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Do Ugandans feel East African?
Author: Alan Tacca. PHOTO/FILE
What you need to know:
- Oh, apart from the three core historical members, there are new countries in the East African Community, of course. I bet there are many Ugandans who are just getting to internalise the list!
Exchanging notes at a recent gathering of newspaper columnists and media house administrators, one of the columnists observed that, as a generalisation, Ugandan columnists were not writing much (or enough) on East African issues in a regional context.
The observation was correct. But away from that gathering, and days after, it is not impolite to ask whether other Ugandans, even those who read newspapers, have enough interest in East African issues to want to read about them.
Are the columnists lagging behind the other Ugandans?
Even more boldly, do Ugandans feel East African enough?
There is the lofty East Africa where government bigwigs dream loudly about unity, and where ministers strike agreements and regional legislators in Arusha draft laws that make the bloc work – in a fashion.
Corporation marketing executives and big time lawyers follow closely the goings-on at that level. Your average Ugandan is probably only vaguely interested.
Putting aside the East Africa of high offices, what are the things that keep a big section of ordinary Ugandans aloof?
Language is a powerful glue for bonding people. Pre-colonial ‘Kenyans’ and ‘Tanganyikans’ shared a long coastline on the Indian Ocean. Together with Zanzibar, the coastal people developed Swahili, a kind of pidgin adopting elements from the Arabic spoken by Middle Eastern traders and features from several coastal African languages.
Before European colonialists arrived, Swahili was already established and spreading inland in what was to be known as Tanzania and Kenya. Naturally, further away from the coast westward, Ugandans had far less interaction with the Swahili speakers and their evolving behavioural tendencies.
The British colonial system found it convenient to adopt Swahili in the East African security forces, where many of the natives employed spoke little or no English.
But apart from the forces and among industrial and commercial farm labourers, Swahili found only patchy usage in Uganda and was in several areas even despised, being associated with shady characters.
In some Bantu communities, a female member who spoke Swahili caused some alarm!
Today, Swahili is the official language in both Kenya and Tanzania, but it is struggling to widen and deepen its appeal in Uganda. Many Ugandans still feel that East Africa’s Swahili-centric identity is rather alien.
Apart from the language gap, Ugandans have the uncertainty in their country’s chaotic politics to deal with.
The perception is that if Kenya and Tanzania are making difficult progress towards resolving the basic democratic challenges of how they will be governed and change leaders, Uganda may be rapidly sliding into an abyss.
President Museveni, who over the years has sung about regional integration until his voice jars, has also presided over a political dispensation that is most incompatible with the concept of a stable, peaceful, and democratic multi-national union.
As if Uganda’s troubles do not give enough headaches to those who strongly believe in regional cooperation, a 48-year General goes off the hook like a spoilt 14-year-old and plays loudly with the idea of riding his tanks and overrunning Kenya, a joke or a warning that unfortunately reminds people of Idi Amin’s disastrous adventure in Tanzania’s Kagera backyard.
Oh, apart from the three core historical members, there are new countries in the East African Community, of course. I bet there are many Ugandans who are just getting to internalise the list!
These things may partly explain why Ugandans and their columnists tend to be obsessed with the small wretched country where they are held hostage, instead of opening up to explore the East African region whose bigger themes can wait.
