Philip Matogo
Dear Generation Zoomers (Gen Zs),
When it comes to standing up for yourselves, we are proud of your good intentions. However, never forget the old saying: the road to hell is paved by good intentions.
Let us continue.
Not so long ago, I was an editor for an online news outlet whose audience was Gen Zs. One day, we published a story about President Museveni. Nothing out of the ordinary there, but what happened next surprised me.
When the story appeared on Facebook, one person, without a trace of irony or sarcasm, responded with the words: Museveni has been ruling us since independence!
Others chimed in, agreeing with such absurd revisionism. After seeing several responses echoing the view that President Museveni had ruled the country since 1962, I did something few online news editors do: I responded to the responders.
“Oh wow,” I started. “Did he sign the Buganda Agreement of 1900, too?”
Not civically aware
I was, of course, being sarcastic. Although nobody responded to my comment, I am sure my point was made: most young people are not civically aware.
There are several reasons for this, chief among which is the fact that very few of you (Gen Zs) read history.
Instead, you prefer online trends which majorly point to trivialities.
This is probably how you were inspired to march on Parliament in protest over corruption levels that tower above our dwarfed national wellbeing.
Paralleling methods used by your counterparts in Kenya, where youth pushed President William Ruto to drop the controversial Finance Bill, 2024, you mobilised online, particularly on social media, to challenge government corruption.
By this, another trend was being jumped onto.
President Museveni, in a live televised address to the nation last Saturday but one, accused the Opposition of working with foreign elements to cause chaos in the country through riots, illegal demonstrations and inconsiderate processions.
“These people are unfair and inconsiderate, and they should check themselves, or we will have no alternative but to check them,” President Museveni said.
Poked the proverbial bear
I am sure you were happy to have poked the proverbial bear to the point that his public posture stood on a war footing.
Still, has this added to your civic awareness? I doubt it.
The only thing that would do that is you reading about Uganda’s political past, so you are not condemned to repeat it.
“The keys to life are running and reading. When you’re running, there’s a little person that talks to you and says, ‘Oh I’m tired. My lung’s about to pop. I’m so hurt. There’s no way I can possibly continue.’ You want to quit. If you learn how to defeat that person when you’re running. You will know how to not quit when things get hard in your life. For reading: there have been gazillions of people that have lived before all of us. There’s no new problem you could have--with your parents, with school, with a bully. There’s no new problem that someone hasn’t already had and written about it in a book,” said American actor Will Smith.
Our government scrapped your secondary school political education courses partly because it knows you would become civically aware and challenge it with more than just a demonstration.
Rather, your ideas would demonstrate why our Opposition is comatose and our government needs to be taken off life support and allowed to pass on, into the ages.
Your ideas would also equip you with the tools to repair your own cracked feet of clay. In the process, you could gaze back to the country’s false dawn, experienced at independence, in reawakening our untapped worth.
Philip Matogo is a professional copywriter
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