The former Pop Star, of Boomtown Rats fame, Bob Geldof, (also known as Sir Bob or Saint Bob) is not a very popular man in some very powerful quarters in Uganda these days.
Nothing new in that because even in the Irish republic where he was born and in Britain where he made his Pop name and was later Knighted by the British Queen - not for his Pop Music, but for inspiring the Band Aid appeal that caught global attention in 1984 in response to the Ethiopian famine - he is not universally popular.
He has earned a well- deserved reputation for being a loud-mouth (and here I should declare a potential personal conflict of interest because my mouth does not often have a stopper), rubbing people the wrong way and ruffling all available feathers in his crusade against hunger, debt and poverty in Africa.
I have had occasion to observe that he sometimes appears to be crying more than the bereaved. It is easy to be taken over by the cause and sometimes that may lead to the precipitate road of the end justifying the means. If there is a Guinness Book of Records entry for using expletives without caring whether it is president or prisoner, diplomat or peasants, that are listening, Bob Geldof should be a runaway winner. It is part of his stock in trade. Sometimes the theatrics stand in the way of the message he has which makes many to accuse him of either insatiable individualism or petulant exhibitionism. I have had one or two run-ins with him where it was bull for bull . But his publicity tactics have worked well for him because whatever he says often gets global attention.
And so it was typical of him at the launching of the Blair Commission for Africa report two weeks ago to send a verbal missile in an aside about President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni and his worst kept secret attempt to tinker with the constitution of Uganda and lift the restriction on two terms for the presidency so that he could stand again. Ekisanja (as the self succession bid is known in Luganda) has now reached global media. Thanks to Geldof asking Museveni to move off the state lodge!
Not unexpectedly the Ekisanja supporters have been up in arms decrying his impertinence: how dare he interfere in our sovereign affairs? What does this foreigner, a musician for that matter (some say with angry disbelief, as if musicians should have no political views), know about Uganda to be asking Mzee to step aside?
The uproar culminated in an obviously orchestrated demonstration by supporters of the President last Monday condemning Geldof’s brash pronouncement. While they were at it they also had non-diplomatic words for the British government for meddling in Uganda’s affairs. The UK High Commissioner to Uganda has been grumbling rather too loudly of recent and also a recent statement by a British Foreign Office Junior Minster voiced concerns about Uganda’s transition to a genuine multi party democracy.
According to newspaper reports there were many placards and slogans on display. They were broadly nationalistic, anti imperialist, very Pan Africanist, anti neo-colonialism, etc. But one in particular caught my attention: It said ‘yes to aid but no to foreign intervention!’
While Bob Geldof may not be surprised (and would have been disappointed if people were indifferent to his remarks) at attacks on him, I am not sure how he would react to a planned demonstration today by anti-Museveni, anti-third term and opposition supporters or activists in his support. They must be hoping they can enlist his support as a veteran global publicist for their local cause. In addition to Bob’s crusade to feed starving Africans the Ugandan opposition is adding delivery of democracy too! The bad news is that only recently Geldof in yet another choreographed outburst openly said he was tired of being regarded as ‘Mr Bloody Africa’.
The banner that said ‘yes to aid but no to intervention’ exposes the self-inflicted humiliating contradiction confronting many African leaders. They expect foreigners to build their roads, feed their people, construct their stadiums and hospitals but at the same time they want to assert their independence. Uganda under Museveni is typical of this disease. The country is talked up as a success story, though it is fast losing its shine to new ‘miracles’ like Mozambique. Yet its budget and development plans are more than 50% dependent on foreigners. How sustainable is this in the long run? No doubt the country has seen some economic growth under Museveni’s laissez fair economics but real development is still very much elusive. But it is a country that has now become an Aid junkie.
It will be ridiculous for those who are paying the piper not to want to dictate the tune. After all those who attended the Ekisanja demonstration must report back to those who provided them with the logistics, facilitation and the sodas that followed their successful mission to Parliament Avenue. As it is with individuals so it is with states and between states where the stakes are much higher.
But African governments would like to eat their cake and keep same. They want to serve imperialism and serve their people even when the logic of the relationship is one of cat and mouse. They steal their peoples’ money and head for European and American banks with them and yet they want to be independent of Washington, London or Paris! Many of them have signed away the national economy, without referendum or even perfunctory consultation, yet when it comes to some very narrowly defined convenient political issues like our obligation to continue to choose them (or vote without choosing as some have described it) they suddenly declare the people are sovereign. What kind of sovereignty and selective empowerment is this that does not allow you to decide the way your national resources are managed or mismanaged? If the people are too backward to decide how their economy is managed why do you need their voice in determining how they should be governed and by whom?
They go to the IMF/World Bank without consultation. They fight wars without consultation but when they have problems with their donor-masters then they remember sovereignty, self-determination and Pan Africanism. Otherwise they are proud to be seen with their powerful friends from Europe and America. It is like wannabe Africans –Americans who only remember they are Black when they are in big trouble. Remember OJ Simpson? Now look at the pathetic Michael Jackson and his trial for paedophilia. Suddenly Rev Jesse Jackson is his spiritual counsellor.
This Ekisanja militia of Uganda of today or their cousins across the continent in similar battles to sustain ruling regimes are mere pawns in a cynical manipulation of the population to perpetuate personal or class rule. Where were those now carrying the banner of non-interference when Uganda and Rwanda tragically fought against each other, three times, in the DRC and both Presidents and their executive entourage traveled to Auntie Clare in London to settle their differences!
They did not listen to their own peoples, even their own cabinets, let alone neighbours or other Africans, but as soon as London called they were off like good boys. Why? Because Clare Short was in charge of DFID and was dishing out millions of British taxpayer money to Uganda and Rwanda. They even claimed that Clare was a mutual friend of theirs. But the same was said of Lynda Chalker before Clare and I am sure now both governments have ingratiated themselves to the DFID boss, Hilary Benn! But the dependence on outsiders (and external leverage in our affairs) is not just on the part of governments but is fast corroding our civil society at all levels especially in these days of donor-driven professional NGOs, MONGOs (my own NGO), NGI (Non Governmental Individuals), etc.
Yet we proclaim independence and demand sovereignty. Like Wole Soyinka challenged Late Sedar Senghor of Senegal, the apostle of Negritude: ‘A tiger needs not proclaim its Tigeritude’. You do not claim independence and self-determination but earn it by self-reliant actions and trusting your own people to decide the economic, social, cultural and political direction of their polity. It cannot be a tactical tool used when it is convenient.
* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa
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