The moral crisis of Musevenists

A group of relatively young Ugandans are deeply invested in the current regime of rule. This, it has to be emphasised for the umpteenth time, is the rule of our sole ruler of 35 years.

They directly and indirectly serve the status quo. They actively or passively root for ‘no-change’ and genuinely or opportunistically see Mr Museveni as a necessary life-president. These are Musevenists.

Many are unapologetically proud of identifying as such, some are quite reticent and coy being seen in that light. We find them in the media and academia. Some are political pundits and social media worriers. Others are business actors and financial speculators. Some use political connections for procuring profits while others are pure parasites whose only investment is overzealous support for Mzee.

It has become patently difficult to make a convincing case for Mr Museveni’s rule, in fact misrule, over Uganda. Not with the pervasive decay, dysfunction and blatant abuses of both our material resources and our bodies that are as egregious as they are painfully evident.

Thus, it is mind-boggling why anyone would actively work for Museveni’s continued rule. Worse, it is incomprehensible why a well-educated and modestly intelligent Ugandan, young to boot, would lend his/her name to the perpetuation of a despicable and unacceptable system of rule and a ruler who is way past his sell-by-date.

I want to propose here that the moral conscience of many young Ugandans is in deep crisis. Many of these are present and visible on social medial platforms. When they are not explicitly speaking for their man and in defence of his reprehensible rule, they rumble with annoying in-exactitudes.

They equivocate often like someone whose tongue is constrained by some amount of palatable stuff inside one’s mouth. The latter category tend to want to pass off as independent-minded analysts when in fact they are insidious regime operatives and not just innocuous sympathisers. At some point, they get appointed to government positions!

I have confronted a few of these compatriots on the streets of  Twitter with this probing question: how do you keep your mind at peace associating with, if not able to out-rightly denounce, such a nefarious group of rulers as we have in Uganda today? How do you live with this?

The veteran broadcast journalist at the Voice of America, Dr Shaka Ssali, calls this the politics of groceries. Many Ugandans, both old and young, are in desperate need of  basic material survival. They sell their souls for a penny of survival skimmed off access to the crumbs of state spoils. The rulers have reduced many Ugandans to beggars and dependents on the extant system of  spoils.

I am not convinced that material survival is the key and core driver, especially for the younger generations of Ugandans. I can perfectly understand why an elder citizen is desperate for state largesse in a country that has zero social safety nets for vulnerable Ugandans. Not so for a young Ugandan with ample intellectual resources and energies to work hard and live honestly.
 
It is true that ours is a small economy with very limited opportunities for gainful employment or profitable business, meaning many have to face up to the reality that their survival depends on sucking up to the corridors of power either as active sycophants or strategically positioned cheer-leaders or at a minimum fence-sitters playing safe.

I belief, however, that there is something else that is more fundamental in the broader scheme of things. It is a moral crisis and an intellectual poverty that fails to see the folly of trading one’s invaluable independence of mind for short term material advantages. It is an utter failure to see that in the long run it is untenable to secure one’s personal wellbeing under a system that will inevitably collapse under the weight of history, anyway.

The point here is that many young, educated and otherwise intellectually gifted Ugandans are unable to see that their long-term interests are in fact likely to be in a more secure state precisely by denouncing the very system and rule now purporting to be securing their future.

This is a great part of the moral crisis of our time. It is a tragedy that afflicts many. As dispiriting as it is, there is need for patience and understanding, in persuading the Musevenists that they are on the wrong side of history and that their personal and political aspirations currently reside in the wrong ruler and regime of rule.

Museveni and his rusty system belong to the past, they cannot give us the Uganda we urgently need and deserve.

[email protected]