In the East African of September 10th 2011,
Article; Gravedigger problem: How
Museveni’s very success is now bringing him down; Andrew Mwenda resurrected
an old debate. He opined thus; “Museveni has always argued that the problem
with “pre-capitalist” societies is that political struggle tends to get polarized
along “unprincipled” lines of religion, tribe or even clan. The counterpoint to
this, Museveni has always held that in capitalist societies, politics is polarized
around “principled” issues of an economic nature; wages, prices and public
policies. His stated objective was to transform Ugandan politics from a contest
over identity (religion, tribe and clan) into a contest over “real issues” that
impact the lives of people; things like trade policy, fiscal policy, foreign
exchange policy etc.”
Mwenda argues that President Museveni’s
transformative politics have produced new social forces; “traders and vendors,
bureaucrats and politicians, students and industrialists, Twitterati and
Facebookers, thieves and saints, money making churches and money losing ones;
and it has produced the Red Pepper.
All these groups are now competing for space in the new Uganda. The old
religious, ethnic and clan groups have not gone away, but they are dying,
rapidly becoming a thing of the past, yet Museveni is still stuck with them”.
The article makes interesting reading; I don’t
dispute the power and necessity of modern day ‘principled’ organizing. But by
plainly faulting President Museveni for sticking with “pre-capitalist” groups
that organize around identity Mwenda falls into the same trap of simplistic analysis,
that absurdly views traditions, cultural identities and networks in past tense.
Far from being antiquated, these networks are
very much alive and licking, mediating the lives of millions of Ugandans every
day. To view them in fossilized terms and pre-reason is inaccurate,
intellectually flabby and patronizing, and fails to grasp complex and often
contradictory realities that give meaning to and shape the thinking of many
people in Uganda today.
Mwenda’s articulation in support of Museveni’s
ideological thoughts while faulting his actions fails to contextualize Museveni’s
on ground working conditions. I tend to think that over the years, as President
of Uganda, Museveni has become more pragmatic. He now realizes that
pre-capitalist societies’ tendencies are not all necessarily backward and
archaic. What he has not learnt though, is how to leverage the good in these
‘pre-capitalist’ networks beyond politics and harness them as platforms for
transformational information, capital mobilization and wealth creation.
A pragmatic shift would grasp the opportunity in
traditional forms of reference and organizing, even as they are mediated and
evolve by changes. If Museveni had embraced this view, he would not view, for
example, Facebook and Twitter social platforms as displacing ‘pre-capitalist’
networks such as ethnic or religious identities, but instead as powerful networks
that engage people. By not appointing Facebookers
and Twitterati into his cabinet,
Museveni missed a powerful opportunity to keep up with emerging manifestations
of change.
Identity based movements are of course fraught
with potential dangers. They can turn essentialist, and breed discrimination
and extremism. The 1994 genocide in
Rwanda serves as a poignant reminder of what can go horribly wrong. Religious
and ethnic extremism engineered by opportunistic leaders and elites also drove
post-independence Uganda into unforgettable bloodshed.
Yet identity cannot simply be wished away or
consigned to bins of history in embarrassment. Nor has identity based
organizing only been negative. For example, in a number of compelling cases
where ethnic and religious identities have promoted alternative economies and
livelihoods that we can learn from and harness. Take for example the success in
business of the Uganda Asian community. On the whole this group has a way of
scouting business opportunities for each other. They are also keen, especially
when it comes to deployment of social sanctions to enforce business ethics
within their merchant community. They also have unrivalled pedigree for
frugality. For sure, not all Ugandan Asians are successful business people, and
among them there are no doubt those who struggle. But that does not wash away
the lessons that one can learn from successes; we can learn something from
their capability to organize using but moving beyond identity.
The Ayimara, one of the largest Andean ethnic
groups scattered across South America, has similarly organized for success. The
Ayimara are a sophisticated informal international network of kin and a highly
developed commercial circuit involving truck drivers, custom policemen, border
smugglers, wholesale dealers and retailers. These networks and circuits are
based on and controlled by more or less visible ethnic lineages that constitute
a ‘parallel’ structure to the formal – national and international - market
which has been able to carve out a rather powerful and autonomous economic
space in which indigenous practices and values are often reconciled with
advanced economic know-how.
For example, in 2009 the National Electoral
Court (CNE) of Bolivia was in a crisis, failing to raise 1000 generators needed
for electronic registration of voters in rural areas. After heated pondering,
state agents chanced on an Ayimara woman electronics dealer in La Paz market,
the lady used her Ayimara network to deliver 1000 generators in two days! Nico
Tassi, in his unpublished paper “The Other Side of the Market: Indigenous
Economies in the Global Arena” argues that while the State may not like Ayimara
informality, from their own perspective it helps the Ayimara reduce business
costs associated with government bureaucracy, and deal with control of market
information and managing competition from multinational capital, often subsided
by governments.
My point is not to argue that Ugandan state
should establish economic models based on the Asian or Ayimaras, but rather to
point out that the basis of success here, past and present, even as it evolves
is worth reflection.
One wonders how can identity-based groups and
alliances such as biika bya-Buganda
think and act beyond Engabi, Emporogoma,
etc and avoid extremism and adjunct social tensions. What would it take for Nkooba za Mbogo, Basoga Nsete, Bahororo of Mpororo,
Banyari of Rwanyambari, and Bakimbiri
of Nyeibingo to use cultural ties to develop other ties that enhance
economic wellbeing?
In the Uganda body politic too many of my
friends and myself veer towards self-defeating cynicism. How can we as a people
move from cynicism to optimism? Might one answer be learning from those who
have succeeded?
The Ugandan sense of generosity of legion;
witness the wedding meetings many of us attend, where people are willing to
contribute because marriage is an important cultural ritual or other interests.
What if these gatherings met to mobilize venture funds or business startup
capital for their kith and kin, and outside friends, instead of begging for
external aid?
Chief
Executive Officer
Agency
for Transformation
Re-imagining agricultural and
environmental policy
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