A Captured State; From Citizens to Subjects

One of the things that history has taught me is the appreciation of conscientised minds. History, especially South Afrikan history, has taught me that revolution is a process of architecting a liberating pedagogy both of the oppressed and of the oppressor. And this process is not a spontaneous rapture, a once-off event. Rather, it’s a journey that demands that the mind is untaught what it had always accepted as truth, that the eyes are taught to see a new. Many people celebrate the class of June 1976 as a group of young revolutionaries who challenged the status quo, inspired by Steve Biko’s Black Consciousness Movement. But what people do not realise is that in fact, 1976 was a product of a mental revolution that had begun as far back as the year 1900.

Today’s focus is on my nation Uganda and it’s important to understand the Scramble and partition of Africa especially the Berlin conference of 1885. Smaller nations were divided up and unified into one modern Artificial nation. The new nations destroyed our citizenship and we became subjects of colonialism(the Queen). Because of that change, our forefathers put up stiff resistance and coupled with external factors like the World War,the colonialists started negotiations for,’self-rule’. From the onset of the colonialism, we the people lost our sovereignty and became the subjects of the new rulers that is to say those with guns.At the time of the handover,some of the local Africans were inexperienced and this led to some Africans wishing that the colonialist came back. Even sixty years after,some people still wish that the colonialists never left.Some writers in the Commonwealth have wished for the return of the colonialists which is an indictment of the current leadership.

“Here’s a piece of heresy…The British had the experience of governing and doing it competently. I am not justifying colonialism. But it is important to face the fact that British colonies, more or less, were expertly run. There was a distinct order during this time” Chinua Achebe.There was once a country , a personal history of Biafra. This kind of sentiment runs far and wide. Modern people get frustrated with their current governments and reminisce the old days. Chinua Achebe may have realized that the colonialists were better administration and this is a sad realization.

The Uganda Experiment; Uganda having been a fusion of modern States to make up citizens was expected to work. Concepts like Federal Governments were brought up in a society where power had already been captured so there was no independence.

There was a struggle for independence and the colonial powers had to give away the authority to people like teachers, accountants who were given guns to continue with the administration(read colonialism) . Our struggle didn’t mature to become the people’s struggle and for people to feel like they were in charge. Our leaders were mere headmasters of the former colonial powers. There has never been a peaceful transition in our nation and everyone who has come to power post 1966 has been a warlord. The current government posits that its liberation was a protracted people’s war but a closer look shows otherwise, the people were tired of the bad rule and identified themselves with the NRA to return to sanity. It is why some leaders have fallen out with the establishment because of the contradictions. After take over by the NRA in 1986, the promise was to have a transitional government and return the government to the people by conducting an election by 1990, but the National Resistance Council extended the period until 1995. The 1995 constitution was enacted and in February,it was to begin operation as the grund norm.

In 2005, Parliament voted to amend the constitution allowing a head of State to stand for office indefinitely as if that was enough the same house voted to amend the constitution on the age limit, this is something we’ll never recover from. Given that the NRA warlords have never left power, the only thing they have done is to entrench power. One may say, but they are democratically elected, again that is an issue for another day. There have been examples in Africa of leaders who got voted with over 85% but are then overthrown by the people,it begs a question, where was the overwhelming percentage that voted them in power.

Over the last few days, the Kenyan Gen Z have led a demonstration against the proposed Finance Bill 2024. There has been commentary from people online that,”As Kenyan youth are protesting against the Finance Bill, Ugandan Youth are on the Shifura Challenge. We are catching strays as Ugandans but here’s the context.

Right from days of the Kapenguria Six,Mau Mau, the struggle for independence was to a greater extent complete and people owned the struggle which is why days like Shuja make a lot of national significance. Public Participation is very key in Kenya and you will find any one talking about affairs of the country, there’s a video online of a Gen Alpha(below 8years) eating a hot dog and from the setting, you would expect her to be on Nickelodeon watching Scooby Doo or Teletubbies but she was eloquently saying that the president has failed them and instead of protecting them, the Security was killing them, it’s not everyday that you find a 6 year old talking national politics, Kenyans are citizens who own their country

In Uganda,every warlord sets up their own heroes day, the UPC government had May 27th as the day and when the NRA took over, the day was designated as 26th January , some people say that though actually they took over on the 25th of January but couldn’t celebrate the day because it coincided with the date for the take over by Idi Amin Dada

Mere Change of guards

On the steps of Parliament in January,1986, the current President said these words, “I don’t want to say a lot of words but number one, whoever thinks that what has been happening in the last two days is a mere change of guards,I think it’s a fundamental change” (Emphasis on I think)

The Swearing in ceremony,1986

There’s a reason he said,I think,he never wanted to become like the governments he was fighting but given my theory, the Ugandans have never been citizens and never owned their nation, so whoever accuses them of resorting to Shifura and Enkudi challenges, they have nothing to do because they have grown up in captivity, everything from assembly has been regulated . What happened was a mere change of guards where the current rulers replaced the past juntas and are simply carrying on the role of teachers with sticks(guns). It’s perhaps the reason why patriotism has to be taught, no body should be taught to love his/her nation.

This post was inspired by a comment from Zeno Othieno Owora who remarked, We are a captured State Roland, this was in response to my concern about the torching of Uganda House that housed the Ugandan Embassy. Article 22 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties states ” The premises of the mission shall be inviolable, the agents of the receiving State may not enter them except with the consent of the head of the mission” So the attack on our nation on Kenyatta Avenue should have been met with a protest note but what are Ugandans doing, they are making jokes about it and the reason is simple,we are not citizens but subjects.