OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT MUSEVENI
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MY 10 DAYS EXPERIENCE OF DUBAI
4 months ago
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Monday, June 12, 2006
The Future of Democracy and The Cult of One Man Rule in Uganda
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Museveni probably thinks he is God's gift to Uganda, when in fact he simply panders to the culture of fear he has instilled in average Ugandans for the past twenty years; coupled with the ignorance of the majority underclass he cajoled for votes.
Just like Obote, Museveni used his gullible majority rubber stamp parliament to change the constitution which enabled him overextend his stay in power! Like his predecessors, Museveni still uses the military and police to entrench his one man rule ideology and curtail opponents and freedom of expression!
This unassailable overextended leadership of a nation by one man is unsound. The country has painfully been through this before.
The CULTURE OF ONE MAN followers believes that one man has all the answers to all the nations problems! This is an illusion. In reality, no single fallible human being is that gifted; and the sooner Ugandans realize this, the sooner the country will realize its fullest potential!
Overextended one man rule policy is the infallible dream of mediocrity! Its a culture that maginalizes others with just as good or even better leadership talents for the sake of one demagogue. Once it comes into existance, it tends to perpetuate itselt like a cult!
The sad irony is that Museveni led an insurgency to come to power, promising an end to this very, uneven political ground field; and twenty years now, and counting, Museveni has subtly turned that very same premise on its head, just to favour his hold on power. Like a broken record, the country has once again been robed of a once in a lifetime opportunity for an alternative pool of leadership talents, vitality and ingenuity, that would have revitalized our nation to far greater horizons than one simple man can ever even dare to accomplish! This is an environment that often leads our best and brightest minds, to throw up their hands in frustration and vote with their feet, exacerbating the inevitable brain drain! 12/25/06
What Winston Churchill once called the Pearl of Africa is now the Poster Child for a dysifunctional democracy, where a First lady is also an elected member of parliament! Its like the Cock and Bull story of a M7 Dynasty in the making!
The Pearl of Africa has in effect become the epicenter of perpetual one man rule, nepotisim and dynastic rule in Africa.
"Just being a citizen qualifies you to comment on your government, as long as you are informed about your opinions." - David Horsey - Pulitzer Prize winner - Seattle Post, editorial cartoonist
"African leaders have had such a habit of clinging to power that when the folksy-talking Museveni proclaimed himself a "man of the people," and promised Ugandans that "No African leader should stay in office more than 10 years," he was cheered. The West responded, too, pouring millions in donor aid into the East African nation. And everyone from President Bill Clinton to South Africa's former president Nelson Mandela lauded Uganda as the continent's success story. For all of Africa's woes, it was thought, Uganda was going to be different." By Emily Wax | Washington Post
"I never did give them hell. I just told the truth, and they thought it was hell."-- Harry Truman
"My fellow citizens of the world. . .ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the Freedom of Man." - John F Kennedy
"Do not confuse notoriety and fame with greatness ... For you see, greatness is a measure of one's spirit, not a result of one's rank in human affairs."Sherman Finesilver
Cry the Beloved Continent !
"Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail." Muriel Strode
A DEMAGOGUE: a person, especially a political leader, who wins support by exciting people's emotions and prejudices rather than by having good ideas.
The best reaffirmation for the case against M7's overextended stay in power:
From the Daily Monitor: Letters to the Editor | October 13, 2006
Museveni is selling hope to cover dirt
The sales consultant Rick Page has written a book titled: Hope is Not a Strategy in which he admonishes his readers that to have a real, tangible strategy for success rather than merely hoping for the best. It is now that President Museveni considers hope a winning strategy.
From Bona Bagaggawale to the new oil discoveries, it is clear that Museveni realises that the easiest and cheapest commodity to deliver to an increasingly disillusioned nation is hope.
The great thing about selling hope is that you need not actually deliver on the hopes you raise! All you need to do is keep delivering more hope, which, like an opiate, keeps the public from taking a really close look at reality. And when the opiate seems to be losing its power, invoke the name of God, because that usually works to keep peoples attention away from the facts.
If we were to stop taking this ‘drug’ Museveni is administering in bits, we would realise that no government as disorganised, corrupt and visionless as the current one could possibly do any good with this oil we are so excited about.The alternative is to remain in this drug-induced delusional state and keep ‘hoping for the best’.
A. Mande
mandra2k6@yahoo.com
It seems that no matter what you believe, the opposing side will say you have a bias toward that belief. What is bias, really?
—Maddie Finnegan, Milwaukee, Wis.
Think of bias as a learned or emotional predisposition to believe a certain way, regardless of the facts. That’s why bias is so tough to overcome. It weighs heavily on a person’s thinking and warps it accordingly. So one usually is unaware of one’s own biases.
Here’s an example that is nonpolitical and nonreligious, so readers’ own biases won’t leap into action! A reader from Omaha, Neb., asks: “Do you think the Moon landings were real, or were they staged? Have the landings ever been substantiated by any credible source?”
To many readers, these questions may sound unintelligent—but not to me. I hear them as bias. A person who is bent on believing that the Moon landings were high-level hoaxes easily can argue every point that other people accept as proof the landings took place. Photos are said to be faked, eyewitness testimony is thought to be lies, and little unexplained oddities are seen as evidence of deception.
Political bias works the same way but is less obvious.
- First Lady & M.P.
Janet Museveni's demure appearance here, masks her real ambitions!
How can a first lady run for office while her husband is still in office and not any one see the potential conflict of interest? Let alone have a constitution that permits it!
The amazing resemblance in grandiosity between Mugabe and M7 photos here is sobering! Its almost like they are a cut from the same cloth![The reluctance these days of African leaders to denounce Mugabe's human rights abuses is self-serving -- they don't want to call attention to their own shortcomings -- but it is also partly a legacy of respect for a man who was once a freedom fighter.] Comments by Stephen Talbot
- PBS: Frontline/world series editor. Sadly, these same exact coments can be said about M7!
There is book by the title: THE LEMMING CONSPIRACY.
Lemmings are small arctic animals that follow one after another over cliffs along the sea and fall to their deaths.
Ugandans are acting like Lemmings by choosing to follow only one leader for the past twenty years. They have limited their options and alternatives for leadership and some day this will lead to thier demise as a nation. Why does a nation settle for only one leadership for more than twenty years, when the country is abundant with so many others with talent and ability that are just as good or better than M7?
According to the Lemming Conspiracy, Ugandans made such irrational choice because this conspiracy keeps them from expressing themselves as who they really are, with a vague feeling that they made the wrong choice but can't quite put a finger on it. This is exacerbated further by the illiteracy rate in Uganda.
Ugandans have literally robbed themselves with their eyes wide open in terms of their limited choices for leadership and are in the process taking down the whole country into the abyss and don't even realize it! Those that think M7 is the only and only leader for Uganda in more than twenty years now, just don't understand the value and advantage of peaceful and periodic turnovers in leadership!
Political illiteracy in Africa is an epidemic, worse than the aids epidemic; because its so pervasive and cunning leaders like M7 and Mugabe are thriving on it and not just accumulating personal and family wealth but also the power that comes along with it. This is a calamity for our fledgling democracy.
Throughout Africa's history, from the time of the tribal chiefs and kings
; the continent's people have suffered at the hands of its own brutal and atrocious leaders ( a fact that is largely under the rags nowadays!), then came slavery, colonialism, apartheid, dictatorships, warlords, genocides, and now this new zeal for one man rule pseudo democracies! It just makes you wonder if this exploitation will ever end in Africa.
Thomas Jefferson, the third U.S. president ( in office from 1801 - 1809 ) and author of the Declaration of Independence
once said the following: "A nation can never be ignorant and free". This is true for Uganda now as it was then and still is, in the U.S.A today.
As long as the majority of Ugandans remain illiterate, Uganda will never earnestly be free from leaders like M7!
"A wise man has great power, and a man of knowledge increases strength;" proverbs 24:5
" The pen is mightier than the sword "
"The World Wide Web and Information Technology are modern man's most effective antidote against Despotism"
The BBC Focus on Africa profile review of Museveni
describes him as [ a driven man! ].
Like all driven men, Museveni has a fanatical and bigoted goal of getting what he wants plus a willingness to do anything to achieve his objectives. He came to power by use of force
. The constitutional amendment to scrap presidential term limits,which created a systematic bias in favor of his reelection, is another case in point. M7 is still stuck in the past by imposing this new form of one man rule that has been counterproductive in the past for Uganda. The imprisonment under false allegations of the popular opposition FDC leader, Dr. Besigye, is still another case in point. With the complete unchecked control of the army
, plus a private army for his personal protection
, M7 has literally achieved his goal of ruling for life. According to M7 and his fanatical supporters, he is the greatest and only leader Uganda will ever have! That's a hyperbole, but where else in the free world do you find leaders ( howevre, good they might be! ) lasting more than twenty years in office.
M7's overextended rule in Uganda has created an axis of political ignorance that is bound to have far reaching repercusions on the country's fledgling democracy; and will unfortunately take years to reverse after M7 is long gone.
THE WISDOM IGNORED BY MUSEVENI:
Overwhelming crowds of supporters of jailed opposition leader, Dr. Besigye, gathered at the day of his release!Museveni's government launched a heavy handed police presence at each and every one of Dr. Besigye's campaign stops soon there after and throughout the presidential elections campaign, that simply run the steam and momentum out of Dr. Besigye's campaign!
Museveni like other driven leaders uses others, (unquestioning intellectuals like Bukenya, Kategaya, and Nsibambi, to mention but a few) as conduits to his goals; with the liberty to pull out the rag from under their feet if they should disagree with him.
- A man with no conscience ! - Rastoon - The New Vision
"For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
If Ugandans dream of having a truly great nation, they need to break the shackles of one man rule. Its incompatible with the true meaning of a democracy. The ones who benefit the most from one man rule are its leaders while keeping the majority hemmed in blissful ignorance and under achievement. Those that know better are simply stonewalled.
Great democratic societies achieve their greatness and obvious success through a fair, competitive, transparent and collective turnover and share of leadership by all its citizens regardless of family fortune or influence.
Uganda will never be the country it could really be if it continues under the leadership of one man for more than a decade. By its own very nature the leadership of one man for such over extended period limits a nations success or luck thereof through the prism of one mind, and one vision, which is a narrow and bigoted method of leadership.
Regular and periodic turnover in leadership on the other hand opens a nations future to new, innovative, and healthy ways of looking at and solving the enormous problems of running a nation. Regular and periodic turnover in leadership avoids redundancy, a hallmark of one man rule. This is the only reason why free and democratic nations all over the world do so much better than totalitarian states, where individual initiative, creativity, and personal growth are stifled by the limitations of one man rule.
Uganda is absolutely a country abundant with excellent and skilled people, [ most of these now live abroad! ] with talent and ability, enough to revitalize and lead our country to far greater heights than Uganda has been able to achieve so far if it wasn't but for the fanaticism and bigotry of leaders that have overextended their rule like Obote, then the infamous Idi Amin Dada, and now M7; a new parity of that antiquated form of one man rule!
FOR YOUR AMUSEMENT:
This new pseudo form of democracy in Uganda will only enrich M7, his family and the sycophants that protect his hold on power. For the vast majority of Ugandans, however, especially the underclass that voted for him, life will remain relatively unchanged: with glaring abject poverty, unemployment and destitution.
" Tell me your friend and I will tell you who you are! " Tell me a country's literacy rate and I will tell you what kind of leadership you have got! Ugandas high illiteracy and gullible electorate enabled a person with Museveni's caliber to be reelected for a third term.
This is a leader that has been in office for more than twenty years now and nothing in his autobiography is inspiring. If you read one of his presidential letters,
he is mostly glib, vapid and redundant. ( to read M7's letter, point and click the highlighted word [letter] above ) At his recent swearing in ceremony speech, M7 boasted of reintroducing multi-party democracy in Uganda, but conspicuously failed to mention the scraping of presidential term limits that essentially secured him a third term victory at the polls. I hope Museveni ends up a lame duck during his so-called third term, [ ITS THE FOURTH TERM !! FOR CRYING OUT LOUD !! ] so that future fanatical and bigoted souls that may follow in his footsteps never, ever, overextend their stay in power.
THE OPPOSITION:
This is not a time for capitulation!
M7 may have won the last election, but the struggle against one man rule in Uganda will go on and the dream of some day realizing an end to M7's overextended rule should never die.
You don't have to settle for things the way they are. You are an indispensable part of Uganda. You have a right to be heard.
What the opposition lacks, is a grass roots effort and lasting presence for its message !
At the same time, if the opposition in Uganda wants to present a credible alternative to M7, they must have free and open debate within their parties that allows competition for leadership that is transparent to all its members and the nation. The idea of an overextended leadership of a party by one man is redundant for the party as it is for the nation.
You have five years from now, plenty of time to get your act together for the sake of real Democracy in Uganda !
In the July 2006 issue of The Africa Report magazine
, professor Calestous Juma
, head of the Practice of International Development, at Harvard University
, says the following: [ A vibrant democratic tradition has to be based on sound intellectual foundations. Most African political parties lack these. Effective party platforms should draw on inputs from think-tanks and other research institutions - and these should be of African, rather than foreign, origin.
In Africa's young democracies, party platforms would serve as a stable foundation and source of vision for governments. Parties would be forced to develop programmes that reflect the will and needs of the citizenry and would, in turn, be elected or defeated depending on their policy proposals.
Open dialogue over policy is a key element of democracy. Platforms would foster healthy competition between parties and, as a result, parties would become more distinctive and unique. In turn, the electorate would have a better choice when voting, and would not be compelled to revert to voting based on ethnic or religious affiliations. .....
Party political platforms are not meaningless campaign documents but, rather, they play a significant role in setting the stage for the implementation of policy after an election. ...]
At this moment, more than at any other time in our history, our country desperately needs leaders with strong and unequivocal democratic convictions, strength of character and determination to stand up to this imminent quagmire of one man rule trying to rear its ugly head once again in Uganda.
The opposition can't afford to blink this time ! ( if you do, M7 will prevail once again ! ) Keep your eyes on the target this time. The only objective is not to let M7 serve another term beyond 2011.
UGANDANS:
This is not a time for acquiescence !
We need to support and fund a credible opposition in Uganda. Apathy in the face of one man rule, is no virtue!
EPILOGUE:
I have documented and presented facts about M7's rule, since he decided to overextend his stay in power, so as to circumvent the emotional thought process that often goes on between those who justify one man rule and some of us that oppose it. I hpoe the facts prove my argument against M7 in this blog.
I have gone to school, met, and worked with people from literally every country in the world that make America the melting pot it is; which has given me a tolerance and broad minded view of the world in contrast to the wishy-washy view of most people from Africa.
In Chinua Achebe's 1983 book about Nigeria's roudy elections, tiltled: The Trouble with Nigeria
; the author - best known for his book: Things Fall Apart, uses blunt prose to deliver his massage in Trouble: "False Image of Ourselfes", "Social Injustice and the Cult of Mediocrity"; "Indiscipline", and "Corruption".
You can prorate Achebe's angst to M7's Uganda! More than twenty years since he assumed office, M7's government is still grappaling with corruption, Indiscipline, injustice and the cult of mediocrity; while projecting a false image of himself to the rest of the world!
The only self redeeming option left for M7, if he values his legacy, is for him not to run after 2011. But that's between him and his ego.
I was too young to realize that a long struggle had preceeded the end of colonial rule or even clearly distinguish the differences between political parties at the time. Even though I was a child at the time of our independence, I was old enough to know a good thing when I saw it. My Dad was among the first few, young, bright, and British colonial government trained and selected on merit Ugandans, that filled the vacated civil service government positons at the time. It gave me a first hand look at the pros and cons of the British colonial system, even though it was from my innocent childs point of view. All the cosmopolitan folks I came in contact with were wonderful to me and my family. I only have fond memories of that bygone era. Not once do I remember ever witnessing a power shortage or running out of water. These were the best times of my childhood, and I could never have imagined that the country I knew and cherished at the time could have ended up the way it is today. Bad politics and politicians messed up our country. The selected young and bright Ugandan citizens like my Dad were left at the mercy of unprepared but fanatical politicians in collusion with the illiterate military. At the time there used to be a Luganda cliche about the Ugandan politicians newly acquired positions in government: "Bagwa mu Bintu!" The literal english meaning is like "hitting the jackpot!" And for many of our politicians at the time, with no real jobs, that was literally what it was!
I have been back to Uganda since M7 came to power, and I am sorry to say this , but, to see the dusty city of Kampala that used to be modest but beautiful, the potholed streets, the unmaintained old colonial government buildings just made my heart break. Then the disparity between the haves and have not that leaps out at you and people begging from you when they realize you are from abroad, made me realize how lucky I am.
Notwithstanding the problems that came with colonialism, the Europeans laid a solid and genuine foundation for the modern day African states they curved out of the continent. Many of the institutions and infrastructure Africa still relies on today could not have been possible without colonial rule. Even all the best minds and talents in or outside Africa today are the very product ot that system.
Hindsight is 20/20, but if our politicians had worked out an arrangement where business owners from the colonial period where allowed to stay, our countries would be in a far better shape than they are today. Look at the U.S.A, its the very epitome of what foreigners can contibute to a nation.
If you haven't noticed, I have not give M7 any credit in my blog. I am deliberately impugning his motives for overextending his stay in power. I lost respect for the man the day his rubber stamp parliament scrapped presidential term limits, breaking a promise he made to the country not to run for office after 2006. Here is a leader that had it within the grasp of his hands to set a precedence as well as a legacy for himself, of being the first leader in Uganda's 45 year history since independence to allow and over see a peaceful transfer of power; but instead over saw the selfish scraping of presidential term limits that basically gave him an open door to overextend his stay in power.
Museveni is trying to reinvent Democracy fit for Africa! This is baloney! Democracy is the same everywhere. The idea that its different in Africa only promotes office holders bids for power.
Those who accommodate one man rule are enablers and I am not one of them. I hate one man rule with all my heart and soul. If I had my way, I would take them all and put them away somewhere, where we would never hear from them again; even if they were benevolent!
One of my most inspirational leaders of the 20th century was the late Sir Winston Churchill who was not a bright student in school. In fact he is listed among the famous people who have battled mental illness. Despite such setback in his life, Sir Winston inspired his country and the world to defeat evil during the second world war.
[ “Had he been a stable and equable man, he could never have inspired the nation. In 1940, when all odds were against Britain, a leader of sober judgement might well have concluded that we were finished,” wrote Anthony Storr in Churchill. Storr also discussed Churchill’s manic depression in his book The Dynamics of Creation. ]
If you go back and read any of Churchill's speeches,
and then compare them with M7 speeches,
its like comparing day and night!
If this blog were to change the mind set of even one single Ugandan, it would have met its objective fo me! And this is really what it is going to take; One mind set at a time! Sphere: Related Content
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