduct themselves dangerously as to have unprotected sex with an excuse that they didn't know how to access and use condoms. Many did not have explicit access to HIV screening or testing services. These arguments should be stale in the current epoch because condoms have been with us for the last 30 years and with the advances in media coverage and telecommunication system in Uganda, not using condoms or testing for HIV and other preventable diseases is no longer justifiable.

Therefore, a behaviour change effort must be made through a combination of policies and a deliberate reflexivity from cultural standpoints if we are to tackle the HIV scourge.

Further, Ugandan society is still largely patriarchal along its social and cultural landscapes. What this means is that age and gender remains major factors of subordination. Males are still repressive of the females and older individuals are still suppressive of the younger ones. In essence, women and young people – both boys and girls- continue to internalize their position in society as that of being submissive to the older and more so when they are men, making them easy prey. This fact also corresponds to high prevalence rates among this group (15-19 at 7.3% and women at 8.3%). Further, the people on retroviral treatment appear to be healthy and yet, their health also becomes the resource for their silence that leads to the spread of the virus – most especially when they are “loaded” or acting as sugar-mommies.

Research have found that it is the men who are more reluctant to seek HIV testing and even when they know that they are infected, they still blame it on their sexual victims who happen to be women or younger individuals than them.

This brings me to the issue of HIV prevalence and incident rates. These are epidemiological terms meaning “new” and “existing” cases of HIV among a population of 1000 people. In Uganda, the estimated national prevalence rate is about 7% and the total estimated number of people considered to be HIV carriers are 2.2 millions as of 2012.

These figures are contestable irrespective of whether they are World Health Organization's estimates or from Ministry of Health in Uganda. My contentions are as follows; most of Ugandans who seek HIV screening are Urbanites and often they chance on the results upon seeking treatment for other symptoms.

 In as long as Ugandans are asymptomatic, they would endure all sorts of silent killer diseases, like hypertension, diabetes and HIV infection, without seeking care. It is during this time that they will also distribute the virus indiscriminately. Therefore, most HIV statistics are taken at focal points when it is too late and yet it is very difficult to draw inferences for deaths outside the hospital where rural autopsy would consign it as witchcraft, poisoning or suicide. Therefore, a conservative estimate would say that the national prevalence rate is about 13% and the total number of incidences of HIV at about 5 million people!

Healthcare system’s deficit

Further, the failures of our healthcare system to succinctly capture, record and follow children who are born with the virus adds weight to the numbers dilemma. In the early 90s when Rakai was symbolic of the HIV/AIDS debacle, we were shown so many orphans whose parents had died due to HIV/AIDS. Most of these children were born with the infection. Today, they have become of age and some of them are pretty humbled by their modest upbringing under churches and orphanages. Many of them are virgins while a host o f them are the ones jumping helter skelter on the street with mind blowing minis and stilettos.

Unfortunately, the state cannot account for these and yet they are occasionally adding to the increasing number of HIV prevalence in Uganda.

The fight against HIV/AIDS is failing, not because of a single factor, but a multiplicity. This also means that the solution to the HIV problem should be an integrated approach that focuses on behavioural change at all levels of society. Ugandans must become bold to reclaim their moral aptitude and begin to conduct themselves with some sense of purpose beyond hedonism.

The Uganda of today is as tense as and worse off than Biblical Soddom and Gomorrah with promiscuity. Literally every married couple is a cheat and every person in authority is corrupt. In essence, Uganda is a country where both the cat and the mouse fight to swallow each other, such that each has become fearful of the other. The elders who should reinforce morals are themselves so devoid of such authority and yet the young people, in whose hands our futures should behold, are running amok with a life so precariously!

Integrated systems

Finally, the healthcare system requires restructuring to ensure that it is expanded outwardly to treat the community more than the individual. A combination of community based medical model which integrates social behavioural and biomedical sciences can help mediate between individuals and their precarious cultures. This model offers a formidable fruitful venture in healthcare investment, at public and private sector levels. This will also imply that we stop treating symptoms, but we treat the disease, the people and community all at once and it comes at a lower cost to the public purse.

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Mediocrity in Uganda's politics

MEDIOCRITY

In the last issue of his column, “The Last Word: The missing intellectual voice”, published in The Independent of June 21, 2013, Andrew Mwenda revealed interesting traits of the social and political transformation in Uganda. Mr. Mwenda validated my long standing belief that Uganda’s politics has become the dumping ground for mediocrity.

I would like to agree to some observations made in that article but deviate fundamentally from the interpretation that public spaces have been dominated by intellectually inept and professionally unsuccessful Ugandans. This observance would signify a depredation of the aptitude of ordinary Ugandans, most of whom have become who they are - maligned and justifiably angry and bitter - because of the government that they have, and not because they have failed professionally.

Indeed, the level of mediocrity that dogs our politics reflects also the kind of dominant players who shape the political spheres. The brutality by which the NRM regime applies to diminish avenues of civil engagement has mediated the suppression of quality public discourses.

The regime has violated every article of the constitution on fundamental human rights and liberties with impunity. It has trampled on our freedom of speech, association, and other fundamental requisite conditions of human relations necessary for free intellectual nurturance to inspire enlightenment.

The regime is at most, delusional when demanded to account and thrives on the reproduction of uncritical masses; it proposes draconian laws such as denial of bail; preventive confinement; indiscriminate use of teargas and now the draconian Public Order Bill which literally requires that to socialize minimally, even under malwa, groups must obtain police permission.  The use of brutality as preeminent instrument of legitimation of political authority tends to discourage the intellectual middle-class from participating in the political spheres.

Pierre Bourdieu, a French sociologist once discovered that the nature of public education carries an essentially arbitrary cultural scheme based on power domination. More widely, Bourdieu concluded that the reproduction of culture through education is shown to play a key part in the reproduction of the whole social and political systems. In relations, the mediocrity prevailing in the social and political spheres in Uganda, are produced and reproduced by the regime’s established social and political cultures which significantly impact on the quality of socio-political discourses.

Mr. Mwenda opines that successful middle class are committing a blunder by retreating into the comfort zones of their professional successes, thereby ceding the public realms to those who lack values and skills to enlightened politics. Indeed, the so-called successful middle-class in Uganda is a group subject to state patronage (custody). 

The larger composite of this group are a creation of the system, either processed through statehouse scholarships scheme and/or seconded to positions that they hold at the behest of the regime as cadres. Majority of the seemingly successful middle-class in Uganda qualifies as atypical middle-class and are incapable of self replenishment without direct state intervention. This group cannot participate in shaping the political spheres out of absolute fear of severing the state patronage that holds each one of them in place. 

In essence, they are in intellectuals in captivity whose false values then manifests as a simultaneously paradoxical state of being calm/submissive, reflective/protective, refined/loyal, thoughtful/indebted, balanced/secured and insightful/fearfulness to legitimize their very occupancy of social and political spaces. After all, in the real intellectual world, the most accomplished intellectuals actually disdain complexity and hold themselves with utmost simplicity and humility.

The folly of the so-called intellectuals and accomplished professionals can be identified in their abstract imperial tastes. Mostly, they bay for western ideals and use such calibrations to judge their repressed and maligned fellow citizens harshly as inadequate. In their worlds, the description of being professionally successful encompasses hobnobbing between Presidential suites in various capital cities to sell their souls here and there; associating with what is western as litmus test of class and self actualization; working for international NGOs and to some, consorting with foreigners and so forth.

In reality, Uganda as a whole has been transformed into a state of mediocrity, whether you view it from the standpoint of an intellectual, peasant, middle-class or otherwise. Uganda is a place where the coupling of autonomy and intellectual engagement are denied thereby shrinking the extent of intellectual development. It is a place where intellectualism is dismissed as dissent and mediocrity uplifted by the state as the “new normal”.  

The true middle-class is holed up in intellectual captivity. This explains why graduates of Uganda’s Universities and Colleges perform relatively well in professional atmospheres outside of Uganda where they enjoy fundamental freedom to think and express their thoughts in the form of innovations. Even Ugandans who would pass for angry social media gurus, when accorded free intellectual spaces to exert themselves, they would thrive.

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Yowana Yakubu's Law: Abolishing corporal Punishment

CORPORAL PUNISHMENT

My heart sunk with agony of a tremendous loss after reading about the death of Yowana Yakubu of Iganga. Yowana, a nine years old pupil lost his life at a tender age in the presence of his teacher, Ms Kiwanuka. The teacher ordered a whipping for the victim by a fellow student over a common misdemeanor of "talking in class". This reckless cause of death has yet deprived Uganda of a young life in its infancy. A law against corporal punishment in our school must inevitably get enacted and named in memory of Yowana Yakubu. The story of Yowana Yakubu (RIP) is not a rare coincidence. 

Corporal punishment has been a feature of Uganda’s education system for many decades. Like the colonial curriculum that Uganda’s educators can’t overhaul, corporal punish has already found a life of its own inside that very system.

There was progress being made towards eliminating this vice from the education system. Research in all aspects of education reveals that beating a child is not one of the ways of enforcing learning. Usually, terror elicits survival and rowdy instincts, not learning curiosity and yet the Ugandan education system remains pegged to the use of such a rudimentary method.

I recall very well that in 1997, the government had put a moratorium on any forms of corporal punishment in schools. Subsequently, corporal punishment was abolished completely when UPE policy came into effect. A parent would have expected that beating students ceased to exist a decade or two ago.

The real challenge is that the quality of teacher’s education has not changed to reflect new methods of reinforcing discipline other than corporal punishment. Uganda’s elementary school teachers are some of the most poorly educated in the world. With certificates and college diplomas, Uganda’s teachers are below their counterparts in middle income or first world countries in formative years’ education with masters and PhD preparations. Unless a pragmatic approach is adopted to improve on the standards and quality of our teaching workforce, our schools will remain a chaotic place in the third world and will not create a vibrant workforce suitable for a first world country.

The life of Yowana Yakubu was a very special one. The lad had lost his mother and was taken to a village in Iganga, Eastern Uganda, to live with his poor grandmother. In many ways, Yowana was the consolation item for the grandmother and perhaps, a reason for the poor lady to have to cope with the loss of the daughter (mother of Yowana). Now, this teacher decided to make a fatal decision that, even if unintended to have taken the life of the child, was reckless enough to have done so.

For the last couple of years, my work in public schools and the community ensured that I promoted the enforcement of Sabrina’s law here in Toronto. Sabrina Shannon was an eccentric girl, quite inspirational, warm and kind hearted toward her peers and the people around her. In 2003, Sabrina died in her first secondary school year. Sabrina’s cause of death was an anaphylactic reaction triggered by diary protein which came from cross contamination of tongs used for poutine which made contact with her fries at the school Canteen.

Sabrina’s death shocked the entire school system and the Province and raised the issue of school safety. Through the deliberate activism of Sabrina’s parents to prevent other children from meeting such avoidable deaths, the Province of Ontario adopted the Sabrina’s Law.  In 2005, the Sabrina’s law (Bill 3), also known as “Anaphylactic Law”, was passed into legislation and it became effective in all schools in Ontario. The law requires that all schools trains its employees, including janitors and bus drivers, how to identify anaphylactic situations, respond adequately and where necessary, administer the epi-pen (epinphylin injection) to save life of the child. In Ontario, all children with allergies have their epi-pens at hand and their pictures are displayed in the Principal’s office for monitoring of symptoms. Measures to prevent any episodes of allergies, such as a ban on all nuts and other known allergens have been put in place and these rules are monitored frequently.

Given the swift response of the Police to the scene of Yowana’s death, one would expect that such an awful event could be the tipping point for Ministry of Education and the government of Uganda to take stern actions against the ministration of corporal punishment in our schools. I would propose that anti-corporal punishment law be adopted and named "Yowana Yakubu’s Law" in memory of the nine years old lad deprived of life at a tender age.

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The roots of Museveni’s economic optimism

STATE-OF-THE-NATION ANALYSIS

            The quality of the State-of-the-Nation speech has clearly deteriorated. It is no longer a platform where the President provides accountability of what is transpiring in his regime. This year, we saw the President failing to account for his promises of previous years and in stead, loaded with semantics and the gospel.

            The key features of this State-of-the-Nation speech for me were the projection of the economic path and the mediocrity with which corruption was addressed. The President stated that the GDP is growing at the rate of 5.1% annually; inflation rate tamed to 3.6%; foreign reserves grown to US$3.3 billion; export earnings are trickling in at US$4.9b and; remittances from Ugandans from abroad has increased to US$767.26 millions. Interestingly, the total size of GDP of Uganda has expanded to Shs54.7 trillion (Read Daily Monitor). Because of these improvements in growth, the President projected that Uganda is on steady path to a social transformation which will see it become a first world country by 2050.

            The President also hinted that NRM is an expert in fighting corruption, giving examples of the corrupt officials in the office of the Prime Minister and in Public Service who are now facing legal actions. needless to mention that, no matter how these fellows are arraigned, as long as Permanent secretary Pius Bigirimana is still at large, the entire corruption fight will be undermined. There were many rants, but overall, as a citizen and one of the Ugandans abroad who contribute to the economy, I found this rosy painting of Uganda’s economic path to be an exaggeration beyond imagination.

            I would agree with the President that Uganda can be a middle income country by 2017 and first world country by 2050 if there were structures put in place to reconcile the current legal and black economies. First, the rampant corruption and poor service delivery attitudes in Uganda undermines any genuine development efforts; secondly, the President deliberately failed to recognize the unequal wealth distribution that is creating distinct disparities between citizens and classes. In painting a rosy picture of Uganda's future, it is obvious that the President is not speaking for all Ugandans and worst so, not even for the majority 70% of everyday Ugandans.

            Obviously, the fight against corruption in Uganda has failed because corruption as a vice is also the self sustaining production of state functionaries. The moral or ethical exhortations against corruption by religious institutions have also failed. The legal processes such as enacting laws, establishing rules and framing anti-corruption policies have also failed. These failures are inherent in the corrupt practices that prevail at each stage of these processes, such that each piece of anti-corruption legislation that emerges, becomes banal from the onset.

Class analysis

            To fully understand the complexity of the President’s challenge, a class analysis would be appropriate. This would enable us to understand which class is placed where, in the chain-link of corruption. Uganda’s class stratification could be simplified to include the ruling class, the working class and the peasants.

            Most of Uganda’s wealth is distributed among the political class, who are also the most corrupted, forming the top 1% on the corruption pyramid. This group relies solely on economic extortion and handouts from the state. The working class (lumpen proletariat), micro-traders, and the public servants form the 29%. These act as the main transmitters/deal brokers, distributors of corruption and the bridge between the 1% and the majority 70% comprising of peasants and powerless peri-urban (slum) dwellers, beggars, layabouts and so on.

The rampant corruption perpetuated by the ruling class has created two sets of parallel economy running concurrently; the legal economy and the illegal or “black” economy borne out of corruption, tax evasion, looting and stashing money in foreign banks in Switzerland, Israel, Rwanda etc.

            Conservatively, we can estimate that the current size of the black economy is up to about 50% of the legal economy considering the billions of taxpayer’s money that have been siphoned off and those unaccounted for in the last decade alone.

Some statistics

            On June 5^th, 2013, the Daily Monitor published a report in which the Uganda Revenue Authority listed about 310 companies that are bound to default its tax obligation. Among them is Hot-Loaf Bakery belonging to the President’s younger brother, Amos Nzeyi. The total owing from tax defaulting from these companies was estimated to be in the range of Shs.170.26b. On June 23, 2012, the government newspaper – The New Vision reported that Ugandans have stashed Shs.400b in the Swiss National Bank alone. This excludes the moneys in other countries such as Israel, UK, US and investments in foreign countries, such as Rwanda, Kenya and India. Already, Uganda’s annual budget depends on 29% of donors’ funding, a significant portion of which is lost to corruption annually. In fact, estimates by World Bank are that Uganda looses US $300M of donor money to corruption every year. These, with a plethora of illegal economic activities that goes under the radar, such as illegal trade in arms, timber, mineral resources, especially gold from Karamoja, land transactions, payment to ghost public servants and bribes solicited from investors, could amount to about 50% of our legal economy. And, it is getting even bigger!

The hands behind it
The perpetrators of the black economy are known. This shoddy deal is ring-fenced at the upper echelon and ranking associated with ruling family, security operative, foreign investors and the lumpen proletariats. The working class is coerced into corruption because of political patronage by the ruling class. The peasants have come to honor the vice since the legal and just process of wealth distribution has collapsed under the weight of the predatory ruling class and their associates.

Implications   

            It is important to put the significance of this “black” economy in perspective. First, this money is absolutely private capital with no legal control over it and no public scrutiny whatsoever. It is not taxed and society cannot use it for public good, such as investing in transportation, energy or health sectors. It is, in its own right, capital as any legal wealth but circulating away from the reach of the public.  No one fully understands the volume of this capital as it has evolved over the years. The implication is that the current ruling class is holding much of their capital outside the state control and yet they continue to feast also on public resources in such a predatory manner.  It is this class, which is unpatriotic and treacherous to Uganda and Africa as a whole.

            The above factors cloud the prospects of Uganda becoming a first world country in 2050 or a middle income country by 2017. The root of the Presidents’ optimism may perhaps be inspired by the capacity of the black economy in the hands of the ruling class of which he is a member.

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Media Censorship is the litmus test of a dictatorship

MEDIA CENSORSHIP

The Daily Monitor newspaper withered yet another storm that lasted 11 days for telling the truth every day. The DM is not only a respected independent newspaper; it is also the paper that many Ugandans identify with as a fair platform where all voices can find a home, unlike in the New Vision where all views must be sympathetic to NRM warped “ideals”. The media platform provided by the DM is a unique one which exemplifies cardinal principles of tolerance, equity and justice. At the bottom of it all, we realize that increased media censorship is the litmust test of a fully blown dictatorship.

The trade in truth telling is one which has unambiguous challenges. One of those is in the relative nature of the truth itself. What may appear to be the truth to one person may not be for the other. In that case, objective truth becomes the only means by which a franchise like the DM can survive in murky and corrupted country like Uganda where even the right hand of one person often doubts its left compatriot despite being on the same body and worked by the same brain.

Further, it is only rational that objective truth must be told at any cost every day even when this might rub some people in the wrong part of the shoulder. This lesson was learnt in the weeks that the DM was occupied by the Uganda Police and military personnel who claimed they were searching for a letter which was written by Gen Sejusa aka Tinyefuza. This letter claimed that there is a plan to assassinate senior military officers opposed to a Muhoozi project. Apparently, there is a grand plan to have Brig Muhoozi, the President’s son anointed heir apparent to the throne.

So, if we all agree that the truth must be told, where does a newspaper like DM go wrong in reporting what Gen Sejusa believed was the truth considering his portfolio as coordinator of national security? How on earth would DM or Redpepper verify such a claim other than believe it from the mouth of the horse itself? Gen Sejusa was the coordinator of security agencies in Uganda and therefore an authority and an impeccable source of information on the inside workings of security issues in Uganda.

The fact that the DM was bullied into apologizing for doing their work well does not eliminate the problem that Gen Sejusa wrote about. It only escalates the problem because we have learnt something new about the regime’s intolerance and fear of the truth. Little wonder then that most times, when public relations officers from any government institution address an issue, the first obvious lines expected are outright denial of basic facts, foolery and then loads of zingers.

Take for example the current military spokesman, Paddy Ankunda. He was not ashamed to deny the basic truth that some military officers are barred from retiring from the army. We all know that Kiiza Besigye was initially refused from leaving the army when he disagreed with the system. Tinyefuza was actually dragged back into the army using the most atrocious of means and in the news, the former army commander Gen Nyakairima was also refused a request to retire from the army.

The government should only be fair and stop compelling professionals to compromise on their ethics and performances. For instance, Ofwono Opondo is a journalist and he knows that the very umbilicus of journalism is tied to the code of confidentiality. A journalist is only one, when s/he can keep the integrity of his/her sources unexposed and can actually go to jail or loose life over revealing their sources.

Further, it is sad to know that the biggest impediment to verifying “truth” in a story is with the inability of government agencies to yield credible information or compel journalists to reveal their sources. If government could strengthen its data or information gathering and sharing mechanisms with the journalist, there would never be a problem of “untruth” arising. Very often, any truth, when reported by the media, is considered security threat. The dilemma is that the media does not have any benchmark to determine what portion of “truth” comprises security risk. For instance, would reporting graft involving a military officer, Cabinet Ministers or Prime Minister constitute national security threat?

Given the challenge that the DM and Redpepper newspapers endured, the media fraternity must take the opportunity to demand for respect, transparency and a mechanism through which objective truth can be reported without drawing acrimony from the state. It is unfortunate that the Uganda Police conducted itself in such a manner contemptuous to the rule of law when they refused to respect court orders to vacate the occupation of DM and Redpepper.

The role of responsible journalism in a young democracy like Uganda is no doubt situated at the very pinnacles of its evolution. Nonetheless, objective and responsible journalism does not mean arm twisting, one-sided censorship like what we expect the DM to oblige to, after making the apologies for no wrongs committed. The onus is on the state to improve on its commitment to constitutionalism and rule of law.

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Why we are incomplete human beings

INCOMPLETE HUMANS

Our conditions of existence really reveal how incomplete we are as human beings. The many addictions and contradictions that we endure continuously prune us to utter imperfection. We are endowed with innate deficiencies as part of our humanness. It is this deficiency which makes us incomplete that also drives us to the service of many vices, including greed. We are greedy not because we are in dire need of anything; it is because we are accustomed to believing that greed cures our incompleteness.

So, what are these rampant vices; deceit, corruption, mediocrity, impunity, callousness, malefactions, imprudence, violence, vitriol and lack of intestinal fortitude to live calm, just, meaningful life in a shared common? The answer to this dilemma is that the human project is incomplete.

The design of our immediate environment is to fetter a feeling of inadequacy in human kind. Through the social media, commercials that confront us daily, and the stereotype of prospects that our own guardians orientate us with, only set us up for the panic. The future is painted grimly as that of adversities requiring many struggles for which we are intensely schooled. The future struggles are defined, as “taking and getting”; “accumulating and owning”. One is raised to own property such as land and houses in such numbers that may not be of any material benefit. Success is defined as living a life of abundance associated with success. This is characterized by too much food to eat for one person and leftovers to throw; numerous vehicles to drive; countless sexual encounters and multiple children born and raised as imps in to further this vicious cycle of logical fallacy.

The undercurrents that drive the pursuit of our “success” are nothing but the fear of our deficiencies, our incomplete nature. We fortuitously believe that what we lack by nature can be complimented by accumulated material wealth. We have become accustomed to believing in money as our religious faith and materialism as our orthodoxy. Our children learn more about scarcity, growing up petrified of the essence of scarcity and yet, we have enough resources for every human being.

Mahatma Gandhi once said that there is enough for everyone to share on this planet, but there is hardly enough for the greedy. Indeed, the more we accumulate wealth, the more we take into our custody, that which should have been shared by the global common. The more we achieve what the society has normalized as “success”, the more we aggravate our incomplete nature. The rich become isolated and loose the power of social interconnectedness because in actual reality, accumulated wealth imprisons. For the deprived - “riffraffs” - Thomas Hobbes once observed that life becomes “nasty, brutish, and short” but fulfilling. For, the scholar and founders of Karma Kitchen, Nipun Mehta believes that the act of generosity and giving are always initiated by those who have the least.

The human nature will attempt to become complete and liberated when we learn to share. True power lies in the relationship of giving and sharing. As author Dan Hamburg once said, the consumer culture, the bourgeoise culture, is threatened not because it is bad or wrong, but because it is incomplete. It may have mastered the processes of material production, but it has failed miserably in addressing the challenges inherent in the social relations between the modes and processes of production, distribution of resources and environmental sustainability.

So, when we give and share, we unleash transformative power that leads to social interconnectedness within the human race. The experience of generative power of sharing is the token by which the human project can get set on its path toward completeness. It is the means by which humans can emerge from isolation into public realm as a freeman. Sharing is the viable means to cultivate networks that meaningfully link one human to another; transmit equitable sharing of global common, configures and compliments common points of deficiency.

Nipun Mehta, coined the term Giftivism, and defined it as “the practice of radically generous act that change the world”. And through the Kharma Kitchen, Mehta and his colleagues proved that the incompleteness of human nature can get assuaged by acts of sharing. When people give to those they hardly know and come to learn how helpful that gift was, in transforming the lives of those who needed it, the sense of completeness becomes indescribable.

Perhaps, through self search, we can start to understand that we have unconsciously inhibited the human project from getting complete by the vice of greed alone. We now know that we are a race in panic, afraid of an imaginary scarcity in the future. We enslave ourselves with material possession of things that have no value and place in our lives. We deprive those who desperately need these things and we debase their utility values by keeping them redundant in our custody. If we gave up our addiction to hoarding all the materials in our possession, we would become more accomplished.

Go check in your storage for the tires you don’t need and have not used, bed-frames, mattresses; go in your kitchen, look for the cutlery and utensils you don’t really use. Look in your quarters for empty rooms; in your food stores and fridges for the foods you are not eating. Give those out to the people who have immediate need for you.

END.