Is Uganda ready for a new revolution? Part 2
By Charles Ochen Okwir
4th April 2011:- In my article last week, [see: Is Uganda ready for a new revolution? Part 1] I ended by saying that when society starts yearning for a new social order, then you know a revolution is in the offing. This week, with the same “messenger role” that I assumed in part one, I continue from where I left!
When the deteriorated gears of the government machinery charged with maintaining the existing order slips and stops at every turn without good reason, and the dissatisfaction caused by its defects grow by the day, then you know that revolutionary justice awaits its reckless drivers.
When a revolution is about to happen, every day gives rise to new demands: “Reform this”; “reform that”; is all you hear from all sides! Finance, the tax system, the electoral system, the health system, the courts of law, the army, the police force; everything must be remodelled and reorganised on a new basis, the oppressed people will demand.
A revolution will be in the offing because its leaders, as well as the leaders of the old order, all know that it would be futile to remodel one thing in isolation because they are all inter-related. In other words, everything would have to be re-made at once and only a revolution can do that. In any case, how can society be remodelled in a way that gives everyone the opportunity to realise their full potential when it’s divided into two openly hostile camps? Satisfy one discontented faction and you will create new malcontents!
In such circumstances, the leaders of the old order will find that they are incapable of undertaking the pressing reforms the people are demanding because to do that would mean paving the way for a revolution. In the end, the tired leaders of the old order, now too impotent to be reactionary will only apply themselves to half measures which satisfy nobody but cause fresh disaffections.
In such periods of inevitable transition, these tired mediocrities of the old order who steer the ship of State will be thinking of only one thing: To enrich themselves against the coming debacle. Now feeling attacked from all sides, they defend themselves awkwardly.
They evade the responsibilities that a nation’s destiny throws upon them. They commit blunder upon blunder. And, as night follows day, they eventually cut the last hope of their salvation and drown a nation’s prestige in ridicule; ridicule caused by their own incapacity to head the warnings of the revolutionary tidal wave coming their way. A revolution will have become a social necessity and the situation itself will have become revolutionary.
Anyone who has studied the works of great historians on the genesis of vast revolutionary convulsions will have found something under the heading “The Cause of the Revolution”. It is usually a gripping picture of the situation on the eve of the revolutionary events. So let me re-state that picture for you as painted by one great historian.
“…The misery of the majority of the people, general social and economic insecurity, vexatious measures being carried out by the regime every day, odious corruptions scandals that lay bare the immense vices of society, new ideas struggling to break onto the surface but being violently repulsed by the incapacities of the leaders of the old order, disaffected sections of society threatening war, nepotism, selective application of the laws of the land, infrastructure collapse, and above all, a tyrannical ruler who sees no merit in the capacity of others to lead the implementation of much needed national reforms”.
All the great historians who examined and established the existence of these conditions in the societies they studied arrived at a firm conclusion that a revolution was indeed inevitable and it would come in the form of an insurrection. Let’s take The 1789 French Revolution as an example and see the picture painted by the historians who studied it. One of them said:
“…You could almost hear the peasant complaining of the salt tax, of the tithe, of the feudal payments and vowing in his heart an implacable hatred towards the feudal baron, the monks, the monopolists, and the bailiff. You could almost see the citizen bewailing the loss of his fundamental rights and freedoms and showering maledictions upon the King.
The people wanting to censure the Queen; they are revolted by constant reports of ministerial corruption and impunity, they cried out continually that the taxes upon them were becoming intolerable as the privileged ruling elite evaded the same taxes, the city lawyer has become too greedy he wants the peasants crops for himself.
The village constable [read LCs] had began to play the role of a petty King, people complained that even the mail service was badly organised, the people have become too lazy, it can’t and must not be allowed to last any longer, it will come to a bad end”, the oppressed French cried.
How was it that men who only yesterday were complaining quietly about their problems as they smoked their pipes suddenly became capable of seizing their axes, iron rod pikes and went about attacking in his castle the Lord who only yesterday was perceived to be most formidable and invincible? By what miracle have these men whose wives rightly called them cowards transformed themselves into heroes marching through the King’s bullets straight towards the final conquest in the battle for their rights?
How was it that mere words, so often spoken and lost in the air like the empty chiming of bells, suddenly became transformed into revolutionary actions? Let’s meet here next week for the answer! END. Please login to www.ugandacorrespondent.com every Monday to read our top stories and anytime mid-week for our news updates.
