The country's future depends on how the present is handled

By James Magode  Ikuya 

We are often challenged why we keep referring to the past of the country whenever we are called upon to discuss its current affairs. It is intimated that the past already constitutes closed by-gone times and, hence, the harping on the said extinct periods is fruitless in terms of answering to the vexed issues of our present-day society.  The implication is that only the focus on current moments can be legitimate to the addressing of concerns of the existing times.

Our retort is that a great deal of our present circumstances flows from our past. Just as in biology we cannot escape from being off-springs of our ancestors, we should also realize that what obtains of the social make-up of today was likewise shaped by those who preceded us in life; their experience, commissions, and omissions constituting a proportion of the ingredients of our today. 

In the same vein, the future of our country shall also depend on how the present generation fares with its time. The impact of successes or failures of today will affect what is to be handed and bequeathed over to our children and their after children.

The past is, therefore, an essential component of the present.  The past not only produces and gives way to the present; it also actually stamps its validation to every next new generation of society.  Every future, in turn, is born by the action of the present. That is how true human history unfolds and proceeds.

Therefore, we must remain wary of those who preach the ignoring of vital connections in the social process of the past, the present and the future of our society. We have always believed that our people need to be truly founded on examining and understanding the nature of their now so that they may intelligently forge way forward for their own good and the future course of our country.

During the 1960s, our grooming in politics was not from the familiar jostling for seats of power of office which we see these days consuming the energies of most folks who are referred to as politicians. Our mindset then was to generate debate about the situation of the African people. We conceived politics to be the expression and organization of deep social aspirations.

We were disaffected that the UPC leaders, with whom many of us had at first associated with during the anti-colonial campaign, had begun shunning every attempt at discourse over the direction of our common affairs. Immediately they were straddled in Government offices, they became insistent that the main ills in our society already ended on 9th Oct 1962, when the British flag was lowered leading to their installation into office.

Thus, our hopes of wresting new dispensation from the British vacation of office soon faded. Even the existence of DP in the mask of a short-lived parliamentary opposition to the UPC did not lessen our gloomy feeling for the country's prospects. The thrust of DP's purported opposition to the UPC was routine rhetoric peppered from the Catholic Church out of the famed strife between the "Ingleza" and Catholic factions which the British had instigated amongst Buganda's Mengo royalty. 

Save for occasional gimmicks during some electoral contests, the DP did not possess a coherent alternative pool of ideas to counter the sham that the UPC had become to the nation.

Thus, the politics of our country was deflected from inquiry into direction and principles for running the affairs of the people.  It, instead, became the rowdy shoving for seats at the dining table which the variants of professed politicians sought to occupy so that they may avoid the ill-fate of members of their communities cringing in pressing prevalence of hunger.

In this way, our country's politics became consistently degraded. We should not be surprised that even today the despoilment is persisting, swamping the country with incredible swindles and fraudulent designs. 

There is hardly any thought that politics ought to be about the people and how to raise their involvement in the control of governance of their lives. It is presumed that politics is solely about contests between politicians for office, for identifying who amongst them is the better Messiah to deliver society to the Promised Land.

The notion that political activity is only about looking for a rare Messiah re-enforces the exclusion of the people. It limits the people's sight and insight to mere scouring the scene for a miraculous apparition where all types of pretenders emerge to pose as the acclaimed Messiah rather than the people relying on their own experience to construct their vision and organization for propelling their common affairs. The people are relegated to receivers of inducements rather than the masters of their affairs.

This calls for re-thinking about the political process to enable our people attain their sovereignty.

The writer is an NRM historical.