Prime
Of exhibitions and why evidence is everything
Emilly C. Maractho
What you need to know:
- The strength of the exhibitions lay in the credibility of the evidence.
- Maybe the evidence was not all authentic, but much of it was undeniable.
When Evidence and Methods Lab invited me to the launch of their latest use of evidence, a report on the exhibitions done by Dr. Spire Sentongo and others, I was happy that someone had ensured citizen voices would be captured for posterity.
Sometimes, documentation and making sense of evidence is the best thing that can happen to a process like that. At the launch, the language of those who speak for ‘the exhibited’, was different. There was a sense of humility, even admission that there was value in the exhibition after all.
It was Simon Kasyate (KCCA spokesperson), always at his best, that captured what we grapple with every day to help people appreciate media. He noted that not every Ugandan is on X (formerly Twitter). And even of the few there, only very few are active. But when they make noise, it feels like the place is on fire.
And that is the whole point, that it does not need to be everyone. That is what journalism used to do to those in power in the good old days. That even when not every citizen was part of the audience, even a medium largely accessed by a few like the newspaper has been for ages, when they roar, there is some cold to be caught. And how powerful that medium is, depends on the message – which Marshal McLuhan would later term as, ‘the medium is the message’. Every medium is really a platform, and the message is what counts.
The strength of the exhibitions lay in the credibility of the evidence. Maybe the evidence was not all authentic, but much of it was undeniable and that explains the change in attitude towards it.
Evidence is everything in important conversations. I started my career as a development economist. One economist, who taught me would say, ‘when your government tells you that the economy is doing well, growing at eight percent blah blah, touch your pockets and see if you feel it. If you do not have the evidence in your household and pocket, someone is lying about that.’
That is why, aggregated evidence of many more citizens not feeling that in their pockets is crucial. In the absence of that growth in our pockets, we go on to ask, where is the growth? Then we realise that it is in the hands of a few people – so we begin to speak of economic inequality and how to deploy equity.
After that function, I started to think about the whole point of power, and how we let it get abused. I recently was joining the Entebbe Express Way through the Bwaise Junction. As I approached the intersection from Wandegeya, a convoy of what may have been a ‘big person’ came through. About five cars, two of them police lead cars. I was okay with giving way, but it was the manner in which they zoomed past, cornered us and cleared people off the road, with total disregard of those already at the lights, that saddened me.
Someone I know was at the Toll area when that convoy arrived. And he described to me what happened. He said it was the menacing way in which that convoy had ‘captured’ the toll area, that had shocked him. They were all dismayed. We expressed disappointment at the conduct of our leaders. And sometimes, that is all we have power to do, express disappointment.
Evidence and Methods Lab, and the exhibitors have all reminded us of the one fundamental thing we ought to not forget, that the citizen remains at the centre of democracy and development. The Constitution says simply that power belongs to the people, even though we don’t feel it.
In a very literal sense, no representative of the people – anyone who derives their power through an election – has more power than the people. Anyone exercising delegated authority, cannot be more powerful than those that delegate them. Why we accept powerlessness is what we need to deal with.
Every day we see how power is abused, that those with it, fail to achieve the bare minimum in exercising that which they think is unlimited power. Yet, every day, there is evidence in our faces that ultimately there is no such thing as unlimited power, maybe only briefly.
What these exhibitions and conduct of our leaders has taught us is that those we trust with power often do not deserve it. Perhaps as citizens, we need to develop a framework for those who qualify to be elected as our leaders – the non-negotiables. Then make those our national leadership values.
Imagine, if we vetted these leaders on three conditions, that they have charisma, which allows them to relate and act intelligently; compassion, which will restrain them from abusing power with impunity; and competence that allows them to do whatever it takes to address our challenges rather than being coached on the job.
Emily Maractho (PhD) is the director of Africa Policy Centre and senior lecturer at Uganda Christian University. [email protected]
