The paradox of tribal identity  and the nation-state in Uganda

I have asked: what is at the centre of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? What identities do the protagonists bring into the conflict?

Most of the people brave enough to proffer an opinion say the issues are religious (Judaism and Islam), ethnic (Jews and Arabs) etc.

I ask again: what are the interests? I will answer this one: Nationalism. But don’t these people have tribes like us? If they don’t have tribes, don’t they even have clans like the Somalis? Anyway, I digress. I would like our readers to treat this with the paradox of tribal identity and the State supremacists tendencies in Uganda’s national politics.
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Mr Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, the president of the National Unity Platform (NUP) party, recently came under fire over what some in the ruling NRM viewed as remarks bordering on tribal chauvinism (we call it ‘tribalism’ in Uganda).

Mr Kyagulanyi, better known as Bobi Wine, was addressing a political rally in Luweero. We have to assume his audience was predominantly composed of Baganda tribesmen (and women); or in the minimum people who understand Luganda language and appreciate Buganda and Baganda social and economic issues.

Mr Kyagulanyi made the remarks on issues that were specific to Buganda and Baganda. And it so happens most of these (Buganda specific) issues are blamed on the government. And then all hell broke loose… The last time I looked that direction, someone said Mr Kyagulanyi was not even a Muganda. Lol!

But we really don’t want to be detained by Mr Kyagulanyi and his critics (actually opponents). We would like to situate the tribe as one of the basic interest identity.

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For Mr Museveni, tribalism falls under what  he calls ‘politics of identity’ as opposed to ‘politics of interests’. We beg to differ with Mr Museveni. We opine that tribe (as an identity) is and can also be framed as an interest identity. And it is so basic an interest identity that it should be viewed as the primary interest.

In addition to tribe as an interest, there is religion, nation and State. The rest of the interests may fall in the broader social and economic sphere. The tribe is the inadvertent creation of the State. How? When communities progressed to State level, any communities outside the ambit of the State were designated as tribal.

In Africa, it was even funny. Because the State was a colonial construct, all communities (even those which had acquired statehood like Buganda and Bunyoro), were designed as tribes. And because of the contemptuous attitude of the colony towards the natives, the tribe became negative. Why, because all the tribes were expected to pull towards the State. And boy, they didn’t like it, save for survival interests.

In colonial Uganda, there was limited interaction between the tribes. This bred a tendency for community leaders to limit themselves to the welfare of their tribes.

The statists (or modernists) portray identities such as citizenship, nationality as the master identity and treat other identities (like tribe) as secondary.

“Both Marxists and modernists (or what I have tagged as statists) tend to concentrate on class, the peasantry or occupational identities, while primordialists focus on nationality, ethnicity or race.

But it is necessary to insist that individuals and collectivities have multiple identities and that no single one can acquire primacy in all contexts,” says T.K. Oommen in “Citizenship, Nationality and Ethnicity: Reconciling Competing Identities” (UK: Oxford, Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 1997). 

Which is why ask: Can’t I be a Mukonzo, NRM junta supporter and Ugandan? Indeed as TK Oommen says: Individuals and communities tend to invoke the appropriate and/or convenient element from their identity-sets; which consist of their total number of identities. Let there be tribes.

Mr Asuman Bisiika is the Executive Editor of the East African Flagpost. [email protected]