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Letter to A Kampala Friend
By Muniini K. Mulera In Toronto |
What the Canadian polls could teach us
June 21, 2004
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Dear Tingasiga: The key objectives of the convention will be to promote business investments in Kigezi; to match Kigezi and Ugandan business interests with their North American counterparts; and to launch the Kigezi Education Fund. But before heading south, we shall go to the polling station to cast our ballots in Canada�s most hotly contested federal election in more than a decade. Canadians will be electing a prime minister and a new federal parliament on June 28. Unlike the last three elections, where the ruling Liberal Party was always guaranteed a landslide victory, this election is too close to call. Some polls suggest that Prime Minister Paul Martin, who succeeded the long-serving Jean Chr�tien less than seven months ago, may lose the election to the Conservative Party of Canada which is led by Stephen Harper. My wife and I are among millions of undecided voters. We are still examining the centrist Liberal Party, the right wing Conservative Party and the New Democratic Party, which is the Canadian edition of socialists. While we have tended to support the Liberal party in the past, we are now among the millions who feel that Martin and his party have almost exhausted their political mileage. They are mired in scandal and charges of corruption, and an arrogance born of staying in power too long. Although Martin, a 66-year old lawyer and multi-millionaire businessman, is not personally accused of corruption, he leads a government whose record of wastage and misuse of public funds would be familiar to citizens of a couple of East African countries. Naturally Canadians, among the most highly taxed people in the developed countries, are itching to throw the rascals out of the granary. On the other hand, Harper, a bright 41-year old economist, leads a party with a worrisome social agenda. Whereas Harper�s Conservatives espouse a very agreeable fiscal agenda, including lowering taxes, they advocate political and legal changes that could threaten civil and minority rights. We shall drive in the same car, chatting and laughing as usual, pick up our ballots together, go behind separate screens, tick our choices in private, place the ballots in the same box, walk out together, holding hands and laughing, knowing that one of us has just voted for the losing candidate. No matter whose candidate wins, we shall hug each other and, as has always happened to me, I will shed a tear or two as I watch and listen to defeated party leaders congratulating the winner. Then the winner will congratulate his opponent, with obvious respect and humility, which will induce another tear as I wish that such would be the norm is my beloved homeland. The morning after the election, we shall embark on our journey to Washington DC, an 832 kilometre trek that is usually doable in twelve hours. It will probably take us a couple of days. We plan to drive slowly, enjoying the marvellous beauty of upstate New York and Pennsylvania, the rolling hills of West Virginia and the rugged mountains of Maryland. As we savour the beauty of America, we shall reflect on the free and fair election in Canada, and the glorious history that led to the creation of the United States of America. Every time I drive around America or fly over that enormous land, my mind hears a replay of that powerful second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence that was signed In Congress on July 4, 1776. �We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights; that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness; that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.� It is perhaps the most powerful statement that speaks to my innermost core, as a believer in personal freedom and liberty. It is a statement that I have never felt qualified to expound upon, and I will not attempt do so now. Suffice to say that the 56 men who signed The Declaration of Independence were leaders of a different kind and from a different era. Their belief in freedom, not as a slogan to be exploited in one�s quest for political power, but as an absolute right for every law-abiding citizen, is what laid the foundation for today�s most powerful nation on earth.
This belief in freedom and the necessity to promote a diverse marketplace of ideas is part of what drives the agenda of the International Community of Banyakigezi, a truly non-partisan organisation. It is fitting then that the Washington convention will include a free town hall meeting to which all adult Ugandans, including non-delegates, have been invited. The town hall meeting will be held on the evening of July 3, and the main topic for discussion will be Leadership and Development. A group of panellists representing various political organisations have been invited to participate in this open forum. There will be a representative[s] of the Democratic Party [DP], the National Resistance Movement [NRM], the Parliamentary Advocacy Forum [PAFO], the Reform Agenda [RA] and the Uganda People�s Congress [UPC]. If at the end of the evening we hug and laugh together, and find some common ground as Banyakigezi and as Ugandans, we shall have lived up to the spirit of those who long ago created the conditions in America that enable us to agree and disagree in an atmosphere of freedom. |
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