I now prefer to be called a “terrorist” like Mandela
By Sam Akaki
6th June 2011: If I was an Al Shabaab militant, I would have taken some comfort from the fact that until a few years ago, none other than the great and God-like Nelson Mandela was labelled a “terrorist” because of his unrelenting quest for democracy and freedom from Apartheid.
Bottom Right: Mandela the "terrorist" in 1964
The US and its European allies used their superior political, diplomatic, and economic weight to ensure that the “terrorist” label stayed with Nelson Mandela throughout his time on Ruben Island. The sad irony of it all is that a few years later, the same Western leaders were falling over themselves to ensure that Mandela “the terrorist” is immortalised in a statue alongside their own great men like Winston Churchill and Abraham Lincoln.
They are also elbowing fellow Western leaders and celebrities to beat the queue to meet and pay their respects to the same Mandela they called a “terrorist” yesterday. Today, Mandela is glorified as a role model for freedom fighters. But if Mandela’s statue in London tells any story at all, then it must be the story of Western hypocrisy towards struggles for freedom in Africa.
Anyone looking for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about the cost of freedom in Africa should read Mandela’s book the ‘Long Walk to Freedom’. On April 20th 1964, Mandela’s courage and conviction turned the Pretoria Supreme Court [that was trying him for treason] into a political arena when he declared that:
“…I admit immediately that I was one of the persons who helped to form Umkhonto we Sizwe, and that I played a prominent role in its affairs until I was arrested in August 1962…we want equal political rights, because without them our disabilities will be permanent… I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die”.
But had vanity [not conviction] got into Nelson Mandela’s head, he would have used his popularity as an Advocate of the High Court of Apartheid South Africa and easily won a [homeland] parliamentary seat. Secondly, had he taken the selfish route and become a symbolic “Honourable” Member of Apartheid’s Parliament; thus legitimising the illegitimate system, the fascist white minority regime would probably still be in power today.
Granted, most blacks in South Africa are still trapped in poverty that is made worse by HIV/AIDS and drugs. But thanks to Mandela’s sacrifices, they have won the most important right of all; namely, to freely vote for their leaders, something which Ugandans only dream of.
The obscene Ugandan wolves dressed in sheep skin
Whatever respect Ugandan opposition MPs still had was instantly wiped out when it was revealed that they had joined their NRM colleagues in demanding for an advance payment of 50million Shillings [$21,000] to cushion their pockets against inflation. This demand, which is in addition to a monthly salary of over $7,500, is quite simply obscene.
While their NRM colleagues openly used money to buy votes, it is also clear that some opposition MPs may have used deception to secure their victories into the den of thieves that Uganda’s parliament has become. Where is the moral authority among our opposition MPs who were castigating the Movement government for political and financial corruption during the campaigns?
Shadow Cabinet animosity separated the men from the boys
In 2007 when I wrote an article in the Daily Monitor castigating the then Leader of the Opposition in Parliament Prof. Latigo and some FDC MPs for deciding to shake hands with the British Queen while their party President Dr Kizza Besigye was demonstrating against CHOGM in Kololo, I was castigated and called “divisive”.
When the so-called Shadow Cabinet was announced last week, I was shocked again to hear that there were some opposition MPs who were bitter because they were left out. Are these “Honourables” really serious about bringing meaningful change to our poverty stricken people? Some of them definitely aren’t. If they were, they wouldn’t be bickering over useless Shadow Cabinet positions when we still have a big battle to fight in order to rid ourselves of Museveni’s grotesque tyranny.
The Famous Declaration of Abroath
All that said however, the millions of Ugandans who are today unsure of where their next meal will come from, or where their medical treatment money will come from, should rest assured that all is not lost.
In April 1320, almost 650 years before Mandela’s “I am prepared to die” speech in a Pretoria court room, Scottish people had already issued the timeless Declaration of Abroath which rejected English domination. Let me give you an excerpt from that declaration:
“As long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom, for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself”.
The Declaration of Abroath seemed to have been frozen in time when, to my utter delight, I heard Father Ceasar Dralega of Arua reiterating this basic freedom logic and conviction on Martyrs day when he told his congregation that, “…we should have a critical mind-set to reject what is wrong in society. You should have courage to resist injustice in the judicial system and violation in the systems”. [See “Reject injustice- Sabino”, Daily Monitor, 4th June 2011].
My challenge to Obama and his Western allies
President Obama, as the Supreme political commander of NATO, has already made an irrevocable decision that Col Gaddafi must go. If Obama & Company still have a conscience, then I challenge them to explain to us why Uganda’s peaceful anti-Museveni political activists should be called “terrorists” while the Libyan rebels are called “pro-democracy” fighters.
Can Obama and Company support Ugandan “pro-democracy fighters” and allow a “Ugandan Transitional National Council” (UTNC) to open offices in Brussels, London, Paris and Washington? If I had my way, I would have preferred to be labelled a “terrorist” like Mandela who won freedom for South Africa without Western support. END. Please login to www.ugandacorrespondent.com every Monday to read our top stories and anytime mid-week for our news updates.
Mr. Sam Akaki is FDC’s International Envoy to the UK & European Union
