Tag Archives: chapter

Reprinting chapter 9 of Speke’s book has reignited Bahima and Bairu (master-slave) controversy in South West Uganda

John Hanning Speke a Bitish explorer wrote a book “The Discovery of the Source of the Nile” published in 1863. It was reprinted in 2006. The book is now available in all institutions of learning around the globe.

In chapter 9 titled “History of the Wahuma [Bahima]” and sub-titled “The Abyssinians and Gallas – Theory of Conquest of Inferior by Superior Races – The Wahuma and the Kingdom of Kitara – Legendary History of the Kingdom of Uganda – Its Constitution, and the Ceremonials of the Court” (Speke 1863).

Speke described Bahima collectively as Abyssinians or Gallas. Speke added “It appears impossible to believe, judging from the physical appearance of the Wahuma, that they can be of any other race than the semi-Shem-Hamitic of Ethiopia” noting that Abyssinians in Abyssinia are more commonly agriculturalists, the Gallas are chiefly a pastoral people co-existing with each other just as he found the Wahuma kings and Wahuma herdsmen co-existing with the agricultural Wazinza of Uzinza, the Wanyambo of Karague, Waganda of Uganda, and the Wanyoro of Unyoro (Speke 1863).

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Towards economic and social delivery for all Ugandans

The National Resistance Movement Organization (NRM) has already declared that it will win 2011 presidential and parliamentary elections not only convincingly but also with a larger majority than in 2006 because it has delivered. While hosting the Commonwealth Conference, election to the United Nations Security Council for two years, discovering oil, ending the war in northern and eastern Uganda and winning approval to hold the 2010 AU Summit in Uganda are noble deliverables, their value should be assessed in the context of meeting conditions for economic and social development for all Ugandans as called for in Chapter IX of the United Nations Charter. Chapter IX states in part that higher standards of living, full employment, conditions of economic and social progress and development are among the principal goals of the United Nations of which Uganda is a member.

On reading NRM’s economic and social criticism of Obote II government one gets the impression that the drafters were fully aware of Chapter IX. It is therefore important to remind ourselves of what the criticism was and the extent to which NRM government has implemented corrective measures to deliver the desired economic and social results since it came to power in 1986. We shall examine the criticism contained in vol. I no. 3 of October/November 1981 and vol. II no. 5 of December 1984 which were published by the NRM secretariat in 1990 in a book titled “Mission to Freedom”.

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