Writer: Philip Matogo. PHOTO/FILE
Last weekend, Sunday Monitor carried a story about a 25-year-old activist called Praise Aloikin Apoloje. She was introduced to us as “a key cog in the so-called Gen Z protests.”
Ms Apoloje reportedly said she was ready to fight for freedom or die trying. “I’m fighting for the soft life I want,” she added.
On Thursday, we celebrated Tarehe Sita. The Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) looked back on 1981 when the National Resistance Army (NRA), now UPDF, launched its first attack in the liberation struggle.
In 1981, the battle cry was “freedom” after the seemingly loaded deck of the 1980 elections had been stacked against the Ugandan democrat. A five-year war ensued, and the rest would be history—but history has a way of making more than just a first impression. All told, it tends to repeat itself in the shape of the road less travelled, albeit on familiar ground.
The year 2025 may not be 1981. However, the Gen Zs could mount their own Kabamba attack in Kampala. Although Ms Apoloje has placed a premium on the soft life—unlike the NRA—one could argue that the rebel outfit was fighting for the same thing, given how well its former leaders live now.
It is a testament to how things have changed that, in 1981, it would have been deemed undignified to say you were fighting for the “soft life.” There were loftier ideals to aim for. Ugandans were in the struggle for something greater than themselves.
With all that has happened since 1986, this struggle is dead and buried. Well, so we thought.
The Gen Zs were raised on the slogan “Move Fast, Break Things,” which was one of Mark Zuckerberg's mottos when Facebook was growing leaps and bounds. It means approaching work and innovation with an emphasis on speed and experimentation. It is partly for this reason that we have so many start-ups run by young people.
This fits in well with Karl Marx’s strategy of permanent revolution, as it implies that setbacks in internal design and management processes must be met with more innovation. In a similar vein, Marx said contradictions would continue to develop, making it necessary to continually resolve emergent contradictions in favor of the revolutionary programme. Change—both for the NRA Marxists and Gen Z protesters—was and is the only constant.
How this change is brought about is dramatically different, mind you. The NRA used guns to ensure the change they wanted to see in the world. Gen Zs have so far used more peaceful means.
This could be because they are still in the move fast phase of their “move fast, break things” approach to issues. It will be quite different when they start to break things.
“If you have got a government which has closed off all other channels of peaceful change, what else could we do, except to surrender and resign ourselves to slavery? We couldn't do that," rebel Museveni said in the Luweero bushes in 1985.
This does not mean our Gen Zs must choose violent revolution. At the time rebel Museveni spoke up against what he termed as slavery in 1985, he had been involved in violent rebellion since 1971.
So, he fought the governments with the weapons he had. The Gen Zs must use what they have for a non-violent revolution.
Right now, they could reflect on whether merely replacing those living the soft life with those who seek to do the same is what Uganda really needs.
The writer, Phillip Matogo, is a professional copywriter
[email protected]
