Many years ago when M7 had just shoot his way into power i called him Hitler...i was then called all sorts of names including but not limited to deranged!
Now a decade and half later this once ardent M7 supporter wakes up to see the similarity btwn M7 and Adolf Hitler!
Time is the cure all?
Read and cry with this mzee.
gook
.....................
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OLD MAN�S CORNER
By F.D.R. Gureme |
Abject fear symptomatic of autocracy
March 16, 2004
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The disease of fawning is not only degrading: it is dangerous to the subject - often his country. Hitler�s conduct of World War II may illustrate the major dangers of yesmanship. It started in September 1939, when Germany invaded Poland. I was in P5, in Mbarara High. Headmaster, A.J. Butlin installed one of the earlier wireless sets. Its sound could be heard from the dormitories as early as 6.00 a.m. A few of us crept into his garden to listen. All we could discern at that stage were numbers, presumably of German casualties or prisoners. Butlin got involved in social problem; and was recalled, about 1940. A.C. Pain, zealot of British war effort, replaced him. Pupils from top S3 down to P5 congregated in the dining room cum assembly hall (built by boys under Butlin), for lessons Pain gave after prayers, in �World Affairs,� every Wednesday morning, about the war. The four classes did a test monthly every last Friday. We keenly imbibed this information. We also avidly read �The Uganda Herald�, not for the tests but for interest. From �world affairs� we learnt that warmonger Adolph Hitler, a mere First World War corporal, ruled Germany, (That he wore two medals for bravery I read later.) Benito Mussolini ruled Italy; Rashid Ali was Iraq�s Premier; Britain�s Premier Winston Churchill had replaced fainthearted Neville Chamberlain; F.D.R. (Roosevelt) led America. The capital of Czechoslovakia was Prague; that of Poland Warsaw�. Thus we were drilled in surviving air raids by lying close to walls. When Bernard Montgomery, later Dwight Eisenhower, changed the course of war, Hitler withdrew Rommel from the front, to avoid �the desert fox,� as Rommel was praise-named, being associated with defeat. Hitler and his Gestapo (c.f. CMI) were so feared that, even when his derangement was open secret, his orders, however irrational, were meticulously implemented. Hitler�s Germany was such that officer spied on officer, child on parents; so that a Bukenya dared not whisper to a Nsibambi about Hitler�s blunders, forget his mental health, for fear of betrayal and harsh reprisals. On July 20 1944, with Hitler having, against all professional advice, and among other sound strategies, disallowed withdrawal from Normandy, a device exploded about his seat, injuring him. Thus, he madly unleashed such machinery of vengeance that thousands were brutally arrested; and army officers handed over to the Gestapo by a special military court for �investigation� � and execution. Rommel, being implicated, committed suicide. How? Listen! Hitler is said to have summoned him and said, �No harm will come to your wife and two sons, if you drink this.� The once feared �desert fox� picked the chalice and meekly swallowed the poison. In Uganda: where we refuse to talk peace with Kony, against the considered advice of clerics on the spot, the elite and donors (thank God agreement between Bashir and Garang may weaken Kony). Where we refuse to declare a sub-region being a battleground for 18 years, a �disaster area,� against a resolution of Parliament, after evaluating a massacre as a �hiccup�. Where cabinet ministers (championing illegitimate meddling with the Constitution), vote in favour of such a Parliamentary declaration, in the Assembly Hall, one day, and contradict it in Cabinet, the next day. Where a donors� representative is denigrated for writing a peace-soliciting letter, and it turns out that it was at the behest of an authoritative member of the peace team. Indeed where hardly anyone makes a major decision without looking over their shoulder; how different are we from the Germany of 1944, except in magnitude, say between KAP, where Mutale blissfully admits caning citizens �to discipline them,� and the ruthless Gestapo, whose leader was known to be insane or was he. Isn�t it high time for our clerics, elders, professionals, retired public servants (note Godfrey Binaisa�s recent warning) - and donors - to courageously proffer sound advice; to restore sane democracy, and save us from ourselves? Contact: 077 401173 |
� 2004 The Monitor Publications
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