Why there’s deterioration of virtues in Uganda

Do you get rattled and startled by hooliganism and unguided rage from slum streets to university campuses and even from churches to the parliamentary floor? I don’t! There is a huge gap between the law and justice.

In Uganda the letter of the law is not as important as who holds the power at a given real moment.

It is not the golden rule but who has the gold that rules! Can you imagine anyone putting his hands on a uniformed police officer on duty and even worse, clubbing him to death? At such a moment, the mob has the power and they do not care what the law says.

In your wildest imagination, can you figure out the police and the army “shooting in the air” and leaving tens of people dead, just like that? They have the power at the moment and the law does not apply in reality. Well, they are trained to kill and they love it when “provoked”.

Are they not our sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, nephew and nieces, aunts and uncles? Surely, they are not mad dogs!

There is a steady deterioration of civility in Uganda because those who act in the civilised manner almost always lose. Rules seem to be made for good people, the bad ones bend the rules, if not break them outright.

We are a disorganised organisation in form of a State, whose leaders, rather rulers, think it is their own estate. It is a fact that Ugandans since the beginning of militarism in 1966 have not much experience of anything organised, clean, efficient or honest. You can deny this fact only if you were born yesterday.

Anyone below the age of 45 has got a somehow disorganised, untidy, inefficient and dishonest mind. That is the reality we have grown from.

Unfortunately, the majority of such people are in the civil service and in positions of responsibility in the private sector, fuelling corruption. They are the politicians, daily bettering their art of lying and licking dirty fingers after dipping them into the national trough. They are in the army and the police forces, robbing and shooting to kill the very people who pay them for protection.

Ironically, the same instruments of murder and intimidation are bought by the tax payer, who is increasingly growing more and more powerless, voiceless and restless in the country he/she sweats to build with his/her labour and taxes! Crooks are in the private sector doctoring invoices and payment vouchers in order to reap where they have not sown.

The huge number of orphans of war and disease growing up without parental guidance, think that society does not care about their plight and peril. In their wildest imaginations, the wealthy are wealthy at the expense of the poor, which is not true in a few cases. For them, the good schools in the villages are good because the bad schools have become worse. The gulley between the rich and the poor is wider because the rich robbers continue to rob what they already have in plenty!

Those who have all that they need and plenty of what they want, continue to dishonestly get fat on the public purse.

By virtue of greed and probably breed, region and perhaps religion, a few people are doing extremely well at the expense of the majority. Jealousy and anger inevitably piles up among the poor, uneducated, unhealthy, hungry, unemployed and unemployable youth.

They are being ripped off and they know it, but have no power to change it. The ballot does not seem to change anything substantial.

Since the law does not seem to work to ensure justice and to amend the situation, the poor and oppressed citizens tend to resort to violence. Moreover, they have nothing to lose. People with such an attitude are a time bomb.

You cannot talk of patriotism when many are dying due to lack of what to eat while others are sick due to overfeeding. No one will ever have any real love of the country that offers them nothing to love.

I wish the people knew that democracy is not spectator sport. Citizens should not be afraid to ask tough questions and demand truthful answers from their politicians at every level.

As we celebrate 57 years of independence, I urge Ugandans that this is your country and you have a stake in it. Be proactive to avoid being reactive.

Violence builds nothing but hatred, anger and destruction of lives and property. Non violence can win bit by bit. Small wins are important for they help to suggest how much more is possible. You cannot win it all at once.

To all leaders at all levels, both in the private but particularly the public sector, be reminded that just because people are not all powerful does not mean they are powerless. The power of the people is greater than the people in power.

Fr Mulindwa, PhD, Uganda Martyrs University
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