Weary of cannibalistic government, Ugandans reserve doubts about President Museveni’s vague modernity ‘evangelism’

Weary of cannibalistic government, Ugandans reserve doubts about President Museveni’s vague modernity ‘evangelism’

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Globalisationn, which is the closer integration of the world economy, has facilitated the spread of pathogens among countries through the growth of trade and travel. The recent Covid 19 pandemic, unknown in the world before, is a good example.

There is no doubt that the religion of globalisation came after the religion of modernisation. However, in pursuit of domination of Uganda for decades, President Tibuhaburwa Museveni belatedly replaced the religion of globalisation with the religion of modernisation within the context of global capitalism.

However, by the time he did so capitalism was reaching the end of the road as a dominant ideology in international economic relations. The end of capitalism had begun decades before.

Writing in The Guardian of July 17, 2015, Paul Mason observed: “Without us noticing, we are entering the postcapitalist era. At the heart of further change to come is information technology, new ways of working and the sharing economy. The old ways will take a long while to disappear, but it’s time to be utopian”. He added, “As with the end of feudalism 500 years ago, capitalism’s replacement by post capitalism will be accelerated by external shocks and shaped by the emergence of a new kind of human being”.

Mason went on to write, “post-capitalism is possible because of three major changes information technology has brought about in the past 25 years (up to 2015): First, it has reduced the need for work, blurred the edges between work and free time and loosened the relationship between work and wage. Second, information is corroding the market’s ability to form prices correctly. That is because markets are based on scarcity while information is abundant. Third, we’re seeing the spontaneous rise of collaborative production: goods, services and organisations are appearing that no longer respond to the dictates of the market and the managerial hierarchy. The biggest information product in the world – Wikipedia – is made by volunteers for free, abolishing the encyclopaedia business and depriving the advertising industry of an estimated $3 billion a year in revenue”.

I am not sure if President Tibuhaburwa Museveni was aware of what was happening to capitalism when he struck newfound love within and chose to reinvent it in Uganda. However, he almost simultaneously reignited modernisation both as apolitical and economic tool. However, modernisation was and continues to be just a theory being preached as a reality.

By the time I came across the theory of modernisation during my undergraduate Development Studies at the University of Dar-es-Salaam in 1972, it had failed to metamorphose into a reality.in Africa and the rest of the underdeveloped world. The truth is that by the late 1960s opposition to modernisation theory developed because the theory was too general and did not fit all societies in quite the same way.

Yet, with the end of the Cold War between the East and West, a few attempts to revive modernisation theory were carried out but failed miserably. By that time most of our current aging or aged rulers in Uganda were at the tail-end of the teenage bracket. They did not know what was happening in the world, let alone to modernisation. By 1960, I myself was in Primary Four and more preoccupied with day to day living at the very margins of nature.

According to Mabonguje (2000), the modernisation theory was premised on flawed assumptions that were Eurocentric, Western, and which caused the post-colonial African leaders to neglect or even appropriate the bureaucracy in their countries, while not recognising its crucial role in growth and development in other parts of the world. Thomas Dun (2013) in his article “The Failings of Liberal Modernisation Theory”. Dependency, undemocratic practices, exclusion and socio-economic exploitation are some of the reasons why modernisation fails or failed long ago.

In this particular article I have detailed the negative consequences of the pursuit of modernity and modernisation in Uganda. We can actually characterize Uganda’s development, transformation and progress as ‘Development, transformation and progress by exclusion of the majority. This is what I have referred to as Apartheid style governance (of socio-economic development). We can as well refer to it as exclusionist socio-economic change. In this sense, social exclusion is “a state in which. individuals are unable to participate fully in economic, social, political and. cultural life, as well as the process leading to and sustaining such a state”.

Socioeconomic exclusion has cultural, economic, political, ecological and environmental dimensions. When socioeconomic exclusion is pronounced, the majority are excluded from any positive change.

The term social exclusion was used for the first time by former French Secretary of State for Social Action, René Lenoir (1974), to refer to the situation of certain groups of people − “the mentally and the physically handicapped, suicidal people, aged invalids, abused children, drug addicts, delinquents, single parents, multi-problem households, marginal, asocial persons, and other ‘social misfits.”

In the case of Uganda, however, we can include whole communities, whole ethnic groups and” whole indigenous groups among the currently socially excluded. Indeed, the groups mentioned by Rene Lenoir are most evident and supersonically increasing among the socially excluded whole communities, whole ethnic groups and whole indigenous groups

Social exclusion will be seen in education, health, agriculture and even justice and human rights observance. The majority will be ignored and a few will have it all. The law will tend to apply to the excluded, not the included, as exemplified in the iron sheets scandal.

Corruption is detectable social life, structure and function across all social strata in Uganda as government pursues modernisation and modernity as political and economic tools. In this case, corruption will be pursued as normal for the small group accessing power, opportunities and resources at the exclusion of others.

The president of Uganda was once quoted in the media as saying, “corruption builds the economy”. And very recently when the Inspector General of Government (IGG), Beti Kamya, unveiled the Life Style Audit as the tool she was going to use to combat corruption in government, the president cautioned her that if she did the thieves would take their loot out of the country and invest it elsewhere. This way the president failed both the United Nations Anti-Corruption Programme and the IGGs effort to combat corruption effectively. 

The Life Style Audit approach had successfully enabled the Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Hsien Loong to combat corruption in his country effectively. He did not spare both the big and small thieves of public funds.

Loong’s statement that “Anyone who breaks the rules will be caught and punished. No cover-up will be allowed, no matter how senior the officer or how embarrassing it may be” guided his onslaught against corruption. Billions of dollars that used to be stolen by individuals for their and their families gain were now available for the development, transformation and progress of Singapore.

Singapore is now in the First World as the Uganda government just talks about joining the group of middle-income countries. However, so long as corruption remains unconquered, this will remain but wishful thinking.

Meaningful development, transformation and progress must maximize social inclusion, economic inclusion, cultural inclusion, ecological inclusion, environmental inclusion, political inclusion and democratic inclusion.

Currently, as indicated elsewhere in this article, this is not the case under Uganda’s modernisation or modernity pursuit. Modernisation and modernity are being perfected as tools of exclusion and domination instead.

It is absolutely important that as we head towards the end of third decade of the new millennium politics is made to focus on inclusion, away from exclusion. This implies rethinking practice of politics and policies in every sector of the economy and sphere of life. In campaigns in electoral politics the relevant questions should be:

  1. How are we going to maximise social inclusion?
  2. How are we going to maximise economic inclusion?
  3. How are we going to maximise political inclusion?
  4. How are we going to maximise cultural inclusion?
  5. How are we going to maximise ecological inclusion?
  6. How are we going to maximise environmental inclusion?
  7. How are we going to ensure all citizen of Uganda organise themselves meaningfully and effectively for development, transformation and progress in their localities?
  8. How are we going to enhance local belonging and local democracy
  9. How are we going to ensure that our governors and leaders have their cultural, social, biological, ecological and environmental roots in our different traditional ethnic and indigenous groups?
  10. How do we liberate and empower our people to be able to take full charge of their destiny in an increasingly globalised world?

For God and My Country

  • A Tell report / Opinion / By Prof Oweyegha-Afunaduula, a retired professor of political science and environment at Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda.
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