Tag Archives: history

Role of women in changing course of history

For various reasons, women have played key roles in changing the course of world history. In France and Russia women have been particularly effective. In the course of the French Revolution of 1789, besides demonstrations in Paris and other cities, the Parisian women marched twelve miles from Paris to Versailles to demand that the king help them address their difficulties including food shortages and rising prices of bread. The king, his family and bags of grain were moved from the comforts of Versailles Palace to Paris where voices for change were loudest. The National Assembly also relocated to Paris from Versailles. Women also provided places called salons where meetings took place to discuss national and other issues.

Food shortages and rising prices also caused Russian women to help change the course of Russian history. In February 1917, the situation was so serious that women stood in long lines for bread having worked in factories for twelve hours. A police report sheds light on the gravity of the situation.

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Change is coming to Uganda

Change is coming. There is no doubt about that. What is unclear is when and how. Change could come sooner than later as it did in 1979 and 1985 that took the country and new leaders by surprise, calling for preparedness just in case (UDU already has a National Recovery Plan). It could come through violence or peaceful means. Our conclusion that change is coming is based on history lessons and internal dynamics in present day Uganda.

In societies where change has taken place, there was by and large external influence and internal discontent. Regarding external factors, the American Revolution was influenced by the writings of European enlightenment thinkers about liberty, equality, separation of power and Thomas Paine’s advice on independent America. The internal discontent was caused largely by British taxation of Americans without being representation in British parliament. The French Revolution was influenced by European enlightenment writers and French soldiers experience in America’s war of independence which made the Old Regime in their country anachronistic. Internal discontent was generated by the wide gap between the privileged high clergy and nobility who did not pay taxes to the government but taxed commoners for their own use and government revenue. The nobility and the clergy that constituted 3 percent of total population owned 40 percent of total land. The Russian Revolution was impacted by external and internal factors similar to those in France. In Eastern Europe, the influence of Radio Free Europe among others and Gorbachev’s restructuring and openness reforms together with economic failures of socialism generated forces for the 1989 revolutions. Thus, revolutions in America, France, Russia and Eastern Europe were created by external and internal dynamics. What about Uganda?

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Change is coming to Uganda

Change is coming. There is no doubt about that. What is unclear is when and how. Change could come sooner than later as it did in 1979 and 1985 that took the country and new leaders by surprise, calling for preparedness just in case (UDU already has a National Recovery Plan). It could come through violence or peaceful means. Our conclusion that change is coming is based on history lessons and internal dynamics in present day Uganda.

In societies where change has taken place, there was by and large external influence and internal discontent. Regarding external factors, the American Revolution was influenced by the writings of European enlightenment thinkers about liberty, equality, separation of power and Thomas Paine’s advice on independent America. The internal discontent was caused largely by British taxation of Americans without being representation in British parliament. The French Revolution was influenced by European enlightenment writers and French soldiers experience in America’s war of independence which made the Old Regime in their country anachronistic. Internal discontent was generated by the wide gap between the privileged high clergy and nobility who did not pay taxes to the government but taxed commoners for their own use and government revenue. The nobility and the clergy that constituted 3 percent of total population owned 40 percent of total land. The Russian Revolution was impacted by external and internal factors similar to those in France. In Eastern Europe, the influence of Radio Free Europe among others and Gorbachev’s restructuring and openness reforms together with economic failures of socialism generated forces for the 1989 revolutions. Thus, revolutions in America, France, Russia and Eastern Europe were created by external and internal dynamics. What about Uganda?

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Time has come for Uganda youth to protest and open the door for reforms

The path to democracy, liberty, justice and dignity through the ballot box has not produced the desired results in Uganda and will not unless major reforms are undertaken. In developed societies institutions and laws permit citizens to elect representatives and hold them accountable. When they do not perform they are either recalled or voted out at the next elections. In Uganda these institutions and laws have been virtually destroyed. The NRM government has returned Uganda to the law of the jungle where strong animals do what they want with weak ones with impunity. Currently, in Uganda the weak are losing land to the strong, the weak are denied quality education and healthcare which are provided to the strong, the weak are going to bed every night on empty stomachs while the strong are busy exporting Uganda food and the weak are unemployed while the strong are importing workers through a liberal immigration policy etc.

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Museveni did not read history lessons properly

Museveni claims to have studied history. It is not clear which branch of history he studied. Did he study revolutionary; military; diplomatic; colonial; negotiations; medieval; modern or all the branches of history? Whichever branch he studied, Museveni’s behavior demonstrates that he learned wrong lessons and that is why he has ended up described as a dictator presiding over a failed state.

Museveni believes very strongly that when you are militarily strong and you are feared (that is why he wears military uniform when there is a domestic challenge), then you can crush all your enemies (Museveni sees dissent in enemy, not opponent terms) with impunity. That is why he devoted his early life undergoing military training. As president, his number one priority has been building strong security forces to intimidate and when necessary crush political dissent. The defense budget has therefore been disproportionately larger than any other sector. Consequently infrastructural, social and environmental sectors have been starved of resources and are on the verge of collapse (potholes in Kampala City are an obvious case) – an outcome that may end his presidency.

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Correcting Uganda’s distorted history

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).

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Bahororo history – conclusion of the first phase

Bahororo people have led the Uganda government since 1986. When an individual or a group of people emerges from obscurity to prominence – national or international – it is expected that there will be scrutiny sometimes with disquieting revelations. But as they say you cannot have your cake and eat it too! Who are Bahororo and what are their characteristics?

  1. Bahororo people are Batutsi from Rwanda who entered Uganda in the mid-1600s and founded the short-lived Mpororo kingdom in parts of southwest Uganda and northern Rwanda. The kingdom collapsed within one hundred years because of internal feuds among princes. The northern part was absorbed by Rwanda and the southwest part by Ankole. Some Bahororo returned to Rwanda, others sought refuge in Nyakinengo of Nyakagyeme Sub-county of Rujumbura County in Rukungiri district. The rest remained in Ankole or scattered to other parts of Uganda (Buganda, western, northern and eastern regions where many still live) where they continued their herding culture as cattle owners or herders of others’ cattle. Following their incorporation into the Ankole kingdom, Bahororo became commoners/Bairu (slaves). To avoid this categorization, they adopted the name of Bahima in Ankole and Rujumbura. In other parts of Uganda they adopted local names and local languages. However, wherever they are they have tenaciously clung to their Nilotic/Bahororo identity because their men do not marry from other ethnic groups except their own Nilotic group.
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Reconstructing the dynamic history of Uganda’s Bairu

According to John Hanning Speke (1863, 2006) Bairu (a term of abuse) which means slaves was coined by Bahima to apply to all Bantu-speaking people they found south of River Nile.

Presently the term has come to apply to the indigenous Bantu-speaking people of southwest Uganda (in former Ankole district and Rujumbura county of Rukungiri district) because in other areas extensive intermarriage between Bantu and Nilotic peoples formed mixed and entirely new communities. Bantu speaking people brought with them short-horn cattle, goats and sheep and above all iron technology and manufacturing skills (so they were not cultivators only. They were forced into cultivation by Bahima and Bahororo in order to marginalize, impoverish, dominate and exploit them). The term Bahutu is the equivalent of Bairu in Rwanda and Burundi. We shall apply the term Bairu in its broader sense as originally used to include indigenous Bantu speaking people who occupied areas south of Nile River before Nilotic Luo-speaking Bahima arrived and adopted Bantu language.

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Rujumbura history must not be repeated

I was trained in and have practiced the art of diplomacy at the highest level in international relations. Simply put diplomacy includes the art of establishing contacts through which problems are solved in a subtle manner or behind-the-scenes if you will. When circumstances force me to speak or to write I have used language – body, spoken or literary – to convey messages without divulging sensitive details or naming names.

As mentioned elsewhere I have studied the history of the Great Lakes Region especially my home area of Rujumbura for over forty years. I have read extensively and listened carefully to oral stories. Because I did not get much information from using questionnaires, I decided to use other techniques including travelling by bus between Uganda’s capital city of Kampala and my home town of Rukungiri – a decision that frustrated many people particularly my relatives because as a senior United Nations staff member I was not expected to travel that way.

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The rise of Bahororo in Uganda politics with Britain’s helping hand

From Makobore to Mbaguta to Kaguta

Many people are still asking me to write concisely about the history of Bahororo: who are they, where they came from, where they live, how they are related to Bahima, Batutsi and Banyamulenge, and above all how they rose to prominence in Uganda politics.

Location before they entered the Great Lakes Region

Bahima, Batutsi, Bahororo and Banyamulenge are cousins. They change names and language whenever they move to a new place. In former Ankole District they are called Bahima; in Rwanda and Buruindi Batutsi; in Eastern DRC Banyamulenge and in Rujumbura Bahororo. Until recently Bahororo were relatively unknown because they registered or introduced themselves as Bahima. We shall say more later on.

There is credible evidence that they are Nilotic Luo-speaking people who entered the Great Lakes Region in the 15 and 16th centuries from Bahr el Ghazal in Southern Sudan and not from Ethiopia as John Hanning Speke had written in 1863 (Eric Kashambuzi. Uganda’s Development Agenda in the 21st Century 2009). They are known for their love of long-horn cattle. J. Roscoe described them this way: “Men become warmly attached to their cows; some of them they love like children, pet and talk to them, and weep over their ailments. Should a favorite cow die, their grief is extreme and cases are not wanting in which men have committed suicide through excessive grief at the loss of an animal” (Richard Poe 1999).

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