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Letter to A Kampala Friend
By Muniini K. Mulera In Toronto |
Marx never needed a political party, we do
Nov 17 , 2003
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Dear Tingasiga: In a recent missive, President Yoweri Museveni rejected the notion that the existence of a political party was a precondition for formulating and propagating one's vision for transforming society. He reminded us that people like Adam Smith, the Scottish political economist and philosopher whose ideas laid the intellectual foundation for international commerce and free enterprise; Karl Marx and Engels, the crafters of the Communist Manifesto, and Maynard Keynes, the great English economist who showed that consumer spending was the battery that powered a market economy, did not have political parties. For good measure, he added that the biblical Moses and Gautama Buddha did not have political parties. I am one with Museveni on this one. These and many other visionary thinkers and leaders such as Jesus Christ, St. Paul the Apostle, Prophet Muhammad, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., whose ideas fundamentally transformed human society, were gifted with extraordinary intelligence, and an ability to communicate their message and galvanize others to share their visions. However, the president forgot to point out that these men did not need political power or to remain in positions of political or military leadership to propagate their transforming visions. Indeed none of them implemented their own visions. Their disciples and succeeding generations did that. Take Moses, son of Amram. In his first term, he leads the struggle for his people's freedom from Egypt, culminating in the Ten Plagues which persuade the Pharaoh to let Moses and the Israelites go. Moses' first term ends with the miraculous crossing of the Red Sea and the settlement in the Sinai desert. In his second term, Moses receives the Ten Commandments that will be the foundation of a theocratic nation of Israel. He prepares his people for the final march to the Promised Land. However, Moses does not get a third term. The Lord forbids him from entering the Promised Land, partly because he has transgressed. He dies at Mount Nebo, aged 120. Though he has been a great leader for eighty years, his grave is left unmarked. Interestingly, it is not one of Moses' sons, Gershom or Eliezer, who succeeds him. It is Joshua, son of Nun, who takes over and successfully leads his people into Canaan. Many centuries later, Jesus Christ, son of Joseph, lays out his great vision during his brief ministry. He is killed. It is Saul of Tarsus, the chief prosecutor of early Christians, who propagates and entrenches Christianity. Eighteen hundred years after Jesus, Marx and Engels pen their Communist Manifesto. However, another 70 years pass before Vladmir Lenin and the Bolsheviks implement Marx's vision. So Museveni does not need another term as president to influence the course of events in Uganda and Africa. Indeed, what vision he has articulated so far is undermined by his actions. In his 2001 re-election manifesto, the President said he wanted five more years in power to professionalise the army, consolidate gains in the economy, in infrastructure reconstruction and in modernisation of our country; to consolidate gains in democratisation; to put in place mechanisms for an orderly succession, and to contribute to the creation of a vibrant regional market and penetrating the global market under the Word Trade Organisation. Nearly three years later, it is as if he is determined to do the opposite. The country now has two parallel regular armies, the Uganda Peoples Defence Forces and the Presidential Guard Brigade. Recruitment and promotion within these armies remains an ad hoc, ethnicity driven business; the senior command remains firmly in the hands of people from one ethnic group; well trained military officers remain undeployed or underemployed; and there are more armed militia groups than there were in 2001. His vision for modernising the country, founded on capacity building among other things, is undermined by his persistent public condemnation and humiliation of Uganda's professionals. His vision of creating a vibrant regional market is undermined by his militarism that has the country in a constant state of tension and potential war with her its neighbours. Yes the president is not solely responsible for these regional tensions and conflicts. He has some bad neighbours. However, he has done his part to perpetuate this tension which undermines his vision for modernising the country. What of his vision for consolidating gains in democratisation? Two and a half years after the great manifesto, political parties, except the president's National Resistance Movement (NRM), remain legally castrated. Within the NRM, democracy remains an illusion. Those with divergent views are told to form their own party. Where necessary, intimidation of political opponents is judiciously applied to help redirect them. What checks and balances have been nurtured by Ugandans are about to be suffocated. The cabinet has proposed to the Constitutional Review Commission that Parliament should be stripped of its powers and the President's powers be expanded. If passed, this will drive another nail into the coffin where the people's struggle for democracy already lies. A Presidential monarchy is about to be entrenched. Many of us agree with Museveni's vision of penetrating the global market under the WTO. Yet his letter to African leaders undermining the continent's position during the recent WTO talks in Cancun, Mexico, gives credence to those who believe that he now serves the interests of the West. Then there is the transition. Perhaps the President has a vision for orderly transition. Yet his actions so far seem to be guiding the country towards a transition from Museveni to Museveni. His claim that there is no other person with the vision and ability to lead Uganda is at once false and insulting. No doubt Amos Kaguta and Esteri Kokundeka did an outstanding job of nurturing their son's great talents. Museveni is easily one of the smartest and able Africans of our generation. However, to suggest that no other Ugandan is equally gifted or even better able to lead our country is to insult all the other mothers and fathers of Uganda. It is to insult all the men and women who have struggled with him to transform Uganda. It is certainly a vote of no confidence in Museveni himself. If after nearly 40 years in politics and leadership he has not nurtured another person to follow in his footsteps, then he has failed in the most important task of a leader. Above all his recent utterances on the matter contradict his own memoirs. On page 215 of his autobiography, Sowing the Mustard Seed, he wrote: "There are now people of presidential calibre and capacity who can take over when I retire, and I shall be the first to back them." That was in 1997! Where did they go? The big question before us today is whether Ugandans are capable of establishing a smooth transition from one leadership to another, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their change of government on force and bloodshed. Museveni has the answer in his hands. |
� 2003 The Monitor Publications
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