Thursday, September 17, 2009
Imagine that the first foreign contacts with Afrika were gradual, peaceful and respectful. Afrika would now have a bigger population. The social fabric would have evolved rather than disrupted. Foreign religions would have blended with Afrikan’s, providing more meaning. Instead, the contacts were violent and traumatic, stripping her of her dignity, with repercussions that reverberate to this day.
In Afrika today, there is a small percentage of the filthy rich, few of whom have achieved wealth by dint of skills in industry and commerce. Many have looted the coffers of the state, leaving poor infrastructures and poor service deliveries for the rest of the taxpaying population.
What kind of people are these looters? They are the people who went to missionary or other related schools. Many of them profess to be Christians. Some who are serious about Christianity have but a perfunctory knowledge beyond claiming to be “saved.” Generally then Christianity is not a way of living but a social occasion on Sunday. A few of the “educated” class have read western classics, and may be aware of the genesis of how and why they think the way they do. Many, however, excelled in the utilitarian school subjects in order to earn a living in the new Afrika. This latter lot may not be cognizant of from whence their thought process originates.
All this is operating in a milieu in which traditional cultural wisdom no longer has leadership. The young person now looks to Europe and America as the source of what is good.. Armed only with the natural ego-centric self, the desires of acquisition and the destruction of those perceived to stand in the way becomes the mode of operation. There in lies what ails Afrika. But it should not be that way.
If traditional African wisdom, through traditional leadership, were revived and practiced it could provide the umbilical cord to extend to the new way. We have many such models in Afrika—for examples Ghana and South Africa—and other parts of the world, such as Japan.
Now, let us take the case of Uganda in which Mr. Museveni is reputed to have fought for the revival of traditional tribal leadership. It is evident that his motivations were only self-serving, to gain favors originally from mainly the Baganda population. Now the exercise has been extended to others for strategic political expediency. The next person who comes to power (the sooner, the better) should take the case of traditional tribal leadership as a matter of top priority. Genuine and honest debates should be devoid of political horse-trading. Let us put this dog to rest and attend to other business of living.
Odiya
UAH forumist
Comments
An Independent Disregard to the Truth!
Thanks to social networks like Twitter and Facebook! They have given ordinary folks a platform to challenge and rebuttal government or main steam media stories. Citizen journalism is an antidote to their untruths!
Andrew Mwenda’s most recent article dated September 17, 2009 and titled: Perspective: Mwenda on Mengo, deserves such rebuttal!
http://www.independent.co.ug/index.php/component/content/article/106-myblog/1799-perspective-mwenda-on-mengo
Mwenda is an admirable daredevil Ugandan journalist that has courageously stood up to president Museveni’s over extended rule. His latest commentary on Mengo, however, is not just inflammatory, its a reckless disregard to the truth! It also shows Mwenda’s luck of Social Intellegince, a subject you can read about at this link: http://www.karlalbrecht.com/articles/socialintelligence.shtml
The following comment is a direct quote from Uganda Talks online:
http://www.independent.co.ug/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1796&Itemid=0
written by Yehuda Yusuf, September 16, 2009
“Okello
I ama jew, but Idetect you come from N Ug. Why would you like a national debate on restoration when there was none on abrogating the constitution. In fact if M7 had been fare with Baganda and the rest of Ugandans he should have re-instated the 1962 constitution. All the chaos started when Obote tampered with what took all the colonial years to put in place. M7 is simply manipulating that situation and people like you make their analyses bombastically but miss the point. Real liberation for all Ugandans is when 1962 constitution is back in place then Liberation. For now, you lot (Ugandans) keep up the fight against M7″
Like president Museveni, Mwenda is unnecessarily pitying Uganda”s ethnic diversity against Baganda’s historical heritage.
For one, the Baganda are just as vulnerable to political intrigue & corruption just like any other ethnic group, regardless of their five centuries of organized leadership that Mwenda points out; and their history demonstrates that!
Second, Dr. Obote was an able and astute leader up until his falling out with the Kabaka and his Mengo agitators. Thats the only credit Mwenda’s article can get!
Dr. Obote was also married to Maria Kalule, a Muganda lady that he remained royal to up to his death.
To characterize that as “lumpens” is a reckless disregard to the truth, and Mwenda owes Dr Obote’s family an apology.
Dr. Obote’s failure as a leader stemmed from the same footsteps our current leader is trekking. i. e. Perpetual leadership stay in power in Uganda goes back to precolonial times and it leaves a lingering bad test in many peoples mouths!
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=135301718127&ref=mf
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=132084383127
On the rector scale of Buganda’s political upheavals, the 9/11/09 eruptions have been minor! The last such upheaval saw the dissolution of the Buganda kingdom and eventual unfortunate death in exile of King Ronald Muwenda Mutebi’s father.
This eruption is unlikely to end the same way. The times are different and there is some level of tolerance and room for reconciliations for such eruptions in Africa, as the examples of Kenya and Zimbabwe have recently shown.
The political amalgam in Buganda might lay dormant again and everyone will go about their business; but unless the underlying lingering problems like poverty, unemployment among the the large numbers of disaffected urban youths are addressed, such eruptions are more likely than not to reoccur.
In the preface to his book Social Intelligence ( SI ), the author Karl Albrecht describes SI as: ” … the ability to get along with others and to get them to cooperate with you.”
In today’s world, the ability to connect with people is a crucial success skill. According to Dr. Karl Albrecht,
“More people have lost jobs, friends, marriages and mates as a result of poor interpersonal skills than for all other reasons combined. The simple fact is that people who have a highly developed sense of social intelligence have more friends, better relationships, more successful careers and happier lives than those who lack those skills.”
If you carefully analyze the core root of these recent riots, the ability for the antagonists to connect with each other was missing!
Dr. Albercht goes on to describe: two extremes of SI as “very low and very high – in metaphoric terms as either “toxic” or “nourishing”
Toxic behaviors by his definition “are those that cause others to feel devalued, inadequate, intimidated, angry, frustrated, or guilty.”
Nourishing behaviors cause others to feel valued, capable, loved, respected, and appreciated.”
The extremes of SI combined to set the stage for the the unfortunate riots in Kampala!
One amazing section from this book needs to be quoted here: pages 224-225
“How the Worst Bastards on the Planet Get and Keep Power”
“Totalitarian leaders like Genghis Khan, Attila, Lenin, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Mao Tze-Tung, Pol pot, Idi Amin, and Saddam Hussein certainly could not kill thousands or millions of human beings single-handedly. They had to find ways to leverage the violence of others by acquiring power and projecting that power through various levels of their dynastic structures.
Typically, power accumulators – even those who have little or no evil intent – operate in approximately the same way. They generally follow a stage-wise process of building their power and influence over time. Studying some of the worst despots in history, we can readily observe four key phases:”
1. Networking
2. Coalition Building
3. Taking Over
4, Unrelenting Consolidaion
“Many people forget – or never knew – that Adolph Hitler came to power as a result of free and open elections. But once he got to the center of the ruling coalition, the National Socialist party, he moved quickly and ruthlessly to consolidate his power. The take-over phase usually involves a significant risk and requires that the would-be ruler act aggressively in order to acquire position power in the minds of the other members of the coalition. Many aspiring despots fail at this phase, either because their rivals manage to dilute their influence, because the followers see an evil side of them that they don’t like, or because the timing and circumstances don’t offer the right set of imperatives to get behind an aggressive leader. The aspiring despot who succeeds in the take-over phase reaches a tipping point of influence. after which he has a more or less official entitlement in the eyes of others to decide, direct, control, reward, and punish.”
Fellow (u)Ugandans!,
Greetings!! I am new to UAH forum having been told of the its existence by a friend. I visited the website and have been reading some of the postings.
I have found that most of the posting are about Buganda, Buganda and more Buganda alongside the elusive “federo” quest. In other words the UAH is Buganda eccentric forum rather that being Uganda eccentric. Which makes me to wonder aloud: why not call the forum Buganda-At-Heart (BAH) in stead of Uganda-At-Heart? This really is what this forum is all about – to serve the interests of Buganda and Baganda at the expense of other Ugandans.
For those of you who are pushing for tribal “federo”, please do so while bearing in mind that Uganda has other Ugandans who are not Baganda and that their interests, concerns, fears and views are taken in consideration in the “federo” debacle.
I therefore find it ridiculous that the Baganda are purporting to demand “federo” from Museveni instead of talking to other Ugandans.Museveni has no “federo” to offer. Rather it is the 24 million Ugandans who are not Baganda who can give the 6 million Ugandans who are baganda “federo”.
Lastly, being a non Muganda I was “privileged” to have lived through the recent riots in Kampala. The situation here was a near genocide. The charged Baganda targeted other Ugandans for attack based on tribe. In the illegal road blocks that they had set up innocent people were being asked to sing a “Ekitiibwa kya Buganda” as a test – failure of which attracted serious beating, molestation and even death. Many women from western Uganda especially were undressed and forced to march around naked. Some were raped.
Though I come from eastern Uganda my own sister was unfortunate enough to be light skinned and was branded a Munyakole and was physically assaulted in Seeta! She survived being raped due to the sudden appearance of Police at the scene but lost all her property. She is still nursing an injured limb.
The other method that was used to identify non Baganda for harassment was being asked to give a detailed lineage of your family background as Baganda do. You can be sure that a lot of non Baganda paid a heavy price. Their crime?!: not being a Muganda when it mattered most!!!!. Incidentally even some Baganda with ‘long’ noses were harassed.
I wonder whether those who write glowingly about the recent riots from the safety of foreign lands really know what happened in Uganda at that time when the name of the Kabaka and Buganda was invoked to commit all manner of heinous crimes against other Ugandans some of who have been supporting Buganda demand for “federo” ?