Prime
Yes, NUP boss Rubongoya, it’s a pattern
Author: Phillip Matogo. PHOTO/FILE
What you need to know:
- ‘‘NRM has created such a system and we’re all left with no clue as to why we take it”
It was reported in the media that Ms Suzan Nakaziba Mugabi, the Buvuma Woman Member of Parliament, and Mr Gad Daniel Onyango, the Buvuma District Speaker, were allegedly attacked by police during the belated Women’s Day celebrations in Kyanja Village, Bwema Sub-county in Buvuma on April 21.
The National Unity Platform (NUP) party secretary general, Mr David Lewis Rubongoya, was understandably fed up.
“Police assaulting our people has now become a pattern,” Mr Rubongoya said.
Former FDC president Kizza Besigye and other Opposition leaders will agree. So will the watching public.
However, we should all know that such attacks are not by accident, but are by design.
Political scientists will tell you that political behaviours, where for every action there’s an unequal and opposite reaction, are not genetically inherited.
Instead, our political behaviours are designed to fit the political values and processes patterned after a systemic procedure of political socialisation which keeps the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) in power.
This means that the more we are exposed to certain political actions; in this case violence against the Opposition, a learning process is set in train to derail any higher political aspirations.
In turn, standards and practices are cemented then passed between generations to concretise a given political orientation.
I shall demonstrate this by relating an experiment I once heard. It starts by putting eight monkeys in a room, a secure room so they cannot leave. In the middle of the room is a ladder which leads to a stalk of bananas hanging from a hook on the ceiling.
On seeing this bunch of bananas, the monkeys are primed for a meal and try to reach the bananas.
However, each time a monkey tries to climb the ladder in order to reach the bananas, all the other monkeys are sprayed with ice water. Naturally, this drives the monkeys bananas, excuse the pun, and they soon descend into misery.
It does not end there. Each time a monkey attempts to scale the ladder, the other monkeys are sprayed with icy water.
Inevitably, whenever a monkey attempts to climb the ladder, all of the other monkeys, to avoid being sprayed at, set upon that monkey and beat it up.
After a while, none of the eight monkeys ever attempts to climb the ladder.
One of the original monkeys is then removed, and a new monkey is put in the room.
The new monkey, upon seeing the bananas and the ladder, wonders why none of the other monkeys are climbing the ladder to enjoy the bananas.
So the monkey, totally clueless, immediately begins to climb the ladder.
Thereupon, all the other monkeys fall upon the monkey and beat it up.
The new monkey has no idea why they have reacted in such a manner. However, not wanting to be beaten again, the new monkey no longer attempts to climb the ladder.
Then a second monkey, from the original eight monkeys, is removed and replaced with the second new monkey.
The newcomer immediately attempts to climb the ladder, but all the other monkeys, including the first new monkey, set upon it with blows.
One by one, all the original monkeys are replaced by new monkeys as they process continues.
In the end, eight new monkeys are now in the room. None of them have ever been sprayed by ice water. None of them attempt to climb the ladder. All of them will enthusiastically beat up any new monkey who tries, without having any idea why.
The NRM has created such a system and we’re all left with no clue as to why we simply take it.
Mr Matogo is a professional copywriter
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