* Compatriot Kalinaki, Robbing people of citizenship and turning them into just consumers **is now a world-wide vicious corporate design.
**Nothing except money, matters. If you have money you can have everything. Power, speech, health, etc...... You are even above the law and can as well get away with murder. Without money you starve like a dog and nobody notices. Turning citizens into mere customers is in full swing here in Canada, and the US. In 1964 British imperialism stole the vote from militant pro-independence fighter, Mokheke, and made compliant Leabua Jonathan the leader of Lesotho, at independence. But by 1986 even Leabua was resisting Anglo-Saxon orders about Southern Africa, and the coup that overthrew him was organized and executed by the branches in Lesotho of the big International corporations. Corporations carried out a coup in broad daylight and never even hid it. The only coups I had ever seen/known were military. It was a fundamental shock seeing a non-military coup. Corporate Branch factories stopped all industrial production, ordered all their workers to climb into company trucks and off to the streets causing chaos and enabling regime change. All workers received double pay. Now, some comrades from Southern Africa I now meet here in Toronto are boiling with anger because "South Africa and Botswana have become like Canada". The meaning here is that SA, Botswana and Mauritius have been turned, 100%, into corporate states, with only consumers, and the concept of citizen with rights and duties destroyed. Your only right you have is to consume and generate profit for some corporation ; that is if you have the money. The corporazation of citizen space that you have seen in Uganda (and East Africa) is just the beginning. It is good that you are focusing on this evil now. We have to be alert to fight this struggle of life and death. All the best and thanks for your time, compatriot Kalinaki. Mitayo Potosi =======================* Citizens turning into customers of Uganda Ltd By Daniel Kalinaki (email the author) Posted Thursday, September 23 2010 at 00:00 A few months ago soldiers laid spikes in the road that runs through the Independence Grounds, also known as Kololo Airstrip, blocking traffic through the route. The spikes would come and go but a few weeks later, a big, black gate was erected on one end of the ground. Weeks later giant black poles were put up, apparently in preparation for fencing off of the grounds. There has been no official communication about what is going on here but clearly, someone does not want every Nsubuga, Otim and Turinawe driving or jogging through the grounds like they own them or something. Slowly but surely, the Independence Grounds are being privatised. I was reminded of these worrisome developments at Kololo Airstrip by the perturbing pronouncements by a senior Police officer, the exotically named Andrew Sorowen, laying down new guidelines requiring people to seek permission to hold public gatherings. In fact, since last September, the government has been quietly working on a new law, the Public Order Management Bill, that seeks to give the Inspector General of Police power to determine who meets who, where, with whom, and what they discuss. You can meet with the boys over beer at Just Kicking and talk about Arsenal’s recent allergic reaction to trophies but if the discussion shifts to the “principles, policy, actions or failure of any government, political party or political organisation” then, the Bill says, you need to get a permit. And if you choose to have a sober discussion over politics then you need to ask for a permit at least seven days in advance, send a letter from the landlord of the venue giving permission, indicate how many people are expected to turn up, and take responsibility for any harm to life or property that might occur, whether you and your group are responsible for it or not! The government has turned from a guarantor to a grantor of rights. If you are a cultural leader and want to visit an area in which some of your critics or rivals live, the Police do not have to protect your rights; they advise you on whether it is safe to go or not – then deploy twice as many officers needed to protect you during your visit to stop you if you insist on going. Radio stations that preach politically-correct sermons and newspapers that write prose in praise of those in power are rewarded handsomely while those that host critical voices are shut down and have their presenters arrested. We are slowly seeing the disappearance of the public sphere, physically in the sense of the privatisation of public assets and facilities, and metaphorically in the closing of space for dissent, dialogue and debate. The State is slowly being privatised by a few beneficiaries of the regime. First they carved up the government parastatals (many of which were sold through fronts to the sellers). Then came the big trade and supply contracts, followed by the “immovable objects” like schools, public parks, land and buildings, wetlands, etc. Some even tried to sell the Source of the Nile and Entebbe Airport! We are seeing the emergence of ‘pure citizens’ who drive their 4x4s on the right to beat the traffic and who are generally above the law as shareholders in Uganda Ltd, and others who are purely citizens and customers of the company, sitting in traffic on the left. Now there is a race to ‘privatise’ the intrinsic values such as the freedom of expression and assembly and ‘sell’ them back to the citizen in exchange for compliance or subservience. We can claim all the independence we want but if we need permission to visit Parliament, hold gatherings or simply jog through the Independence Grounds then we are just tenants or squatters, clients of Uganda Ltd. *dkalin...@ug.nationmedia.com*
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