Petty-Bourgeois Politics and Class War Over Land in Acholi Part I
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...