By Timothy Nsubuga,

Uganda Correspondent

For many Ugandans, being Ugandan is something that they consider to be fairly straight forward; hardly debatable in fact.  For them, it is as simple as either being born in Uganda to Ugandan parents, [or at least one of them] or by registration as a citizen.  For Miss Brown however, [not her real names] it is not that straight forward.  For a long time, she considered herself to be Ugandan without much question.  After all, she was born and raised in Uganda and both her parents were Ugandans through and through!  But she began to question her uncritical, almost dogmatic beliefs recently when she was granted citizenship in a European country.  Her nationality identity crisis story goes like this: 

She left Uganda in 2001 while she was still in her very early twenties.  Today, she is nearly thirty; a fully grown woman by any standards!  She is, in other words, mature enough to decide who, and which country to identify with.  But she can’t; her right to dual citizenship notwithstanding!  And I strongly suspect that her dilemma is not entirely uncommon among “Ugandans” living in the Diaspora today.

On this typical European winters evening, over a nice meal of Matoke and smoked Ugandan fish, [note the irony] I met Miss Brown with her elder sister sitting in front of an electric heater in their two-bedroom flat located in a very cosmopolitan part of this European city.  She had just got her foreign citizenship.  Trouble is, she didn’t know whether to celebrate her new European citizenship or sulk over the “dilution” of her “Ugandanness”; a concept that is, in itself of course, still very controversial among some communities in Uganda who feel that Uganda, and what it means to be a Ugandan, was never defined at inception and that their consent to belong or opt out of Uganda was never sought.  That Uganda was simply forced down their throats by British colonialists.  For Miss Brown however, the issue is different.  “Honestly, I am totally confused.  Uganda is my country.  But it has really never done anything for me.  Seriously”, she emphasizes; with unmistakable sadness written all over her chocolate brown face!

Then the real venom came gashing out like a violent torrent out of a broken water mains:  “…those Movement politicians in Uganda and their tribesmen are enjoying everything they want and yet, poor me, I left Uganda an orphan; I had dropped out of school because my Mum, a widow, couldn’t afford to pay school fees for all of us; and we were constantly threatened with eviction by our landlord for late payment of rent.  This country {meaning her new adopted country} has not exactly laid goodies on a silver plate for me as such, but it has given me many opportunities to realize my dreams.  Out of my own determination, and hard work, I have achieved some things that I could never have dreamt of achieving in Uganda; and I thank God for it”.  

In all her emotionally charged diatribe about Uganda’s failure to look after her when she needed that help most, one word in particular struck me the most.  Opportunities!  Her biggest quarrel with Uganda was that as a State, it had miserably failed to give her opportunities.  Opportunities like good education, career guidance and counseling, and so forth to enable her work herself out of her many difficulties; many of which she says, were brought about by her father’s death.  Interestingly too is the fact that she firmly attributes her father’s death to the malicious imprisonment and torment that he had endured at the hands of Museveni’s merchants of death.  So in her mind, there is a very clear chain of causation between her suffering and the Ugandan state.  So there is, after all, an underlying political grievance that may have caused her to emotionally disconnect with Uganda.   

Her foreign host country on the other hand, of course, did avail her many of the opportunities that Uganda didn’t!  She therefore wonders why Uganda should, after ignoring her, then somehow expect her to be a patriotic Ugandan citizen.  But here is the other interesting bit.  Probably without even realizing it, Miss Brown, in a very simple and innocent way, had actually raised a very “fundamental” socio-political question.  Namely, what is it that defines, informs, and most importantly, influences and strengthens the emotional bond between a State and its citizens; including those like Miss Brown who live abroad!

Clearly, it is a question that does not easily lend itself to instantaneous and ill thought out answers.  It requires some serious introspection.  There are some who have previously argued, and probably still argue, that to achieve that all important emotional bond, a State must not only let all its people “know”, but actually make them “feel” their Ugandaness.  How it does it is clearly a matter that is open to serious debate; but not whether it should; because it must.  To these people, a State must “earn” the affection of its citizens.  The current craze about teaching patriotism in Ugandan schools for example, is, but only a tiny component of what in these people’s view ought to be a well thought out and multi-faceted process.   

From Miss Brown’s indictment, one can clearly see that she [and perhaps many like her] thinks that one way in which Uganda can achieve that emotional bond with its citizens would be for its political leaders to ensure that a meaningful and institutionalized “opportunities programme” is rolled out to every single Ugandan on a truly equitable and non-sectarian basis.  Miss Brown’s foreign achievements are clearly a shining testimony to the prudence of doing exactly that.  What do you think?