By Timothy Nsubuga – 2^nd-8^th Aug 2010

Zuma & Zulu King

South African President Jacob Zuma has abolished six out of the thirteen traditional monarchies that were previously recognised by the South African government.  The Zulu and Xhosa Kingdoms of King Goodwill Zwelithini and King Zwelonke Sigcau respectively will be among the seven to be spared the axe.  The other six monarchies would end when the incumbent ruler dies; Zuma ruled.

The axe fell after a six-year old study commissioned by the South African government concluded that some of the monarchies had been created by the country’s former apartheid administration as a means of dividing South African blacks.The move would “…correct the wrongs of the past.  The apartheid regime created its own traditional leadership at the expense of authentic leadership in some communities.  It was how those in charge divided and disunited people”; President Zuma said.

Naturally, some Ugandans have, legitimately or not, already drawn parallels between their own country and the monarchy abolition events in South Africa.  “If that is what it was, then I think President Jacob Zuma is absolutely right to redress the ills of the apartheid regime”; says Moses Kizito Ssematimba, a Kampala based secondary school history teacher.

In Ssematimba’s view, “…Uganda is not too far off either.  Our own Museveni, by recognising bogus Chiefdoms like the Ssabanyala and Ssabaruli, is doing to Buganda exactly what the white apartheid rulers did to South Africa’s blacks.  The same things have happened between Buganda and Bunyoro.  Simply to divide and rule them”; he says.

Alfred Nuwagaba, a self confessed Museveni fan, however, dismisses such parallels as “absolute rubbish”.  In his opinion, “…it is a very flawed analogy for anyone to draw parallels between the reasons why apartheid created monarchies in South Africa and why Museveni is recognising new monarchies in Uganda.  Apartheid was a racial minority rule with a sinister agenda of oppression.  Museveni’s is majority rule by a black Pan-Africanist democrat.  So there can be no comparison between the two”; he maintained.

Another email respondent who requested Uganda Correspondent not to identify him at all put it more philosophically and said:  “When we keep quiet, it doesn’t mean that we are blind and deaf.  We know what this government is doing to our country.  The only thing that is still lacking for us is a different kind of leadership.  When it comes, we shall rise up to Museveni’s assault on our culture of peaceful co-existence”.