Author: Phillip Matogo. PHOTO/FILE
“That’s us,” American comedian Kevin Hart said when explaining his rather dysfunctional upbringing in the six-episode documentary series Kevin Hart: Don't **** This Up, which streamed on Netflix in 2019 and delves into Hart’s Academy Award show hosting brouhaha.
This week, Daily Monitor shared a picture online that showed, “Jailed NUP supporter Olivia Lutaaya gestures as she departs the military court in Kampala after she and 15 other Opposition supporters pleaded guilty to unlawful possession of explosives at the General Court Martial in Kampala on October 14. They have been on remand for more than four years following their arrest from Bobi Wine campaign trail ahead of the 2021 presidential elections.”
In explaining what has gone wrong in our country, saying “that’s us” would seem sufficient. That’s because those two little words not only define us, they imply acceptance of who we are. There is a sense of proprietorship to the words, one that owns up to the facts. One of which is that Uganda is not a democracy.
It employs democratic forms and traditions, but only to be seen to be practising them.The actual substance that informs democracy in our country outlines our limitations, instead of expressing what lies beyond them. So our government shall continue to come down hard on the Opposition, while the latter shall continue to view such highhandedness as evidence of the need for change. But what form should this change take? Is such change going to provide us with even more occasion to say “that’s us” when things go awry?
As much as those two little words tell us about whom we are, they say nothing about who we can be. And that’s the rub. We cannot define who we are by what we have been when who we are lies in what we can be. It is defeatist. What is going on around us is not “us”, it has been imposed upon us.
The global geopolitical setup is rigged in favour of the Global North, so African governments must take the thin edge of that wedge as a prelude to potential recolonisation. This is not a good government make. That’s because the government takes on a siege mentality, sure that the West is out to shut it down. That is why when there is any demonstration or civic action for better governance, the government responds like it is responding to foreign invaders, and not Ugandans.
That response is disproportionate to the actions of those who oppose the government.As a consequence, the situation spirals into intolerance on both sides of the proverbial aisle.Please, do not get me wrong. I am not saying that bad governance in Uganda starts at a global level. I am saying what goes on without Uganda, affects what happens within Uganda. It is just a question of the extent to which it happens.
Hence, bad governance cannot be attributed to a single variable, invariably. There are many factors involved. Chief of which is mindset. Often when you remind Ugandans of their shortcomings, they excuse themselves as Africans. For example, when you point out the deficiencies of our politics in comparison to better-functioning democracies, you are reminded that we are Africans.
Our democracy, we have been told, should be given the supposed centuries the West had to make their democracies what they are. You see, the old “that’s us” has reared its head; again. Yet who we are belongs to a social context as much as it belongs to our ability to socialise around a mindset tallying up with all we can be.
