Zabia Afzal: When that girl is your former classmate

Zabia Afzal Missing: When that girl is your former classmate

#FindZabia

On May 10^th, 2018, a York University PhD student and activist, Ms Zabia Afzan went missing in Toronto. The news of Zabia's disappearance shocked many of us who knew Zabia personally. It is until such a time when a young woman that you know well disappears that you start to feel shaken with the harsh reality of such assault against women.

I first met Zabia in the fall of 2010 at the prestigious Dalla Lana school of Public Health, the University of Toronto, for the MPH degree. Zabia stood out quite early during our program as an extremely intelligent student, quite critical and persistent. Beneath Zabia's beaming intelligence was a quiet, respectful, thoughtful and passionate student who pursued social justice and equity with intent. Zabia’s values bound us together as friends forever.

Zabia proceeded to the doctoral program in Health Policy and Equity at York University. Zabia where I was to meet her again. I went to practice, Zabia went for academia.

It was again in the fall of 2016 that I met Zabia on the stairs of the Faculty of Health building at York University on orientation day. Zabia was quite delighted to see me, and so was I.

Unfortunately, my first-year schedule conflicted with Zabia’s, thus, depriving us much of Zabia's enterprises. However, we occasionally met at the Graduate office while preparing for tutorials or counseling under graduate students.

The last time I saw Zabia was at the Ontario Institute of Studies in Education (OISE) in June of 2017 while I worked on a Journal article. The news of her disappearance, thus hit me hard.

We, in Zabia’s fraternity of scholarship felt horrified with the magnitude at which women have become victims of assault. Whether in Uganda, where a significant proportion of women are still subject to disappearance and gruesome murders, to the highly surveilled streets and alleys of Toronto.

The CBC news online reports and family sources observed that Zabia took an Uber from her home in Vaughan, York Region and drove to the Ashbridges Bay, a beach spread along L. Ontario at the Woodbine Ave and Lakeshore Boulevard, East end of Toronto. That is where she disappeared from, and where her purse and phone were discovered.

A multitude of volunteers responded to the family’s call and poured in the area to search for Zabia relentlessly. It is now 11 days and no positive news have emerged as our hearts sinks in agony for our friend. The Police has searched the waters and combed every land in the area for days.

Young women disappearing in Toronto area is not unusual. Several past incidences have occurred, moreover with tragic endings. Some disappearances have ended with body parts, either stashed in basements of their lover's homes, or mutilated and spread along the lake shore. Quite gruesome an experience to say the least. And yet, this City has this reputation of humility, peace and tranquility. How ironic?

The disappearance of Zabia is a threat to all young women, activists, and an assault on all the women. It is a counter statement that women cannot feel safe anywhere in a society where gender equality is emblazoned in its conscience.

Such a community enthusiasm and cooperation is what we need to sustain the search for Zabia. We wish her the very best and still hope she is found alive, soon.

Only few weeks ago, a 25 years old man, Alek Minassian rammed his truck onto pedestrians at the Yonge and Finch area killing 10 and injuring 15 innocent people. That incident was one of the most traumatizing episodes in the modern history of Toronto.

Disappearance of Zabia only adds an additional tragic layer to it!

The End.

Chilling murders: A travel advisory to Uganda is now in order

 MURDERS UGANDA

 The chilling kidnap and murder of Ms. Susan Magara has dented the faith of Ugandans in the security of this country. This crime was at another level of syndication, a high level of crime in the developing murder industry. The mystery of European "investors" dying in five-star hotels in Kampala had hit a new peak to displace the mystery of the murder of young women whose bodies were dumped in different bushes along the Kampala-Entebbe corridor. That series of murder superseded the assassination-type killings of Prosecutor Joan Magezi and AIGP, Felix Kaweesi.

The Kaweesi killing was somehow not very surprising although the manner in which it was executed shocked the nation. It was like an over-filling balloon of murders that inevitably burst with a prick. There were murders, kidnaps and illegal detentions of businessmen and women already going on. The Police was already engulfed in these murders with a strong sense that Kaweesi was part of this criminality.

Before that, the unfettered killings of Muslim clerics had demystified assassinations in Uganda.  The general population had the impression that guns had proliferated the society. These things come along in predictable patterns like the hind legs of the cow follows the front. When crimes are committed and the authorities down play it, obscure facts about it, and fails to resolve it, that opens the door for more crimes. In fact, if the killers of Susan Magara are not apprehended, we shall yet witness a higher level and some more organized gruesome killings.

The series of shocking murders show how criminals have usurped and pervaded this nation. Most frightening is the fact that the Uganda police and a plethora of security organizations are literally unable to avert crime. This may beckon citizens’ indulgence in their own security.

The Magara murder affirms that the security people prefer reactionary approaches to dealing with crimes. The explanation could be that they are inextricably intertwined with these crimes, and some benefit from these crimes individually. You see, suspects apprehended, remain suspects with incomplete investigations to tie them to any of these crimes. Even then, many attests that they operate on behalf of, or in association with the security people; some are false suspects tortured into confession.

Ms Magara’s circumstances are certainly unique given the monies and involvement of the person of the President in the matter. She was privileged person in life and death. The criminals seem to have known their target quite well. They were not petty criminals - they are professionals who are well rehearsed and connected to the system. They were able to use unregistered sim cards. How so?

The paradox to grapple with is that with all these unresolved extra-judicial murders, it takes the Ugandan security operatives no less than 20 minutes to quickly mobilise, deploy, and contain a peaceful demonstration with precision.

More challenging is the choice of Kampala and Wakiso as the crime-end-scene. This is fascinating because of the dense network of security along the Kampala – Entebbe corridor. The security lapse raises concerns that the security operatives are primary suspects or key enablers of these crimes.

Unfortunately, some of the victims are so ordinary that the Mr. Museveni thinks they are prostitutes and drunkards. Such unfortunate considerations only demonstrate the nature of an incompetent and illegitimate state that is distanced from the unadorned realities of its own people.

It is increasingly obvious that security instrument of the state is organised and structured to protect the political ambitions, wealth, and cronies of one person – Mr. Museveni.

Without guaranteeing the security for persons and their properties, Ugandans in diaspora are advised against travelling to Uganda. Soon, more investors, their children, school children, tourists, and rural to urban migrants will become soft targets of kidnaps for ransom.

End

Nodding Disease: Felling the Acholi “Trees” by drying the foliage

 KILLING ACHOLI

Few days ago, I posted a request on my Facebook wall to Acholi MPs, asking them to update us on the state of the nodding disease in the region. Not one MP responded, except for their rather pesky apologists.

Our politicians are delicate, they tend to evade accountability and paradoxically object to critics vehemently over under performance. However, the law of evolution is clear – when the birds learn to fly without stopping, the hunter must also learn to shoot without missing. We have to develop resilience to pursue them relentlessly, respectfully.

The progression of the nodding disease, its dehumanizing impact on communities, families, and victims, and government's strategic neglect of the sufferings is disturbing and inhuman. Allowing this disease to feed unfettered on our children, is really felling the Acholi trees by drying out its foliage first.

This is an extended war of attrition against the Acholi people.

Last week, Mr. Sudhir Byaruhanga of NTV's Panorama program unveiled the extent of the nodding disease in Acholi region. This situation brought a chilling sense of national shame to Parliament and Ministry of health. This week, a reactionary Acholi Parliamentary Group woke up and decided to visit these children.

The NTV documentary exposed a lot of neglect and mobilized national support for these children. Towards the end of the documentary, one sees a dramatic Deputy Speaker, Rt. Hon. Jacob Oulanya, demonstrating a show of empathy. He even tried to squeeze a tear from one eye, which refused to come!

Parliament, which Hon. Oulanyah presides over, is the venue where national and supplemental budgets, and major policies are processed - debated, and passed. How often do these majority NRM MPs vote overwhelmingly for supplemental budgets, some purely for the conveniences of the ruling Party, or its leaders, while others for ameliorating drought situation in the cattle corridor?

That very NRM government Oulanyah serves has abdicated from its moral imperative of committing funds for nodding disease children of northern Uganda – an act which is unconstitutional, and in direct violation of the universal principle of health as a basic human right. The situation is dire, unjust, and morally inexcusable.

This is nothing personal to the Deputy Speaker, but, it is a shameful counterpoise to lies that voting for NRM has certain rewards. In sincerity, if such incentives existed, Hon. Oulanyah’s Omoro County could have been lavished with funding for these humiliating nodding disease victims with their struggling families.

The cost of caring for these children could never be too high for a national priority given the rampant corruption and extravagance on sectarian politics and public administration.

It is only clear that afflictions of northern Uganda are employed against the region, to punish it, and never placed as a national priority. Northern Uganda is the nagging and unwanted child of NRM's Uganda!

 In Mr. Byaruhanga's documentary, you could see that nearly all the children lived in squalid conditions of abject poverty. The poor housing, lack of food, poor hygiene, untamed environment, coupled with a demanding parental care or adult supervision needed for the safety of these children all determined mortality. Once these conditions were reversed, such that the children were provided with optimal care - medicine, food, adequate sleep, and clean environment, the children demonstrated tenacity and resilience towards recovery.

I doubt that the most the Deputy Speaker of Parliament can do to bring a spotlight on the nodding disease just wailing, or blaming doctors. The MPs could do better advocacy, lobbying, and pressuring the government and international development partners to lend a hand against a human catastrophe. This disease is a matter of global health. Without funds for medicine, care facility, and qualified staff, doctors are of little use.

Unfortunately, even UNICEF, World Vision, Plan, Caritas and all the big name children humanitarian organizations have looked the other way.

End.

How Africa's long serving regimes become Incompetent and illegitimate

STRONGMAN'S RULE

This year marks the 32^nd year since Mr. Museveni ascended to power by force. Other heads of states, such as Eduardos dos Santos, Theorodre Oguang Ngema in Equatorial Guinea, and Mobutu Sseseko of Zaire ruled for well over the 32 years mark. Currently, there are about 10 such Presidents in Sub-Sahara Africa whose longevity in power exceeds a generation of 25 years.

In nearly all these countries, the Presidents also presided over Africa's most impoverished and disparate societies, whose citizens are some of the world’s most suppressed, alienated, disempowered, and divided along parochial lines such as tribalism. For all the years in longevity, these countries produce and export colonial era produces – cash crops, are highly indebted, and fail to provide social services to its citizens. The longer the regime stays in power, the more it becomes incompetent and illegitimate, leading their nations to exploitation and under-development.

The proponents of such regimes, who construct and propagate idealized narratives to justify the dismal performances, are usually the gullible elites and foreign interests.

  

By incompetence, we mean the growing inability of these regimes to uphold the social contract and their dealignment of the mandate to fulfill the development needs of the people. That is, the failure to prioritize and deliver on the needs of its people when it should. By illegitimacy we mean the phony manner in which most of these regimes retain power.

There is an observable inverse function between these variables - the longer a regime stays in power (longevity) in Africa, the more they decay - become incompetent and illegitimate, - with inefficiency as a near natural consequence.

The incompetence starts with the regimes ceding critical policy matters to foreign interests (corporations, foreign powers, and so-called development partners), eventually becoming less accountable to their people, and growing accustomed to privileges resulting from the functions of social and historical structures (including colonial structures) that generate social inequalities.

No one African country that has had a leader for over 25 years was transformed within those years, from a primitive society to industrialized nation. Libya under Muammar Gadhafi became a dependent state, not an industrialized welfare state. Most of these countries are basket cases – as failed or failing states. Further, citizens in these countries become deformed, disempowered, and deprived of citizenship rights. These states tend to collapse with exit of such leaders because they survive by destroying the institutions of the state.

In nearly all these countries, citizens are disempowered that they cannot seek accountability from their government, they civic rights are diminished. Many are now subjects of modern slave trade and human trafficking.

The longevity also makes it possible for foreign interests such as IMF/WB and development partners, such as USAID, EU, DFID, to usurp critical domestic policy areas, shaping social and economic policies, to benefit western and eastern civilization.

There is need for a new generation of African thinkers to challenge this concept of strongman militarized longevity. Africans need to adhere to term limits more so than age limits for effective management of modern African societies and its resources to develop the continent. Several scholars have studied macro-economic policies that exploit Africa and anti-statist influence of neoliberalism - citing the roles of civil society, foundations/Charities (philanthrocapitalism), and African elites in undermining, reducing, and containing the state to a bare minimum.

 However, the strongmen’s regime typology in Africa has become an outstanding menace that subverts social and economic development of Africa. They promote under-development through their nepotistic/sectarian tendencies, for survival; incompetence in enacting pro-people’s social and economic policies; complacency to residual colonial structures of power and foreign interests; repressive to evade accountability; stratifying through a false and opportunistic elites to justify and normalize their incompetence and inefficiency.

In sum, most of the long serving regimes in Africa are not only incompetent but also illegitimate.

End.

Excessive state violence has alienated Ugandans from governance

REPRESSION

The extreme violence where Museveni and his NRM enthusiasts have taken Uganda's politics will alienate many people from meaningful participation in society’s affairs. Already, Ugandans feel helpless – that their votes mean nothing, and their voices, at every level of decision-making is muzzled by violent repression

Uganda is no longer for Ugandans and it is high time the mockery constituted in Art 1 of the overly adulterated 1995 Constitution, that power belongs to the people, got amended to state unequivocally that "power belongs to the State managers who own the guns".

Excessive state violence has alienating citizens from governance. The NRM mindset of violence is constituted horizontally and vertically. This serves to diminish legitimate interests in collective ownership of the State, and dehumanizes agents outside the shades of the repressive state.

The taming of the Police, militarizing, and criminalizing it, serves the symbolic purpose of also militarising the socio-political dimensions of society. This is how power is primarily courted in NRMO and applied to deform society. Ugandan society is now inverted - deformed, instead of being transformed. Uganda is deformed from a peaceful, hopeful and a united nation, into criminal, immoral, unconscionable and violent society.

Public consensus is now by violence, from ridiculous marriage requirements to bar brawls, decisions are coercive and fatal at a slight resistance. People now contend with marrying worthless partners for a fortune under family duress. Everything is overpriced, inflated and that is,on its own, a form of violence on our conscience!

We just lost a young talent, Mowzey Radio – a musician, whose death incidentally bound the nation together in awe of the degree of cruelty, violence, and the propensity to which all of us are culpable to this violence.

When Kanyumunyu  reportedly gunned down that youthful social worker, Akena, the nation was engulfed in a ball-fire of grief and rage. It seems violence at every level is inescapable in this parlance.

Today, many Kanyumunyus lurk on the street, waiting to strike again on the next victim. But, the Kanyumunyus are protected by the state and persons who associate with the violent state. They are at liberty to defend the morally indefensible acts of blatant murder. The big question that remains unanswered to this date is how weapons have permeated civilian realms in an era of terrorism.

Violence in Uganda cannot be divorced from the genesis and corpus of this regime - its formation, survival, and molding of society through decades and counting. Violence as an enterprise definitely is the modus operandi through which NRM has survived for decades.

The Foucaultian governmentality has come to full bearing – policies, constitutionalism, and delivery of social services are all designed on the basis of aggression - repression.

State agency is associated with aggressive and violent acts. Many Ugandans subsisting outside the shade of the state are increasingly being physically deformed as a result of state abuse of power. They are dehydrated, malnourished, sicker, fearful, shorter, and smaller than those protected under the violence of the state. In comparison, those within the nexus of the violent state realms are bulkier, greedy, fierce, armed, egoistical, and crooked.

For the most, social status is borne out of the violence of sectarianism. Ugandans now weigh their life circumstances with each other based on their tribes, not education or enterprises. There are those who work so hard but remain poor, and those that hardly labour but accumulate wealth quickly, or gain promotions faster than they deserve, just on accounts of their tribe. I think the incarcerated former DPC Kirumira eluded to this unfortunate reality. However, the UPDF and government Ministries offer the best case study of sectarianism under this Museveni regime.  

Every Ugandan today is familiar with, or has been violated by sectarianism, whether in private or public sector. Sectarianism is a form of tribal violence wrecked on others by the groups that hold power. It is the reason Baganda will hate Banyankole more than they ever hated northerners, when this regime falls.

End.

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.

End.

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!

End