Only mass protests will end ‘we fought’ mentality
By Shelly Nambozo
14th Feb 2011
It was in Ghana in 2009 when President Barack Obama made his famous speech. He said, “…Make no mistake: history is on the side of brave Africans [who take on the tyrants] and not with those who use coups or change Constitutions to stay in power. Africa doesn’t need strongmen, it needs strong institutions”.
Institutions of State should be able to survive without the people at the helm. That’s why presidents come and go but nations survive. The events of the last two and a half weeks in Egypt have shown that the Egyptian army is an institution that is capable of surviving without its Commander-in-Chief of three decades. Can the UPDF pass the same seismic test?
The UPDF is a strongman’s army. Not only does the President refer to the UPDF as “my army”, but the army also threatens disrespect anyone other than Museveni who wins an election. What is most interesting about Egypt is that the army is viewed with more respect than the police who have come to be associated with violent crack downs on any civil protests.
So for the police, it was the usual battle with tear gas and water cannons. But the people of Egypt never gave up. Not even the low flying fighter jets could intimidate people who had had enough of Hosni Mubarak’s dictatorship.
In Uganda, the sight of the UPDF and their tanks (read mambas) rolling onto the streets would have been enough to send the protestors running for dear life. But in Egypt, the army is a highly respected institution. In fact, the protestors felt safer with the army than with the police. That is why they happily cheered and welcomed the army.
Unlike the UPDF which owes its allegiance to President Museveni, the Egyptian army swore to protect the Egyptian people. And they did not fire a single bullet to harm the civilians they’d sworn to protect.
If they did, then they did it in plain attire. Not in the military uniforms that they so respect. In Uganda, it is common to see soldiers and police beat up and even shoot civilians in full view of media cameras. Thank God for modern technologies like Youtube. These human rights abuses can now be documented for future use.
The Egyptian people were unarmed and peaceful. All they did was shout at the top of their voices [for eighteen days] that “Mubarak Must Go”; and he did. Following Mubarak’s resignation, one Egyptian woman tweeted and said, “…I am an Egyptian revolutionary. I took part in liberating my country Egypt”.
If only the people of Uganda could learn from this, we would not have Museveni’s cronies justifying theft and corruption by saying “…I went to the bush and fought”, because we shall all be liberators and will all have the right to share the damn national cake.
The events sweeping across the Arab world are showing us that yes, if you abuse your power, then people do not even have to arm themselves with weapons or go to the bush to get rid of you. That is so 1980’s. All they have to do is ask you [nonstop] to leave and YOU WILL LEAVE.
This fact was well summed up on one of the placards carried by the Egyptian protestors. It simply read: “…People should not be afraid of their governments, governments should be afraid of their people”. It is now up to ordinary Ugandans, young and old, to peacefully rise up and demand for the socio-political reforms that they want. Over to you my fellow citizens!
