The Harvest Festival

Greetings. Believe it or not, there was life before Christmas. My post for today is not to take away anything from that holiday, nor to point out the African origins of Balthasar, one of the three wise men described in the 8th century by Saint Bede as being of "black complexion, with [a] heavy beard". However, Christmas is the story of hope, the arrival of a messiah and as the biggest Christian festival on the calendar it allows people to celebrate the best moments from the year and look forward to a new year. All these traits are evident in religions from all walks of life. 

Following the Afrocentric spirit of this blog I'll share some tenets of religious festivities from the Africa of old.

The New Moon 

Among the Basoga, the festival of the new moon was revered and people looked at it as an opportunity for fresh starts. 

The new moon was always hailed with delight and people  believed that it brought blessing. Mothers took their babies out and tried to make them look at the new moon, for that ensured health and rapid growth. 

The appearance of the new moon was a time of universal rejoicing, when people gathered together and dancing continued far into the night, with much beer-drinking. Men and women danced separately, the men on one side and the women on the other, and they danced either standing up or crouching as they preferred. 

When a baby was about a month old, the mother took it out when the new moon appeared and tried to induce it to look up at the new moon, for she believed that this would bring it blessing and ensure satisfactory growth. 

The Annual Festival

The Baganda of old days observed several religious festivals, but the principle one was held once a year. Leading up to the festival people observed celibacy, refrained from alcohol and made offerings to bless their labours of the coming year.

The god Mukasa held the highest rank among the gods of Buganda.  Mukasa was a benign god; he never asked for the life of any human being, but animals were sacrificed to him at the yearly festivals, and also at other times when the King, or a leading chief, wished to consult him. He had nothing to do with war, but sought to heal the bodies and minds of men. He was the god of plenty; he gave the people an increase of food, cattle, and children. From the legends still current it seems to be almost certain that he was a human being who, because of his benevolence, came to be regarded as a god. 

The drum (Betobanga) was beaten for the annual festival, on which  occasion the rhythm had to be kept up at intervals by day and by night until the end of the festival ; the drum also announced the appearance of the new moon, warned the people of the monthly cessation from work, and made known when any special festival was to be held, as for instance, when the King sent to consult the god. 

The principal ceremony was the annual festival, when the Kabaka sent his presents to the god, to secure a blessing on the crops and on the people for the year. The offering consisted of nine white cows, nine white goats, nine white fowls, nine loads of bark cloths, and nine loads of cowry-shells. The King's representative had to go to Gabunga, the chief of the canoes, who accompanied him to the island. ... The festival lasted at least twenty days, during which time the men had to observe the rule of chastity and to live apart from the women. When the festival was at an end, the priest sent the Kabaka a message from the god, and gave his representative a present of a cow. The present was sent through Gugii to the chief Gabunga, who handed it to the representative. At this festival crowds of people gathered together, because, when the ceremonies ended, the priest gave the blessing to them, their wives, children, cattle, and crops. It was from Mukasa that the great blessing of twins came; he was said to show his esteem for certain women in this manner.

The Calabash Festival

In the U.S., African Americans began commemorating Kwanzaa in the 1960s, observing the seven principles of African Heritage; unity, self-determination, collective work, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith. 

Kwanzaa largely borrowed from the Zulu festival Umkhosi Wokweshwama (Calabash Festival). When Shaka reigned as king, he expanded the importance of the festival giving it a greater military significance. A bull is sacrificed and the king crashes a calabash as a symbol to the people to start enjoying the fruits of the harvest.

Everywhere there were words praising the rule of Shaka.

His brothers began to distrust their own close friends.

At this very time Shaka sent a word

Ordering a great festival to be held throughout Zululand.

Each family and clan was to make a sacrifice to its Ancestors.

Young men and women had to stage their own gala dance.

Everywhere new songs and new poems were composed.

Shaka himself led the regiments to the mountain;

Here, it was said, King Jama used to gaze at the horizon.

The great concourse of regiments raised their voices and sang

They circled the mountain, imitating the giant river-snake.

Crowds followed the king to the flat top of the mountain

There to witness the games of strength initiated by Shaka.

People were adorned in their elegant finery,

Walking proudly, like girafes following the path of the forest.

When all the crowds had assembled,

A black bull was let loose into the arena

And ten young men were to kill it with bare hands.

The great mountains echoed with voices of praise.

After this event huge fires were lit to roast meat.

A season of plenty and fun dominated throughout Zululand.

In many regions large fires could be seen

Attesting to the feasting of this festival.

From afar could be heard the raised voices singing in the night.

By their songs they invited others,

Until the whole nation seemed absorbed in song

 

Happy Holidays!

Ceteris. Paribus.

References

Kaggwa, A. (1934). The Customs of the Baganda (E. Kalibbala, trans.).

Karenga (Maulana.). (1998). Kwanzaa: A celebration of family, community, and culture. University of Sankore Press.

Kunene, M. (1979). Emperor Shaka the great: A Zulu epic (Vol. 211). East African Publishers. pp. 319-321.

Lubogo, Y. K. (1960). History of Busoga. EALB.

Roscoe, J. (1911). The Baganda: An account of their native customs and beliefs. Macmillan. pp. 290, 297-299.

Roscoe, J. (1924). The Bagisu and other tribes of the Uganda protectorate: The third part of the report of the Mackie ethnological expedition to Central Africa (Vol. 3). The University Press. pp. 108, 116, 124.

Where Men Lag Behind

Greetings. The month of November is dedicated towards raising awareness about the state of men's health, culminating in the International Men's Day on the 18th. In these modern times a key focus is placed on the awareness of prostate cancer, testicular cancer, mental health and suicide prevention. By contrast, the women's month of March is dedicated towards focusing on celebrating the achievements of women and the strides still to be made to uplift women in all spheres of women. There are several statistics brought to light where women are still behind their male counterparts; income, education attainment, career advancement, participation in government, etc. However, there is one statistic that stands out where men lag behind the fairer sex; life expectancy.

Life expectancy is an estimation of the average number of years a person is expected to live. Increases in life expectancy have been found to yield significant increments in population as well as a "small positive effect on GDP." 

The most recent figures from World Bank place the life expectancy for Uganda at  62.973 years for 2018. Over the course of 58 years (1960-2018), the life expectancy in Uganda rose by 28 years; an average increase of 4 extra months on individual life expectancy per annum. In that period, the statistic has been on an upward trend except for the period between 1981 and 1995, where it declined steadily, hitting an all-time low of 43.824 years. Some factors that could be attributed to this include the war between the NRA rebels and the government of 1980-1985, the emergence of the AIDS scourge in the late 1980s and the early 1990s. The data seems to suggest AIDS affected the life expectancy more than Idi Amin's reign of terror!

Source: World Bank

When comparing the  life expectancy between the genders over the course of 58 years, the average male life expectancy in Uganda is below that of females by 4.15 years. This is not unique to Uganda. Across her regional neighbours, the average life expectancy is higher in females than in males, with differences ranging from 2.70 (Rwanda) to 4.19 (Kenya). The global gap is between six to eight years.

Country	2018 Life Expectancy	Average Male Life Expectancy (1960-2018)	Average Female Life Expectancy (1960-2018)	Gap
Uganda	62.973	48.04	52.19	4.15
Kenya	66.342	53.77	57.96	4.19
Tanzania	65.015	49.90	53.06	3.16
Rwanda	68.70	47.09	49.99	2.90
South Sudan	57.604	42.79	45.49	2.70
Burundi	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Sub-Saharan Africa	61.257	48.38	51.48	3.1

In his 2016 article, Shmerling listed some factors that explain the reason men die earlier than their female counterparts. Primarily men take bigger risks, what he attributed to "biological destiny" i.e. the frontal lobe - in charge of judgement and consideration of consequences - in males develops much slower than in females, and as a result men partake in detrimental lifestyles at a higher risk than women.

Secondly, men die of heart disease more often and at a younger age than women i.e. lower oestrogen levels in males may contribute to this as well as unfavourable cholesterol and high blood pressure. Further more, men being on average bigger than women works against the former; larger animals tend to die younger than smller ones.

Perhaps the most striking reasons were men committing more suicides than women, men being less socially connected than women, and men avoiding doctors/ skipping routine health screens at a higher rate than women. The former two reasons point towards the mental health in men; people with less social connections are more susceptible to depression and that same category is more likely to commit suicide. 

On the issue of men skipping routine health checks, a 2013 study, led by Makerere's Dr. Haawa Nakandi, on the incidence of prostate cancer in Uganda can shade more light on this. Despite 65% of men being susceptible to prostate cancer, only 22.9% considered getting a test to confirm. The number that actually got a test was even lower, at only 3.5%. The attitude towards the illness also doesn't help, as indicated in the excerpt below,

When one of the participants was asked if he had ever considered going for prostate cancer screening, he tensely asked, “For what?” and another young man in his twenties replied “But that cancer is for old men and we are still young, so why should we waste time and money going for checkups?”

The hard guy mentality still reigns supreme!

What can be done?

Shmerling asserts that these factors are mainly behavioural and can be modified. All men should make an effort to go for routine health checks, exercise regularly and keep in touch with their friends.

A key downside to getting tested for prostate cancer revolved around availability of information. Dr. Nakandi and her team did recommend a rollout of community based health education programs. Given the ethnic diversity in this country, these programs can be in a wide range of the native languages. This will help scale back the misconceptions and lack of knowledge about men's health issues.

As for the issue regarding the growth of the frontal lobe in the brain, I think Mukama Nayamba could have an ingredient that can boost it. We could be sitting on a gold mine there.

As you prepare to let go of your Mo, be a good lad and watch your health.

Ceteris. Paribus.

P.S.

MILESTONE: This is the 25th blogpost on Stupid Economics. It took two years to get to the quarter century mark; that's an average of 1 article per month. And I've not yet delivered the article on why the price of rolex/kikomando never goes up, as promised in the inaugural post! Clearly gakyali mabaga![1]

---

[1] Translates into “So little done, so much more to do” or “Be determined, the battle rages on.”

References

Acemoglu, D., & Johnson, S. (2007). Disease and development: the effect of life expectancy on economic growth. Journal of Political Economy, 115(6), 925-985.

Feenstra, R. C., Inklaar, R., & Timmer, M. P. (2015). The next generation of the Penn World Table. American Economic Review, 105(10), 3150-82

Nakandi, H., Kirabo, M., Semugabo, C., Kittengo, A., Kitayimbwa, P., Kalungi, S., & Maena, J. (2013). Knowledge, attitudes and practices of Ugandan men regarding prostate cancer. African Journal of Urology, 19(4), 165-170.

Shmerling, R. (2016). Why men often die earlier than women. Boston: Harvard Health. Retrieved from https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/why-men-often-die-earlier-than-women-201602199137  

White, A., & Holmes, M.(2006). Patterns of mortality across, 44, 15-44.

What GDP Per Capita Says About Your MP

Greetings. The recent primary elections of the ruling National Resistance Movement have shed some light on the status of our democracy. The age old demons of voter intimidation, bribery and violence were cast in a new light. For years, we've known the political campaigning system is a quid pro quo arrangement between the politicians and the electorate; in such a system one does not need a strong manifesto to contest. 

Political experts have voiced their concerns about the salaries paid to the Members of Parliament being the chief impetus behind the current state of our electoral process. However, are we really paying our legislators exorbitantly?

A Ugandan Member of Parliament takes home UGX 25 million per month, not including allowances. So for the calendar year, the legislator takes home UGX 300 million (US$ 80,475). In principle, these are just numbers, without significance. However, one has to set a benchmark upon which to view these figures. 

How do MPs salaries compare with the standard of living?

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) measures the total income of everyone in the economy. This single measure captures all economic production by individuals, companies and the government. The proportion of this measure to the total population, GDP per capita, gives an idea about the standard of living, i.e. the average income per person in the economy. According to the World Bank, Uganda's GDP per capita stood at US$ 642.78 a year. The annual salary of MPs is 118 times greater than that amount! For each shilling the voter earns, his/her elected representative is taking home 118 shillings, and as noted earlier this doesn't include allowances and other add-ons. 

Voters earning at the level of GDP per capita would have to work for 118 years in order to earn what the MP earns in 1 year! This is appalling for a country whose average life expectancy is 62.52 years, i.e. you're likely to die two years into your retirement! If the average person works between the ages of 25 and 60 (35 years of working), this means three-generations of voters of the same family would have to put in productive work to earn the same amount the legislator makes in one year!

How do other countries compare?

The first point of comparison would be our neighbours. Across the border in Kenya, the legislative arm of government is a bi-cameral house. Senators take home US$200,000 a year whereas the MPs in the lower house earn $58,744 per annum. Kenya has the highest GDP in East Africa, at US$1,710.51 per person each year. The Senators and MPs respectively earn 116 times and 34 times the per capita figure. In comparison with Uganda, this is a modest range from the national average.

One could call the United States the progenitors of the modern democracy - their dubious suffrage history notwithstanding. Their legislative arm is also bicameral, however members of the House of Representatives and the Senate earn the same annual salary of US$174,000 per year, absent of allowances. With a GDP per capita of US$ 63,051, a Congressman/woman earns just under three times that much.

The United Kingdom presents a more self-effacing scenario. Members of the House of Lords, do not earn a salary but can opt to receive £305 (US$ 396) in attendance allowance per day, as well as travel expenses and access to subsidised restaurants. In the House of Commons, an MP earns £81,932 (about US$106,986) per year. This figure is just more than double the UK's per capita GDP (US$ 46,827).

Country	GDP per capita (in US$)	Legislator Salary: GDP per capita
Uganda	956.00	117.8363
Tanzania	1,050.00	18.7550
Kenya	1,710.51	75.6336
United Kingdom	46,827.00	2.2847
United States	63,051.00	2.7597

Studies of GDP find that countries with a higher GDP per capita have better childhood nutrition, healthcare, education etc., than their less-endowed counterparts. A caveat should be added that countries with lower GDPs tend to spend a huge portion of that on their legislators.

Ceteris. Paribus.

References

Awich, L., (May 2019). "New house allowance puts MPs' salary way above world super powers," in The Star.

Dickinson, E., (January 2011). "GDP: A Brief History," in Foreign Policy Magazine.

Editor, (August 2019). "Analysis: MPs Salaries," in The Observer.

UK Parliament (October 2020). Pay and expenses for MPs. UK Parliament, https://www.parliament.uk/about/mps-and-lords/members/pay-mps/ 

US Senate (October 2020). Senate Salaries since 1789. US Senate, https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/senate_salaries.htm 

The Colonialists Behaving Badly

Greetings. Annually we commemorate our independence, in remembrance of regaining our "sovereignty" from the British Empire. The exploits of the Empire within Uganda are well documented, especially the activities within the central region. With regards to the rest of the country, there's not much popularised about colonial rule in those areas. As with the rest of the country, they do maintain colonial epithets on street names as well as schools. As the Empire was rewarding acres of land to Apollo Kaggwa and Nuwa Mbaguta in return for emasculating their respective liege lords, Kabalega was being banished from his kingdom. In certain instances the colonial era had its downside. The British weren't always honourable in their dealings within the protectorate. 

Samwiri Karugire explained how the British formulated a system of administration across the country. From his examples in Northern Uganda, it is evident how the existing status quo was maltreated and relegated to carrying out orders. It is from his text that I share the excerpt below;

The first challenge to the nascent British administration, therefore, was to establish a uniform system of administration over the whole protectorate and this challenge was not fully resolved throughout the colonial period - and even for some period after independence - because the factors militating against uniformity of administration were to prove intractable.

From the outset the British administrators were convinced that Kiganda model of local government would e the most viable, and probably the cheapest also, and that therefore this should be "exported" into all the parts of the Protectorate. What this meant was that the form rather than the substance of the Kiganda system of government should be the pattern of local government everywhere in the Protectorate.

The first practical problem arose out of the fact that the Kianda system of administration was peculiarly fashioned to suit Buganda conditions and that this fashioning had taken well ove a century to take a definite shape within Buganda. Outside Buganda, the system was a strange one, even in the kingdom areas. The first formal and concrete steps to establish the Buganda model of administration were taken by the promulgation of the 1919 Native Authority Ordinance. The main purpose of this Ordinance was to formalise and clarify the powers, duties and privileges of African chiefs in all areas of the Protectorate excepting Buganda. This was an important consideration because the African Chief was to be the principal grassroot instrument by which British control was to be established and consolidated in Uganda.

The law had been made, but what mattered was how it would work in practice for this is the ultimate test of the effectiveness of any law.

It was naturally in the segmentary and quasi-segmentary societies of Uganda that the Ordinance met its greatest challenges because it was primarily in those areas that the concept of one-man authority was entirely alien. In the small kingdom of Acholi the kings reigned rather than ruled and that the consensus of all the assembled elders of the particular kingdom was the source of the direction of public policy but decidedly not public opinion of the kings or of any other single person.

The Rwot of Atyak was deposed in 1927 "because he failed to carry out government orders", and was replaced by one Jakariya Atoyo from Patiko so that the "rule of Atyak's royal line came to an end at this time". In some instances some humiliating punishments were handed out to these traditional rulers for trivial offences. For instance, the ruler of Pajule, Aliker by name, was put into a latrine pit by the District Commisioner and he died soon thereafter. Lakidi, the ruler of Paimol, was imprisoned and finally hanged in public and in his place was installed one Amet, who was not only from outside the royal house of Paimol, but had also, to the considerable outrage of the Acholi, suffered from leprosy and lost some of his fingers. And this outrage was perpetrated by a European Officer (Postlethwaite) whom the Acholi had nicknamed gweno (chicken) - a very unflattering epithet indeed in Acholi. As a result of all these drastic measures government interpreters, clerks and other obsequious people were gradually put into positions of power over a society in which age and proven merit were the criteria of leadership. The system ultimately worked not because it was initially acceptable but because the British had the physical force to back up their appointees.

Happy independence day.

Ceteris. Paribus.

Source

Karugire, S.R., (1980). A Political History of Uganda. Kampala: Fountain. Chapter 4: The Administrative Framework, 1921-1960, pp. 123-125.

Ideological Godfathers in Ugandan Politics

Greetings. As we approach the 2021 elections, a thought crossed my mind. Modern day political parties in Uganda are often criticised for their lack of ideology and being too focused on the eviction of Museveni from state house. There is some truth in the statement, given even adherents of the ruling National Resistance Movement aren’t joining it for its ideology. Going by the old adage, there’s nothing new under the sun, I sought to peruse through our history on a quest for some godfathers of political ideology in Uganda.

Ignatius Kangave Musaazi (The Pioneer)

"But it must be borne in mind by the African that however good non-African teachers, officials and financiers may be, the problem of true emancipation will still be in his own hands."

IK Musaazi, in Uganda Church Review, 8th June 1930 (joint article with Kenneth Bisase)

Ignatius Musaazi is perhaps the most celebrated political figure in the country who never rose to become President.

Born in Bulemezi County to a Gomboloola chief, Musaazi had his early education at King’s College Budo. He proceeded to St. Augustine’s College Canterbury, training to become a clergyman in the Anglican Church. During his time in the UK, he studied theology and the bible extensively, with a keen interest in the Book of Amos which forewarns of wealth at the expense of the poor yielding “famine in the land”. Musaazi also read the works of British socialist Harold Laski as well as being a witness to the 1926 general strike of the Trade Union Congress. These served to bolster his belief in social justice.

Musaazi believed in paving a way for the Kabaka to "protect his subjects from British colonisers, Indian ginners and Buganda’s self-aggrandizing chiefs". Musaazi’s theological training had grounded in him the idea that God uses kings to tackle the inherent prejudices within a society. The organisations he helped found – Bana Ba Kintu, Uganda Farmers Union and the Uganda National Congress – all sought  to address the grievances of the farmers and merchants, as well as the dismissal of corrupt administrators.

Francis Semakula Mulumba (The Radical)

"Let the People cease to hope that anything will any longer be done for them if they have not struggled and fought for it.”

Semakula Mulumba, in a letter dated 20th December 1948

Francis Semakula Mulumba was a key leader of the Bataka Movement in the 1940s. He received his training as part of the Brothers of St. Charles Lwanga, before proceeding to the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies in 1944. While there, he met young Pan Africans Jomo Kenyatta and Kwame Nkrumah, who influenced him to join the cause advocating for reinstatement of African sovereignty. The Bataka Party which emerged in the 1940s in opposition to the traditional values of (B)Uganda being “adulterated by British culture, a process qualified by hypocrisy and theft”, sought out Mulumba to head their delegation to UK to voice their concerns.

As a member of the Bataka, Mulumba sought to underpin the position of the old clan heads (Bataka) of Buganda. Ever the radical, he strongly opposed the influence of the Native Anglican Church in the country’s state of affairs, citing its role as an agent of the colonial government to grab land and minerals. He was critical of the Mengo establishment, exposing how they were influenced by the church and British culture to ignore the pleas of the common man. 

Eridadi Medadi Kasirye Mulira (The Reformer)

"I think no one who has followed my public life during recent years can accuse me of not having stood for what is right as I know it; of trying to uphold the Christian viewpoint and democracy."

EMK Mulira, "Why I am in the Uganda National Movement", 1960

Dubbed the constitutional reformer of the 1950s, Mulira was one of the earliest proponents of an inclusive Uganda during the pre-colonial period. Hailing from Kooki Principality, Mulira was educated at King's College Budo, followed by stints in Ghana and UK. He was a member of the Budo teaching staff with Musaazi. He was an advocate for equal pay for the native schoolteachers, who earned less than their European counterparts.

Whereas Musaazi and Mulumba were known to use protests to get their points across, Mulira preferred to use his writing which encompassed letters to The Uganda Herald, novels and essays. In his sole novel, Teefe, Mulira portrayed Buganda as a place for commoners, where both the Baganda and non-Baganda lived in harmony working the land. He used land, and agriculture by extension, to envision a utopia absent of any tribal differences. According to Mulira, a weak economy arose from a lack of work intensified by laziness.

As a member of the Lukiiko, he advocated for monarchical powers to be transferred to the citizenry. His motion on constitutional reforms in the Lukiiko following the Kabaka’s exile led to the appointment of a committee addressing constitutional reform, leading into negotiations at the Namirembe Conference of 1955 that returned the Kabaka and confirmed his status as a constitutional monarchy.

Apollo Milton Obote (The "Pseudo" Socialist)

"The biggest of us all, the richest of us all, and perhaps the highest educated of us all, cannot stand without the support of the common man."

AM Obote, Speech at UPC Conference, December 1970

Where Musaazi was the godfather of political mobilisation and activism, Milton Obote is the architect behind most of post-independence Uganda's political framework.

Educated at Busoga College Mwiri and Makerere University, Obote started his legislative career as the representative of Lango to the Legislative Council in 1958. He was in favour of a united Uganda as a one state, and opposed Buganda's secessionist plans to go it alone. He fell out with his Uganda National Congress Party, and merged his faction of the party with Uganda People's Union (UPU) to form the Uganda People's Congress (UPC). In principle, Obote preferred to espouse the ideas of socialism, mainly because at the time socialism in Africa was all the rage. However, he repeatedly acted in contrast to these principles, with examples ranging from his lavish wedding and the appointment of his Minister of Agriculture, John Kakonge, to the directorship of Mehta Industries, a private company.

Perhaps his most committed student has been the current president. Obote believed in uniting the East African nations and was one of the founders of the EAC (Museveni was at the centre of its revival); he seized power by military means (26th January anyone); he made use of military to do his bidding (in recent years the military has been deployed in roles previously handled by the Police); declared a one-party state (Museveni has been smarter in his approach; he has kept the opposition but the process of creating new districts at whim has greatly hampered its growth in comparison to the ruling party, internal conflicts within the opposition notwithstanding). Both men had/have a keen eye for talent on the opposition benches and were/are always willing to recruit it!

Benedicto Kagimu Mugumba Kiwanuka (The Law Abiding Citizen)

“Kiwanuka chose to be honest when being dishonest would have, in the long run, saved (B)Uganda a lot of tears and rivers of blood! It was truly the high price of principles.”

Samwiri Lwanga-Lunyigo, A History of the Democratic Party of Uganda

Benedicto Kiwanuka perhaps had the quickest rise to power of any politician; the Democratic Party was founded while he was studying in UK, and yet he became its President in its fourth year of existence (1958) and rose to be Prime Minister three years later!

Born to a minor chief who squandered his fortune, Kiwanuka received his early education at St. Peter's Nsambya before proceeding to serve in the Second World War. He worked for a time as a Court clerk and interpreter, which sparked his interest in law. He got his legal education in Lesotho and the United Kingdom, from where he still kept an eye on the political developments back home.

As the leader of the Democratic Party, he fashioned its core principles leading up to the elections of 1958, 1961 and 1962. Kiwanuka believed in the rule of law; even when his party members were frustrated and harrassed during the 1962 election preparations, he chose to be impartial and not use his position as Prime Minister to get the security forces to intervene in favour of his party (his successors have continually chosen the unconstitutional alternative). His opposition to special political rights to special regions of the country put him at odds with the Mengo establishment, putting an end to any plan of forming an electoral alliance with the Kabaka Yeka. 

On economic matters, Kiwanuka and his DP colleagues favoured policies that would assist Africans to become capitalists through trade and agriculture, compounding his belief in private property.

Ceteris. Paribus. 

Further Reading

Earle, J.L., "Musaazi, religion and independence politics", The Daily Monitor, 24 July 2012.

Earle, J.L., "Mulira and the commoner’s Kingdom", The Daily Monitor, 25 July 2012.

Earle, J.L., "Mulira’s Constitutional Kingdom", The Daily Monitor, 26 July 2012.

Lubega, H., "Years of tension in Buganda Kingdom end in all-out riots", The Daily Monitor, 19 April 2020.

Lwanga-Lunyigo, S. (2015). History of the Democratic Party of Uganda, 1954-1984: The First Thirty Years. Kampala, Uganda: Fountain Publishers.

Mulindwa, F. (2011). The Bataka Agitation and Resistance in Colonial Uganda. The Journal of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences Makerere University, 10, 12.

Mulira, E.M.K., “How Millions of Africans Live in East Africa, According to Sir Philip Mitchell,” Uganda Herald, 28 January 1942, 18.

Mulira, P., "Road to independence: There was more than one school of thought", The Daily Monitor, 10 September 2019.

Summers, C. (2006). Radical rudeness: Ugandan social critiques in the 1940s. Journal of social history, 741-770.

The 'Problem' With Black Panther

Greetings. Last week the world was rocked with news of the death of Chadwick Boseman, Hollywood actor famed for portraying the Black Panther in the movie of the same name.

The significance of the movie on modern day culture is well documented. The 2018 blockbuster was the first superhero movie with a predominantly black cast. Set in the fictional Kingdom of Wakanda, the movie portrays in a positive light some aspects of African culture that have long been misunderstood since the colonial days, i.e. the famous ancestral plane scene comes to mind. The use of African languages in their dialogue was also a welcome sight to a Hollywood movie, as the Panther tribe and the mountain clans use Xhosa and Igbo respectively. It is at the point of languages that I cite the first ‘problem’ with black panther.

Despite being the most widely used African language – the Stanford Language Centre reports approximately 100 millions speakers of the language globally – Swahili is not one of the dialects used in the movie. The language is predominantly used in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Sudan, Somalia and Ethiopia. Instead, the languages used in the movie, originating from South Africa and Nigeria respectively, are representative of the dichotomy that is in position to rule Africa culturally and economically. The two countries are the largest economies on the continent and the largest markets for foreign investment on the continent. On the cultural scene, if the BET Award for best international act is our parameter, in 5 of the 7 years before production began on Black Panther, the winner came from Nigeria (out of 12 nominations), with the other two years going to a South African (from 11 nominations) and a Ghanaian (from 9 nominations). The closest a Swahili-speaking artist came to winning was Camp Mulla (nominated in 2012) and Sauti Sol (nominated in 2015), both Kenyan acts, as well as Tanzania’s Diamond Platinumz (nominated in 2014 and 2016). More examples arise when one scrolls through the channel guide on DSTV or watches the European football leagues; there is a high presence of Nigerian content and players. In any case the Hollywood executives were responding to the forces of demand and supply.

Critics of the price mechanism would point out how the other languages (and cultures) will become obsolete as a result. However, if Uganda is an example to go by, native speakers of these languages have been at the forefront of abandoning them. There are over a dozen cultural leaders in Uganda, and none of them has thought of sponsoring a UGX 100,000/= ($25) high school essay prize in their native language! Preservation of a language is incumbent upon individuals speaking, reading and writing it, and yet some of our cultural leaders deliver speeches to their subjects in a mixture of English and their mother tongue. On that note I’d like to point out that at least at CBS HQ in Bulange, Mengo there is an office for Ekibiina ky’olulimi Oluganda (The Luganda Language Society), among whose collection are the writings of Sir Apollo Kaggwa. An important lesson for native language preservation.

Following from the language issue, the second challenge centres around how Africans resident on the African continent are taking a back seat in influencing Pan Africanism. Having been given the short end of the stick for centuries, it’s understandable why African-Americans are at the forefront of celebrating black culture. As one reviewer of the movie pointed out what Wakanda means to African-Americans,

We have for centuries sought to either find or create a promised land where we would be untroubled by the criminal horrors of our American existence.

In the 1950s and 1960s, African writers like Chinua Achebe, Okot p’Bitek, BA Ogot, MSM Kiwanuka, Ali Mazrui were at the forefront of documenting the African experience from an African perspective. Their works spanned poetry, drama, fiction, philosophy and history. Chimamanda N. Adichie is one of the modern day African writers in that mould. The Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o even vowed to stop writing in English and reverting to Swahili and his native Kikuyu. However, not much has been done to push the heroes from these works – the likes of Ezeulu, Kabalega and Shaka – in the mainstream at the same frequency as Sherlock Holmes, Julius Caesar and Abraham Lincoln.

T’Challa’s father, aptly named T’Chaka (no doubt inspired by the Zulu king Shaka), in a way poses a flippant reminder to the inhabitants of the continent how they are lagging behind when it comes to celebrating their own culture.

Ceteris. Paribus.

Further Reading

Morris, L. (2018). To the Ancestral Plane: African Spiritism in Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther (Marvel Studios, 2018) and the Desensitization to Spiritualism in Hollywood. Journal of Pan African Studies, 11(9), 73-76.

Wa Thiong'o, N. (1992). Decolonising the mind: The politics of language in African literature. East African Publishers.

Wallace, C. (February 2018). Why ‘Black Panther’ Is a Defining Moment for BlackAmerica. The New York Times Magazine.

On City Status

"There's a chance to build it right the first time, notably with respect to the roads, bridges, water, and power that will determine both economic competitiveness and quality of life for decades."

- John D. Macomber 

Greetings.

As of 01st July, Uganda has upgraded the following municipalities to city status; Arua, Fort Portal, Gulu, Jinja, Masaka, Mbarara and Mbale. The matter was tabled before parliament in April, and all but one MP voted against it. The dissenting opinion of Sarah Opendi was well documented by The Daily Monitor, noting that "it would not be necessary to vote for cities at a time when government is struggling to finance newly created sub counties and town councils."

These sentiments were echoed by The Daily Monitor editorial from last week;

"Too many administrators and legislators will not develop Uganda. Industrialists and prudent public expenditure will."

By the latest population estimates, the 7 proposed cities have a combined population of 640,509 people compared with Kampala's population of 1.65 million people (the daytime population is way higher). In terms of budgetary allocations per head, the new Cities are currently allocated a portion in the region of UGX 210,535 (vs. UGX 231,830 for Kampala), with this figure expected to rise.

With certain sections firmly against the new development, why would we proceed to create new cities?

For starters, there is no problem with having 15, or even 100 cities. As John K. Sentongo often emphasized, the problem is not in the school having a population of 1,000, but at what rate do you get to that population size, with respect to the available resources? At what rate do we get to that number of cities, vis-a-vis the resource endowment?

The cautious move would have been to create one city, to serve as a learning curve in terms of the logistics, administrative needs, public expenditure and institutional performance. From this one city, we would be in a position to gain insight into the mechanics of developing a city for an emerging economy like ours. I got insight on this from a medical doctor, who suggested perchance the powers that be could have considered setting up these cities, with particular specializations i.e. one could focus on industrial production, another on services, another on agriculture, etc. His Smithesque division of labour after all is a vital cog in the laissez faire system, and could work in this situation.

Furthermore, the opening quote of this blog points out the importance of getting this right from the very beginning. The author of the quote, who happens to be a Professor of Finance at a world-renowned institute, goes on to warn of the dangers of developing countries messing up their city projects from the start;

"If this chance is missed, new urban conglomerations will be characterized by informal sprawl and new settlements will be hard to reach after the fact with power, roads, and sanitation."

Why we are getting new cities

Macomber states, as the reason behind the current buzz pushing for smart cities, elites (political leaders and academics) are "distracted by cool technology and tourist-friendly innovations." They are easily seduced by the dream of opportunities available from the emergence of a new city, often citing examples of already existing cities (i.e. looking at Nakuru, Mombasa across the border, one may want to dream). However, they tend to forget "the messy truth that cities are not the same, and even the most innovative approach can never achieve universal impact."

Or alternatively, you could picture a hypothetical scenario of a post-Covid Uganda. During an election year, at a future date, a certain candidate will be introduced by the District (or City) Party Chairperson thus, "Please welcome, the one and only, the man who gave us a city ..."

Ceteris. Paribus. 

References 

Aluma, C. (2020, 29 April). 7 new Cities start July 1. The Daily Monitor. Retrieved from https://www.monitor.co.ug/

Macomber, J. D. (2016, 18 June). The 4 Types of Cities and How to Prepare Them for the Future. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/ 

Editor (2020, 30 June). Government should not create new constituencies. The Daily Monitor. Retrieved from https://www.monitor.co.ug/