Tribe: The hidden story of Uganda’s state formation and nation-building
What you need to know:
Using state power: We reached here because Mr Museveni, using state power, has slowly driven us to wherever we are now.
The African revolution (or actually leadership) always faces hurdles in her unending struggle for national building. In most cases, these hurdles are the residual carry-overs from the process of contemporary state formation in Africa.
During the process of state formation, communities (even those that had achieved a reasonable level of socio-cultural cohesion to earn the anthropological tag or classification of a nation), were degraded to mere serfdoms serving the interest of the inorganic colonial state. The colonial state was not interested in nation-building; they kept their focus on the ball: Exploitation of natural and human resources. In this, they were assisted by the community leaders (kings, chiefs, etc) in exchange for ‘recognition and protection’ by the colonial state.
Today, the creation of kingdoms in exchange for political loyalty still manifests. The British colonialists could have helped Buganda Kingdom conquer what we now have as Uganda and live under the King of Buganda. But this is almost what they did in 1962.
The British colonialists left their creation (the Ugandan state) under the management of a small elite group passing off as a political party. From a purely academic angle, would handing the entire country to the King of Buganda in 1900 be any different from the October 9, 1962 ‘incident’?
The British colonialists left their artificial creation (the Ugandan State) to ‘the people of Uganda,’ not the community leaders of Uganda.
After independence, these communities (which had even been degraded into tribes by the colonial state) had no organic tool of expressing themselves in relation to the artificial state other than their community identity. Federalism lacked the organic fabric to relate to this state and was merely a middle ground. The hidden story of Uganda’s state formation and nation building is the leadership’s failure to condition the state (or leverage state power) into building (or at least just trying)
Uganda as a homogeneous nation. The moment leaders take charge of the state, their tribal identity is vertically heightened; not because they preach tribalism (whatever that means?), but by their actions.
These actions may be viewed by other communities as exclusionist (as they feel left out). Yet belonging to Uganda is like a prison - we are not supposed to even dream of leaving; least said of prison break.
In such circumstances, is it any wonder that someone would say my brother was killed because he was a Mukonzo (feeling excluded)? Is it any wonder that a bystander (Ugandan) would say someone was killed because he was arrogant (feeling privileged and exuding a sense of superior social standings)?
The truth is that we do not seem to know how to build a nation. From independence to date, we have concentrated our energies on how to exercise State power and forgotten to use and leverage that power into nation building. These days, Ugandans ask, ‘how did we get here’ or tuli kuki (what is our purpose). But whoever asks ‘tuli kuki’ or ‘how did we get here’ knows the answer. Now, I am a triple circumcised Mukonzo tribesman (first as a tribal ritual; second as a Muslim and third as a health and hygiene requirement). Among my people, questions are answered…; not explained. So, how did we reach here?
We reached here because Mr Museveni, using state power, has slowly driven us to wherever we are now. And the bad news is that Ugandans don’t seem to know how to put Uganda back to the rails of nation building. The truth of the matter is that if Ugandans were sure and confident of their capacity to change the government, they would not be hedging their frustrations behind their respective community identities.
Mr Bisiika is the executive editor of East African Flagpost.
