King of Uganda?

Like a maiden besotted – I have for a while now, been toying with thoughts on identity, man’s place in society and society’s essence to man – in the context of nations and nationality on the continent.

Going about the day’s business a few weeks ago; I encountered a riotous band of young men and ladies - festooned in odd, brown strips of bark-cloth – a traditional Ugandan vestment; who happened to be gleefully singing the anthem of Buganda at voices’ peak.

These young folk – affiliated to an ethnic student’s society called Nkoba Zambogo – a very flamboyant (and successful) cultural mobilization outfit for Ganda youth, had erected a miniature road-block along one of the main streets in Makerere University – during the annual week of traditional dances and sundry exhibitions of culture which that institution has set aside as a  Cultural Gala.

And sure enough – the mood was viscously festive as the regalia-clad, drumming and stomping students executed dances and recited poetry in salute of their respective ethnic heritage.

Without a doubt, these ethnic student outfits are aimed at galvanizing our otherwise smart-phone drunken generation around nobler ideals like pre-colonial dance, drama and music – and ensuring that these social artifacts of our progenitors do not melt away like thawing winter snows in Africa’s post-colonial spring.

Among modern African states - Uganda is unique in the sense that it was constituted by the British as a ‘protectorate’ of an amalgam of already highly developed Kingdoms and Chieftainships – Buganda, Bunyoro, Acholi, Lango, Toro, Ankole etc. - each of them viable political entities that had evolved over several centuries to encompass significant land areas and large populations with very centralized government.

Unlike the Belgians in Ruanda-Urundi and Congo who undermined the traditional structures there; and the French who preferred to fully assimilate their subjects and socially engineer Black Gauls – the British were content with ‘letting Africans be Africans’, and sought to exploit their colonies economically without interfering much in socio-political constitution.

So that when the British finally lumped us, Ugandans, together in 1905, they left the existing monarchs and their governments pretty much intact – opting instead to merge the imposed colonial state with traditional regional structures.

This is how Uganda came to be a federalized constitution of kingdom-governments; not one (politically) homogeneous colonial territory.

We all are familiar with how history unfolds from that point on;

 Buganda, despite vehement demands for autonomy at independence in 1962, is ‘compelled’ to remain part of the country whose name it inspired, and whose other people it helped the British pacify; Milton Obote clashes with Buganda’s King in 1966 and declares a Kingdom-less Republic before a bushman called Yoweri Museveni comes along thirty years later and overturns this decision, once again legitimizing the ethnic division of Uganda’s people.

I recount this clearly tired and insipid history (most of us being as aware as we are resentful of it from our school days) – because it, for me, puts into perspective the verbal slur that was hurled at me by a young lady from the Nkoba Zambogo ensemble, when I attempted to get ‘cozy’ with the group and participate in their activities at the time.

‘Mutuveko ba’namawanga!’ she bluntly threw at me; which may be loosely translated to imply – 

‘Get thee from us, intruders!’

Now - I am fully aware that in no way do this young lady’s inimical comments represent the sentiments of even a simple majority of the Ganda people; but I was intrigued by her passion and fervor, because it dawned on me that hers isn’t an isolated case of ethnic zealotry in Uganda.

On taxis, in market places, on the floor of parliament – one invariably hears Ugandans retreat to ethnic name-calling and outright bigotry when we need to blame a national failure on someone or something – from the potholes in our roads, to the Marabous that shit on us from above.

Even in churches and mosques, where you’d expect to have Jesus’ or Allah’s brotherly love conquering all – one finds brethren accusing the Pastor of tribalism or the Sheikh muttering his dislike for (Muslim) adherents of a given ethnicity.

To be fair - Ugandans have for a long time attempted to have the conversation I’m attempting to facilitate here.

We’ve viciously denounced the things that divide us, and passionately embraced our similarities, at least in what we say, if not in what we do – yet the poison of divisiveness prevails.

It’s a subtle, stubborn cancer that eats at us slowly and refuses to go away.

Even children as young as primary school, who are supposed to be our last hope, can already be heard explaining their playmates’ actions in ethnic terms!

‘That boy plays rough football because he’s a Muchope!’

Christian children are warned against playing with Muslim children, and vice versa, lest they are ‘corrupted’.

Of course children aren’t born with these prejudices - they acquire this mindset from the deliberate direction of parents, teachers and other adults.

For a slate of reasons, this dark, forbidding shadow just won’t fade – however much we wish it away.

In talking solutions – some have called for a re-abolition of the Kingdom as a level of identity for our people, so we may live in a fully united republican Ugandan state.

Some others have said the Kingdom is more organic than the (colonial) state of Uganda – and thus the country should be re-partitioned to reflect the reality of our ethnic composition.

Others yet,  have advocated a federal arrangement – much like that enshrined in the 1962 Independence constitution, where the Kingdoms had a ‘separate but equal’ stake within the Ugandan enterprise.

What I’d like to propose is a fourth road.

Since we seem so obsessed with the monarchical or Kingdom fetish - why can’t we have a King of Uganda?

Nearly every year, a splinter group of people emerges calling on the President of the Republic to grant them a ‘Kingdom’, and corollary, a King to go with it.

Our people seem to have a compulsive need and desire to crown things – be they royal heads or empty calabashes.

I am saying King of Uganda, not in the authoritarian sense; but in the context of a constitutional monarchy.

And since we have historically proven ourselves adept at constitutional gymnastics – for instance when in 1962, the Kingdoms were granted ‘autonomy’ within the state of Uganda – I'm certain we can find a way of incorporating this proposed 'national monarchy' in the government’s executive.

Allow the regions to retain their ‘Kings’ – then make the Kingship of Uganda a rotational affair; with each Kingdom (and therefore each ethnic conclave) getting a ‘taste of power’ every five years or so.

The office of course would be ceremonial, with no powers of veto over parliament – to retain our democratic integrity.

Categorically - this Ugandan King would by no means be a replacement for a popularly elected National President, which office would remain intact.

A final and perhaps paramount benefit would be the ‘trimming’ of Presidential over-lordship, and dilution of the inordinately great political power currently vested in that office by the provisions of our current constitution.

So that once this nonsense is out of the way; once the royal egos of our Kings and their retinues of Lords, duchesses and feudal hangers-on, have been satiated – Uganda can begin to pay attention to her more pressing problems.

Once we have dispensed with the time-wasting hogwash of whose grandfather is buried where, who has a blunt nose, whose sister has wider hips, whose maternal clan were night-dancers etc. etc  - we can then think of putting young people to work, rescuing young women from sex slavery, building classrooms and similar crucial things.

I’m aware that it’s unjust of me to speak of Ugandans or Africans in general as being inherently ethnocentric or religiocentric – because it’s true that humans, world-over, resort to ethnic, religious or other forms of superficial solidarity in the wake of economic inequality and social inequity.

We tribe and congregate, in response to the absence of a greater purpose with which to identify.

The British have for centuries been fighting tribal-wars among the Celtics, Angles and Saxons; of which the blood-drenched movements for Irish and Scottish independence are indicative.

The Belgians are deeply divided among the French-descended Wallonia and the Dutch-descended Flanders, almost to the point of a geographical schism.

Americans have deep-running inter-state rivalry; and the ‘Northerners’ generally think of the ‘Southerners’ as a queer and strange lot who talk ‘funny’.

But we must understand that ethnic cocoons won’t mollify our travails. If anything, they only augment the problem.

A case in point is how once the ethnic conclave is allowed autonomy – it inevitably breaks down into inter-clan conflicts, which also soon degenerate into inter-family clashes.

In Uganda, the Basoga are presently embroiled in an inter-clan succession dispute; Ankole was historically, and still is inherently divided along the deeply incendiary Hima-Iru chasm .

Not even Buganda sub-nationalism, which is the most entrenched and popular of all our sub-nationalisms, is as homogeneous as it purports to be.

One cause of internal strife in Buganda is religion.

For example, during the enforcement of the feudal provisions of the Buganda Agreement which prevail to date – Catholic Ganda were forcibly evicted from their lands to make way for Anglican Ganda, who enjoyed the Kabaka’s patronage.

As things stand, the Banyala, a conglomerate of clans within Buganda, refuse to do the Kabaka homage and have demanded autonomy.

It thus becomes clear that our people resort to divine intervention or ethnic intermediaries when society fails to organize itself well enough to furnish its members with their exigencies.

In a society where government works; where every child goes to school, every young person has gainful employment, none dies from preventable diseases, and husbands don’t beat their wives – people won’t need God or family connections to enable them achieve their dreams.

Rather than identify with their socially conditioned tags - as Christians, Luo, Buddhists, Indians, Bantu or ancestor-worshipers; people will then begin to identify primarily with their self-aspired intellectual pursuits – as philosophers, scientists, woodworkers, musicians, artisans, teachers, poets etc. etc.

Admittedly - no measure of constitutional amendment or legislation can bridge this gap or bring lasting solidarity among the world’s people.

This can only happen when we set aside any ‘labels’ and teach the next generation to coalesce against mankind’s common enemies – disease, ignorance, scarcity.