Uganda: The decline of common sense under neoliberal economic arrangement

NEOLIBERALISM

Global capitalism has indeed reached a new hiatus with its corollary - neoliberalism. Neoliberalism has become inescapable as it is quickly fusing physical and mental boundaries, globally.

To understand this neoliberalism phenomenon well, one needs to look at it as a package of capitalist prescriptions – kind of a tool box to dismantle economic and cultural boundaries for purpose of exploiting and under developing emerging economies and peripheral cultures. The phenomenon lurks as structured and purposively driven by Multinational corporations from global North in cahoots with corrupted ruling class in the global south.

This neoliberalism package includes commands for structural adjustment, deregulation, privatization, cost-sharing, individualism and strict market rules. The prices that global south societies have to pay since neoliberalism set foot amidst them, has been dire. Many of these countries have remained poor and under developed. The public is quickly replaced by the private, the common by individual, and what used to be free are slapped with costs, leading to social inequality. In the process, neoliberalism subverts social order and produces individuals that are antagonistic to traditions, self-serving, vicious and unconscionable.

In that sense, in Uganda today, we see a terrible decline in common sense among the population – young and old. The decline in common sense is a sign that neoliberalism has not only taken a firm foothold, it has also obliterated, and in some sense, transformed our society from the communitarian society it was to something alien - individualistic and opportunistic society. Like it is in America where neighbors no longer recognize each other, leave alone socialise meaningfully, social capital in Uganda has also declined.

Our attitude to society is most pathetic. We no longer value our cultures, we attack it viciously. At a small provocation, we quickly race to the mountain top to denounce a cultural practice in lieu of alien western traditions. We no longer value our elders, to seek counsel and wisdom; we race to google to find cultural studies of western society as a basis for our arguments, to sound elitist. We are diminished in character.

Individualism is a recipe for social distrust on a large scale. In America, the clamour for private property is reflected in its charter of rights, and the adherence to the gun culture for protection of the self and property embodies this distrust. In our customary community systems, property were protected and shared by the community based on need. Small incremental use ensured equitable distribution. In capitalist society many people die from social inequalities resulting from individual greed than from diseases itself. The quality of life for the majority who are deprived of resources for health also declines. Stratification and Commodification favors the top 5% of so, who controls nearly 85% of society's wealth.

This corporate agenda is a monster that needs taming. Corporations are replicating a unique form of colonialism, let's call corporate colonialism. Corporations now control every aspect of our social life – they control the air we breathe, through their industrial wastes and manufacturing, they control the foods that we eat, through their ultra-processed salty, sugary or oil-drenched foods, and they control our seeds too.

In our traditional societies, seed autonomy was the cornerstone of food security. The Ugandan Parliament recently passed a Bill to deprive farmers of this seed autonomy, but allowing genetically modified seeds corporation to take control of our farmers' seed autonomy. I am sure, for the most, they passed this law out of ignorance. Given their innately corrupted nature, perhaps the hands of corporations might have rested heavily in their pockets. You can tell that common sense has declined terribly in that Parliament. It is that we are now trapped in the money nexus. You don't give away seed autonomy to corporations that develop seeds with terminator genes – seeds whose harvest cannot become seeds again.

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The role of America in the making of global Shitholes

 IMPERIALISM

 The US President, Donald Trump  made some very uncharitable remarks about places that offload refugees to the USA. In Trump’s own words, these places, like Africa, Haiti and others, are "Shitholes". He wondered why people from Shithole places come to America in the very first place.

I like the innate nature of Donald Trump's blazing honesty, or call it ignorance and more so, racism. Yes, these places are indeed shitholes. However, this utterance, which was not denied by the Whitehouse spokespersons, reveals what Donald Trump is – narcissistic bigot.

Mr. Trump has never been politically correct. Not that political correctness is a savvy thing for politicians and public trust holders of these days. It is that the lack of it also reveals a lack of sophistication. Political correctness masks a lot of prejudices and xenophobia. It compels people to speak in the opposites – saying things contradictory to their first instincts.

Trump is a natural that way. He is really naturally bigoted and says things refined politicians would rather swallow their tongues for, even if they hold similar positions privately. Mr. Trump's no-holds-barred approach on politics has allowed some sensible Americans to reflect on their own values – racism. Trump even lacks depth as a racist - even with his prejudice against non-whites. Yes, prejudice, and maybe bigotry is the American value that Trump represents. Trump is definitely ignorant about the history of America’s violent capitalism that makes shitholes of other countries.

I have always had my misgivings for an American Presidential candidate promising to make America great again. America cannot be great without suppressing others for its greatness. Making America great again means making more of a shithole out of the peripheral economies. And, America has used its foreign policies to bully, exploit, and stages dictators in Africa and Latin America. Donald Trump, in his lack of sophistication, is unaware of these glaring historical hegemony of USA.

Trump is a typical product of Capitalism with all its contradictions. Liberal economic environment tends to mould rational humans into practical idiots. Such individuals suffer social isolation for their lust for materialism, and are insulated from the rest of the world outside their narrow spheres of money making. As a billionaire, Trump is all about money and that pomp that money brings - corporate success and wealth. Irrespective of how these corporations succeed, the capitalist in Trump projects a typically unconscionable persona whose respect for materialism supersedes realities of those who make people like him rich. These bunches are greedy, ignorant, insensitive and unattached to consequences of their exploitation. Little wonder then that Trump denies the facts of global warming!

Trump is the liberal version of kim Jong-Un. Someone smarter than a dotard needs to step up to coach him the ABCs of centuries’ long effects of America’s foreign policies and its effects on peripheral economies. Even a simple history of Haiti – France imbroglio could suffice.

 The dominance and devastating imposition of the US currency – the dollar on those shithole economies, and the plethora of inequitable trade agreements that allows America to exploit and transform these places into “shitholes” conveniently eludes Trump. It is on purpose and by design.

Nonetheless, the critical role of Donald Trump’s America in staging dictators that ravage peripheral countries into a shithole so as to make America great again must be highlighted. As long as every African and Haitian Presidents tow the Whitehouse, or WB/IMF economic policies, they can suppress their people, violate human rights, and plunder these economies into a Shithole. America as a superpower is nothing but full of double standards and contradictions.

Incidentally, for his love of Norway, DT needs be reminded that Norwegians are too rich that they consider America a Shithole!

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Uganda's Menace: There is no place for a Third Force in polarised society

Third Force Menace

The idea of the "third force" in Uganda's body politics is improbable. Such ideas compound the debate ideological confusion in our politics. The third force idea appeals as an excuse for laggards or an easy escape route for those who are afraid of dramatic change to the politics upon which they have derived privileges.

This group is problematic as it galvanises the lackadaisical elite attitude of hanging-on the fence when a call for change beckons.

The social and political history of Uganda is fraught with sensational and yet tragic episodes of polarising politics. These historical experiences generate and sustain social and political inequalities that are compounded by a protracted dominance by one group over the others. The central premise of this argument is that organised and peaceful transition in leadership of the country offers the most considerable chance to lessen the burden of social and political inequalities exacted on us by our tragic history. In the first instance, these dominant groups rose to power by escalating the polarisation in this society. Polarisation, and not national unity, became the mobilising tool or ideology of the ruling class.  

The culture of mutual exclusivity in the nation’s polity further ferment a permanent state of instability that gives relevance to the use of colonial era laws and repressive instruments. The polarising forces become too compelling to accommodate any new middle position such as a third force - considered treacherous and essentially subversive.

A case for FDC and NRM reveals such a lack of clarity of nationalist mobilizing ideology.

The actual difference between these Parties arises from the mainstream NRM parting ways with their original socialist- cum - Marxist ideals that once made the group coherent and formidable. As adherents of neo-imperialists/neoliberal economic policies of the Brenton Woods Institution, the NRM is now self serving and imperial in all its facets.

In making sense of that development, the FDC party strives to rediscover their original ideological standpoint, maybe even adopting a neo-Marxist or centre left politics.  

The ruling NRM has increasingly become right wing (similar in policies to the US Republicans or Conservatives) - embracing radical neo-liberalism with a confusing mix of Pan-Africanism or whatever hogwash they call “liberation ideology” that uses colonial modes of oppression and social control.  Ironically, with total disregard to Uganda’s communitarian ideals. This ideological confusion persists across the extremes, and prominent in the ruling Party through contradictions in what they say (the rhetoric) and what they do (the practical).

The free market works best where liberal rights, democracy and individualism thrives. Neoliberalism is not just an economic policy. It comes as a package including liberal rights, deregulation, privatization, cost-sharing and strong anti-statist sentiments. Many western countries have tried this economic theory and realized after the WWI that liberal markets do not after all eliminate poverty. They then proceeded to establish welfare state systems and where welfare states are weak, like in the US, strong direct state intervention in critical section of the economy through subsidies to farmers and tax relieve to big business take place. Critical social service such as public education, libraries, transportation, healthcare, social security is made universal.

Unfortunately, Uganda’s market economy is infantile, atypical and blindly implemented for purposes of political survival of the ruling class. The NRM became an imperial agent striving to under-develop Uganda by staking and destroying the resources of Africa for their own survival.  

The third force formed out of fear of a mere transition, without fully comprehending the ongoing frontline of social, economic and political contestation, cannot gain relevance.

The FDC seems to demand for increased role of the state in mediating essential social services delivery such as education, health, social security, energy on the basis of good governance. It offers a far better option than the so-called third force.

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Harnessing Africa: Is Neoliberalism working for Africa?

NEOLIBERALISM

The global news of black African youths in their prime being traded in an open slave market in Libya was a harsh reality. The resurgence of slave markets is probably another failure of neo-liberalism. Where liberal democracy and liberal rights should be the mainstay of a liberal society we find its proponents subverting liberal democracy by funding military dictatorships.

Modern day slave trade is a moral crisis that reveals the contradiction of lack of liberal rights in a liberal market situation. Human trafficking of disadvantaged women and children alone grosses US$150 billion annually, with sex trade generating US$99 billion, according to a 2014 International Labour Organization figures.

The skeleton of the slavery era spanning over three centuries still dangles in our closets. Despite attempts to whitewash global social inequities arising out of that abuse with offers of ethereal affirmation and liberal rights, limited democracy suffocates any progress.

 Slavery is reproduced and packaged in different forms - debt bondage, colonialism, imperialism and arms race - these conditions have transformed Africa into breeding ground for slaves. There are no specific safeguards against the vice under this monster - neoliberalism. Free market philosophy has come with its demand for unregulated labor, and it comes with increasingly precarious and demeaning exploitative jobs.

The costs associated with the hyped development under the so-called free-markets undermine the underprivileged, underdeveloped and under-resourced population setting them up for a tenuous situation for harnessing into slavery.  According to Credit Suisse, in 2017, the global richest 1% owns 50.1% of global wealth, signifying a rise from a 42.5% in 2008. Moreover, this wealth distribution and location demonstrate how the global south is peripheral – dispossessed.

In the meantime, the states are diminishing at an alarming rate, retaining a thin political authority over the liberal markets. Most of these states are captives of, and operating entirely on institutional economic framework prescribed by IMF/WB. One of their star performers (victims) – Uganda - for instance,  mediate slavery of its own people through state registered agencies that export  under-developed human resources for cheap house-help labour to Asia and Caribbean.

 The African economies seem to work only for the few transnational corporations and its turncoats - the corrupted state agents who conspire to exploit and plunder the continent.

More Africans have lost customary property – land. Many now strive to trade their labor cheaply to foreign investors, without union privileges. The World Migration Report 2015 establishes that Africa has the highest rural to urban migration where migrants poverty, discrimination, crowding, diseases, and exclusion, and so forth, form inelastic urban facilities and services.

How else could the proponents of neoliberal policies in Africa explain the high migration rates – the mass preindustrial migration from rural to urban centers? Or, the high unemployment rates, alcohol/drug abuse, and suicide among Africa's youthful population?  Are these also indicators of economic development, or under development?

  

The resurgence of slave markets may be a strong indicator of the chaotic and devastating nature of neoliberal ideology that undermines state authorities in preference for liberal markets.

Hundreds of indigent Africans flee and drown frequently while crossing the oceans to seek for decent jobs in Europe or America. Many are denied work visa on racist and inhuman grounds such as lack of previous record of travel, or inability to demonstrate strong ties to home country to guarantee their returns.

These are ridiculous visa conditions given that the very economic policies are breaking families, forcing people off their land and property, and harnessing their labour for cheap exchange.

Neoliberal policies in Africa needs a comprehensive evaluating quite urgently. The harsh realities of this economic policy seem to outwear its benefits in Africa after nearly 30 years. Africa is facing severely masked under-development socially, economically and politically. The challenge is that liberal markets without liberal rights and liberal democracy cannot flourish in Africa.

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Muntu cannot be a Museveni spy

CONSPIRACY

Competitions tend to bring the best and the worst among contemporaries, but, attaching the spy claim on Muntu will hurt FDC the most. FDC adherents must stop labelling Muntu an NRM mole. Such labelling highlights the success of the propaganda machinery of the establishment to sow discord within the party.

Gen. Muntu is above the pettiness of spying for the NRM. When FDC opened its doors for membership, it expected that the establishment would infiltrate its ranks and files with informants. That is what a sitting regime does. There are many in there, but Gen Muntu is definitely not one of them.

We should know that negative words hurt when hurled at you, even if you ignore them. The label of spying cast against Gen Muntu socialises him in two contradicting worlds – a persistent false image against his legitimate dedications.

To reduce Muntu's to such pettiness harms the Party as it requires constant self-validating before the party supporters. Gen Muntu is not an ordinary citizen to start with. His past and present engagements with the regime are not matters of secrecy, speculation or awe. Gen Muntu, like all those honchos in FDC, have their roots in the very system that they are committed now to dismantle. Those historical ties, are both their fortunes and baggage to carry simulteneously.

In honesty, it is easy to sell Gen. Muntu as a spy for CIA, KGB, Mossad, Chinese, Mi5, Rwanda, EAC, and so forth. Spying for Museveni is an oxymoron. One would rather contract-spy for Salva Kiir at that point!

FDC as a great potential with properly nurturance. It continues to attract credible political actors with diverse experiences and high levels of maturity. FDC has held itself together in part because of these men and women who value above all, the institution before individuals. This is a rare trait in existing politics of Uganda.

We have seen those who, because of strong tribal and inane sense of entitlement, hurriedly left FDC to nurse their ambitions elsewhere. Those hopes to flourish quickly evaporated and now they have to constantly hug, and massage the fingers of the tyrant for a living.

The lessons are visible – we can no longer build a tribal based political party with a narrow ethnic-based mobilising ideology; more so, depending entirely on urban based elites to galvanize the revolutionary sentiments abound in Uganda is itself, politically suicidal. Gen. Muntu might have quickly reflected on these lessons and correctly returned to the fold. Let FDC embrace and trust Muntu fully, as a priceless asset! Those undemocratic elements aspire for the "third way" politics, the ultra-hybrid politics of sitting on the fence, should try their luck.

Gallantry espoused by men like Gen. Muntu afford FDC integrity and a renewed sense of purpose. The triumph of a mature liberal democracy resides in tolerance of such diversity for the maximization of transformative ideas. It is shameful for FDC MPs from Gen Muntu's camp who have accused Dr. Kizza Besigye of being a dictator, when, in essence, they themselves, exhibit every trait of the same malady, including poor loser culture. Such elements undermine the most vital aspect of their Party structures – the election and transition processes.

Most importantly, the body and the soul co-exist, and so, the new FDC President, Eng. Patrick Amuriat should embody the physical presence of FDC, while Gen. Muntu becomes the conscience - the soul. One tactician, the other a strategist. Enough room exists for both individuals proffer. The Party needs a leader with a finishing instinct, in as much as a philosopher to engineer the structures. Only through their combined efforts shall the structures materialise. The Party shall then become stronger and appealing for the treacherous task of liberation.

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A tribute to Dr. Kizza Besigye’s branding

TRIBUTE

A few political commentators tend to under-state the efforts of Dr. Kizza Besigye (KB) in reclaiming the political space we have today. Although bravery is a scant virtue among any oppressed population, KB's gallantry has concrete achievements. The oppressed people often adapt to their state of oppression by submitting or emulating the ways of their Oppressors. KB's successes in resisting all these mechanism are monumental.

Oppression tends to deform its victims – compromising their senses of reality, self-worth, and imaginations by impeding both mental and physically developments.

You can identify oppressed people by their dependency, timidity, and low confidence when navigating their environment – many become socially obscure, coarse, and duplicitous in their dealings.

To appreciate KB’s achievements, one has to understand such environments and obtaining circumstance where untruth operates as the truth and violence as state symbol. After three decades of systematic oppression, people become weary, aloof, and distrusting. Gallant men like KB only sustain their paradoxical existence of hope/hopelessness.

The anti-KB sentiments represent those on the side of hopelessness. It is a prerequisite for holding a pie from the state's breadbasket.

The internalization process of oppression is appealing because it attracts such rewards as Presidential appointment. Interpret the terse environment in an imperceptive manner helps to validate their failures to thrive independently, and thus, accosting providence.

In that way, KB is a unique brand – a self-sacrificing living legend with a vision for good governance and equality for humankind by breaking the traditions of oppression. 

However, after decades of oppression, any prospects of obtaining a state of liberation is daunting to the oppressed. They have never known freedom - how to live free of state patronage. To them, every aspect of life's glimmer arises from the "glorious" benevolence of the tyrant.

There are Ugandans who, without reservation, claim that KB's activism has not moved Uganda far. Some even claim that KB is a spent force because he has not dismantled the dictatorship. There are many strange explanations in dismissing KB; all compromised versions of the truth, all of which help to rationalize the ascendancy of the tyranny.

These apologists never confront the social, political, and structural imbalances and commonplace restraints mounted against a free society - the very conditions upon which they are meticulously dominated, exploited, and oppressed.

There is imperceptible fear to recognise sham rituals such as fake elections, corruption, over-zealously militarised police, and personalised armies, all of which conflate to the perpetuation of unequal society and oppressive states.

How can an army or police forces that are functionaries of dictatorship become professional?

The KB success story cannot be told as a singular narrative isolated from the complex and adverse political context in which it obtains. The roles of his colleagues and institutions they built, without which, they could not have claimed the political space that we have today must also suffice.

KB tested and exposed the lack of professionalism in the various personalized institutions that hold the tyranny in place and found them all wanting. The army is a personalized instrument of power of Mr. Museveni, culpable to the highest levels of nepotism, sectarianism, and corruption in as much as the Police, and other departments in abeyance with that regime.

The Kayihura Uganda Police, I think, is modeled after Adolf Hitler's notorious Gestapo.

Profoundly, KB exposed the Museveni’s gibberish talks about constitutionalism and rule of law – revealing that the people control neither the power nor the will to decide on how they want to be governed.

And, KB exposed two contradicting societies – one that is above the laws with command over every resources; and the other, constructed in the sub-state zone under oppression and exploitation. It experiences egregious laws requiring the state to decide for them when to associate, talk to each other, laugh, play, and make merry or gloomy.

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Uganda: State undermining suffering Workers

UNDERMINING UNIONS

The doctors opted to strike over poor remunerations, which compromise their work ethics. The doctors’ plight is understandable. Doctors in public facilities earn on average, about US$300 per month.  This abuse is unheard of anywhere in the world. In Kenya, the recent doctors’ industrial action ended with a decent settlement where interns earn US$ 1,900 and the highest consultants earn about US$5600 a month. The state’s insensitivity to income inequality and widespread rent seeking signifies deliberate undermining of labour and their unions.

The doctors are seeking for equitable pay and improved work conditions. Public resources should not only fund political expediences. The decaying public institutions need fixing, too. Too much politics of self-aggrandizement has deteriorated critical social services.

Ugandans are dying too often from conditions caused by social inequities.

Industrial actions are commonplace these days and perceived to target the state actors, rather than the private sector employers (corporations and businesses).  This is largely because the Ugandan liberal market is under-developed, and atypical. The market-labor relations are equally atypical due to patrimonial indulgences by the state and sub-state actors who constantly distort the markets.

David Booth and Frederick Golooba-Mutebi studied the formation and influences of developmental patrimonialism in Rwanda where state’s legitimate interests in the market helps to shape the direction of the economy, reduces devastating rent seeking tendencies, and spur real economic growth as measured by reduction in poverty rates . How does patrimonialism shape Uganda’s liberal market?

Interestingly, the Uganda’s market economy is not the main employer of the fledgling youthful labour force. Therefore, externalities (concentrated political interests), rather than the market, regulates and moderate labour- capital relations. According to the 2016/17 Uganda National Household Survey (UNHS), the general unemployment rate was high, 9.5%, to signify that the economy was probably liberalizing fast without expanding, or diversifying in proportions to the growing labour force; and, about 60% of Ugandans are employed informally.

The high-end investors in manufacturing, agro-processing, Information technology, banking, energy, tourism, infrastructure development, and mining avoid chaotic Uganda. The local or crooked investors have come and run out of business due to political patronage, pervasive rent seeking, restricted liberal rights and freedoms, making Ugandan market highly risk-prone.  The political instability signals high potential for large-scale disruptions of the market, risks that investors avoid.

Today the major institution of the economy is not the market – rather, the state – the Presidency and political class who live off rent seeking. In this sense, the Ugandan economy is atypical in the real sense of a liberal economy as those shaped under ideologies of neoliberalism. 

Incidentally, the state tends to distances itself from social spending, especially in critical areas of childhood development, education, health, agriculture, and social securities. For instance, the budgetary allocation to social sector has declined from 37% in 2002/2003 to 19% in the 2017 budget. This expenditure is far below the global and emerging marketing standards where health social coverage remains as low as under 3.0%.

The striking civil servants fall in the social sectors where the state has reneged on its fiscal obligations. The state wishes to cede social service obligations to the private sector or liberal market.

Evidence shows that working and living conditions are far better in economies with high labour union densities.  Where unions thrive, pay inequities and poverty are reduced, and the sense of social justice supersedes that of economic justice. However, where the market is the dominant force, liberal rights are enforced but labour unions are suppressed. The objective of the capitalist class is maximization of profits by paying low wages and limiting benefits.

The 2014 Uganda Labour market profile identifies 40 workers unions, covering only 440,000 workers, or 3% of the labour force, constituting 13% of workers in the formal workforce.

Therefore, the state deliberately undermines labour and their unions just as it does to any forms of social and political rights.

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