Entry nineteen - Where Nobody's Right If Everybody's Wrong

Last Thursday there was a demonstration in Kampala that got out of hand. Opposition MPs, environmentalists and thousands of protesters marched through downtown Kampala in protest over the president's plan to give away one of the country's last remaining national forests to a sugar company. A few months ago, President Museveni decided that he was going to give - that's right, give for free - 17,000 acres of Mabira National Forest in the heart of the country (between Kampala and Jinja) to Scoul, a company owned by one of the richest people in Uganda, Mehta. Mehta is an Indian businessman (in Uganda, Indians are usually called 'Asians') who owns Lugazi sugar.

There have historically been high tensions between "Asians" and "Africans" in Uganda dating back to the 1920s. The British government imported "voluntary" (though this was a relative concept under colonial rule) labour from India in order to, among other things, build the railway from coastal Kenya to Western Uganda (the Ugandan portion is now defunct except for a few cargo trains). There is a myth that "Indians came to build the railway." However, the majority of Indians in Uganda came as businessmen, primarily in towns but later expanding to some rural areas. British laws systematically prevented Africans from entering business in substantial numbers, while Indians were used as a buffer between Africans and the colonial state. Successful resistance and disruptions of colonial rule were mostly (though not always) directed against the Indian community. Strikes, riots and legal challenges to the colonial state usually focused on the monopoly of business by "the Asians". Dependent on the colonial state, and resented by most African-Ugandans, the Asian community also had a reputation for insularity and disrespect of Africans.

After independence in 1962, the first government of Milton Obote attempted to use its socialist ideology to justify limiting Indian business activity. However, his laws banning Indian-owned businesses from main streets and his secret plans to expel Indian nationals would have crippled his international legitimacy and hurt his own financial and political support (or at least tolerance) from the business community. After Idi Amin took over in a military coup in 1971, most people thought that his regime was a conservative backlash against Obote. However, in mid-1972, he ordered all Indians to leave the country within 90 days. Thousands of Ugandan citizens of Indian origin had their citizenships annulled and their businesses given away, mostly to Amin's supporters.

Prior to Amin's expulsion order, Kampala Road (Kampala's main street and centre of economic activity in the country) was almost all Asian-owned. It was apparently very rare to see Africans in this part of town, or most other wealthy areas of the city. The architecture of Kampala (and most of the country) illustrates this racial segregation. Kampala is built on a series of hills (some say seven, others say forty). Europeans lived on the top of these hills in order to avoid the malaria-infested swamps in the valleys. Indians usually lived on the slopes of these hills, the richer ones living at the top and the poorer ones living at the bottom. Meanwhile, Africans lived in the valleys. After independence the racial segregation was no longer legally feasible or desirable for those in power, but economic barriers remained. Amin's expulsion order was thus very popular among many Ugandans and continues to be remembered as a great moment in Ugandan history by many. In the mid-1990s, the current government of Yoweri Museveni invited some Indian businessmen (the owners are mostly men) to reclaim businesses that had collapsed or were under incompetent management. The Indian community today does not rival the 60,000 + of the pre-Amin years, but they are prominent in business (this time, alongside African-owned and internationally-owned businesses).

I am unsure if Mehta is a Ugandan citizen or if he was one of the Indian businessmen invited back by Museveni, but he is in charge of the biggest sugar company in the country. His books have been closed for over twenty years, during which time he has not paid taxes because he claims that he has been running losses - (no one including his supporters claim that this is true). President Museveni unilaterally declared that Mehta would receive, free of charge, 17,000 acres of Mabira forest. His opposition seized on this issue, which is opposed even by most members of his cabinet. According to a 2001 World Bank agreement, the government cannot touch the forest. Nevertheless, when the opposition voices looked like they would win, according to some reports Museveni ordered loggers to move in before anything had been approved by the government. Put simply, this move looked decidedly dictatorial and Mugabe-ish.

This is all background to last Thursday's protest. The police OKed the protest (something they usually do not do). However, they demanded that it not use Kampala Road and the junction toward Entebbe (the busiest intersection in the country). The protesters of course wanted to use these routes. The chronology of events is hazy, but the following took place within a two-hour window of each other after a few hours of what had been a strong, peaceful protest.

The protesters moved toward the forbidden junction. Police fired live bullets to disperse the crowd. Protesters started chanting - "For every tree cut in Mabira, the heads of five Asians will be cut." It is unclear if this started before or after a car, driven by an Asian person (completely unrelated to Mehta or the Mabira), knocked down a reporter who was sent to the hospital in critical condition. Another Asian person who was driving by (again, completely unrelated to Mehta or Mabira) was knocked off his motorcycle by the crowd and stoned to death. Another Asian passerby was knocked off his motorcycle but saved by police - though his motorcycle was burned. Some Indian- and Chinese-owned businesses were looted. A security guard shot and killed two protesters who he claimed were looting but who demonstrators say were innocent. All Asian businesses in town closed for two days, and police escorted many Asian people living downtown to police stations to stay the night, for their safety. A huge rainstorm dulled to protest, and a few people were arrested.

Later that day, Museveni made a speech announcing that he was laughing at the protesters because he knew that he could shout louder than they could. In another press conference, he blamed all the deaths on the protest organisers, who were later arrested, and said that the NRM (his party) (note that he did not say "the government" or "the state") would always promote the rule of law. The next day he seemed to back down slightly by saying that the issue had still not been discussed by the Cabinet. Another unapproved downtown protest on Tuesday involving the leaders of all the major opposition parties was teargassed while opposition leaders engaged in shouting matches with the police. The opposition leaders literally ran through the streets avoiding police to get to the building where they planned to hold a press conference. Literally wiping the teargas from their faces, they declared the government corrupt and illegal.

One last point about the opposition. The next president of Uganda will likely be Kizza Besigye, the leader of the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC). He used to be Museveni's personal doctor but fell out with him several years ago. He has no platform other than being against the government, and he is propped up by a host of shady, suspicious, and/or unknown backers. In addition, he is immensely popular, particularly in urban areas, among the educated classes and among young people. In other words, things are politically shaky at the moment, and none of the country's leaders seem to inspire much hope. In this context, the Commonwealth heads of government meeting (CHOGM) is scheduled for November in Kampala. Should be interesting.

Entry eighteen - Kampala, New York, and the Gentrified Urban Jungle

I apologise for my little three-month vacation from the world of blogging... I have no good excuses, or bad ones for that matter. However, I hope that this string of entries (saved up from the previous months) make up for some of the absence.

In any case, I would like to dedicate this entry to an observation that I made today about Kampala and New York. These two cities where I have spent the past two years are both booming metropolises with falling crime rates, incessant construction and growing "gentrification", at least in some areas. I had friends in New York living in Bedford-Stuyvesant, i.e. Bed-Stuy, just across from the Marcy Projects (home of the late gangster-rapper Notorious B.I.G.) because it was one of the only neighbourhoods with apartments that they could afford. Although things still looked grim, a block of condos was going up nearby, and I even heard rumours that a Fresh-Direct truck had been seen cruising the adjacent neighbourhood. I have a friend in Kampala living in Makerere-Kivvulu, which since the days of colonial segregation (between Europeans, Asians and Africans - which is still evident in the city's architecture) has been a very poor African slum, because it is the only area that he could afford. Although it is still a very poor neighbourhood, across the street from his apartment is a huge recently-opened conference facility, and nearby are a few newly-constructed spacious houses for Kampala's middle class. I am myself considering moving into some apartment blocks on the edge of this neighbourhood. In the adjacent slum of Katanga, the university recently razed the structures of a few hundred people (squatters, they were called) in order to pave the way for more university facilities. Kampala's suburbs are undergoing even greater transformation as the super-rich seek new neighbourhoods with cheaper land.

However, well within my lifetime, both of these cities were (in the portrayals of some) dangerous, decaying and grungy hell-holes. This is evident in the infrastructure and architecture or both Kampala and New York, even as things (for some) swing economically upward. Twenty years ago (and assuming that I was still twenty-three rather than three years old), I would not have considered entering either Bed-Stuy or Kivvulu for simple reasons of safety. In New York, the cracked sidewalks, run-down buildings and few remaining poor residents of areas such as Park Slope make the current scene of upscale bars, restaurants and boutiques seem like they were dumped on top of a ghetto - which in some ways they were. Someone who lived in Park Slope in the early 1980s said that at that time there were prostitutes and various shady characters on almost every block, and most bars were too dangerous to enter after 10:00. After he moved out in 1981, apparently things got even worse. Today the area is divided into three sections, one industrial, one trendy, and the other yuppie (the industrial one is the only area with rent under 800 USD/month).

The area of Kabalagala has been the centre of Ugandan nightlife for the past quarter century. However, it is located far to the south of the city centre and is surrounded by a mishmash of very upscale and run-down neighbourhoods. When these areas were all poor, and home to a good portion of the population of Kampala, Kabalagala was a popular centre of social activity because it was too dangerous to move around at night between there and the city centre. Although a recent effort to pave Kampala's streets before this year's Commonwealth Conference has improved the situation, until recently the road to Kabalagala was treacherous, doing great damage to any non-4WD vehicle attempting to manoeuvre through it at night. But due to the city's history, this is where the best nightlife in city is. Even downtown Kampala consists of a mix of empty lots, run-down colonial-era buildings and sleek new skyscrapers.

There isn't any grand conclusion that I plan to draw from these observations. However, my experiences of both New York and Kampala are those of prosperous commercialism hastily laid out over gritty urban jungles. Movies, friends and newspapers tell me about how walking through Central Park was asking to get robbed. Books, friends and at least one film tell me how walking, or driving, across Kampala at night was asking to get shot. No doubt these images are greatly distorted, since I know people who have lived in both places for decades and have fond memories of past years. However, the speed with which these cities were significantly transformed gives them each a kind of surreal quality, especially since the architectural and infrastructural changes haven't always kept pace with the monetary and social ones.

Entry seventeen - High fashion

I recently noticed an article in the newspaper entitled "How to Dress Down Without Looking Trashy". The accompanying picture showed a man in a button-down open-collared shirt, tucked into a spotlessly ironed pair of black dress trousers. While I don't generally peruse the fashion section of any publication (and I did not read the accompanying article), this title summarised a problem of how to dress that has troubled me since my first visit to Uganda.

If I were trying fool someone in Toronto or New York into thinking that I am respectably not uncool, I would probably put on my faded jeans or khakis, battered cheap dress shoes, wrinkled button-down shirt, corny 1980s sport jacket and dirt-stained fedora on a walk down to a hole-in-the-wall drinking joint around the East Village or Queen West. My cover would inevitably be blown after a few drinks, when I would inevitably begin rambling on the politics of postcolonial subjectivity or the Red Sox postseason woes. However, at the level of appearance, my collection of ragged attire would not pin me as somehow disrespectful or trashy.

There are several varieties of "scenes" in Kampala, but none equivalent to those that I am used to in North America. The club-goers are often decked out in even more over-the-top fashions than their North American counterparts. The middle-class watering holes are filled with brand-new spotless suits and the occasional pristine dress. Even the Rastafarian-types wear the latest style of jeans and Bob Marley shirts at assorted bars and clubs of various levels of seediness. Even the student hangouts where I feel more comfortable are jammed more respectable high-fashion folks than I would ordinarily tolerate at home.

After my first trip to Uganda, I stopped wearing torn jeans and t-shirts after realizing how run-down I looked, even next to someone who only owned one-set of clothes. After my second trip to East Africa, I began tucking in my button-down shirts for similar reasons to the previous change. Unfortunately, I cannot bring myself to take the next step and begin wearing brass cufflinks, a suit, tie and kiwi-polished black shoes, as many other Makerere students do.

I have my theories on Ugandans' apparent fear of "looking trashy" when "dressing down". The people who wear ragged clothes are mostly crude clueless bazungu and people who cannot afford to dress to impress. A premium is put on looking not necessarily well-off, but modern or with it. The anti- and/or post- modern trends in dress, style and culture in North America are, in general, less pronounced in Uganda.

Although the adage that there is no accounting for taste may still be accurate, there is some accounting for the limits within which one can imagine tastefulness. Any person's aesthetic tastes are governed by the socio-economic, cultural, historical, blah blah blah contexts in which s/he lives. The tradition of the starving artist (going back centuries), anti-modern chic (well predating the hippies), and commercial saturation in North America and Europe contributes to the Rolling Stones being the epitome of cool because they spend hours making it look as if they don't comb their hair or care that their clothes are torn. And what else explains a shrewd multi-millionaire businessman such as Mick Jagger singing that he has no money, sleeps in bordello doorways and can't get any satisfaction out of life?

Now, this type of American style is not simply a cynical attempt to rub shoulders with poverty without having to experience it. It is often a poignant way of criticising unrestrained consumerism. Similarly, Ugandan high fashion is not a desperate attempt to display one's distance from poverty - and it is certainly not a simple imitation of Western consumerism. Unlike its American counterpart, it has no pretensions about looking poor, and it is predicated on showing respect to others.

However, if style is relative, it is also subjective. I still prefer my dirty fedora and faded khakis, and I look forward to wearing them again in a couple of months.

Entry sixteen - Purely academic

Once upon a time, (some) intellectuals conducted research and published works that confidently sought to tackle global structural "problems". When new political entities began popping up after World War II, a simple rebuke of colonialism was no longer enough. The new breed of post-War scholars were preoccupied with two principles - a will-to-knowledge (finding correlative rules according to which societies worked) and a will-to-change (using this knowledge to effect positive change). They rejected the particularism of their predecessors and insisted on empirical research based on "hard" data. They then identified problems that "Third World" countries needed to overcome in order to complete their entry into the global community promised with independence. They needed "modernisation". To throw off "dependency". To achieve "development". Nearly all concrete policy suggestions were firmly embedded in such approaches.

Somewhere along the way, however, this fell apart. Modernisation was exposed as a hoax. Dependency revealed its one-dimensionality. Development was derided as so much wishful thinking. As academics pondered the shortcomings of their earlier paradigms, some of them rather swiftly abandoned the project of "problem-solving" altogether. In the aftermath of this shift came students who, instead of looking for routes to liberation, sought examples of ambivalence and transnational subjectivity. The result has been something akin to foreign policy debate in the United States. Even after three disastrous years in Iraq by any measure, opposition to American foreign policy has failed miserably to put together anything resembling a coherent alternative. As a result, a stuttering simpleton (a self-proclaimed "problem-solver") has been able to contrast his global, even progressive, foreign policy with the presumed "isolationism" of his incoherent opponents. Likewise, paternalistic conservative bankers, backed up by so many number-crunching economists, have managed to monopolise policy debates about "problem-solving" while their opponents whimper about anti-foundationalism and the fallacy of civil society. Despite the monstrous and unambiguous failure of these bankers over three generations, they continue to rule the debate on "development" and "globalisation" - both of which are noble but ill-defined concepts.

Since I am not a problem-solver, I do not propose an alternative to such an impasse. Unlike politicians, academics are not supposed to compromise intellectual honesty for political gain. Thus, unlike American Democrats, they have something of an excuse. However, I have not advanced far enough in the academic world to abandon the temptation to yearn for the days when it was as simple as proscribing "modernisation" or "development" to feel like one was "doing something".

Entry fifteen - Courting trouble…

(This was written about a month ago, but laziness prevented me from posting it.)

I'm guilty. This blog hasn't been updated in over two months, despite numerous events that could have provoked some extensive commentary. I've been to Sipi Falls in the east of the country, and Kabale to the west (I’ll have pictures soon, I hope). I've talked with Idi Amin conspiracy theorists, CHOGM (Commonwealth Summit) organisers, and drunken security guards - the former is a more frequent occurrence.

But there are two parts to today's entry, the first of which is informative commentary, the second of which is pure commentary. Given the West's apparent belief that Africans are incapable of practicing "politics", it is difficult to tell from here what snippets of Ugandan news actually reach the North American airwaves. So other than being congratulated by Forrest Whitaker for "their spirit", Ugandans are on edge over a controversial court case that is threatening to shut down the country's entire judicial system.

First, some background. Kizza Besigye, leader of the opposition Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), was arrested during the 2005-6 presidential campaign for treason and rape. After Besigye was released on bail, military police (dubbed the "Black Mamba Urban Hit Squad" due to their black t-shirts) showed up in front of the High Court to arrest him under military charges. (Besigye used to be a General and personal doctor to President Museveni.) MPs in Museveni's party had eliminated term limits allowing Museveni to run in the election, which he won by about a 60-40 split, a much thinner margin than the previous two elections. (A Canadian journalist was expelled for suggesting that the margin was slightly slimmer.) Besigye, who is not exactly the most articulate man in Uganda, has been acquitted of all charges by the High Court, but continues to fight military charges.

The current court drama involves suspected members of the People's Redemption Army (PRA), which was/is supposedly Besigye's military wing. Some have admitted guilt in order to take advantage of an amnesty law. However, the remaining ones were recently granted bail by the High Court. But... deja vu. The Black Mambas showed up to rearrest the released PRA suspects, scuffling with lawyers and judges as they did so. The Chief Justice of Uganda announced that the judges will be suspending all judicial activities in Uganda until the government complies with the Court's order to release the suspects and apologises for "insulting the judiciary". Some Makerere University students refused to attend lectures, but others apparently beat up the Student Guild President when he tried to organise a demonstration downtown (which the police had promised to disperse using teargas - they have delivered on such assurances at at least three demonstrations since November). From what I understand, the case against the PRA suspects is suspect at best - even the existence of the PRA is in doubt despite government assurances that they are still active in the Congo.

However, I would like to expand on my previous (provocative?) statement that Westerners see Africa as an apolitical black hole, out of which come soul-touching human-interest pieces and depressing horror stories, but no real news. It is hard to argue with those who argue that Africa needs development - especially when they define development as higher life expectancy, higher levels of education, lower infant mortality, etc. On the other hand, it is even more difficult to argue in any self-critical fashion for development, especially when it is defined as some inevitable desirable endpoint, or cluster of desirable endpoints. What about the political struggles, social contests, and divergent ideological views that are inconsistent with this noble but arbitrary concept? Yet "development" remains the primary relationship between Africa and the West and the raison d'etre of most African governments.

Take the example of Lesotho and the Transkei (which I am stealing from a book by James Ferguson). The Transkei was a South African native reserve or "Homeland" - a symbol of apartheid oppression. The South African government tried to promote the idea of the Transkei as an independent African government and funded several journals regarding development issues in the "Homelands". Scholars, activists, and your average run-of-the-mill North American news presenter recognized this as a sham. They argued, quite rightfully, that one could not talk about development in the Transkei without confronting the oppressive labour policies of South Africa and the apartheid regime's economic and social dominance over the barely independent state. In other words, nobody bought the idea of the Transkei as "really" an independent state.

On the other hand, Lesotho had been internationally recognized as a sovereign independent nation-state since the 1960s. Like the Transkei, it was/is completely surrounded by South Africa and dependent on South African employment for its work force. Like the Transkei, Lesotho was dependent on South Africa as well as a handful of Western states for its basic sustainability. However, unlike their politicized rejection of development discourse regarding the Transkei, academics and activists all uncritically referred to the challenges of "development" in Lesotho - good governance, eliminating corruption, etc. In other words, the Transkei's lack of development was blamed on South Africa, while in Lesotho it was thought of as Lesotho's problem. In the Transkei, politics were put front and centre. In Lesotho, they were eliminated.

Today, (most) Western journalists and diplomats - and even a significant number of scholars (and Ugandans) - portray the current government of Uganda as an unambiguously good captain of development. Therefore, they argue, any opposition to that government is unjustifiable because it opposes this goal of development. Grievances (justified or not) over government-appropriated land, regional manipulation, disrespect of the judiciary and increasing authoritarianism are simply rejected as unimportant and irrelevant so long as progress has been made in the categories of "development". People, however, are not apolitical automatons who need only food, water and a roof over their heads. Unfortunately, most of the world is flattened and depoliticised by the good intentions of a few social engineers. Put the social back in the social sciences.

(note: after short strikes and an assurance from the president to "look into things", the judges and lawyers are back at work and there have been no big events since then.)

Entry fourteen - London and cosmopolitanism

A World War I statue in London.

I got back from London around 8 am on New Years Day after a loud and bumpy flight. They announced that it was New Years (GMT) somewhere north of Libya, but no champagne. Entebbe and Kampala, though not deserted, were certainly much calmer than on most Monday mornings. The special hire guys at the airport refused to budge from their demand for ten US dollars for a five minute ride to the Entebbe taxi park. Under normal circumstances I might have bargained a bit harder (I was hoping for something about a quarter of that), but being exhausted and having just come from probably the most expensive city I've ever visited, I gave in fairly easily.

The two weeks in London were fun. My parents stocked me up with books and sunscreen among other stuff, and I got my fix of cold weather for the year - and a cold as well, on my last day no less. We stayed in Covent Garden, in the heart of the downtown shopping / tourist district. After learning to stay off of a few particularly crowded streets and venture outside of the city centre, I ended up liking the city very well. Walking around downtown is a veritable history (or art and architecture) lesson in itself. However, it is tempting to imagine what it would look like had it not been for the Great Fire of 1666 that destroyed most of the city.

Bordering Trafalgar Square is Uganda House, which houses the Ugandan embassy, and still has its cornerstone proclaiming that it was opened by Idi Amin in 1975. A Ugandan Christmas dinner was advertised, complete with matooke and posho, for thirty pounds (sixty USD)! Although this is probably the most expensive matooke dinner in the world, it is not out of step with London's often unbelievably high costs. Perhaps once upon a time when the US dollar wasn't in such a sorry state it may have been different. Things were generally the same (or slightly less) in pounds than they would be in dollars in the US - though the pound is worth twice as much. As a friend who used to live in London warned, don't think about living there unless you are earning pounds, preferably lots of them.

Although it is hard to get more than a fleeting impression from such a short visit, I was most intrigued by areas such as Brixton and Brick Road with diverse (cultural, economic, gastronomic) communities, the former mostly West Indian and African and the latter mostly East Indian. Although Brixton is probably most famous for riots in the 1980s or from an odd Black Uhuru or The Clash song, it reminded me slightly of a larger version of Kensington Market in Toronto. Stalls in both the indoor and outdoor market sell everything from Bob Marley t-shirts to plantain to Nigerian DVDs (Nigeria has a large film industry that produces an unbelievable amount of horrible low-budget movies). Although there is a substantial Caribbean community, I also heard Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Chinese, Hausa (I think), and numerous types of English on two short visits.

In some ways I miss that type of "cosmopolitanism" that is found so easily in London, Toronto and New York. While there are people from nearly every corner of the globe in Kampala, there are far fewer of them, and the city's "internationalism" is slightly more subtle. While you can walk down the street potentially hearing all fifty-two of Uganda's languages, not including Arabic, English, Hindi, Kiswahili and Kinyarwanda, it is hard to compete with the three cities mentioned above when it comes to diversity in language, food, fashion or material culture. However, that type of "cosmopolitanism" can lead to a style of parochialism that is less common here. As a Canadian I met here remarked about Toronto, it is one of the more parochial places in Canada because so many people there are convinced that there is nothing of importance outside the city. Rural Canadians are presumably conscious of an "outside world", while Torontonians are more likely to think that they know all they need to know about the outside world by eating Chinese food on Dundas Street, watching Brazilian films at the Bloor Cinema and looking at South American art at the ROM.

While this is a bit of an exaggeration and does not really apply to anyone I know, there is a case to be made for calling many urbanites back street parochialists. A rural Ugandan who has made it through primary school is likely to speak more languages, know more world geography, and have much more curiosity about the world outside his/her village or country than the most sophisticated New York urbanite, whose interest in the world may be confined to the NYC city limits. S/he is also plugged in, if on an unequal level, to global culture (listening to American and Tanzanian hip-hop, watching Nigerian and Indian films, following British football, practicing truly global religions); is dependent on the world economy (selling coffee or other crops for export to Europe, washing clothes from the US in soap from Kenya, lighting paraffin lamps from India containing fuel from the Mid-East with matches from China); and vulnerable to international politics (debates at the United Nations, the international price of oil, the whims of a few voters in Ohio, the workings of the international court, and the aspirations of terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan all directly influence civil wars in northern Uganda and over the borders in Congo and Sudan). Although most Ugandans have less access to information about, and less power to shape, global cultural, economic and political realities, there is an awareness and interest in 'the world' that is often lacking in supposedly more cosmopolitan centres.

While I wouldn't mind a bottle of Red Stripe and a plate of fried duck while watching Battle of Algiers or listening to Manu Chao, I do appreciate being in a worldly conscious society. So I'll settle for some goat pilao, matooke, and a glass of passion-fruit juice over some South African sit-coms on TV. (But once the DVD player is fixed tomorrow, I'll be watching Easy Rider with some Chicken Tika Masaala and a Castle Lager.)

I hope everyone's holidays went well, and all the best in 2007.

A few pictures

The neighbourhood monkey going through the trash.


The evening news in Luganda.


Marabou storks invading our back yard - they are supposedly the second largest flying birds in the world.


Inside the Abayudaya synogogue near Mbale.

Entry thirteen - Protest and research

I am indecisive (as usual) regarding what function this blog should serve - observations of Uganda? Social/political commentary? An update of my work? The first of these would likely be more interesting for most of you, while the second is one of my favorite pastimes. I will leave the broader question of the blog's purpose unresolved, but for this entry I am following the third strategy.

Since my update, the university has been closed due to the unresolved lecturers' strike. It will likely reopen in early January when students will have exams and then move immediately into the next term. The closure was sudden and harsh, though in retrospect a reasonable decision by the university council. At one o'clock on a Sunday afternoon they announced that all Ugandan students living in undergraduate residences on campus must pack up and leave by six o'clock the same day. The police presence was heavy so there weren't many disturbances, but the resulting scene was slightly chaotic to say the least. Foreign students were allowed to stay in order to make arrangements for getting home, and I understand that other graduate students were unaffected. I am staying at a private residence on campus that was also not affected. The council argued (with fair reason) that if they had given students extra time to move out there would have been riots on campus. As things stand, the student guild is planning a protest today downtown, as the strike is still unresolved. A member of the guild leadership announced on the news yesterday that some students would go naked in protest - I have other plans, so will neither be participating in said action or providing any pictures of it. (The protest has not been approved by the police.)

My own work hasn't been affected except for the closure of the library and the quiet atmosphere on campus. Today I submitted an application for a government "research permit" along with my research proposal about "Idi Amin's regime, state media and rumour". The research permit seems like a form of big brother government control, but it does create a sense of official sanction for researchers, meaning (at least in theory) better access to official sources. The woman processing my application, though pleasant and very helpful, seemed confused as to what research I am actually doing. While I sometimes wonder the same thing, I am broadly studying the way in which Idi Amin's government portrayed itself and the Ugandan state to Ugandans through state media. [Feel free to skip this as well as the following paragraph] Inherent in this is how the regime approached political rumour, which challenged the state's version of "the news". My two subthemes, which may take on greater importance as the project grows, are: 1) the state's manipulation of the politics of belonging. As state media stressed Amin's success in making Uganda a controversial leader in the global community, political rumour stressed Uganda's international isolation and even questioned Amin's own identity as a Ugandan (he was born in a region that borders the Congo and Sudan). Amin's expulsion of the Asian, Kenyan and other communities was a calculated use of the politics surrounding "Ugandan" identity. And 2) the tension between the ideals of freedom of speech and the coercion necessary to reproduce state authority. Amin congratulated himself for inaugurating freedom of the press but issued repressive decrees while arresting and murdering many prominent journalists. The colonial state showed a similar tension by simultaneously promoting the African press while harshly restricting it.

Aside from some archival work on old newspapers, radio, television and government decrees, most of my "research" is theoretical, and certainly not scientific. My impression from other graduate students, professors and old theses at the library is that most postgraduate work at Makerere emphasises positivist quantitative research. This is based on "hard" data often taken from surveys or censuses that usually seeks to provide an "answer" to a "problem". As an old entry in this blog indicates, I find such approaches irritating and unproductive. Relying on "hard" data often obscures the assumptions on which the criteria for those data are based. The results are often self-fulfilling prophecies that say more about the presuppositions of the researcher than what is actually being studied. The "solutions" to this problem in which the University of Toronto indoctrinated me involve restoring "historicity" to African societies, accounting for one's own subject position, and asserting that everything is about representation - the signifier replaces the signified in importance, thus my own research: "discourse of power in the post-colony does not produce signs and narratives as mere objects of representation, but as the instrument of power itself." (Gikandi 1997)

Today I went to the Uganda People's Congress party headquarters to try and set an interview with a Mr. Bob Astles in London. The UPC was the party of Milton Obote who led Uganda to independence and declared a one-party state before Amin took over. After Amin, the UPC returned to power before being toppled by Museveni. They now have very little support within the country and are seriously at risk of falling out of existence. Bob Astles is a British man who worked under Obote in the 1960s. After a few weeks of detention he wound up working under Amin. There are no definitive accounts of what he did and under what circumstances, but he was known by many as "the second most hated man in Uganda" (next to Amin). Some say he was a British spy, many that he was involved in some of Amin's most gruesome atrocities. He maintains that he was forced into Amin's service and did what he could to survive and protect his staff. He was acquitted by the subsequent UPC regime of any wrongdoing and moved back to the U.K. He is now a supporter of the UPC and wrote a strongly worded editorial before the election supporting Miria Obote (Milton Obote's widow and current UPC leader) for president. For my purposes, he is believed to have orchestrated many of Amin's more flamboyant performances such as having him carried to the 1975 Organisation of African Unity conference in Kampala by four British businessmen. He will thus potentially have some insight into the imagery surrounding Amin's regime.

I leave in a few days for London to see my parents and maybe interview Mr. Astles. Perhaps some more interesting entries will follow.

Entry twelve - Teacher strike, student protest

Well, it's been quite a while since my last entry here. This is not due to a lack of potential events or topics to write about - indeed it has been the amount of this activity (coupled with laziness) that has prevented me from writing for so long. However, I should perhaps begin with the current lecturers' strike here at Makerere.

On Saturday, lecturers at the university began striking. At their meeting with the government (who pays their salary) in 2004, the government agreed in principle that their pay needed to be increased. Since this has yet to happen, and a lecturer's remains at 400 USD/month (compared with 3,000 USD for a minister), they decided to strike. Their timing three weeks before exams has been universally unpopular. Monday night and Tuesday morning, students decided to protest in support of the teachers. While there is still debate as to whether the students' guild actually authorised anything, some of the protesting seems to have degenerated into vandalism. Despite the slight hyperbole of the government paper (http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/12/530922), it seems that the only destruction came from a few bonfires constructed in the quads of some residences and on some roads, and a few students breaking into a canteen to steal beer and furniture.

The police, in full riot gear, were called in and have restricted movement into campus, particularly at night. This often requires a bit of pleading and explanation trying to get back home at night. The campus has been deserted all week, as has the area just outside of campus, Wandegeya, which is usually filled with cars and people. Police presence is mostly restricted to the gates of the university, though earlier in the week they broke up a few protests on campus. Though this seems to have quieted the student protests, negotiations do not seem to be going well with the teachers - though I heard this from a friend who works with the independent paper, which is generally very critical of the government.

Since I don't have any classes (only research), the only consequence for me has been the closure of the library and canteens. I was supposed to hand in a proposal today for some effective writing manuals that I hope to write with my professor, but there is nobody on campus to hand them in to...

My residence is located directly next to the vice-chancellor's residence, which is often a target of student protests. Fortunately, he is uninvolved in the current dispute, which is between the lecturers' union and the Chancellor, who is also the Prime Minister of the country. Two years ago, however, he was targeted after exam fees were raised from 6,000 shillings to 60,000 ($3.30 to $33). Protesting students apparently mistook this house for the vice-chancellor's and hurled rocks through the windows and broke down a few doors before realizing they were in the wrong compound. If it appears that the VC will be a target of protest, we will probably put up a sign at our gate saying "vice-chancellor's residence next door". However, for the moment we are in the clear.

All in all, it is not dangerous and has actually been refreshing to be able to walk around campus and Wandegeya without the usual crowds. If only students in Toronto were as active as those at Makerere... though this is probably due to the cold weather which makes any type of outdoor protest a bit less fun.

articles about the protests (with varying biases and degrees of accuracy) include...
http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/12/530922

http://www.monitor.co.ug/news/news11065.php

http://www.monitor.co.ug/news/news11096.php

http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/12/531275
http://www.monitor.co.ug/news/news11101.php

Entry eleven - Abstinence, AIDS and Jesus

(From around November 1st)

As I write this at around 10pm, there is a boisterous concert taking place somewhere near my residence. It has been advertised for weeks in advance with posters showing pictures of the speakers and singers from America and Jamaica. From what I can hear, there is a large and excited crowd cheering each performer slightly louder than the one before. There have been several concerts on campus since I moved here, and there is nothing particularly peculiar about this one.… Except of course for the fact that it is a USAID-funded "abstinence-pride" event.

Fifteen years ago, Uganda had one of the most horrific HIV and AIDS rates in the world at around a quarter of the population. The government's response was simple and effective: ABC - abstinence, be faithful, and condoms. In a very short time, infection rates plummeted to as low as 6 percent. The unquestionable success of this approach, which was also inexpensive to promote, was praised by nearly every international organisation related to AIDS prevention.

Unfortunately, ABC has suffered two significant setbacks in the past few years. The first of these is the recent intrusion of the first lady into politics. She opposes condom use on religious grounds and has not been shy about saying so and influencing government policy. She was recently elected to parliament and doesn't appear to be leaving the political scene anytime soon, particularly regarding this issue. The second development comes from George Bush's billion dollar anti-AIDS initiative. While it dishes out tons of cash, the US government will not release any of this money to organisations that promote any form of contraception. As a key recipient of USAID funds, Ugandan policy toward AIDS has changed drastically. Two years ago, billboards for condoms were almost as ubiquitous as Coke advertisements. I have seen two such billboards in my past two and half months in Uganda, and other forms of advertisement have also almost vanished.

Needless to say, this is a sad development that will likely have terrible consequences within a few years. However, with this seemingly bizarre concert blaring in the background, it seems appropriate to speculate about such approaches. Posters promoting abstinence are common sights throughout Uganda and are often linked to Christian groups. The current song that I hear from this concert is "J-E-S-U-S. I love Jesus. Yeah!!" For anyone outside of the Bible belt in North America, it is important to know that nearly everyone in Uganda is religious. There is also not the obsessive (and self-defeating) "separation of church and state" that exists in the United States.

So the two questions are 1) does promoting abstinence work in preventing the spread of AIDS?; and 2) is it ethical to tell people that they will suffer in the fires of hell if they have sex before marriage? My initial response to both questions is no. The little that I have read about such programs in the United States indicates that they are horribly ineffective - something to the tune of over 90 percent. Young people enjoy sex, as they should, regardless of their ideological training, which is inevitably far weaker than their hormones. Rather than preaching fire and brimstone, shouldn't those with the power to do so preach safety rather than abstinence?

However, as much as it is ineffective on its own, A has its place with B and C. For some Ugandans, condoms are expensive, and thus impractical over the long term. Unfortunately, though, poverty is not the main issue driving the promotion of abstinence in Uganda. Rather, some Christian organisations have hijacked the issue and given it a religious rather than health emphasis. Thus far, I have heard nothing from the nearby concert about HIV, AIDS or STDs. Instead, it sounds as if Jesus Christ has replaced the role of teen pop star. The concert seems to have reached its crescendo as the MC chants "Jesus" to the wild cheers of the audience.

Is there anything wrong with this religious bent if, in the end, it helps prevent the spread of AIDS and other diseases? However, the problem is not the fact that religious groups are putting a religious spin on one aspect of ABC, which is indeed an effective way to reach large numbers of people. The obstacle that this phenomenon presents is that Christian groups are exercising their considerable influence to promote abstinence to the exclusion of other forms of protection against HIV. Some - though certainly not most - religious groups remain unconcerned with AIDS on a practical level. Their only role in protecting their congregations is to remind them to be faithful and that condoms are a sin.

On top of this comes USAID, the main organ of American aid that only works with organisations that do not actively promote condoms. Many of its initiatives are linked with religious organisations that are (successfully) seeking to dismantle ABC as a national anti-AIDS policy. Other organisations are now inclined to abandon ABC (or at least the C) in order to cash in on USAID money. With the government now shunning ABC as well, things look fairly bleak.

As the concert winds down, however, things do not seem completely bad. A few nights ago, I saw a discussion of a few influential Christian leaders on television. They all endorsed ABC, and condoms in particular, through some agonizingly veiled language. If they could do so more directly, and with the support of the government and international donors, it is likely that tens of thousands of people could avoid being infected.