Northern Uganda Messenger Post

Acholi Unity as a goal is a mirage. Whether unity of action or shared values or common aspirations that rely on our alleged common culture or ethnicity, or common external threats, is a goal that does not exist and therefore cannot be achieved. Not that we do not want or wish we could, or that it would not be a good thing, but it is just that, it is the stage of social and economic development that history, the world and human nature have imposed on us. In my view therefore, setting achievement of Acholi unity as a goal, urging Acholi unity rather than harmony, collaboration and coordination of individual and group interests in order to achieve certain shared but limited objectives that may benefit the majority or everyone equally, is an illusion. It is unbelievable to some that I would even say a thing like this. But I think we need to realise that the world keeps changing and Acholi society is part of the world and it has undergone comparable changes herself. Unless we can accept suc...

The individual, rational choice, elite politics and the erosion of ethnic bonds. In my previous musings, I indicated that the scramble for land in Acholi is the result of class conflict and the struggle for political power by elite groups. This involves the national elite allied to the state, with easy access to political power and resources, in alliance with their friends and class ideologues in Acholi on the one hand (national resistance movement, ie NRM & Co). On the other hand, we got another section of the Acholi middle class and political elite, outside of the ruling party but affiliated with opposition politics, articulating national democratic positions and seemingly committing class suicide by championing the rights of the poor and marginalized (Acholi parliamentary Group, ie APG & Co). I drew the attention of the reader to the fact that under normal circumstances, both of these elite fractions belong to the same social and economic class, and would all strive to maxim...

In the last part, we indicated that the problems of leadership in Acholi are directly linked to issues of social inequalities, class and historical elite competition. To understand this, we need to outline historical and social processes and mechanisms that led to the emergence of particular social and economic classes in Acholi from the advent of colonialism to the present. First, British colonialism and missionary education introduced social inequalities in Acholi through unequal access to missionary education and subsequently white collar work. One needed to have been converted and persuaded of the value of missionary education. There was created therefore, social groups of believers and non believers with all their positive and negative connotations and antagonism. In most cases, the chiefly households were the first to embrace Christianity and protestant missionary education. As a result, they formed the nucleus of Acholi elite. As descendants of chiefly households, they believed ...

The social processes and transformations that created one Acholi elite group after the other can be divided into two; internal and external. The external ones were those imposed by the colonial governments, while the internal ones were induced by social differentiation, inequalities, conflicts and aspirations native to Acholi society. For instance, when the colonial government dethroned traditional chiefs and foisted clerical chiefs in their place, it created latent social animosities and conflicts between royal clans and clans of appointed chiefs who used colonial patronage to develop a cadre of civil servants from their own clans and elite networks that sidelined the aristocratic lineages. Nursing the grudge for their rights to rule by the will of ancient temporal and spiritual traditions, the royal clans actively supported nationalist anti-colonial movements against the British and their clerical collaborators who had usurped their power. Therefore, after independence, former margin...

The US, Britain and Europe: Imperialist Competition to Own and control peace Initiatives and processes in northern Uganda The moderate, democratic and liberal coalition at KM (which included progressives from the old Acholi establishment as well as radical groups) found itself under siege from an army of critics. Detracted and mired in defending and trying to justify itself, KM was paralysed and left with self-doubts, despite the overwhelming support of the majority of Acholi people at home and a critical mass in the diaspora. KM's critical problem was that it sought to be the voice of the Acholi people and for every Acholi to have a stake in its work. Therefore, rather than deal with a critical mass, KM sought unanimity or at worst consensus, which was something difficult to achieve, given the stratification and aspirations of the social dynasties outlined above. But unable to completely undermine and discredit KM, they either directly or through malleable proxies founded new org...

Are Acholi proponents of backwardness or justified sceptics of state-led development? The land issue in Acholi has mainly been looked at from journalistic reportage or conventional ethnic or regional analytical framework, which precludes any serious analysis and conceptual understanding of issues beyond their obvious manifestations. Lacking in theoretical depth, whether of the contending theories of social change and historical development, and taking as an article of faith, the class neutrality of the state, it simply amplifies dogmatic state assertions, which portrays the dispute as a struggle between the forces of change or modernisation, against those of reaction of primordial irrationalities. Their tacit logic is that Acholiland is a backward pre-capitalist social formation, under siege by the forces of traditionalism who use tribal ideologies to resist modernisation, so that the market and capitalist formations are necessary as agencies for socioeconomic transformation (See Achol...

A class war and democratic struggle for equality and the control of resources has pitted legislators from Acholi –a northern fraction of the petty bourgeoisie- against the ruling NRM /A political class and bureaucratic petty bourgeoisie- a predominantly southwestern fraction. The Ugandan state, the popular press and political commentators represent the tensions as Acholi ethnocentricity and xenophobia. We would like object to this superficial presentation, but posit that the struggle is in fact an "interclass affair" and "intraclass politics", a product of the intersection of the dialectic of class and ethnicity, which in turn is induced by the uneasy tensions between centring (international) and decentring (local) elements of the forces of globalisation. Therefore, it is the objective consequence of the dual articulation of the kin-based moral economies and capitalist commodity production. Contrary to Omara Atubo's contention, the land debate cannot be disconne...