After 31 years, does millennial Uganda see a monster in the mirror?
It’s widely believed that the 30s are one’s golden age. The big 30 unlocks the critical years as childhood naivety peels away. Opportunities for a better life stream in as one gets financial independence, stability, improved sense of self, sexual confidence, real happiness and higher aspirations. We dare to live independently, travel the world, explore suitors, get in tune with our bodies and adventure to career peaks.
Interestingly, the current early 30s are also millennial.
Strauss and Howe in their book Millennials Rising paint it as a generation of people who became adults around the turn of the 21st Century, and characterise them as sheltered, confident and tolerant. Millenials passionately follow their dreams. They are very alive to the social networks. They are optimistic and liberal in their speech and choices. They are digital natives. These people are more adaptable to change. They are also criticised as severely entitled and easily disillusioned.
The Pearl of Africa strikingly is an emblematic millennial, aged 31 years under the Movement leadership.
Her face is stunningly beautiful! She is awesomely gifted by nature with wild game, fresh water bodies, fertile soils, vibrant cultures, a young population and skilled labour force. In 1986, she won a 10-point makeover that promised democracy, security, self-sustenance, and an end to the acne of corruption and human rights violations among others.
Consequently, she enjoys airbrushed political independence, economic liberalisation, multiparty democracy accentuated with independent candidates, a booming ICT sector and lean middle class. Her suitor appeases her with endless promises of peace to sleep, universal education, glossy laws and policies whose implementation is hardly transformational.
He routinely treats her to a kaleidoscope of theatrical productions dubbed “prosperity for all”, “poverty eradication alleviation plan”, and “operation wealth creation”. She relishes the occasional envy of her neighbours.
But should our motherland genuinely soul search, she will encounter a grotesque creature distant from the normal shape and character of a democracy. A deep and hard stare in the mirrors of development and constitutionalism reflect that she lost her innocence, confidence and independence. These images remind me of the lyrics of Usher Raymond’s More that state: “I’m a beast, I’m an animal, I’m that monster in the mirror, the headliner, finisher, I’m the closer, winner …”
It is absurd to watch Uganda steadily regress into constitutional monstrosities characterised by sole candidature, erasure of presidential term limits, and now the heightened anxiety over lifting presidential age limit! Her feminine elegance founded on separation of power and rule of law is ruffled by power usurpation.
The slim nose of transparency and accountability is scrunched up by the stench of abject poverty and inefficient service delivery.
Uganda’s constitutionally aligned teeth are dented by an intermeddling Executive and bad breath of massive poll rigging, violent arrests, illegal detentions, media shutdowns, indiscriminate teargasing and military infiltration of the temples of justice.
Her high cheek bones and sharply-defined jaw line are fractured by compromised judicial independence. Her waist-to-hip ratio, reflected as debt-to-GDP ratio enlarges with visible stretch marks of high inflation and swift devaluation of the shilling. Her backbone rattles under the obesity of exaggerated public expenditures, widespread land grabs, greasy corruption, illiteracy, high crime and mortality rates. Her once shiny and bubbly attractions are emaciated by existential crises and impunity.
But millennial Uganda deserves a fresh start, as her rite of passage into adult democracy. Can she deliberately design a succession plan for peaceful transition from the cross-generational, dysfunctional relationship whose biological clock is fast ticking? Although scary, she needs to pursue happiness beyond Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, stop rewarding exploiters for giving her basic physiological needs and mobilise alternative leadership to thrust her to the pinnacle of national pride, constitutional confidence and self-actualisation.
After stomaching unfulfilled promises for decades, some instant gratification of dumbing her incumbent is legitimately warranted. Oh Uganda, that you may peacefully arise, confidently shake off the premature mid-life blues, and take back your full power of self-determination and constitutional sanctity.
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Mr Norbert Mao returns next week
