Uganda: A 'walk to work' protester nabbed  Photo courtesy

Certainly, former President of South Africa, Mbeki's analysis gives a comprehensive alternative view of the Cote D'vore situation to that which we have been fed by the dominant media houses. The lesson to be learned from Mr. Mbeki's view is the fallacy of the idea that there is a 'one-size-fits-all' democratic system for the whole world.

It is legitimate for one to wonder if the so-called multiparty 'democratic' elections system which has been imposed on African nations, based on a mistaken ideological belief in the superiority of that system in ensuring participatory governance, has not instead turned into a smokescreen through which some powerful nations are furthering the subjugation of African nation states and are sustaining the unequal global geopolitical structure that perpetuates poverty and suffering for the majority of sub-Saharan Africans and the peoples of other 'third' world regions.
 
Moving closer to home, with what is happening in Uganda today, with the proclaimed support of 'the world', in blatant disregard of Ugandan laws, the losers are not accepting defeat, are not accepting to step aside so that more able leaders within their respective parties emerge and take leadership; individual opposition leaders are competing amongst themselves on who can best disrupt the running of the state, get prominent media coverage and create the illusion that they are the 'big man.' The billions of shillings that we spend on elections (some of which is borrowed money I think), knowing full well that at the end of the day if the election results do not turn out the way 'the world' expected them to turn out there will be mayhem, is perhaps the worst injustice on the people of Africa. Furthermore, the behaviour of all our political leaders is more of ‘I am the big man’ as opposed to ‘I am the party representative’ or the ‘representative of the people.’  Thus, after elections the views expressed by our political leaders are pretty much their own views and perhaps the views of the outside 'world'; but certainly not the views and the will of the people they proclaim to represent, ordinary Ugandans.

When the media and 'the world', for example, equate the so-called 'walk-to-work' protest that has been engineered in Uganda with the freedom movements in Egypt and in South Africa, I begin to wonder if the Ugandan oil isn't already turning into a curse before it is even extracted.  In both cases (Egypt and South Africa) the oppression was clear, the oppressor and the oppressed were clear as well. In the case of Uganda, this is not really clear. In Uganda, it is more like "if I am not the one in power then I am going to make it really hard for the one in power to govern, otherwise if I were in power, I would pretty much do the same" situation. 

If you consider that 'walk-to-work' has been sparked off by rising fuel prices which have in turn sparked off high food prices, who is the oppressor in this case? Who is in charge of determining fuel prices? What are the reasons that the fuel prices have gone up? Realistically, what can the Uganda government do about the prices? In its characteristic style, the dominant media and 'the world' do not make significant mention of the fact that even if the Government of Uganda had the will to do something, it does not really have the geopolitical and economic clout to do it? They seem to want us to forget that this is the reality of the failed neoliberal economic system with its trumpeted ideas of 'free' markets that are mostly based on the principle that greed should be allowed to run free unchecked; indeed, the basis on which the World Bank structural adjustment programmes were implemented that so effectively weakened African states, one too many.
 
So, in the case of Uganda and in the context of the 'walk-to-work,’ who are the oppressed? Who is the oppressor? How is the oppressor oppressing the oppressed? Are the leaders of the 'walk-to-work' part of the oppressed as was the case with Steve Biko and Nelson Mandela (black South African fighting against the oppression of blacks by the whites), Ghandi (Indian fighting against oppression of Indians by the British), Martin Luther King (Black American fighting against oppression of blacks by whites) ? If the leaders of the 'walk-to-work' are part of the oppressed, why are ordinary hard working Ugandans opposed to the activities of the walk-to-walk protagonists?

Unlike Ghandi, Biko, Mandela, the personal wealth of those who are the champions of the 'walk-to-work' (whatever it is) is obscene - they are the oil barons of Uganda who own fuelling stations, they own prime properties of land and commercial buildings such as hotels and office blocks, they drive very powerful vehicles. It would follow that since they are amongst the propertied, they would be in the forefront in respecting and protecting property from destruction, but unfortunately their activities have incited the restless and have led to the destruction of property and businesses.
 
Worse still, for Uganda, where 85 % (27 million) of the population lives in rural areas, 5 million of the 6.2 million household are in rural areas, 82 % of workers are in rural areas, and 42 % of workers are getting their earnings from subsistence farming, I wonder if 'walk-to-work' in Uganda is not simply the best example of the saddening extent of Uganda's elite-mass gap. The 'walk-to-work’ protest is both immoral and an insult to the majority of Ugandans whose way of life has been and will continue to incorporate walking to work. Instead of establishing policies that are a pre-requisite to help and enhance the lives of the majority of Ugandans, the political leaders in Uganda on both sides are wasting resources (time, energy, equipment and money) on the shenanigans of a few egoistical, selfish and deluded 'big men.'

As the urban 'walk-to work' hooligans are causing mayhem in the city, the majority of Ugandan farmers are walking to their gardens to grow food crops, without any assistance and without easy access to seeds, other inputs and farm implements. That is the sad story of Africa. In answer to Mbeki's question, Africa shall experience many more blatant abuses of power, for in Africa we have a seeming inexhaustible supply of individuals who will do whatever it takes to be 'the president', even though it means that they are not really in power, but are rather puppets within the current undemocratic system of global governance to the disadvantage of the majority of Africans.
 
Perhaps it is time for Africans to genuinely reflect on the systems of governance that we have chosen (forced or otherwise) to follow. I personally, think that for the case of Uganda and for many other African nation states that are multi-ethnic in composition, a time has come to emulate the governance system of Switzerland and to adapt to a multi-party federal parliamentary democratic republic system of sorts, that incorporates a council of elders, that ensures that power is not vested in one individual, and provides for rotational leadership. I dare say that the Swiss system is much more compatible with traditional African systems, such as the one of my kin, the Iteso, which vested authority within a council of elders within each clan, respected and valued the wisdom derived from experience and age. Admittedly, the traditional councils of elders discriminated against some, particularly women, but they are still a good starting point.

By Norah Owaraga

The author is Sociologist and PhD Student,
Makerere University Kampala.