Besigye, the fox and hedgehog
Former Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party president Kizza Besigye was once quoted as saying, “The worst group of Uganda that I have an issue with are the educated elite. They are the most useless people we have in Uganda.”
Many of the elite felt hard done by when Besigye pulled out that bazooka. Many of them forgot to duck and were subsequently hit square between the eyes.
What Besigye was talking about was a breach between modern and traditional societies, collectivism and individualism. The elites tend be modern and individualistic, unburdened by the collective problems of a nation in need of a collective response to those problems.
In the past, society was constructed upon the masonry of communalism. This is why African socialism was a powerful battle cry among the elite at independence.
Today, such collectivised will and thought are a distant memory. This situation invokes William Whyte’s 1956 book, The Organization Man. This book highlighted the divergence between two ethics constantly at battle in American society.
Whyte wrote about Protestant Ethic, the idea that the “pursuit of individual salvation through hard work, thrift, and competitive struggle is the heart of American achievement,” and a Social Ethic: “of himself, [man] is isolated, meaningless; only as he collaborates with others does he become worthwhile, for by sublimating himself in the group, he helps produce a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.”
He concluded that the Protestant Ethic was losing ground to the Social Ethic.
In Uganda, the reverse is true. The elite are pursuing individual salvation. They have good jobs, property and are cushioned by comfortable values which extoll the virtues of individuality, continuity and stability.
Besigye is asking them to turn their backs on personal gains to collaborate with the urban dispossessed. And thereby, achieve something greater than themselves. Yet, in a capitalist economy, the dominant ethic is individualism. This protects individual rights to preserve standard of livings and earnings.
On the other hand, Besigye’s socialist-leaning approach, like any collectivist ideology, relegates individual rights below the privileges of the collective. The elite disagree, and so surrender more and more of their freedoms to make money as government clamps down on activism.
Being self-sufficient and knowing how to manipulate the system in their favour, our elite don’t care about social programmes. Unless they come in the shape of entitlements. So no matter the government, they shall remain soundproof to activist chants once their individualist benefits remain untouched.
This speaks to the 20th Century Oxford philosopher Isaiah Berlin’s 1953 essay titled, The Hedgehog and the Fox.
It focused on the view of history that places people into two distinct categories.
Hedgehogs, who view the world through a single central vision, and foxes, who chase scattered ideas pursuing many ends. Essentially, hedgehogs are simplifiers and foxes are multipliers.
Besigye and his less-than-merry band of activists are hedgehogs who present a grandiose vision on how to correct Uganda. It is sweeping and simple: remove the “dictatorship” and everything shall be added unto you. The elite in Uganda are foxes.
They look at the details with a view to gathering the pieces to solve a jigsaw puzzle. They are distrustful of grand visions for change. Since they heard about “fundamental change” from Besigye’s previous boss, and it all seemed to go to smash.
So they seek to place their stock in gradualism, not radicalism. And, interestingly, Berlin concluded that the 20th Century and beyond would belong to them.
While Besigye, according to the law of attraction, becomes what he judges as what he condemns affects him. To ensure, oddly, that he becomes the useless one.
Mr Matogo is a digital marketing manager with City Surprises Ltd
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