ARE OBOTE AND MUSEVENI DOCTORING UGANDA 'S HISTORY?

By

F.C. OWEYEGHA- AFUNADUULA

Website: http://www.afuna.org or http://www.afuna.o-f.com

Email:afunaduula2000@yahoo.co.uk or afunaduula@afuna.org

Tel: +256 78 555 222 or +256 71 845461

 

 

29.5.2005

The outcry is loud and clear. I mean the outcry against the cruel cycle of false religions, oppressive and manipulative politics, epicurianism of supposed leaders, greedy commerce (immoral and unethical business), science and technology without humanity, prayer without sacrifice, education without understanding and wisdom and ever- mushrooming impoverishment of human capacities of all kinds (thinking, reasoning, predicting, understanding, wisdom, teamwork, respect, and so on).

Especially serious is the rising impoverishment of Uganda in terms of moral, ethical, intellectual, political, social, cultural and environmental development. This apparently is the socio-political reality of Africa in general and Uganda in particular. It is the kind of reality that adroit adventurers wishing to rule forever can certainly, to their own and citizens' peril, sooner than later, exploit to enhance their political power. It is the reality in which sycophancy, patronage and imposed, almost irreducible, ignorance can be sown and perpetuated in governance as virtues, not vices. Call them political resources if you want to. That is what they actually are.

These are vices, which, unfortunately, are unlikely to be reflected in the “very attractive idea of gross domestic product” (GDP), but which reflect leadership and development failure in Africa in general and Uganda in particular. I think they, individually and jointly, are the principal cause of what is sometimes called negative synergy and virtually responsible for all the most “ill-advised” decisions -executive, legislative, judicial, academic, intellectual, military -you name it -that today predominate in our socio-cultural and socio-political fabrics.

To cover up this failure the rulers preoccupy themselves with self-praises and unreasonable demands on the hapless citizens to endorse every political scheme to dominate and use them (the hapless) to perpetually assure themselves (the rulers) of undiluted exploitation of the national cake for self-aggrandisement and unchallenged political power to this end. In Uganda, rulers are apt to include the costs thereof, particularly when they emerge as economic and social costs, as democracy in progress and justify the costs as “democracy is expensive” instead of “the regime is expensive”.

In the Uganda of today, it is the agents of the vices I have mentioned that are making history. They are taking advantage of the fact that crowds hardly make history. Well, who else in the times of Alexander the Great, Franco, Marcos, Mobutu, Napoleon III, Hitler, Mussolini, Bismarck , Mao Tse Tung or Stalin ever made history worth mentioning? Well, historians may mention some, but there is little doubt that historical accounts of the countries these people led centred on themselves.

And so when it is said that behind everything is the problem of leadership, this is close to the truth. In their attempts to dominate others and the process of history-making, such people, who have often manifested as demigods, have brushed all wisdom aside and manipulated the socio-political process to retain political power at all costs. Quite often militarism has been the kingpin of this resolve.

I do not have to belabour the historically common phenomenon of societal collapse and suffering that has always followed the downfall of the demigods. The downfall has often been postponed through all sorts of manipulations but it has always arrived and consumed its progenitors, who apparently seem to be shocked when the consumption begins. I am not saying anything new. That is it.

What, however, has sometimes bemused me is when the progenitors of the consumptive process (the rulers) have turned around to pretend that they are the ones who have the right, knowledge and wisdom to erase it. Is this a case of Satan turned Jesus? How exactly can we produce brothers of Jesus out of the agents of a “man-eat-man society”?

Look! Today our rulers are preaching unity while they are at the same time over-balkanising our country into minute, unviable units that can only be useful for political manipulation into humans just for use to endorse a caste of rulers' perpetual rule. We have at least seen this happen in Parliament where the individual merit-manufactured masses only come out to vote for unpopular motions favouring the caste of rulers. It is likely that some vote while sleeping with open eyes! I am cocksure that they are being used by President Museveni to make history. There is a belief among Movement rulers that the history of Uganda starts in 1986. One needs some “sleeping MPs” to make history through legislation.

This brings me to the gist of this article. But first, an important question: have we had genocide in the past because some power-seekers, who have claimed to be liberators, have also wanted to make their own histories? It may be. Moral historian Jonathan Glover once wrote in his “Humanity -a moral history of the 20 th Century”, “The genocide (in the same land) was not spontaneous eruption of tribal hatred. It was planned by people wanting to keep power”. What does this tell us about the war in Northern Uganda whose impact manifests more like genocide?

There you are: the craze for political power, which so often ends up making a once peaceful, hospitable people turn against each other for political advantage of the power hungry who depict themselves as peace crusaders often by military means. Isn't this kind of craze for political power, which pushed a biblical king to build the Tower of Babel that crumbled in its wake, precipitating (lingual) confusion? No. Wait a minute. What about Angel Lucifer in Heaven, who as the Bible says, is here with us roaring like a lion looking for one after the other to devour?

My worry is when rulers or those seeking to rule begin to think that they can rewrite history that has been made for decades, centuries or millennia for self preservation or sanctification. It is very serious when someone disrespects a people and starts to rewrite its history to fit his wildest dreams of mind and physical control of that people. I am penning about the real danger of doctoring the history of a people. Call it perversion if you remember how Adolph Hitler at his wildest perverted science to fit his schemes, or how in Uganda some rulers have perverted the law, law-making or even the judicial process to political ends. Oh! Yah! The end justifies the means!

Because of the real possibility of doctoring history, Sam Olara wrote his “Correct political narratives in the name of history' (The Monitor, 6 th May 2005). It is also because of this possibility that I wrote my “Political lies of leaders make them no role models” (The Monitor, 26 April 2005).

Wrote Olara, “Political pundits will agree that Obote, just like Museveni, will rewrite Uganda's entire history in honour of his legacy given the chance: the former along UPC lines and the latter along FRONASA, UPM and NRM lines, better still along Museveni[te] lines”.

Both Museveni and Obote have written what can be interpreted as historical accounts of Uganda 's socio-political manifestation. Obote has done so in his “Obote: my own story”. Museveni has done so in his “The Mustard Seed: the struggle for freedom and democracy, which unfortunately, perhaps unintentionally, justifies “killing” in the name of freedom or democracy as a democratic ideal. The question is: have the two principal antagonists in Uganda 's political quagmire been busy doctoring our history to purify themselves and gain political advantage over each other under the long arm of public scrutiny of their political and/or military excesses?

I do not know whether I should deny or accept this possibility. However, suffice to cite historian Michael Stanford who in his “A companion to the study of history” wrote:

"Any history told by seekers of power or by their friends must be regarded with utmost suspicion ”.

Why not believe Stanford? When Museveni wrote his Mustard Seed, didn't he make sure that Colonel Kiiza Besigye's name did not appear on any of the pages of the Book? Tell me, if Museveni wrote another history account, do you think the names of Tumukunde, Bidandi Ssali, Sabiti, Kategaya, Matembe who think that politicians are good at keeping promises and have made it their business to remind him that he, during the last presidential elections in 2001, said that was the last time he was seeking the Office of President, would he acknowledge them as having helped his revolution to continue changing its colours like the Chameleon does?

By the way, haven't they heard Museveni's erstwhile challenger, the one who received the instruments of power from the colonialists on 9th October 1962, say that he (Museveni) only tells the truth by accident? If this is the case, when exactly did President Museveni begin to tell the truth that they should religiously believe him? Even if he was religious, didn't philosopher and political thinker Machiavelli counsel rulers [and their wives] to pretend to be religious if they wanted to rule for a long time?

And when Obote belatedly comes out with his “Obote: my own story”, won't you forgive or agree with those who think that having been demonised by Museveni, even called a ghost and swine by him, the old man may find it irresistible to exclude sentences that “must” do the historical cleansing or whitewashing in order to obliterate unfavourable historical events? If we are to go by the counsel of Stanford, is this one hundred percent impossible?

Well, my view is this. One can say that more than any other rulers of Uganda , it is Museveni and Obote that have dominated our politics in varying measure. Both are eager to outdo one another. Just like some despots in history have said “if the law stands in our way it is the law, not us, that must change”, it is very possible that a ruler or former ruler wishing to clean his role in history will be tempted to say “If historical accounts misrepresent me or what I believe, then history, not me, must change”. But at what cost to humanity?

Alexander the Great, Barre, Doo, Stephens, Gorbarechev, Marcos, Mobutu, Habyarimana, Amin, Obote, you name them -the world is punctuated with examples of men in power who wanted to twist their countries' histories but ended up pushing their people down the path of ruin.

The fall of Alexander the Great for, example, was followed by Greece breaking up into numerous smaller kingdoms, eventually giving way to the Roman Empire . In the wake of the break-up of the Soviet Union emerged numerous nations which have ended up being devoured by international capitalism. Barre's Somalia converted into an enclave of ever-feuding clans -four of them (imagine if Busoga, with over 100 clans, was in the place of Somalia !).

Uganda , as earlier mentioned, is currently being balkanised for political advantage -history being made -but we have to wait, perhaps for not too long, to see what the country will collapse into beyond President Museveni. Should we expect an empire to emerge in the wake of Uganda collapsing as did happen in the case of Greece ? By what name will it be called? Who will be its first Emperor? Your guess is as good as mine.

It is easier to create an empire out of small, non-viable entities. They are too weak to resist such an eventuality. If the 100-clan strong Busoga, the most clanned nationality in Uganda , can be balkanised into numerous non-viable units, then we shall be closer to achieving the perfect conditions for a new empire in Uganda -the second after Bunyoro-Kitara. What will it be: history in the making, history repeating itself, history to destroy or what? When it happens, someone will have rewritten history or rewound the historical clock. Choose what your own thinking ptrfers. I think both are meaningful.