Rejection of Museveni in northern Uganda a Moral Imperative
If you spent four months weaving your way about and sleeping in IDP camps as I did during the last electoral mobilisation and campaigns, you would understand how it is indisputable that 1000 people should die a week in Acholiland. And that 41% of such deaths should be children under five, and also that the rate of violent deaths should be three times higher than in Iraq. Amazingly, Museveni and his henchmen are busy discounting and dismissing such studies, reports and policy briefings, without as little as offering situation reports and policy briefs that undermine such findings. Once you visit and sleep in these camps, and have spoken with the residents, you cannot help but come out feeling, perception and conclusion that, the Buturos and military spokesmen speak about a different country, when they issue denials on events in northern Uganda.
Official denials and the rosy pictures they paint, whether by understatements or dismissive bravado, clash very sharply with lived daily realities of the IDP camps. The disjunction between official political rhetoric and the facts on the ground, and the alienation neglect and denials generate, should be likened to Leo Toltoy’s Memoirs of a Lunatic; an eloquent statement of the estrangement of the individual from himself, resulting from his forcible containment within a society that is unresponsive to his greatest needs and aspirations. Eric Fromm points out in Escape from Freedom, that a good society should afford its members or an individual, opportunity for the greatest happiness. Once that is possible, the individual can meet his social roles, responsibilities and fulfil the expectations of his society, while at the same time maximizing his own individual development and happiness. But such conditions of moral and purposeful leadership are painfully lacking in northern Uganda, where a military occupation-like control in Acholiland derogates the objective facts of the particularity of individual needs, aspirations, as well as moral values and choices that individuals must make and meet.
Coming to terms with this made me understand Acholi enthusiasm for opposition politics in the last election. It was their conscious recognition and determination that since the Ugandan State and the gods have abandoned them, the Acholi must grow up and take responsibilities for themselves-as Nietzche surely would have counselled. The extreme violence of the insurgency, counter-insurgency and government control of thought and freedom in northern Uganda, had for long robbed people of the freedom of will and liberty to self-determine good from evil, which is a god-given moral right, for which individuals alone must be responsible. The return to multiparty politics and the elections offered people the opportunity and platform to genuinely express themselves and assert their humanity in their choice of preferred candidates. It is laughable that Yoweri Museveni should find this bewildering, and to think that the electorates in northern Uganda were misguided and in need of liberating from themselves.
As members of society; individuals reserve the rights to choose their issues, priorities and platforms, and who and how, to articulate their demands. Which means, NRM ideologues, claiming to speak for the people, must recognise their conceptual falsities and theoretical limitations, and begin to account for the realities of others’ distinct existences and needs. The brutalised and marginalised inmates of IDP camps in Acholi, are political, social and moral beings in their own rights, with unresolved, necessary, sufficient, objective, and historical grievances that make supporting Museveni and the movement, irrational and self-negating.
Eric Fromm (in Escape from Freedom) and Sverker Finnstrom in Living With Bad Surrounding: War and Existential Uncertainty in Acholiland, Northern Uganda, both acknowledge that when social, communal, cultural, customary and traditional relationships are broken down, such as it is in Acholi, and one left on his own to make decision about his own existence, the individual feels isolated, alone and insecure. According to Fromm, in attempt to overcome his loneliness and powerlessness, one of two options or “mechanisms” of “escape” are open to him: to either surrender or choose positive freedom. Positive freedom means resisting external control and domination; ability to express and exercise genuine emotion and personal thoughts. In contrast, one who surrenders loses individual freedom and self, as the price he must pay to bring his alienated self in harmony with the needs and expectations of the world external to himself. This is why the NRM slogan of “No Change” issuing from the lips of seemingly intelligent Acholi men and women on the campaign trail sounded hollow, callous and meaningless amidst the misery, ruins, deprivation and hopelessness in the land.
Such behaviour seems quite odd, but as Eric Fromm observes, the health of society is prescribed by social necessity, while that for the individual is dictated by personal morality that defines the meaning of life for a person. Understandably, Acholi who conform seek acceptance by giving up their individuality and self in order to affect character traits that satisfy the movement leadership, but not the problems and needs of their constituents. Other Acholi who reject the status quo, demanding better conditions for their people by opposing the movement’s position of “No Change” are labelled and dismissed as misguided and in need of “liberation. But a serous minded and conscious Acholi has a moral imperative to reject and resist giving up his essence and individual freedom to think and act according to the personal and individual dictates of a happy and moral existence for himself and the Acholi at large. Thankfully, they overwhelmingly took this stand and chose positive freedom by snubbing Museveni and the NRM in the last elections.
Alas, their rational and existential considerations seem beyond Yoweri Museveni, and more so, my NRM opponent in the last election, Hilary Onek, MP. And the entire NRM cast in Acholi came across like a bunch of court jesters that they were, with their rallying cry for “No Change”, sang with apparent anguish, because of the irony and blatant lies they were perpetrating. It is obvious Acholiland is desolate and in need of urgent and radical change. This alone made the NRM out of place here. But NRM and Museveni’s needs rather than that of Acholi, forced Onek to close his eyes to the dire conditions of existence of our people, the lack of freedom, peace and security and the practices of forced labour-soldiers staging illegal roadblocks to unlawfully force our people to work on the roadsides clearing brushes like slaves. It should have not come as a surprise for Museveni, the NRM and Hilary Onek, MP, that the people of Acholi should vote the way they did-it is simply a moral imperative.
While Hilary Onek managed to legally remain MP for Lamwo, his “win” is shorn of any political and moral legitimacy. Of his 7000+ votes –against my and three others’ 6000+-, over 4000 came from army polling stations in Lokung Ngomoromo, Palabek Ogili and Agoro Potika, where army political commissars (PCs) had the last word on the electoral exercise. This is why Museveni, Onek and Akwero Odwong, should get identical votes from all those outside -quarter-guard polling stations. Disdainfully, the majority of those soldiers were originally drawn from different parts of the country and deployed in operation iron fist in the Sudan, but were trucked across the border to vote in Lamwo. This subverted the will and aspirations of the local and permanent residents of the county. Arguably, Hilary Onek’s election did not reflect the general will, interests and aspirations of the people of Lamwo.
Successively and consistently in every past election, despite the LRA violence, UPDF abuses and repression by local government agents, the Acholi continually rejected and confound the NRM and its overzealous quislings, by maintaining moral independence and conscientious resistance by voting against Museveni. Doubtless, there are those who have opted for surrendering their independence by becoming tools and stooges of the movement, thereby evading the difficult personal responsibility of making principled stand against the regime’s historical, atrocious and bellicose disposition towards the Acholi, and the price the society has had to pay in the last twenty years. Erich Fromm conceives such submission and cooptation to forces and circumstances outside of the individual as “escape from freedom”, because those who do so, lose their individuality, identity, and freedom to choose or make their own decisions based on a deeply felt, socially and morally sustainable need.
Introspectively, five bloody years in Luwero, and twenty years of a one party NRM authoritarianism, with its reliance on force of arms and a fanciful construction and practice of a whimsically conceived brand of democracy, have amounted to nothing but a deceptive totalitarian ideological bankruptcy. The so called revolution has nothing to show except national disintegration, further ethnic nationalism, and a corrupt and shameless ethnic hegemony. The NRM ought to shed the illusions and deceptions they have lived by, and examine themselves, their motives and records realistically. The deception and illusions they have lived by have forced nationalities, regions and ethnic groups to turn inwards in search of support and meaning, against an increasingly acrimonious, meaningless, dysfunctional and alienating nation-state. This has thrown in sharp relief, inevitable dialectical opposition between the aims of the state and that of individual existence or social identity, but without any honest efforts or moral and political depth , leave alone intellectual ingenuity, to finding a constructive balance or dialogic resolution and accommodation, other than violent confrontation.
Under the deceptive and illusionary veils of a national democratic revolution, the NRM dictatorship allowed limited degree of freedom of expression in the press, held sham elections and co-opted self-seeking and unscrupulous politicians, while gravely eroding fundamental principles of individual freedom to think, self-determine and decide as an individual with unique and independent interests. This was achieved under a framework where only the NRM alone could define what democracy is and what the national interest were and who the people are, and who could legitimately speak on their behalf. Their tactical conception of democracy perverted and convoluted the expectations of freedom and the individual, and assumes individuals and people cannot have values and philosophies independent of and outside NRM counter-revolutionary and revisionist propaganda.
The rejection of Museveni and the repudiation of all that the movement stand for was a moral imperative in Acholi; validating the existential thesis that left alone, people will resist loss of self and struggle to affirm their individuality. It further attests to the existential and nihilistic axiom that as conscious beings, we do not submit willingly to losing our freedom and independence, and that sometimes we need to come face to face with self-negating dilemmas in order to affirm our faith in the values we stand for.
Official denials and the rosy pictures they paint, whether by understatements or dismissive bravado, clash very sharply with lived daily realities of the IDP camps. The disjunction between official political rhetoric and the facts on the ground, and the alienation neglect and denials generate, should be likened to Leo Toltoy’s Memoirs of a Lunatic; an eloquent statement of the estrangement of the individual from himself, resulting from his forcible containment within a society that is unresponsive to his greatest needs and aspirations. Eric Fromm points out in Escape from Freedom, that a good society should afford its members or an individual, opportunity for the greatest happiness. Once that is possible, the individual can meet his social roles, responsibilities and fulfil the expectations of his society, while at the same time maximizing his own individual development and happiness. But such conditions of moral and purposeful leadership are painfully lacking in northern Uganda, where a military occupation-like control in Acholiland derogates the objective facts of the particularity of individual needs, aspirations, as well as moral values and choices that individuals must make and meet.
Coming to terms with this made me understand Acholi enthusiasm for opposition politics in the last election. It was their conscious recognition and determination that since the Ugandan State and the gods have abandoned them, the Acholi must grow up and take responsibilities for themselves-as Nietzche surely would have counselled. The extreme violence of the insurgency, counter-insurgency and government control of thought and freedom in northern Uganda, had for long robbed people of the freedom of will and liberty to self-determine good from evil, which is a god-given moral right, for which individuals alone must be responsible. The return to multiparty politics and the elections offered people the opportunity and platform to genuinely express themselves and assert their humanity in their choice of preferred candidates. It is laughable that Yoweri Museveni should find this bewildering, and to think that the electorates in northern Uganda were misguided and in need of liberating from themselves.
As members of society; individuals reserve the rights to choose their issues, priorities and platforms, and who and how, to articulate their demands. Which means, NRM ideologues, claiming to speak for the people, must recognise their conceptual falsities and theoretical limitations, and begin to account for the realities of others’ distinct existences and needs. The brutalised and marginalised inmates of IDP camps in Acholi, are political, social and moral beings in their own rights, with unresolved, necessary, sufficient, objective, and historical grievances that make supporting Museveni and the movement, irrational and self-negating.
Eric Fromm (in Escape from Freedom) and Sverker Finnstrom in Living With Bad Surrounding: War and Existential Uncertainty in Acholiland, Northern Uganda, both acknowledge that when social, communal, cultural, customary and traditional relationships are broken down, such as it is in Acholi, and one left on his own to make decision about his own existence, the individual feels isolated, alone and insecure. According to Fromm, in attempt to overcome his loneliness and powerlessness, one of two options or “mechanisms” of “escape” are open to him: to either surrender or choose positive freedom. Positive freedom means resisting external control and domination; ability to express and exercise genuine emotion and personal thoughts. In contrast, one who surrenders loses individual freedom and self, as the price he must pay to bring his alienated self in harmony with the needs and expectations of the world external to himself. This is why the NRM slogan of “No Change” issuing from the lips of seemingly intelligent Acholi men and women on the campaign trail sounded hollow, callous and meaningless amidst the misery, ruins, deprivation and hopelessness in the land.
Such behaviour seems quite odd, but as Eric Fromm observes, the health of society is prescribed by social necessity, while that for the individual is dictated by personal morality that defines the meaning of life for a person. Understandably, Acholi who conform seek acceptance by giving up their individuality and self in order to affect character traits that satisfy the movement leadership, but not the problems and needs of their constituents. Other Acholi who reject the status quo, demanding better conditions for their people by opposing the movement’s position of “No Change” are labelled and dismissed as misguided and in need of “liberation. But a serous minded and conscious Acholi has a moral imperative to reject and resist giving up his essence and individual freedom to think and act according to the personal and individual dictates of a happy and moral existence for himself and the Acholi at large. Thankfully, they overwhelmingly took this stand and chose positive freedom by snubbing Museveni and the NRM in the last elections.
Alas, their rational and existential considerations seem beyond Yoweri Museveni, and more so, my NRM opponent in the last election, Hilary Onek, MP. And the entire NRM cast in Acholi came across like a bunch of court jesters that they were, with their rallying cry for “No Change”, sang with apparent anguish, because of the irony and blatant lies they were perpetrating. It is obvious Acholiland is desolate and in need of urgent and radical change. This alone made the NRM out of place here. But NRM and Museveni’s needs rather than that of Acholi, forced Onek to close his eyes to the dire conditions of existence of our people, the lack of freedom, peace and security and the practices of forced labour-soldiers staging illegal roadblocks to unlawfully force our people to work on the roadsides clearing brushes like slaves. It should have not come as a surprise for Museveni, the NRM and Hilary Onek, MP, that the people of Acholi should vote the way they did-it is simply a moral imperative.
While Hilary Onek managed to legally remain MP for Lamwo, his “win” is shorn of any political and moral legitimacy. Of his 7000+ votes –against my and three others’ 6000+-, over 4000 came from army polling stations in Lokung Ngomoromo, Palabek Ogili and Agoro Potika, where army political commissars (PCs) had the last word on the electoral exercise. This is why Museveni, Onek and Akwero Odwong, should get identical votes from all those outside -quarter-guard polling stations. Disdainfully, the majority of those soldiers were originally drawn from different parts of the country and deployed in operation iron fist in the Sudan, but were trucked across the border to vote in Lamwo. This subverted the will and aspirations of the local and permanent residents of the county. Arguably, Hilary Onek’s election did not reflect the general will, interests and aspirations of the people of Lamwo.
Successively and consistently in every past election, despite the LRA violence, UPDF abuses and repression by local government agents, the Acholi continually rejected and confound the NRM and its overzealous quislings, by maintaining moral independence and conscientious resistance by voting against Museveni. Doubtless, there are those who have opted for surrendering their independence by becoming tools and stooges of the movement, thereby evading the difficult personal responsibility of making principled stand against the regime’s historical, atrocious and bellicose disposition towards the Acholi, and the price the society has had to pay in the last twenty years. Erich Fromm conceives such submission and cooptation to forces and circumstances outside of the individual as “escape from freedom”, because those who do so, lose their individuality, identity, and freedom to choose or make their own decisions based on a deeply felt, socially and morally sustainable need.
Introspectively, five bloody years in Luwero, and twenty years of a one party NRM authoritarianism, with its reliance on force of arms and a fanciful construction and practice of a whimsically conceived brand of democracy, have amounted to nothing but a deceptive totalitarian ideological bankruptcy. The so called revolution has nothing to show except national disintegration, further ethnic nationalism, and a corrupt and shameless ethnic hegemony. The NRM ought to shed the illusions and deceptions they have lived by, and examine themselves, their motives and records realistically. The deception and illusions they have lived by have forced nationalities, regions and ethnic groups to turn inwards in search of support and meaning, against an increasingly acrimonious, meaningless, dysfunctional and alienating nation-state. This has thrown in sharp relief, inevitable dialectical opposition between the aims of the state and that of individual existence or social identity, but without any honest efforts or moral and political depth , leave alone intellectual ingenuity, to finding a constructive balance or dialogic resolution and accommodation, other than violent confrontation.
Under the deceptive and illusionary veils of a national democratic revolution, the NRM dictatorship allowed limited degree of freedom of expression in the press, held sham elections and co-opted self-seeking and unscrupulous politicians, while gravely eroding fundamental principles of individual freedom to think, self-determine and decide as an individual with unique and independent interests. This was achieved under a framework where only the NRM alone could define what democracy is and what the national interest were and who the people are, and who could legitimately speak on their behalf. Their tactical conception of democracy perverted and convoluted the expectations of freedom and the individual, and assumes individuals and people cannot have values and philosophies independent of and outside NRM counter-revolutionary and revisionist propaganda.
The rejection of Museveni and the repudiation of all that the movement stand for was a moral imperative in Acholi; validating the existential thesis that left alone, people will resist loss of self and struggle to affirm their individuality. It further attests to the existential and nihilistic axiom that as conscious beings, we do not submit willingly to losing our freedom and independence, and that sometimes we need to come face to face with self-negating dilemmas in order to affirm our faith in the values we stand for.
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