One of the reasons Uganda is engulfed in a political economy crisis is partly the result of colonial distortion of Uganda’s history and attributes between Bantu people on the one hand and Nilotic people on the other hand. Because of race theories that dominated Europe at the time of Africa’s colonization that put whites at the top and blacks at the bottom of the racial pyramid, it was assumed that black people including Bantu of eastern, central and southern Africa had no civilization and lived in darkness which is not a subject of history hence the teaching of European history in African schools.
The first European explorers, colonial and missionary officers to Africa came from the aristocratic class imbued with racial prejudices. “Britain had access to the cream of the Oxbridge [Oxford and Cambridge Universities] crop… targets were those energetic young men of aristocratic demeanor worthy of the colonial calling…”(D. Rothchild and N. Chazan 1988). ”The European colonists of the 19th and early 20th century described Africa as ‘the Dark Continent’. According to them it was without civilization and without history, its life ‘blank, uninteresting, brutal barbarism’… So strong were their prejudices that the geologist Carl Mauch, one of the first Europeans to visit the site of the 12th century city of Great Zimbabwe, was convinced it could not be of local origin, but must have been built by some non-black people… The Tory historian Hugh Trevor-Roper wrote in 1965, ‘There is only the history of the European in Africa. The rest is largely darkness” (C. Harman 1999).
Europeans were stunned when they set foot in the great lakes region and found great civilizations. They decided it was the work of Bahima and Bahororo in Uganda and Batutsi in Rwanda and Burundi whom they classified as white people with dark skin pigmentation because of too much tropical sunshine. Accordingly, European research and publications were distorted in favor of these ‘white’ people. One of the civilizations now in dispute is the development of earthen works at Munsa, Ntusi and Bigo in western Uganda. Europeans in colonial times had attributed them to ‘white’ Bahima pastoralists. Subsequent research findings have demonstrated that they were developed by Bantu people who practiced crop cultivation, then mixed farming of crop cultivation and cattle herding and ultimately more herding than cultivation by the time the Bigo earthen works were built.
Peter Robertshaw has written that Uganda has fascinating archeology with sites of extensive ditch systems containing large quantities of earthenware pots, ironworking debris and evidence of cereal cultivation and cattle-keeping. Excavations at Munsa has confirmed that the earliest occupants were farmers (including the growing of bananas till today) that later included cattle herding (Archeology September/October 2006). Excavations at Ntusi have found numerous grindstones, curved iron knives for cereal harvesting, burnt grain which appeared to be sorghum, storage pits probably for grain, besides animal bones indicating mixed farming and not a pure pastoral culture. At the latest Bigo site there is also evidence of mixed farming that is, crop cultivation and cattle herding (Graham Connah 2001). These studies lead to the conclusion that these earthen works represent an outgrowth of Bantu people who started as cultivators, then mixed farmers and later began placing more emphasis on herding than on cultivation (T. Falola 2000).
In contrast to colonial presentations, Bantu people were revolutionary in many ways in pre-colonial times. They introduced an agricultural revolution through new crops and farming techniques as well as pastoralism. They herded short horn cattle, goats and sheep and kept poultry. They diffused new ideas including iron-smelting, pottery making and cooking.
As mixed farmers in addition to hunting wild game and gathering wild fruits and vegetables, Bantu had a reliable source of food supply which contributed to population growth leading to permanent settlement and development of organized, complex societies. Elaborate socio-political institutions and systems, new forms of trade exchange and cultural formations were established. In short, there was a major social and political transformation (T. Falola 2000).
Besides, Bantu groups such as Ganda, Nyoro, Kongo, Luba, Lunda and Rwanda established great kingdoms (The World Book Encyclopedia 1983). They had kings (like the Mwami of Bahutu in Rwanda) and palaces (B. A. Ogot 1976). Thus before coming into contact with Nilotic nomadic herders who lived by fighting over scarce pastures and water supplies and lived in simple makeshift grass thatched shelters and wore simple clothes including cow hide sandals, Bantu had a rich civilization marked by diversified economies, political, cultural and social institutions. The earthen works of Munsa, Ntusi and Bigo are part of that civilization that existed before the arrival of European aristocratic missionaries and colonial officers that credited all these Bantu achievements to Bahima, Batutsi and Bahororo in the great lakes region.
To conclude, unequal and exploitative power relations between Bantu (the exploited) on the one hand and Nilotic/Bahima and Bahororo in collaboration with colonial and neo-colonial masters (the exploiters) on the other hand, have wiped out Bantu’s pre-colonial achievements in Uganda and reduced them to a level of economic and political voicelessness and powerlessness.
With education and understanding of their pre-colonial political economy glory, Bantu in Uganda and other parts in the great lakes region are trying to reclaim what they have lost and Bahima/Bahororo in Uganda and Batutsi in Rwanda with their strong donor backers are resisting hence the political economy tensions in Rwanda and Uganda which are likely to intensify unless the wrongs are corrected soon. So-called flawed elections as the just-completed presidential election in Rwanda will not offer any relief. Uganda should do better in 2011 presidential and parliamentary elections by facilitating voters to choose their representatives freely.