Children of the poor and oath to protect Constitution
Julius Bwesigye
What you need to know:
- A child born and raised in the nobility would be entitled to a public office as opposed to the children of the poor who had worked hard to become doctors, teachers, lawyers and economists, among others.
When Napoleon Bonaparte rose to power in 1804 in France, most of the key positions were occupied by sons and daughters of the wealthy Bourbons.
A child born and raised in the nobility would be entitled to a public office as opposed to the children of the poor who had worked hard to become doctors, teachers, lawyers and economists, among others.
Despite their education, the poor had no right to be employed. One needed to be connected to a General in France to be legible for appointment as a member of the elite guard; one needed to be a son of the foreign affairs minister to be able to obtain an appointment as a consular.
Such positions could not be occupied by children of the poor who were naturally viewed as corrupt. To the French society, corruption was inferred to an individual by the virtue of his or her birth.
In South Africa under the apartheid regime, there were special residencies for the poor and those set aside for the rich.
The poor could not share the same schools with the rich and the curriculum taught in these two systems were fundamentally different. In the schools of the poor, teachers were required by the inspectorate of government to declare their wealth as if they had anything to declare.
The poor would occasionally be killed by the rich, accusing them of ‘fujjo’. Their demand for transparency in electoral processes would quickly turn out to be ‘fujjo’ and they would call them rioters, automatically giving police the right to shoot-to-kill.
Poor women, street venders would be shot dead and such killings would be categorised as being caught in the crossfire. The government would promise to compensate for the lives. The poor lived in fear.
The systemic imbalance created a divided society in these two nations with children of the rich having too much wealth than they needed, and the children of the poor working so hard but unable to sustain their families.
The poor could not afford decent transport and could be seen jumping through bus windows to access public transport since the rich had procured excellent cars and did not consider putting in place a functioning railway network or affordable bus system.
Be it as it may, the situation did not change despite the children of the rich running the show. These children rose to the helm of government and started taking all the public contracts, sometimes not delivering on time.
The cost of running government, therefore, superseded the cost of providing social services which were badly needed by the poor.
The right to equality and freedom from discrimination in part is the microcosm of constitutionalism and Article 21 of the 1995 Constitution of Uganda.
If the Constitution forbids discrimination in our system but the President declares a desire to employ only the children of the rich, he abrogates not only the Constitution but also betrays his oath of allegiance to protect and preserve the Constitution.
The head of State should not have restricted some small businesses and left shopping malls and factories to operate normally. These are the approaches that subject the poor to further poverty and discrimination.
Mr Bwesigye is a lawyer. [email protected]
