How our cultural ‘arrivalism’ creates ‘dead’ capital

We travelled west at the break of dawn. The birds were still silent, and the air was crispy cold. Only the noise of the madding Kampala clubbing crowd disturbed the tranquility of the morning. Our destination – Kitwe, near the border with Tanzania, on the periphery of Ntungamo District. Our objective was to pay our last respects to old man Esau Nzaro (MD), one of Uganda’s first medical doctors. Alas, another icon had fallen.
As the journey proceeded, I couldn’t resist the temptation to observe and reflect on the environment in the different places we traversed. I observed that the oft mentioned population explosion was real and problematic. The landscape was now dotted with many more residential dwellings or homesteads which were very unorderly and haphazard. Subsistence agriculture also remained the main means of sustenance.
As we traveled further south and west, one could not fail to see that the ever-burgeoning population had attacked the rolling hills of Ankole. Even the steeper hills had given way to banana and pineapple gardens. There was just no letting up as the multitudes struggled to eke a living. However, in midst of this human activity, one observed some beautiful and well-maintained homesteads, usually surrounded by a farm. These were large permanent structures, with well-appointed edifices. But they were mostly deserted as the owners were probably away in the urban areas.
Our conversation turned to the issue of these neat homes. They represented the epic cultural contradiction of our lives in a modern setting. This conflict of a modernising society was superimposed on the milieu of a cultural order that had no place in capitalism. After lots of back and forth, we agreed that in our African culture, a ‘man’ could not be a ‘man’ amongst his people unless he had built his house. To have ‘arrived’ or made it meant that not only did your homestead stand out like the proverbial peacock’s feathers, but it was large and capable of accommodating the many relatives who would visit in the course of time, especially at the time of festivity.
I wondered how many of these economically unviable investments we had built all over Uganda. I quickly did a back of envelope calculation. Assuming a population of three million people in Ankole, that would make for about 500,000 homesteads of six people each. Supposing out of these 500,000 homesteads, only 5 per cent belonged to the urbanites (mpekonists) that would make for 25,000 modern households scattered throughout the rural villages. If each of these households was occupied for an average of 60 days in a year, that meant that there were 7,500,000 bed nights wasted through sub optimal use resulting from cultural conformity!
In essence, this was ‘dead’ capital. Our strong attachment to the land (and, therefore, our ancestral villages) meant that we were using our earnings for unsustainable activities. A ‘man’ worth his name must build a house in the town and one in the village, regardless of its economic functionality. These are difficult contradictions to resolve. Here we were, travelling to a burial ceremony on a Sunday. During our journey from Ntunagmo Town to the Mirama hills junction on a beautifully finished road, I was able to count (see would be more appropriate) only one commercial vehicle. Again here we were, amongst lots of noticeably poor peasants, with a well-paved tarmac road, and several empty mansions, whose owners lived away most of the time.
Going back in time, we wondered how the good Dr Nzaro (MHRIP) had beaten the odds, to receive an education and transform his life from the rural setting of his day. To achieve, as he had achieved, many sacrifices must have been made. Despite those sacrifices, there were still many who lived like his forefathers had lived. I suppose we will have to make more sacrifices to free ourselves of the cultural bonds that make capital dysfunctional. Beware the power of ‘arrivalism’ and irrational utilitarianism.

Samuel Sejjaaka is country team leader at Abacus Business School. [email protected]
@samuelsejjaaka