Monday, August 17, 2009
What Goes On In Milton Odongo's Head?
An inflated consciousness is always egocentric and conscious of nothing but its
own existence. It is incapable of learning from the past, incapable of
understanding contemporary events, and incapable of drawing right conclusions
about the future. It is hypnotized by itself and therefore cannot be argued
with. It inevitably dooms itself to calamities that must strike it dead.
Carl Jung
There is a dubious office created by Uganda’s Museveni, dubbed the Resident
District Commissioner (RDC), which harkens to the days of the all-powerful
colonial district commissioner. The docket of the office is supposedly security
which, in context, means ensuring the president’s omnipresence and
self-perpetuation. From observations it seems the office is a dumping ground
for election losers and the dumbos in the Museveni’s NRM fiefdom. Now, give
such characters access to the coercive security apparatus such as the army, the
police and other opaque state tools, and some of them will throw their weight
around to the chagrin of those not in the government camp.
The name Milton Odongo may not mean much, but in the minds of local opposition
politicians in the district of Gulu, Uganda, he is the personification of the
Anti-Christ. He is the overzealous and overreaching Gulu assistant RDC, who for
the last few years has been such a prick. He has jailed, harassed, and
disrupted many opposition politicians—all for what?
Here are some unskillful incidences of assistant Gulu RDC in action:
Ordered local radio station not to host Dr. Besigye, the leading opposition
presidential candidate
Assaulted Betty Aol, an area MP
Kissing Museveni’s butt in Kaberamaido
Ordered that drugs at a public hospital be given only to members of his party,
the NRM
Shoves Gulu mayor in jail
Arrests a local journalist
Each of us has perceptions on how things should be, but as soon as we come into
contact with others, we find that they may have different perceptions of their
own. Determining whose end will prevail is what leads to conflict. And conflict
is not bad in itself because often the end results are greater than the sum of
the parts. Our particular action to achieve our objective depends on our view
of the world and how we have been conditioned to act aggressively, passively or
respond skillfully. Incidentally Odongo uses the schoolyard logic of: my way or
the highway; heads I win, tails you lose; winner takes all; zero-sum game.
Unfortunately, this is the environment which is far too common in the African
political dance. Stripped of any semblance of organic traditional wisdom of
consensus, we have the dualistic and competitive consciousness we learnt in
centuries of western schooling.
The west can open its market; vast wealth can be dug from the rich African
soil, but without a collective change in attitude, Africa will continue to spin
on its wheel on a journey to nowhere. Milton Odongo, the Gulu assistant RDC, a
cog in this wheel, is poster child of what is wrong with Africa.
Odiya
Harm No One
Odiyatalks
.
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