The mating dance for the procreation of power and why things that should not make sense make sense

This blog entry is, as my brother Benon who proofread it for me said, “ an exposure of a mind filled with conflict of different ideologies, reality, disappointment, some hope (perhaps ?) and a call for more discussion. Above all it is an indication of the love the author has for a better Uganda, one where what leaders profess positively impacts everyone. Alas, it seems like a dream!”

Growing up in the era of the  Ugandan 🇺🇬 bush war in the 1980s, not yet a teenager, both parents exiled , living with relatives and often literally sleeping outside because the houses were dangerous,  jumping off a moving vehicle while dodging bullets flying between Obote’s army and Museveni’s NRA rebel army, caught in the middle and sympathetic to the latter meant that the victory of the NRA IN 1986 was a huge relief for me.

I got my savior in Museveni and like a thirsty dog after a long walk, I was eager to drink up all the ideology him and his ideologues preached. As a young boy in his teens, I looked on in awe when we were visited at school by the political giants of the day who were teaching us among other things, the NRA’s Carefully ordered 10-point program;

1. Democracy.

2. Security.

3. Consolidation of National unity and elimination of all forms of sectarianism.

4. Defending and consolidating National Independence.

5. Building an independent, integrated, and self-sustaining national economy.

6. Restoration and improvement of Social services and the rehabilitation of the war-ravaged areas.

7. Elimination of corruption and misuse of power.

8. Redressing errors that had resulted in the dislocation of sections of the population and improvement of others.

9. Co-operation with other African countries in defending human and democratic rights.

of our brothers in other parts of Africa.

10. Following an economic strategy of mixed economy.

We were told that without the first point ( Democracy) all the others were not achievable. I was wholeheartedly in support of all the efforts in the early 1990s towards writing a new constitution. This was the ❤️ love letter that sealed the deal for me , especially the idea that we had started on a path where a country that had never changed leaders peacefully finally had defined term limits, age limits etc. that made this theoretically possible. The other issues that I had hoped for I felt then that we could handle with time.

With gusto I marched from Makerere University to Kololo airstrip through the city center singing “no change” to witness Museveni being nominated for president under the new 1995 constitution. I knew that this man who gave me so much hope, who had dodged bullets  like me and signed a document that would make him lose power someday, was a man I could trust.

I held on to this ideology like a Christian novice holds onto the catechism,  I sat back and fought word wars with those around me who told me the man would surprise me one day.

Thirty five years later , the love letter has since been edited countless times and I am yet to observe the political climax promised by my lover, the peaceful change of guards from one individual President to another in Uganda .

In true animal farm style, the ideology has evolved. But like a son who finds himself in a situation where he has to defend the honor of his father who has been caught in an embarrassing situation, I am guilty of making many excuses.

Over the years I have uncomfortably found justifications for some of the changes to the love letter. The kind of excuses one who has deeply fallen in love will make when their beloved keeps coming home drunk and occasionally abuses them then pampers them the next day. 

After all, this was my hero who saved me before from much worse turmoil. “Obviously there has to be good reason for his behaviour. Maybe we just don’t get him”, I’d recite the timeless abused lover’s ballad.

Several years down the road, I find that it is increasingly harder to use some of the earlier 1980s ideology as the guideline for understanding the developments that I  am uncomfortable with in our relationship . Some things do not make any sense anymore as Preside Museveni prepares to start a campaign that will most likely lead to 40 years in power or more. Something has either changed in him or the stuff I learned in the 90s was like elementary maths which I need to unlearn to understand the more complex maths that defines the power equation. 

I know now that I have been part of the rubble, swaying like slender trees 🌲 in the wind, to the convincing tongues of our current day Brutus and Mark Anthony. 

With the motivation of ceasing to be an observer or an angry jilted lover, I set out to understand, on my own , what this relationship really is.  I set out on a journey to decode whether what I mistook for love was just a “physiological” need driven by “hormones” and that the sweet nothings that gave me yesterday’s pink eyed love were just a mating dance in service of something bigger needed by the suitor.

 I am now more convinced than ever that this is the mating dance for the procreation of power, and I am just a pawn in the scheme of things! No malice intended, it is just a game. A game in which having anguish against the leaders leads no where, a game in which understanding the rules for yourself makes you more likely to have a peace of mind. This is the game of power, the only way a pawn becomes the chief of his destiny and a king 👑 sacrifices many pawns ♟ to win his battle. Power is authority capable of bending others to its will, managing or influencing the actions of others.

Democracy as is practiced in established democracies has always been my perceived power reward from my “lover”. How naive this looks now .

I see now that even in some so called established democracies, the struggle for power has recently moved to the streets, with new waves of disgruntled protesters and movements challenging it and governments reacting with violence I only expected in “lesser” countries.

Even where democracy seemingly works, power is held by clubs of people or corporations (the real powers behind carefully nurtured political parties) for most of the time , while the ordinary people generally keep complaining. Once in a while an outside face may show up, but it tends to be the same people steering the different organizations in the background .  So, what are we really looking for when we demand change? A face? A certain way of being treated? Or the promise that because another country changes leaders and has a better quality of life then if we keep changing leaders, we will have the same quality of life? I do not know!!

But it seems to me, especially from the Ugandan context , that many people don’t mind an “enlightened”, “ strong” ruler, like an absolute monarch, surrounded hopefully by wise advisers and capable of making carefully considered decisions. Doesn’t history have known rulers who started out like that?

If this isn’t the case, why is it so difficult to build momentum for change?

I cannot fail to mention that this appears to be a global characteristic. My long time model the USA elected a leader in 2016 who is attracted to the promise of totalitarian tendencies and yet his predecessor was the direct opposite for 8 years! The yo-yo like choices are symptom of something grossly amiss.

Someone observed recently in an article in Forbes that the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy. Sadly this isn’t much different for Uganda and many other countries .

Western democracy, which was my juvenile dream of what true people power is, is exhibiting increasing tendencies of uncertainty, and it is interesting to see that some sections of the population ( and leaders ) look, with quiet admiration to Russia’s Putin and China’s Xi Jinping because the power in those two countries is in hand, stable and effective at affecting people’s behavior and actions.

It is said that in the USA, the basis for democracy is crumbling, and the people have taken notice. In no small part that is because the long era during which average Americans grew more wealthy seems to be  coming to a sputtering stop due to changes in the global economy.

It appears that a people who are wealthy are easier to rule over. Many would-be rabble rousers and foot soldiers are gainfully employed when there is wealth and as a result the center firmly holds. There seems to be a direct correlation between wealth and democracy and it seems that democracy is not what brings wealth.

Was the NRA’s 10-point program poorly ordered or am I just finding reasons to keep my “lover”? I would love to hear from you.

Emmanuel Jjunju