The Flip-Flopper Club

Flip-Flopper sounds like the sound of sandals Ugandans call slippa. In the American political lexicon, it is the political opportunist who changes his or her tunes by slurping the finger with saliva and testing where the winds are blowing. The sole purpose is winning and/or scoring a point. In that vein ex-governor and investment banker Mitt Romney fits the mold. The Obama campaign machinery, making a calculated guess that Romney is the likely Republican opponent to beat in 2012, has labeled the man as having no core value. Coming to crunch time of their primary season, Romney’s fellow competitions are also drumming similar beat.

Romney’s apologists are out countering with something of the cliché that change is a constant. Obama has also flip-flopped, so they say. We all change our positions at one time or another on the basis of new information or better insights. True, that we change. But how does one distinguish a flip-flopper from someone who has evolved due to better knowledge of a situation? That one is a tough one. May be we could call on the Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart in his stated test for identifying pornography: I know it when I see it. When Governor Romney destroys hard-drives to erase his trails during his tenure, there is a red flag.

If we know a flip-flopper when we see one, then there is no greater flip-flopper of the 21^st Century than Yoweri Museveni of Uganda. Museveni has defined opportunism to the extent that some wonder about his mental health. Is he so full of himself that he can say just about anything at no cost to himself? Is he a sociopath? Or, has he, like the rest of us, some issues arising from suboptimal developmental attachment circumstances that often chain the adult in skewed self-regulation states. Does a Mulokole background have something to do with it? What happened in the Banyimas’ household from which he is now bitterly alienated? Whatever it is, unfortunately for him and to our chagrins his outcome is playing out in the public arena.

What would you do if you stated publicly that the problem of Africa was leaders who hang on to power for too long? The flip-flopper did just that at the beginning of his rule. You know the rest of the story.

The man castigates the opposition in his country for harping on the issues of corruption without concrete evidence, but goes to the neighboring country of Rwanda and states that he is surrounded by thieves in his government. What kind of man is this?

Surprise!

                                      

Long before there was the Putin dance of constitutional manipulation, there was the original night-dancer of central Afrika. With the tacit complicity of a rubber-stamp Parliament he did his Afrikan witchcraft to ensure his effective life presidency. A few magic coins in the pockets or bras of parliamentarians sealed the deal.

Now, self-assured, here are what we get in this dirt-poor country. By the way, did you know that Uganda's GDP is less than half what Americans spend on their dogs and cats?

The dancer must of necessity have his swanky presidential jet which he must upgrade to a newer model every so often. His travel comfort taken care of, not unlike the wajeti of corporate America, there is no need for a national airline for the despised ninety-nine percent of us.

The treasury plunked in millions to refurbish a colonial governor’s mansion to a palace befitting of a dancing president. The Egyptian dancers may call theirs a palace, but look at what became of the last occupier. In the magic kingdom we know the power of words, so we choose the less pretentious “state house.”

 An obscene sum of money, few Ugandans can wrap their brain around, was paid to an NRM robber baron for a failed commercial transaction. The attorney general was corralled into signing off on the loot. Apparently his weak balls trumped his legal mind. It is conceivable that the fund found its way into the NRM political election machinery.

Are we into fiscal irresponsibility yet? The dancer, being afraid of his own shadows, runs the treasuries dry of the almighty dollar in order to equip his coercive forces with the latest phallic symbol of the latest Russian fighter jets. There were seismic tremors in the tiny economy as a result. I should be happy that now my remittances to those who benefit from my largesse can receive relative larger shillings from the tiny dollars I have to part with every so often. I am not happy for them because, on top of the dearth of dollars, gazillions of shillings were dumped into the economy to buy votes, bringing with them the inflationary Grinch.

You want to demonstrate? There is a law making its way that will lock you up without bail along with child rapists and body-parts hunters. Will history repeat itself? As a wily hunter of the delectable delicacy of anyeri, I always made sure I knew where I laid a trap lest I “accidentally” had my feet chopped off. Ms MP worthy of her chops should take it from a seasoned trapper that this law is a trap that might come to haunt her.

Ever been near a spoiled brat? Should you refuse to give him that shiny toy, he will scream and stomp his feet in an apoplectic frenzy. And so, if the 6^th parliament had not frustrated him, the dancer would have had power reaching my grass-roofed-mud-and-wattle village paradise—so, he complained, whined and called names.

Other than news, few shows on TV captivate me more than watching Nature. In one show it was fascinating to see the process of how a once-mighty alpha lion, with a huge mane, being manhandle (or rather lionhandle) by up-and-coming young Turks for dominance over mating rights in a pride. The old warrior ended up sauntering away limping alone to die in the brushes remote from the center of action he once controlled.

The South Africans dub him the Lion of Africa. Of course, brisk one-way trade to Uganda helps elicit such praise songs. The question for us here, however, is: Are the young Turks in Parliament now virile enough to challenge the lion and maul his tail? Or will the roaring and stomping of his feet scare away wanabe statesmen to retreat into their mothers’ wombs?

All along for twenty five years the writings have been on the wall. Only now are some benefactors shutting down the spigots of Dollars/BP/Euros. Probably seeing the man buying war toys from savings on Debt-Forgiveness gimmick ticked them off. Now, you also hear from the class of chief-you-kill-me-with-laughter brownosers: The man has changed. Surprise!

Talikng with Two Sides of the Mouth

Andrew Mwenda is a hard-hitting journalist. Some people in my circle hang on his every word for insights into the murky waters of Uganda politics. Take his latest, Uganda is bigger than Museveni, Besigye (7/8/11), which seemingly is an attempt to portray a balanced perspectives on the two protagonists, but, in fact, is a tirade on Dr. Besigye and his opposition, FDC. There is also a certain amount of self-pity in the piece: Oh poor me, harassed by Museveni’s goons, and maligned by Besigye’s people.

Mr. Mwenda puts on his Economist-in-Chief hat. He dissects how the economy came to be what it is and provides some prognosis. One wonders whether many of his audience understand what he is talking about. What they experience is high prices and intuitively know that there is something wrong with the economy, but whether or not it is a consequence flooding the economy with printed money in supplementary budget to finance campaign “brown envelops,” chais to MPs, or spending dollars to buy the spiffy phallic symbols, aka, fighter jets, they don’t give a hoot. Somebody is responsible for their plight, and not the opposition.

Having analyzed the problem and provided the solution, the “economist” then heaps blame on the opposition for wailing without giving any solution. What?! It is not incumbent on the opposition to provide detailed alternative solutions at this stage of the game. Theirs is to point a bird’s eye-view assessment of the problem and pound on the failure of the government to deliver. Theirs is to point out that “the emperor has no clothes,” otherwise we may as well go back to the “umbrella” dispensation.

The labeling by unnamed opposition members that Dr. Besigye’s rather combative stance in the walk-to-work as counter-productive is a framing that does not probe into intention. He leaves it to us, the readers, to assume. Coming from a premise that behind every behavior there is good intention (albeit maybe misguided from an observer’s point of view), what if the boorish behavior was intended to draw attention of a world where the killing of Bin Laden, the Greek economy, the tottering US economy, or the Arab Spring were front pages? On cue, the government reacted heavy-handedly and the walk-to-work in little Uganda filtered into BBC and earned some mentions in major US papers. Did it matter? Very little, but every scratch and dent in the dictator’s armor counts. This government would rather have horse-trading deals with governments in these locales rather than have its negative underbelly enters their public consciousness.

In the end, what is Ugandans “sick and tired” of? Might it be Mr. Mwenda’s abuse by Museveni’s operatives and the taking to task by Besigye’s hatchet loyalists? What Ugandans are really sick and tired of is a balding man clinging to power when he has no new ideas. And that is what Mwenda, if he is fighting for a change of course, should concentrate on rather than talking with two sides of his mouth and getting into trouble.

Glimpses into the Out-group Homogeneity*

Wes Nisker ('99) posits that in the journey to self-discovery and understanding of our behaviors, the fundamental place to start with is to pose the question: “Who am I?” This is not about me, the teacher, the footballer or what have you. It is about getting some idea to the questions: Where do I come from? Why am I here? Where am I going? The answer to “Who am I?” is “…of vital importance to our happiness and well-being. How at ease we feel in our body, mind and the world, as well as how we behave toward others and the environment all revolve around how we view ourselves in the larger scheme of things.”

Scientific researches are increasingly proving what has long been hypothesized that beneath the veneer of civilization and culture, our behaviors are functionally primal and inclined towards basic survival and procreation as a means of gene succession.

Take the case of Ugandans: Most of us have received formal education and many make claims to religious faith. The majority pay allegiance to Christianity whose basic tenet is “Love thy neighbor.” However, from the same mouth that sings the glory to the Christ, the champion of ‘Love thy neighbor,” also gushes morbid coded venoms, such as: “Those people,” “You people,” “The Anyanya (not the ones of the 50’s and 60’s Sudan),” “A good Muganda is a dead one,” or “Biological substances (forgetting we are all biological organisms).” We have insulted one another, we have killed one another, and we have hogged power and suppressed others.  All the while saddling the other with being primitive. All the while some have been good parents, good sons, good friends, good church goers, good priests and imams, and may have even been generous to a fault. What is going on?

It is seems that we are not one Self. We have multiple selves or rather may be sublevels of or forms of the mundane Self. Often we negotiate each sublevel appropriately for the occasion. Often we don’t and, at the extreme end, may even be pathological.

And this brings us back to “Those people,” a euphemism for painting the “others” with one brush of Out-group Homogeneity—“you have seen one, you have seen them all.”  In my childhood eyes, for example, I could not figure out the physical differences between people in the Indian community. This persisted until eventually I began to recognize individual differences. What was happening was that I could only use my limited cognitive resources to interactions and differentiations within the larger in-group of the black population of my lottery win.

As an adult, did this phenomenon of seeing no differences in the out-group disappear or still lies dormant somewhere in the labyrinthine hard-drive of my amazing brain?

It seems the Out-group Homogeneity has been horned over millions of years for survival: Those people came from over the river and brought diseases. So, stay way from them. When they came, our crops failed. Their women are witches. Those people came and rampaged through the village, killing males and old women, and carrying away young girls. They are our sworn enemy; never marry into their clan.

While Out-group Homogeneity has served us well, it also has its dark sides. Princes of darkness and demagoguery can take it and use it to destroy a group. History is full of it. The latest mayhems in Bosnia and Rwanda are testimonies to that. Many Acoli in Uganda and abroad feel that they have been subjected to the same. We risk relationships when we dismissively say it never happened, which then feeds into the “they-and-us” divide. Similarly, carping in discordant harangues may not win sympathetic ears and has the same “they-and-us” effect.

So, it doesn’t seem that my childhood outlook vanished from my mind. It is undercover and could easily pop up as a default state at times of stress. Whether I use it or not, depends on whether I train myself or somebody has trained me to use alternative skills in conflicts. If I do, and you do, it will mean “taking whole” in the situation and we become super-cooperators**, which seems to be a much stronger and elegant survival tool.

*Douglas T. Kenrick, ‘11

**Nowak & Highfield, 11

The Liberal Manifesto

The Liberal Manifesto is a blog that endeavors to work for Uganda’s Freedom, Equality, Fairness, Progress and Happiness—the essence of any 21^st Century enlightened people. While Museveni relies largely on his infamous troika of cooking stones as the bedrock of his rule deluged with anxieties and intrigues, we believe that the pentathlon principles are the foundation mortar for transforming a society. Courage, Objectivity, Fairness and Open-mindedness will guide us in dissecting issues. 

The Liberal Manifesto focus is on the individual—and by extension, the entire population. Assuming maps of reality differ from one person to the next, the questions we ask are: What does freedom, equality, fairness, progress and happiness mean to a Ugandan man or woman? Hopefully, in time, we will come to a collective consensus  map of reality that gives more empowering choices for actions to the individual.

The Liberal Manifesto believes that we are all born Free to realize our individual potentials. We also believe everyone’s main objective is Happiness, however defined.

As a member of society the individual’s Freedom and Happiness have in time hinged on societal advancement and promotion of Equality, Fairness and Progress—lack of which have often led to imbalance and disharmony.

Uganda, at its core, is now in state of disharmony and imbalance. The Liberal Manifesto’s work to help steer the Uganda to harmony and balance is cut out. We know the historical nightmares. We know the characters that are taking the ship towards a precipice.

John Dermatini says that there are seven areas that show up in every society and in every person: Intellect, Culture, Vocation, Finance, Social, Spiritual and Health. Any time a person or society is disempowered in five of those areas, they will be overpowered. Any society that has been suppressed, there is usually lack of Intellectual, Vocational, Financial and Physical Strength. Where do many Ugandans stand today?

Our individual narratives form the stories of our lives. My identity, your identity is informed from each of our stories to date. Superimposed on this identity are cultural narratives and stories that gel into the collective identity of a society. Narratives, Stories and Identities are the raw data from whence realities emanate. Our challenge is to be cognizant of those narratives, stories and identities to incorporate what we perceive as the liberal universal sense of Freedom, Equality, Fairness, Progress and Happiness.

No opinion is off-limits as along as it is not vapid tirades that do not elegantly advances pro and counter arguments. We especially would like to know from those who think or believe that the status quo is tenable.