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It is deplorable that Tamale Mirundi (and I am
taking Cheye's word for this) is blaming all Banyankole for the sins
of Museveni and his cabal.
However, Cheeye's logic condemns Cheeye. Look
at this: "The late J. Namakajjo and group were coughing up in this mess, and
journalism became synonymous with intelligence." How about an ISO Director
who is a rent-a-wag publisher of a mercenary newsletter frequently
hired by some of the most notorious Movement sleaze-bags to clobber
their real and imagined enemies?
Also Cheeye's logic about political failures would
have shut up Museveni for good. After all Museveni was
soundly defeated in the 1980 elections by Sam Kuteesa, and even earlier his lie
about inexistent troops was one of the reasons the first guerrilla
uprising against dictator Idi Amin failed tragically.
Tamale appears to have borrowed a leaf from
Museveni's own playbook: walk away from your failures and reinvent
yourself in a new medium.
Cheeye has a lot to be humble (and I really mean
humble) about. Our Teddy is no Bagehot, and I daresay that unlike the
Economist, the malice-bag called Uganda Confidential will not survive his
political or natural demise.
vukoni
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, November 16, 2002 9:25
AM
Subject: ugnet_: TAMALE MIRUNDI'S
POISON
The National Political Commissar, Dr Crispus
Kiyonga, has warned that Mr. Tamale Mirundi�s hate propaganda against the
Banyankole, which is aired on the CBS FM Radio, is inflaming genocide. We want
to amplify Dr Kiyonga�s important message.
It is really laughable for
people like Tamale Mirundi to self-style themselves into the Biblical Moses
who see themselves as the right people to guide Ugandans. Uganda Confidential
finds it intriguing that a man who cannot successfully manage even a kiosk, a
journalist whose vernacular paper, Lipoota died long ago and whose management
of The Voice newspaper also failed, a man who failed to convince just one
constituency (Kyotera) to elect him to the seventh parliament, can now stand
up and assign himself the role of a founding father, the overseer, the
visionary, and so on.
To Uganda Confidential, the problem is not Mr
Tamale Mirundi. He is just a small part of the larger problem. The problem is
the Government failure to put in place a technical and nationalistic
information policy. This is the problem that has never been addressed right
from the colonial days. When the colonialists come to Uganda, they
deliberately refused to develop two important areas: the army and the media.
During the colonial days, what should have been a fully fledged
ministry of information was reduced to a mere desk, manned by one man in the
office of the Colonial Governor. This person�s job was to write about Ugandans
with a lot of emphasis on tribal differences: the Northerners were known as
the brave and barbaric people; the Baganda were cunning and white collar
thieves; the Banyankole were portrayed as lazy people; while the Asians were
seen as �coolies�.
Mr Tamale Mirundi�s emphasis that the Banyankole are
looters of state wealth is just a continuation of the destructive colonial
media distortion. In the absence of a solid media base, at the time of
independence, the media, mainly Radio Uganda, was synonymous with
entertainment.
Indeed, one of the main agreements in the merger between
Kabaka Yekka Party (KY) and UPC was that since the Baganda had the richest
cultural industry, it was agreed that Radio Uganda be given to KY. Indeed,
Radio Uganda was known more for its Kadongo Kamu music of the day. But that
was not bad. The turning point where the Tamale Mirundis of this world have
roots was when the KY-UPC alliance collapsed in 1966.
For unclear
reasons, The first Milton Obote regime and the successive savage regimes of
Idi Amin and Okello Lutwa (RIP) turned the ministry of information to be a
cover for state security operatives. The late J. Namakajjo and group were
coughing up in this mess, and journalism became synonymous with intelligence.
Radios were turned into instruments of hate campaigns. Instead of developing
specialised media, Radio Uganda was turned into a spring board for dwarf
politicians, with their savage political announcements.
Mr Tamale
Mirundi�s hot political air is rooted in this recent distorted media history,
where political failures assigned themselves the role addressing the nation
from a safe radio station, which was at that time, even guarded by the
military. Radio propaganda was an easy way to use in poisoning of the colonial
peasants. It was successfully used in Rwanda and Burundi. In fact, the French
colonialists, the savage of the whole lot, deliberately refused to develop the
print media in their colonies. The print media appeals to serious people. A
written word is like an egg, once broken can never mended. One can take you on
word per word in the print media, not so with the radio where Mr Tamale
Mirundi will counter by denying or modifying his statement. It is therefore
easy for an entertainment house to take a little licence into political
gossiping in lazy and casual manner. You don�t do that in political writing.
You must be ready to defend your self even after many years, if you ever make
a political blunder in writing. It is precisely because of this scientific law
of the media that cheap political blunders in the print media cannot be
sustained. The Citizen, Munno and The Exposure, which were the voice of the
Democratic Party collapsed, because the readers voted against their line. The
Focus and The Shariat, which stood for the Muslim fanatics, collapsed because
the readers voted them off the streets. The People of the UPC folded because
the readers also voted them out of Uganda House. So when Dr Rwanyarare turns
to The Monitor and wants it to play the role which The People used to play,
the writing on the wall is very clear. Dr Rwanyarare�s poison will soon make
the readers vote The Monitor out of the Monitor House. Mr Tamale Mirundi�s own
paper Lipoota was voted off the streets precisely because not even one hundred
readers agreed with his political views. Mr Tamale Mirundi is thriving at CBS
because the management of CBS does not seem to realise that if Government woke
up today and set up a solid information policy, Mr Tamale Mirundi�s mountain
of cheap political propaganda would be reduced to sea level. Even the
wonderful CBS would find it hard to take a gamble in political areas which
they cannot scientifically defend. Our advise is simple: Entertainment Radios
should stick to entertainment. If they want to adventure into political and
economic areas, they should get political journalists, not a political failure
who is taking his revenge on society for having rejected him twice, as an
editor and as a politician. If Mr Tamale Mirundi want to be a political
journalist let him start his own political paper. Uganda Confidential, which
is now more than 12 years, has succeeded because we scientifically analysed
the readership in Uganda. We have a small class of the most important people,
which will grow with time. The famous Economist did this in 1848. It started
off with only 3,500 copies. But as the capitalist class grew in UK, now The
Economist prints more than 500,000 copies a week. CHEEYE T.S.
The
Mulindwas communication group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in
anarchy"
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