By Peter G. Mwesige
Museveni’s failings make Ugandans yearn for Amin August 21, 2003
BLOOMINGTON, INDIANA — I had set out to write about last week’s blackout in New York and other American cities, which left over 50 million people without power.
It was big news here. Very big news! You see, such blackouts are not known here, although the biggest state, California, has in the recent past had what they call rolling blackouts. But even that was always big news.
In fact Governor Gray Davis, who is facing a recall by California voters, must have seen the New York blackout as a godsend. At least he can now boast about how California’s blackouts were never of the magnitude that New York and other cities saw last Friday.
There are so many comparisons I had wanted to make between the American “historic” blackout and our routine power outages in Uganda and much of the developing world.
For instance, millions of Americans, perhaps twice as many as the population of Uganda, have never experienced a power blackout in their whole lives.
Also, I had wanted to suggest that the collective sigh of relief after it became clear that the blackout was not another terrorist attack in the making speaks volumes about how, in the public mind and the government agenda, security and terrorism have replaced so many other important issues. Which is exactly how George W. Bush wants it before next year’s presidential elections.
Finally, I had wanted to opine that the New York blackout had brought to the fore the case of those who think there should be limits to deregulation. Leaving such important public utilities completely in the hands of the private sector may not always secure the best results.
Then another blackout occurred in another part of the world. Idi Amin died in exile in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. How sad! Lt. Gen. Yoweri Museveni does not get to arrest the Field Marshal upon arrival in Uganda.
The death by natural causes, of a former dictator who has been out of power for more than 24 years should not be as important as more pressing issues of the day, such as the shortage of electricity.
So I was tempted to stick to my original script about power blackouts in these United States, and tease out some lessons for Uganda.
But then I was intrigued that although there have been so many local commentaries about Amin, to my knowledge none had tried to make sense of why many people appear to have embraced “Big Daddy” in more recent years.
I do not pretend to have the answers, but clearly the rationalisation of the Amin excesses that we have seen in the local media recently could not simply have been pity for a man who was about to breathe his last or, when he finally passed, respect for the dead.
At the weekend memorial prayers at Old Kampala Mosque, Sheikh Hussein Rajab Kakooza, the Uganda Muslim Supreme Council (UMSC) director for Sharia, reportedly described Amin as, “our beloved brother.”
Attorney General Francis Ayume praised him for living to his word and not fighting to return to power, while former Attorney General Abu Mayanja, who said he had “proudly served” as Amin’s minister, called him “a great Ugandan.” The UMSC Secretary for Religious Affairs, Sheikh Mahdi Kakooza, also called Amin “a great man,” while MPs from Arua and the Muslim Parliamentary Caucus also heaped praises on the former dictator.
Of course, one could argue that either these were people who benefitted from Amin’s regime, or they were playing religious (Muslim) and constituency (Arua and Koboko) politics.
Yet, many others, who cannot be easily pigeonholed, have rationalised Amin’s exploits in power.
In fact, the only high profile person who has been categorical yet characteristic in his unforgiving stance is President Yoweri Museveni, who said he would not mourn Amin because he had killed many Ugandans and caused problems for the country.
Why have many others not followed the president’s example? Is it a case of collective amnesia, or what Prof. Mahmood Mamdani once called a lapse of historical memory, borne out of the condition in which we find ourselves? May be.
Human beings have a way of looking back to the past—however troubled it may have been—with nostalgia. This is more so when they are mired in economic and socio-political problems that seem insurmountable.
We saw that in Soviet Russia after the end of the Cold War. That life had been miserable for a majority of Russians during their socialist experiment appeared self-explanatory. Yet, the complex problems engendered by capitalism, and perhaps the new age of American hegemony, have made many look back to the old days with some longing.
We are seeing the same thing in Iraq. That life was hell under Saddam Hussein does not appear to be in question. But the mess created by the American “occupiers,” and the very idea of occupation by a foreign army, has already left many rationalising Saddam’s tyrannical rule. He may have been a dictator, but he was their dictator.
It is the same thing we are seeing in Uganda. That Amin was a tyrant who visited untold suffering on thousands, and led to the death of hundreds of thousands of Ugandans had always appeared not to be in question.
But when many people see the vanishing promise of Museveni and his Movement, perhaps the equation changes. Thousands of Ugandans have died in senseless wars under this government. And hundreds have been tortured in safe houses that are reminiscent of Amin’s infamous State Research Bureau. Meanwhile, poverty continues to bite, with many people increasingly believing they are poorer today.
On the governance front, Amin did not make many pretences about democracy. He abolished Parliament and ruled by decree. Today, we have a constitution that established several institutions that are yet to be entrenched in our political culture. In very many ways Museveni rules by decree, only that he has created the illusion of popular participation.
Part of the less harsh evaluations of Amin that have gained currency in recent years, then, suggest that there are many who think Museveni is not that different from the past leaders he has so much demonised.
None of Museveni’s failings should excuse Amin’s tyranny, but for some people they create a context in which revisionism thrives. In a way, they blackout the horrible details of Amin’s reign, and celebrate the little glory they can see no more.
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© 2003 The Monitor Publications
Mitayo Potosi
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