The historical and social bases of problems of leadership among Acholi of Uganda, Part III

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 marginalised elites, including those from traditional chiefly households, rose to positions of political prominence, while social and political dynasties of clerical chiefs fell into disfavour, and in some cases driven to opposition politics. Such social conflict, even if it often did not break out into open political struggle, its undercurrents were very determining for political alignments, particularly in West Acholi.

An example of an internal process was the expansion of education outside missionary schools and chiefly household. This created more and better opportunities for higher education and people to better their lots. Essentially, education acted as a social equaliser of sorts, helping poor families and individuals change their fortunes and leap-frog social classes into middle class lifestyles on the wings of a college diploma or university degree. This was most significant for the first decade of independence, when education was a ticket to a high paying and privileged civil service job. The crucial role education has played in transforming Acholi society, and even altering its style of politics, can further be attested to by the impact it has had on Acholi diaspora communities and what the implications have been for diaspora and in-country Acholi politics and leadership problems. For the record, flight and exile, like the expansion of education outside missionary schools and chiefly households, offered the Acholi limitless educational opportunities to better themselves and compete favourably in their countries of residence and accumulate resources to compete in commodity production back home in their native Acholi and Uganda.

The significance of increased educational opportunities among Acholi diaspora can only be understood in context. Before and up until about 1986, there was only one university in Uganda. Annually, Makerere took only about two thousand students. This meant that a number of people went to diploma-granting teacher's training and technical and other professional vocational colleges and institutes. It also meant that competition for university education and degree was intense. Although Acholi took its fair share of university spaces, many more who wanted university education but fell short of the intake points, had their hopes dashed. As one of the blessings in disguise of flight and exile, a great number if not all of Acholi youths and adults who had desired university education but could not compete favourably for limited opportunities back home, returned to school and have prospered. Moreover, a generation of children born and raised in exile after Museveni came to power, have come of age. All these have combined to alter Acholi social structures and politics both in the diaspora and at home.

This brings us to the conception of the term dong warom. Loosely and simplistically, it meant a crude social equalisation of sorts. This was a taunting reflection on the hardships, indignities and struggles to make ends meet and settle down in a new culture, new economic set-up and new attitude in exile. It was a snide commentary on the agonising sights of former ministers, colonels, brigadiers, Major Generals, patriarchs of Acholi family social and political dynasties, professors and shilling (rather than pound sterling or dollar) tycoons trudge off to do menial jobs or beat it to the social services doors together with their former junior and support staff, even domestics, to make ends meet.

At another level, it was a sly remark by those who felt unfairly treated, deprived or oppressed by those who wielded political and state power, and were opposed to the former elite of the previous regimes in Kampala.Their fall from power, was perceived as some form of poetic justice, an evening out of scores of sort; in this case meted out by some benevolent spirits, although it could have been sweeter exacted by their own sch emes rather than someone else's, nonetheless, the outcome was sweet justice to relish. At an interpretive level, below the two surface meanings above, it was a signalling torpedo of a new day, of the changing forms and context of Acholi politics and leadership fired by the new elite in exile, which also expressed the arrival and aspirations of a younger Acholi generation of leaders-post-independence and post-family dynasties brought about by expanded and liberal arts education, the erosion of ethnic bonds and the rising focus on the individual as the moral locus of society.

The new and rising elite in the diaspora and in-country in Acholi, staked their political and leadership credentials or fortunes not on family name, age-old traditional birthrights and socio-political dynasties, but individual, personal achievements, attributes or knowledge. Their politics was liberal democratic, and ideologically social democratic. They believed in social equality. Their rise in the diaspora was a response to an attempt by the proponents of the old Acholi politics of family dynasties to assert control and leadership direction over the organisation and leadership of Acholi diaspora and its politics. It was also a response to the failures and inadequacies of the old cadres of Acholi family social and political dynasties in messing up the organisation, management and direction of the formidable anti-Museveni Uganda
People's Democratic Movement / Army (UPDM/A) that culminated into an inconsequential peace agreement in 1988, which beheaded the UPDM/A, and split the movement and dispersed the exercise of power and authority between the military wing in the bush and the feeble political wing in London, which eventually signed an effeminate, separate agreement with Museveni in Addis Ababa in 1994.

Unlike its counterparts in the diaspora that arose in reaction and resistance to old school Acholi family political and social dynasties, the rise of a new, young, independent minded and firebrand leadership in Acholi arose to fill the vacuum left by the flight and exile of the entire cadres of Acholi political dynasties. Their reversal of fortunes on the social and political front has been twofold. First, their cowardice and lack of imagination led them to flee en mass, leaving the population leaderless and without any strategic organising to bargain with the Museveni regime with political muscle for acceptance and recognition. As a result of their absence, the Ibo witticisms that when a lizard loses its tail, it soon grows another one were fulfilled by the rise of the young Acholi leaders that occupied the leadership vacuum. In the diaspora where the old cadres fled, their invocation and reliance on old established family social and political elitism to exert control and direction over Acholi diaspora organising, politics and affairs were rebuked and defeated by the new progressive cadres of liberalism and moral equality of all human beings. The edifice of such defeat came through the organising, convening, the conduct and outcome of Kacoke Madit (KM) conference in the spring of 1997. Rather than a platform for crowning an Acholi prince (political or aristocratic) as many cadres of the old family and political dynasties had hoped and schemed to pull off, the KM turned out to be a democratic version of the Paris mob of the reign of terror, ready to guillotine all political princes for the rights of the individual and the equality of all. KM97 therefore marked the end of a vice-grip hold of old style Acholi politics, but it also heralded a more insidious and devious cloak and dagger politics.

Displaced at home where the Acholi political lizard had grown new tail, and defeated abroad in the diaspora by the democratic majority of liberal minded generation of Acholi that subscribe to individual rights, ideas and value based leadership, apologists of the old style Acholi politics were either alienated and driven to seek or on their own volition sought accommodation with the regime in Kampala. By seeking rapprochement with the state, they hoped to use political patronage and whatever economic resources they command, to seek advantage in commodity production and accumulation in Acholi and Uganda. By positioning themselves to control economic means the same way the Western elite did with the Ugandan state, they hope to eventually exert control over Acholi politics through their wealth. It is not by coincidence that investment or post-conflict reconstruction rather than peace, justice and equity have become the by word on Acholi political and social discussions.

As concerns politics and organising in the diaspora, no Acholi organisation outside the control of the former Acholi social and political dynasties is considered legitimate. Therefore, dege okello, was a counterpoise to dong warom. At the superficial level it meant that there were riff-ruffs who did not deserve to come abroad or had no cause to flee, since they were viewed as nobodies that no one would be interested in persecuting. According to this view, they were of no social and political quantity. At another level, it signified illegitimacy, because one did not come from any of the Acholi dynasties. It was from this stance that KM found itself competing with the old social and political family dynasties for the rights to claim to represent Acholi interests. For them Acholi was synonymous with the old family dynasties. Anything less is illegitimate. This was exactly the view soon after KM97 conference ended without elections for substantive positions for Acholi leadership for which these factions had organised and prepared for. And henceforth, the different fragments of Acholi social groups, ie old style family dynasties of clerical chiefly households, restored traditional chiefly households, nationalist anti-colonial households, and the liberal democratic majority jostled for influence in community organisations and leadership in the diaspora.