Rwenzori politics, indeed a tip of an ancient iceberg between state and cultural institutions.

July 4^th 2014, the almost long forgotten chaos returned to the mountainous regions of Rwenzori after “unknown” group of armed assailants launched synchronized attacks on major govt installations. The attackers had enveloped their mission objectives under existing ethnic tensions between the Bakonzo and Ba-amba ethnic groups that dates back to 1950s before establishment of the state Uganda by colonial powers.

In the 80s, anomalies between state and cultural leaderships in Rwenzori had prompted creation of the ADF rebel group that had taken advantage of the then confusion between state and the kingdom by promising to settle repressions and unfair treatment of the minority, by installing an Islamic state system of governance on Uganda!

Now by then, the young and wise Mr. Museveni stealthily applied wisdom he had gained through long analytical study of faulty lines in various cultural settings in Uganda that had been left destabilized by colonial powers and early state operators. He skillfully involved processes of dialogue, amnesty and compensations to minority groups that felt mistreated and misrepresented. He had recognized co-existence of state and cultural institutions as a core value in forming peace deals throughout Uganda.

Days that followed people who had been involved in rebellious activities against the state (imams, tribal chiefs, princes and kings) abandoned their hostilities and were re-united through amnesty in nation building activities. In those wonderful days, the president’s wits in conflict resolution had worked a miracle on the self exiled Mumbere of the Rwenzururu [earlier believed to have been a potential  force that drove the ADF] into coming back home and represent his people in Ugandan politics through cultural leadership.

But today, there seems to be a change in the winds and mentalities that helped in forging peace and various freedoms as we’ve known them. Whispers are heard in corridors of power advising the president to reconsider liberties of cultural institutions, while at the same time requesting an iron grip on the Muslim communities of Uganda, but what happens if cultural leaders find an alternative to their current predicament or if currently the state fails to account for the three murdered Muslim clerics with links to past conflicts?

EXPLOSIVES, TERRORISM AND A WESTGATE IN KAMPALA.

EXPLOSIVES:

I’ve always been fascinated how explosives worked, how such a small quantity of substance or matter carried such a huge size of violent energy!

I grew up in a colorful and highly populated urban area with neighbors from different social groups and cultures. One common thing with such communities that have been through all sorts of motions in life is their value of life and happy moments. These [people] may be construction workers, street vendors, domestic workers, or just refugees drifting through urban life simply to survive whatever threatens their livelihood.

This kind of community doesn’t hesitate celebrating anything in life, be it some political holiday on a calendar, for it’s like [these celebrations] are some sort of psychological anaesthetic to their ways of life. But as usual, cultural diversity always causes different values in community to conflict; it’s the fluidity of these communities that makes it hard for one to hold a grudge for long, reason being everyone’s reliance is on the other.

 An explosive is a substance made out of different mixtures of chemicals with high atomic numbers of carbon (as fuels and not diamonds), Nitrogen, Oxygen, and binders. Some explosives [even high explosives such as RDX] will burn quietly if they are not confined, compacted or detonated. All explosives need to be detonated [sending or forcing a much violent shockwave through their molecular structures, breaking their chemical bonds] in order to achieve the exploding violent effect while releasing excessive amounts of heat energy.

TERRORISM:

Is this ever going to solve any problem, lets grow up.

Terrorism is a multi-faced monster that survives on other already established life forms. It’s a science adopted by the mentally incompetent, a guerrilla tactic for defeated and fragmented forces. When isolated from societal equilibriums, it dries and wastes away; but its strengths are boosted in ethnocentric societies. It is a tiny virus created through complex political and sociological failed formulas.

WESTGATE IN KAMPALA?.....Nuh

 Al-shabaab a terrorist organization based or rooted in Somalia has long been issuing warnings of “retaliation” attacks on all states involved in the regional peace forces inside Somalia (AMISOM). Since the 1998 twin attacks on US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam to date, these terrorists have tried, but in vain, to hold our conscience hostage that we may up rise against our governments demanding withdraw of our forces from Somalia. They assume (the terrorist) that by attacking and staging horrific scenes in public places where innocent civilians go about their businesses, discontent against the government will grow, security agencies be provoked into rampage harassing the Ugandan Somali community to the extent of creating anger and frustration between the two which was nonexistent, then later all Somalis everywhere would seek retaliation thus turning to the Al-shabaab terrorists to satisfy their discontent. But they miscalculate Uganda’s rich cultural diversity, our vast experience of past conflicts, and our natural internal political skill that continually builds around us a tough immune system from the plague of terrorism.

On the other hand, ethnic tensions and constant wrangling between the two biggest ethnic groups in Kenya, the Kikuyu and Luo, has created a power vacuum that state machinery, especially intelligence services, is on the brink of collapse. This selfish and unpatriotic culture they’ve gloomed since their independence, the “every man to himself” and “the man eat man” tendencies that drives their communities but slowly reshaping their cultural values, have made Kenya a perfect terrorist’s holiday venue. 

We can still tame the beast of terrorism.

SUMMARY:  

Just like any explosive would require to be confined and detonated, so are society’s value mechanisms. Confines of selfishness, unsacrificing/unforgiveness plus the explosive and violent nature of ethnic tensions, terrorism would be so complex to understand or even terminate from society. In the movie “the last Samurai”, an American captain is hired by the Japanese emperor to help in fighting and bringing to submission the Samurai who had rejected to conform to the new western culture which they believed was meant to destroy the true Japanese cultural values. In battle, all the emperor’ soldiers are defeated and the American captain captured by the Samurai and taken to their hill country, where leader of the Samurai rebellion decides that they teach their prisoner the secrets of the Samurai warrior and in return, he would teach them his culture! Later the two are surprised to find out that they were all the same in many ways that they became more than blood brothers.

The same can be applied to East Africa’s terrorism puzzle if we are to defeat its ideology which is always based on foundations of fear and hate.

ETERNAL HERITAGE OF UGANDA

Murchison falls

Of recent as I was scrolling down my Facebook page, I came across a post by a friend I met on this famous social site Facebook, questioning [due to current political disturbances in Kampala] whether  Uganda was still worthy of being referred to as a land of freedom. To be honest with you dear reader, this question about our freedoms as Ugandans and urban dwellers stirred up my thoughts deeply about nature of interpretation had late prof. George Kakoma when writing the Ugandan national anthem mentioning Uganda as a land of freedom!......

A charged political environment had been the hostile climates that brewed the independence struggles of the 60s.  Drums of wars and rebellion were being played loud all across the east African region. Calling upon all natives of the land into resistance against the white-man supremacy on black African soil.

What had over-shadowed prof. George Kakoma’s vision and understanding of things into seeing a different Uganda from the rest of his kinsmen?

Oppressions of the British on the black-man had given way to anarchistic ideas in many African societies of those evil dark days of the past. It was very easy to think of war as the only means our societies were to survive! Peace was distant, an illusion painted in the fog and smoke screen of armed conflict, an almost impossible dream! Writing a song of freedom [let alone singing it] would have been interpreted as blasphemous to crusaders carrying banners and sounding trumpets of independence freedom across black Africa.

In his song, the late prof. George Kakoma [RIP] highlighted true meanings of our freedoms as a nation. Freedom isn’t the total absence of chaos, but the tranquility we allow ourselves to experience in the midst of chaos. Also, there had been strong evidences environmentally, climatically, socially and economically that overwhelmed dark forces existing from threatening, confusing and over shadowing truths of our heritage to things temporary. For our heritage, the land of our fore-fathers is eternal.

So, is Uganda a land of freedom?

Farmers tilling their gardens in remote distant villages will answer yes to that question, for their lands haven’t lost fertility all these years or have rains stopped coming in their seasons to shower their fields.

Multitudes of different animal species living peacefully in our many game parks would answer yes to that question, for the lion curbs haven’t lacked a single day their providence or our elephants lacked green pastures, the Nile hasn’t stopped flowing with fresh waters irrigating far regions of the Sahara, the Hippos at Jinja source of the Nile and crocodiles on the shores of lake Victoria have never and will never lack.   

Snow still covers mt. Rwenzori and mt. Elgon still finds reason and pride to smoke, Pine, mahogany and Cyprus trees are still standing and growing tall in our forests, hundreds of different bird species sing daily in our many rain forests and how beautiful are their songs of beauty, Green and beautiful are the Teregian mountains flowing with life giving streams!

Different are our many tribes, but united we stand as a powerful nation, our cultural diversities are a design of beauty and colorfulness to our societies.

Uganda the land of freedom, the garden of God, the pearl of Africa, my motherland and home of my ancestors.

We are free not because man defines and sets limits to our freedoms, but because we are simply born free.