My humble contribution in Uganda politics and writing about the Great Lakes region (I have written ten books and created a blog www.kashambuzi.com) has been interpreted by some Ugandans as an expression of ambition and the desire to make history. They are wrong.
In making choices about what to do as a student and worker, I have been guided by my parents’ advice, Christian and community values. I was born and raised in a Christian family. My father, now retired, served in the Church of Uganda and rose to the rank of Archdeacon. He served in many places in Rukungiri and Kanungu districts where we interacted with people from many walks of life. Our house was open to all and they opened their houses to us.
I was also born and raised in a large extended family that includes Protestants and Catholics. And coincidentally some of the managers of my businesses are Muslims. I also grew up in an atmosphere where community cohesion and sharing on a reciprocal basis was very strong and children belonged to the entire community.
Besides preaching on Sundays and special occasions, my father spent much time visiting families particularly those that faced difficulties to counsel them and make them feel better. My mother took courses in home economics conducted by Mothers’ Union and spent much time teaching other women to make life better for themselves and their families. They ate well, drank boiled water and lived in clean surroundings that reduced mortality considerably.
My parents always told us to help those in need. In our household the older child had an obligation to help the younger one. In the late 1950s and early 1960s during the resettlement of people from South Kigezi (now Kabala district) to north Kigezi (now Rukungiri district), our parents instructed us to help those that spent their nights at our church at Kashenyi in Ruhinda sub-county of Rukungiri district. They reminded us that these were children of God seeking a better place to live and raise their families. We were urged to help all without asking questions as to their faith or ethnicity.
Because of this exposure, I developed a culture of working to help those in need and to defend the voiceless and powerless members of society at times jeopardizing my career prospects.
The purpose of my research and writing has been to correct distortions that favored particular groups at the expense of others. In all my work, I have been guided by principles of humility, fairness and telling the truth. My writings about impoverishment of Bairu in Rujumbura county of Rukungiri district and the unhappy relations between Batutsi and Bahutu/Bairu in Burundi, Rwanda and southwest Uganda have been interpreted as sectarian and the desire to promote genocide: all this intended to intimidate and prevent me from exposing wrong doing and help construct a level playing field so that all Ugandans to play by the same set of rules.
There are people in Uganda who believe that they are born to rule and others to be ruled in perpetuity, regardless of education and experience. I believe God created all of us in his image with equal rights. What makes the difference is the environment in which we grow up. Those who happen to grow up in a poor environment can’t utilize their potential fully.
I was born in a relatively poor environment but had parents who believed that hard work and good education combined with discipline would make our lives better. My parents were particularly keen on discipline (you had to go to school every day from Monday to Friday and do home work, you had to be punctual and clean). They understood the value of food and nutrition security. We had four meals a day: breakfast, lunch, evening snack (roast corn when in season or millet porridge) and dinner. We ate balanced diet of carbohydrates, vegetable proteins mostly of beans as we couldn’t afford meat, fats, minerals and vitamins from fruits and vegetables. We drank boiled water and kept the surroundings clean. We developed immunity against many diseases. The education atmosphere was good for all students and those who did well but couldn’t afford school fees were assisted. Merit was the criterion for academic advancement.
Since independence which was supposed to make life better, these values have been trampled by poor leadership. In the 1960s the UPC government tried to level the playing field in the economic and social areas. Since 1971 Uganda has been driven in a wrong bus and on a wrong road. In 1986, the coming to power of NRM conveyed a message of hope and determination to make things better as contained in the ten point program. But the train soon got off track and Uganda has since been retrogressing.
Museveni decided he was the only person in Uganda who had a vision about where the country should go and who would assist him in doing so. He chose Batutsi and other Ugandans mostly those who have married Batutsi women and become ‘tutsified’ (if unsure check leaders from your area and you may get a shock to learn that we are governed by people we didn’t quite understand their family tree or marriage connections). You will also find that many of them happen to be people with little education much less experience and haven’t even bothered to learn and do better in a rapidly globalizing world where knowledge is more important than muscles or physical stature.
Mindful that things could change and be thrown out, they have engaged in rampant corruption unseen in previous regimes. Investments have gone into the military to keep Ugandans silent rather than in institutions and infrastructure to improve living standards of citizens.
Uganda is thus retrogressing rather than progressing: witness the re-emergence of diseases that had disappeared; devastating school dropout rate and unemployment especially of youth and future leaders; acute hunger that is killing children and women while Uganda is among countries exporting mountains of food; human trafficking and sacrifice.
These are signs of moving backward, not forward. Commentators who credit NRM government with a good record of development need to recast their methods of analysis. Controlling inflation, diversifying export base and accumulating foreign currency reserves in the central bank, privatizing public enterprises and opening Uganda markets to imports and investments isn’t a sufficient condition for economic growth and development. Once ahead of Kenya and Tanzania in human condition, Uganda is now way behind. The quality of leadership explains the difference because on average Uganda is better endowed than Kenya and Tanzania.
To control unhappy population, NRM government has resorted to repression turning Uganda into a military dictatorship and failed state. At the international level especially at the United Nations, Uganda is focusing on appointments to the Security Council and Human Rights Council instead of economic and social councils because it is more interested in covering up its abuse of human rights and fundamental freedoms in Uganda and neighboring countries than economic and social development of the people of Uganda. For example, when Uganda was a member of the Security Council for two years, it virtually abandoned development work in the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and General Assembly and its organs.
These sad developments and the suffering they have imposed on the people have forced me to enter Uganda politics, not because I want to make history but because I want to be part of the struggle to make life better for all our citizens. It is costly in money and time and many other things in addition. Nevertheless, I have dedicated the balance of my life to this struggle in any capacity and I am now working with other Ugandans to forge a coalition of progressive forces to effect change without resorting to force unless in last resort or in self-defense. We call on other progressive Ugandans to join with us because progress doesn’t come on a silver platter. The road is sometimes hard but it has to be travelled. Together we can’t fail.