The structural transformation that could be the solution to violence

By Samuel Baligidde

There has probably never been a time, since the harrowing times of the past, when there was so much fear and concern about personal safety as there is nowadays. Violence is relapsing into barbarism when modern times should be superior to earlier eras of ‘barbaric rudeness'. Violence scatters millions of people across the world in search of safety. But where there is will, violence can perhaps be removed from social and political life.

Whereas Marxist-Leninist theories of violence may have once been fashionable and many states in the World today still use war as an instrument of foreign and domestic policy, it is an evil whose elimination requires a political and religious approach. As I have argued elsewhere before there is a need to reconsider the concept of justice in light of the fact that violence or the threat of it is still the modus operandi of not only estranged individuals and extremist groups but also domestic, social, domestic, political and human relationships!

With regard to the problem at hand, the first-best solution is a renewed leadership paradigm with a unifying vision and relentless follow-up on monitoring and supervision of all national systems. Integration of traditional and modern conflict resolution techniques and practices for reducing it might be a worthwhile strategy. But the dilemma is that oftentimes survivor justice takes survivors of violence as the starting point and prioritizes reform over prosecution making some traditional and religious propositions difficult to countenance.

By the same token cynical jokes suggesting that the last place to look for justice in Uganda is a Court of Law should be ignored with the contempt they deserve; justice and law are synonymous. Whichever perspective one might take, portraying victims as the offenders when they have been ‘silenced' by offenders' ‘justice' is petulant. 

Where there is no winner and thus no possibility of victor's justice, is survivors' justice the only form of justice when justice is what the law is supposed to produce? For the bereaved families justice does not and cannot recoup the psychological trauma associated with the death of loved ones. Delivering justice, even in the minimalist sense of retribution and its widespread acceptance renders judgment on any other than supplemental or procedural grounds a judicial challenge because justice involves an impartial and fearless act of choosing a solution to a dispute within a legal framework while respecting the human rights it protects.

Cognizant of the reality that no social or legal perspective should relegate moral infrastructure to the periphery the concerns Religious Leaders have expressed and articulated collectively or individually are not hypothetical. They mingle with a wide cross-section of the populace, liaise at the highest and lowest echelons of society; experience their tribulations during good and hard times. When they condemn or counsel as they have done after AIGP Andrew Felix Kaweesi and his two comrades' temerarious murder they do so from informed positions. Politicians and all Ugandans should therefore heed their relentless foreboding. Preaching against violence highlights the gravity of the fast-deteriorating personal security situation.

The red flag was raised when security officials were advised to watch out for Boda Bodas seemingly trailing them and if necessary ‘sort them out' prompting Katikkiro Charles Peter Mayiga, a VVIP with adequate protection, to publically express fear before Police boss Kale Kayihura. The streets, workplaces and other public spaces have alongwith this overwhelming threat, cynicism and contempt for law and order; indeed become too dangerous. 

Unplanned urbanization, widespread poverty, inequality, unemployment and unresolved governance issues complicated by unprecedented global forces, maybe at the core of the problem. Although an uphill task, urgent structural transformation of socio-economic, governance, political and security systems [holistically] could be the solution. Ascertaining the causes of rising anger could be one of the primary tasks.  In the final analysis neither politics nor law guarantees complete safety without the Grace of God.

The writer is a former diplomat