Freedom and the Individual: Existentialist Crisis in Acholiland
MAKING AUTHENTIC CHOICES IN TIME OF CRISIS.
Sverker Finnstrom’s recent work on northern Uganda picks up and continues a particular theme of existential inquiries that echo Shakespeare, de Sade, Tolstoy, Proust, Kafka and Moravia. Living With Bad Surrounding re-states the nature of daily human and individual struggles to live under turbulent circumstances (Piny Marac) in northern Uganda. Read in broad existentialist terms, the Ugandan State and regime are absurd worlds, from which its citizens in the north have been alienated from themselves and estranged from the popular view of national normalcy. Trumpeted NRM/A revolution, liberation, peace and prosperity, contrast very sharply with their lived realities of violence, abduction, murder, rape, diseases and social dislocation. The fish-bowl existence in the concentration camps, characterised by rights abuses, sexual violence, suicide, prostitution, idleness, and a host of other social ills and diseases, is for many individuals and families, not unlike living on the edge of a precipice, from where there is no margin for the slightest error in judgment. Aware of their problems and conscious of their fate and palpable possibilities of violent death, whether in the hands of the LRA, UPDF, Boo Kec-gangsters spawned by the fluid security situation- people in Acholi, surprisingly still demonstrate determined, consuming passion for survival (Cing Pe Tum)
In Living With Bad Surrounding: War and Existential Uncertainty in Acholiland, Northern Uganda, Finnstrom convincingly demonstrates that, despite the LRA violence, UPDF abuses and oppression from local Acholi government eyes, ears and mouthpieces (Kadi ibut ki maru ite pii, wang ma owinye), the majority of Acholi people have rejected the loss of the self, and time and again, confounded the NRM government and its overzealous agents, by maintaining independence and conscientious resistance against intimidation and blackmail. The study also shows that there are those who have opted for surrendering the self and joining the movement (Rwot Ineka), thereby evading the difficult personal responsibility of making choices that originate from within the self, rather than imposed by an institution that one merely has to conform to in an automated fashion. Erich Fromm in his Escape From Freedom, calls such surrender to forces and circumstances outside of the individual as “escape from freedom”, because those who do so, lose their individuality, identity, freedom to choose or make their own decisions, and with it also the loss of the self. This is why, any statement from NRM leaders in and from Acholi, contrast very sharply with the realities of the lives of their people who lead sub-human existences in the concentration camps.
In his inquiry, Finnstrom is one with traditional existentialist philosophy in suggesting that, one cannot escape oneself; for at the end of the tentative peace one professes to enjoy, the individual inevitably must come face to face with the essence one tries so hard to disguise-our mortality. Imperatively, the actions one takes must be authentic, because there can be no space for deception, and protective veils of illusions inevitably become too transparent. The implication for us is that, various Ugandan social and political groups need to shed the illusions and deceptions they have lived by, and examine themselves and their motives realistically. The imperative is compelling, knowing we must come to terms with our past and history in order to chart a meaningful future. This necessity cannot be overstated, as exemplified by the passionate debate and the he-said-he-said that greeted serialisation in The Monitor, of Milton Obote’s autobiographical reminiscences on our post independence social and political history.
As the exchanges showed, our nationhood has been fragmented and indelibly scarred by our violent history, and the deception and illusions we have lived by have forced nationalities, regions and ethnic groups to turn inwards in search of support and meaning, against an increasingly acrimonious, meaningless, disordered, dysfunctional and alienating nation-state. The inevitable dialectic opposition between the aims of the state and that of individual or community existence, often have not been resolved dialogically and accommodatingly with intent to achieving a constructive balance and often ended disastrously. The NRM efforts to establish a one party state, by force of arms and to fancifully construct and practise a whimsical conception and brand of democracy, are the hallmarks of totalitarian ideological bankruptcy, which served to exacerbate national disintegration and further ethnic nationalism, bigotry, deceptions and illusions.
Under such democratic façade, limited degree of freedom of expression in the press is allowed, but the fundamental question of individual freedom to think, self-determine and decide as an individual with unique and independent interests, is gravely degraded. Consequently, people are forced to chorus what Yoweri Museveni and the NRM thinks or says in the name of a fictionalised people. Such authoritarian perception of politics and power excises from the public policy process, the individual as a conscious, rational and self-interested being with particular needs and aspirations, which collectively constitute public interest, needs and aspirations. At the practical level, movement politics seeks to mould every Ugandan in its image, using Ofwono Opondo or Betty Akech Okullu as a prototype; a robotic, automated, unthinking, rabid running dog that will chew its own tail for ideological orthodoxy. Their politics eschews any difference, social and ideological diversity in favour of a monoculture of thought and ideology. Their limited success east of the Nile and north of Kafu , partly explains why the greater northern Uganda remains unstable, deprived and marginal in national politics. Because from day one, the northerners, particularly in Bukedi, Teso, Lango, Acholi and West Nile, dared to be different; to hold onto their individuality and independence, and reserve the rights to determine and choose what is best for themselves and resist attempts to degrade their freedom to make personal and authentic decisions in existential circumstances.
Finnstrom’s subjects lucidly validate the existential thesis that left alone, people are bound to resist loss of self and struggle to affirm that, even though they suffer the virulence of the same pestilence, they do so as individuals and their experiences and responses are unique. Their existentialist narratives demonstrate that, in northern Uganda, where life seems to lack any purpose, a person must reach deep within oneself or turn outwards to find meaning, reason and purpose of life outside the familiar props of nation-statehood and degraded cultural and traditional social capital. 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 death in order to affirm our faith in the values we stand for. The spirit of individual resistance and humanism we discern in Finnstrom’s informants, draw parallels with the themes of revolt and resistance in Dostoyevsky, Kafka, Malraux, Shakespeare, Moravia, Pavese, Satre and Beckett.
Disorientation and despair pervade Living With Bad Surrounding. In northern Uganda, subjectivity, rather than objectivity and reason, is of primacy. Finnstrom persuasively depicts a tradition, customs, culture and beliefs that have disintegrated or under tremendous stress, leaving the individual isolated, to make his own judgement and seek his own truths. The sense of alienation from the Ugandan polity; the feeling that the gods have abandoned Acholiland, is pervasive and confusing; not unlike Kierkegaard’s depiction of the despair and dilemma of man in a technological civilization, and the primacy of one’s consciousness and preoccupation with his existence in a hostile environment. Since the gods seems to have abandoned Acholiland, the Acholi in Living With Bad Surrounding seem to respond to Nietzche’s admonition to grow up and take responsibilities for themselves. In the same manner that Nietzche suggests that science and technology stifle human passion and alienate man from himself, Living With Bad Surrounding seems to intimate that the extreme violence of the insurgency, counter-insurgency and government control of thought and freedom in northern Uganda, represses social diversities, individual freedom and alienate many Acholi from both themselves and the Ugandan polity. In other words, both the LRA and the movement have robbed people of the freedom of will and freedom to self-determine good from evil, which is a god-given moral right, for which individuals alone must be responsible.
Alienation in the northern concentration camps parallel that in Leo Toltoy’s Memoirs of a Lunatic and The Death of Ivan Ilych, as eloquent statements 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. As Eric Fromm remarks, 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. However, there is always apparent opposition between the purpose of existing society and that of the aims of the maximum individual progress. Therefore, a healthy society does not necessarily mean its individuals are healthy and happy. But in our case, the movement does not even recognise the individual but constructs a straw man called “people”, in whose name it has arrogated to itself the right to speak, completely disregarding the fact that we individually, community by community, are part of “ the people”, and we have particular needs, feelings and aspirations as well as moral principles and choices to make and be met. Therefore, we have the right as members of society, as people, to choose our issues, priorities and platforms, and who and how to articulate these demands. We are neither nameless nor abstract, nor are we as people are outside and alien to those speaking out in UPC, DP, CP, FDC, and other political and social groups. Indeed we are the people, and NRM ideologues that claim to speak for the people, must recognise their theoretical falsities and conceptual limitations and begin to deal with the needs and interest of the integral parts and percentage of the Ugandan People represented by and in the various political and social groups outside of the NRM /& O.
The drama of our struggle for democratic rights and individual freedom is consonant with Leo Toltoy’s Lunatic’s struggle for individual happiness and reason, which in turn is met by a meaningless world, whose celebrated normalcy is in fact disorder, deceit, absurdity and meaninglessness. This is because, 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. Consequently, sycophants who tailor their behaviour with the expectations of societal orthodoxy are treated favourably as normal citizens, but those who reject the status quo, such as opposition to the movement, are labelled and dismissed as misfits and not part of “the people”. Those who conform gain acceptance by giving up their individuality and self in order to display character traits that satisfy those they must please. However, the misfit, the rebel, rejects and resists giving up his self and individual freedom to think and act according to the personal and individual need of a happy and moral existence.
In Living With Bad Surrounding and in Escape From Freedom, we learn that when social, communal, cultural and customary and traditional relationships are broken down, and one left on his own to make decision about his own existence, the individual is left isolated, alone and insecure. 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 independence from 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.
Eric Fromm observes that, since the adverse condition that force the choice of surrender persists, the individual who surrenders his freedom does not gain any genuine happiness and his actions henceforth is compulsive, externally driven and inauthentic. A clear example of this is the recent flap and flip-flop of the Vice President, Prof. Gilbert Bukenya, and the external forces to which he surrendered his freedom and individuality. Even as Vice President of the State of Uganda, he cannot in his own right as deputy head of state and as a moral individual, meet certain members of certain ethnic groups; regardless of the fact these persons or groups are either servants of the state or private individuals. These are also the problems and dilemmas afflicting the characters and behaviour of NRM ideologues in Acholi, eg. Betty Akech Okullu or Henry Oryem Okello, whose sycophancy and reliance on external command, but not the needs and aspirations of Acholi constituents, is rationalised as nationalism and responsibility to the country, when in fact it expresses the loss of their freedom and integrity and surrender to external needs and commands.
Without the LRA insurgency and without the UPDF carte blanche in northern Uganda, where army commanders supersede elected officials, leaders such as Akech Okullu or Henry Oryem Okello, would be nowhere in the centre of the narratives of Acholi social and political history.
Sverker Finnstrom’s recent work on northern Uganda picks up and continues a particular theme of existential inquiries that echo Shakespeare, de Sade, Tolstoy, Proust, Kafka and Moravia. Living With Bad Surrounding re-states the nature of daily human and individual struggles to live under turbulent circumstances (Piny Marac) in northern Uganda. Read in broad existentialist terms, the Ugandan State and regime are absurd worlds, from which its citizens in the north have been alienated from themselves and estranged from the popular view of national normalcy. Trumpeted NRM/A revolution, liberation, peace and prosperity, contrast very sharply with their lived realities of violence, abduction, murder, rape, diseases and social dislocation. The fish-bowl existence in the concentration camps, characterised by rights abuses, sexual violence, suicide, prostitution, idleness, and a host of other social ills and diseases, is for many individuals and families, not unlike living on the edge of a precipice, from where there is no margin for the slightest error in judgment. Aware of their problems and conscious of their fate and palpable possibilities of violent death, whether in the hands of the LRA, UPDF, Boo Kec-gangsters spawned by the fluid security situation- people in Acholi, surprisingly still demonstrate determined, consuming passion for survival (Cing Pe Tum)
In Living With Bad Surrounding: War and Existential Uncertainty in Acholiland, Northern Uganda, Finnstrom convincingly demonstrates that, despite the LRA violence, UPDF abuses and oppression from local Acholi government eyes, ears and mouthpieces (Kadi ibut ki maru ite pii, wang ma owinye), the majority of Acholi people have rejected the loss of the self, and time and again, confounded the NRM government and its overzealous agents, by maintaining independence and conscientious resistance against intimidation and blackmail. The study also shows that there are those who have opted for surrendering the self and joining the movement (Rwot Ineka), thereby evading the difficult personal responsibility of making choices that originate from within the self, rather than imposed by an institution that one merely has to conform to in an automated fashion. Erich Fromm in his Escape From Freedom, calls such surrender to forces and circumstances outside of the individual as “escape from freedom”, because those who do so, lose their individuality, identity, freedom to choose or make their own decisions, and with it also the loss of the self. This is why, any statement from NRM leaders in and from Acholi, contrast very sharply with the realities of the lives of their people who lead sub-human existences in the concentration camps.
In his inquiry, Finnstrom is one with traditional existentialist philosophy in suggesting that, one cannot escape oneself; for at the end of the tentative peace one professes to enjoy, the individual inevitably must come face to face with the essence one tries so hard to disguise-our mortality. Imperatively, the actions one takes must be authentic, because there can be no space for deception, and protective veils of illusions inevitably become too transparent. The implication for us is that, various Ugandan social and political groups need to shed the illusions and deceptions they have lived by, and examine themselves and their motives realistically. The imperative is compelling, knowing we must come to terms with our past and history in order to chart a meaningful future. This necessity cannot be overstated, as exemplified by the passionate debate and the he-said-he-said that greeted serialisation in The Monitor, of Milton Obote’s autobiographical reminiscences on our post independence social and political history.
As the exchanges showed, our nationhood has been fragmented and indelibly scarred by our violent history, and the deception and illusions we have lived by have forced nationalities, regions and ethnic groups to turn inwards in search of support and meaning, against an increasingly acrimonious, meaningless, disordered, dysfunctional and alienating nation-state. The inevitable dialectic opposition between the aims of the state and that of individual or community existence, often have not been resolved dialogically and accommodatingly with intent to achieving a constructive balance and often ended disastrously. The NRM efforts to establish a one party state, by force of arms and to fancifully construct and practise a whimsical conception and brand of democracy, are the hallmarks of totalitarian ideological bankruptcy, which served to exacerbate national disintegration and further ethnic nationalism, bigotry, deceptions and illusions.
Under such democratic façade, limited degree of freedom of expression in the press is allowed, but the fundamental question of individual freedom to think, self-determine and decide as an individual with unique and independent interests, is gravely degraded. Consequently, people are forced to chorus what Yoweri Museveni and the NRM thinks or says in the name of a fictionalised people. Such authoritarian perception of politics and power excises from the public policy process, the individual as a conscious, rational and self-interested being with particular needs and aspirations, which collectively constitute public interest, needs and aspirations. At the practical level, movement politics seeks to mould every Ugandan in its image, using Ofwono Opondo or Betty Akech Okullu as a prototype; a robotic, automated, unthinking, rabid running dog that will chew its own tail for ideological orthodoxy. Their politics eschews any difference, social and ideological diversity in favour of a monoculture of thought and ideology. Their limited success east of the Nile and north of Kafu , partly explains why the greater northern Uganda remains unstable, deprived and marginal in national politics. Because from day one, the northerners, particularly in Bukedi, Teso, Lango, Acholi and West Nile, dared to be different; to hold onto their individuality and independence, and reserve the rights to determine and choose what is best for themselves and resist attempts to degrade their freedom to make personal and authentic decisions in existential circumstances.
Finnstrom’s subjects lucidly validate the existential thesis that left alone, people are bound to resist loss of self and struggle to affirm that, even though they suffer the virulence of the same pestilence, they do so as individuals and their experiences and responses are unique. Their existentialist narratives demonstrate that, in northern Uganda, where life seems to lack any purpose, a person must reach deep within oneself or turn outwards to find meaning, reason and purpose of life outside the familiar props of nation-statehood and degraded cultural and traditional social capital. 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 death in order to affirm our faith in the values we stand for. The spirit of individual resistance and humanism we discern in Finnstrom’s informants, draw parallels with the themes of revolt and resistance in Dostoyevsky, Kafka, Malraux, Shakespeare, Moravia, Pavese, Satre and Beckett.
Disorientation and despair pervade Living With Bad Surrounding. In northern Uganda, subjectivity, rather than objectivity and reason, is of primacy. Finnstrom persuasively depicts a tradition, customs, culture and beliefs that have disintegrated or under tremendous stress, leaving the individual isolated, to make his own judgement and seek his own truths. The sense of alienation from the Ugandan polity; the feeling that the gods have abandoned Acholiland, is pervasive and confusing; not unlike Kierkegaard’s depiction of the despair and dilemma of man in a technological civilization, and the primacy of one’s consciousness and preoccupation with his existence in a hostile environment. Since the gods seems to have abandoned Acholiland, the Acholi in Living With Bad Surrounding seem to respond to Nietzche’s admonition to grow up and take responsibilities for themselves. In the same manner that Nietzche suggests that science and technology stifle human passion and alienate man from himself, Living With Bad Surrounding seems to intimate that the extreme violence of the insurgency, counter-insurgency and government control of thought and freedom in northern Uganda, represses social diversities, individual freedom and alienate many Acholi from both themselves and the Ugandan polity. In other words, both the LRA and the movement have robbed people of the freedom of will and freedom to self-determine good from evil, which is a god-given moral right, for which individuals alone must be responsible.
Alienation in the northern concentration camps parallel that in Leo Toltoy’s Memoirs of a Lunatic and The Death of Ivan Ilych, as eloquent statements 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. As Eric Fromm remarks, 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. However, there is always apparent opposition between the purpose of existing society and that of the aims of the maximum individual progress. Therefore, a healthy society does not necessarily mean its individuals are healthy and happy. But in our case, the movement does not even recognise the individual but constructs a straw man called “people”, in whose name it has arrogated to itself the right to speak, completely disregarding the fact that we individually, community by community, are part of “ the people”, and we have particular needs, feelings and aspirations as well as moral principles and choices to make and be met. Therefore, we have the right as members of society, as people, to choose our issues, priorities and platforms, and who and how to articulate these demands. We are neither nameless nor abstract, nor are we as people are outside and alien to those speaking out in UPC, DP, CP, FDC, and other political and social groups. Indeed we are the people, and NRM ideologues that claim to speak for the people, must recognise their theoretical falsities and conceptual limitations and begin to deal with the needs and interest of the integral parts and percentage of the Ugandan People represented by and in the various political and social groups outside of the NRM /& O.
The drama of our struggle for democratic rights and individual freedom is consonant with Leo Toltoy’s Lunatic’s struggle for individual happiness and reason, which in turn is met by a meaningless world, whose celebrated normalcy is in fact disorder, deceit, absurdity and meaninglessness. This is because, 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. Consequently, sycophants who tailor their behaviour with the expectations of societal orthodoxy are treated favourably as normal citizens, but those who reject the status quo, such as opposition to the movement, are labelled and dismissed as misfits and not part of “the people”. Those who conform gain acceptance by giving up their individuality and self in order to display character traits that satisfy those they must please. However, the misfit, the rebel, rejects and resists giving up his self and individual freedom to think and act according to the personal and individual need of a happy and moral existence.
In Living With Bad Surrounding and in Escape From Freedom, we learn that when social, communal, cultural and customary and traditional relationships are broken down, and one left on his own to make decision about his own existence, the individual is left isolated, alone and insecure. 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 independence from 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.
Eric Fromm observes that, since the adverse condition that force the choice of surrender persists, the individual who surrenders his freedom does not gain any genuine happiness and his actions henceforth is compulsive, externally driven and inauthentic. A clear example of this is the recent flap and flip-flop of the Vice President, Prof. Gilbert Bukenya, and the external forces to which he surrendered his freedom and individuality. Even as Vice President of the State of Uganda, he cannot in his own right as deputy head of state and as a moral individual, meet certain members of certain ethnic groups; regardless of the fact these persons or groups are either servants of the state or private individuals. These are also the problems and dilemmas afflicting the characters and behaviour of NRM ideologues in Acholi, eg. Betty Akech Okullu or Henry Oryem Okello, whose sycophancy and reliance on external command, but not the needs and aspirations of Acholi constituents, is rationalised as nationalism and responsibility to the country, when in fact it expresses the loss of their freedom and integrity and surrender to external needs and commands.
Without the LRA insurgency and without the UPDF carte blanche in northern Uganda, where army commanders supersede elected officials, leaders such as Akech Okullu or Henry Oryem Okello, would be nowhere in the centre of the narratives of Acholi social and political history.
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