OPINION: Names Preserve History
Oct 30, 2002
DEBATE CONTINUES unabated over the names many of our public institutions bear.
DEBATE CONTINUES unabated over the names many of our public institutions bear.
Kampala City Council has embarked on an exercise of renaming streets and markets.
The background to this has often been marred by confusion. It is indeed true that many eminent Ugandans have not been recognised as well as they could. So the solution has been a simplistic one — get rid of the names of non-Ugandans, and replace them with Ugandan ones.
On the surface, this appears to be appealing, especially to those of raw sentiment: get rid of British names, we are no longer a colony. Of course the irony has been lost upon them that they mostly express these sentiments in English.
English, as well as a lot of the infrastructure being so renamed, are part of our historical legacy. It is a historical fact that colonial officers like Gerald Portal, Grant, Speke, Ternan, Colville, Lugard, et al, as well as Mwanga, Kabalega, Obote, Madhvani, Kakungulu, Babiiha, Alidina Visram, Charles Lwanga and others, are part of our heritage. They should all, respectively, be given their place in history. Many of the colonial officers were instrumental in the setting up of modern Kampala and other urban centres, whose histories and future transcends the terms and myopia of some of our serving urban officials. Why should we begrudge people their place in history? It would not do to change today what more enlightened generations could conceivably reverse tomorrow, would it?
When it came to power in 1986, the NRM government, burning as it was with nationalistic zeal, desisted from changing names. This enlightened position, that respects and seeks to preserve our history, should prevail. Otherwise the solution is to expand our infrastructure and name it after those we are yet to recognise. Ends
I FIRST met the president-elect of Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (popularly known as Lula) in Tripoli many years ago. He is known to many regular visitors to Libya and especially associates of the Jamahiriyya’s international solidarity centre, Al-Mathaba, in the 1980s and 1990s. The Al-Mathaba was at the heart of Libya’s internationalism and many revolutionary groups, parties, liberation movements and rebels of all kinds of ideological orientation and differing legitimacy, from all the regions of the world used to converge there for conferences, seminars, workshops, cadre training and other kinds of meetings.
The Latin American groups were a noticeable group among these groups for many reasons. They were usually better-organised and tended to co-ordinate more among themselves. Their groups acquired a kind of iconic image because of their being the direct targets (and neighbours) of US led imperialist stranglehold on their countries. Most were leftist groups: Maoists, Stalinists, Marxist-Leninists, Workerists, Trotskyites. There were many of them engaged in anti-imperialist armed struggles very different from the various African and other groups. The Africans were coup-plotters, vanguards without mass parties or movements; popular liberation movements like the ANC, PAC, AZAPO, SWAPO, BCMA; ‘progressive’ governments most of whom came to power through coups like the PNDC in Ghana or Sankara and later Compaore’s Burkina-Faso; militant academics, students and youth; rebels with or without causes attracted to Libya’s revolutionism; an assortment of Green Book study groups and cadres of the Revolutionary Committee Movement and Third Universal Theory. With the exception of the NRM of Uganda, most of the other groups in Africa that came to power in the 1990s (like the EPLF/ TPLF of Eritrea and Ethiopia) were not part of the Mathaba group.
Most of the African groups were faction-ridden and ideologically very sectarian. And many were just built around egoistic individuals just waiting to become presidents. It was not unusual to find different groups from the same countries all vying for support and recognition.
As further evidence of the Latin Americans’ superior organisational culture and social base in their countries during the long unjust sanctions against Libya, the Latin American groups did not suffer much as did many of the African groups. Instead they regrouped themselves, with Al-Mathaba’s support, in the bi-annual Sao Paulo Forum in the 1990s. Lula and his Workers Party played a critical role in creating this forum for a broad leftism in Latin America. They always invited fraternal delegations from other parts of the world but there was no doubt that it was a Latin American affair. At these meetings one never failed to be impressed by the high level of organisation and camaraderie between the groups linking their national struggles within the regional sphere and global dynamics. Cuba, the Sandinistas and Lula’s Workers Party of Brazil were always the most popular at these meetings in spite of their different approaches to the social transformation project. That diversity and tolerance and firm base among their peoples made it possible for leftist parties and ideas to remain relevant in these countries.
It was the era of revolutions and anti-imperialist struggles and many groups tried to outdo each other in proclaiming their militancy. Libya saw a beehive of activities for these groups in those days.
Only very few of the groups took formal democratic non-armed struggle seriously. The Sandinistas, FMLN of El Salvador and the Workers Party of Brazil were the most important exceptions. When the Nicaraguans lost power in elections after 10 years (in 1989) not a few of the revolutionary militarists declared with self-congratulation that it was a mistake for the Nicaraguans to have accepted an electoral route to socialism after capturing power. The continuing inability of the Sandanistas to regain power in Managua coupled with FMLN’s failure (despite both being the largest single party) to form a majority government further strengthened those who did not trust the electoral process. But against all these, Lula and his party kept faith with the people, did not allow the doubts of their comrades and suspicions of their allies to detract them from their chosen path of struggle. More than two decades after launching the party and after three previous attempts, Lula has been elected president the largest country in Latin America. Ends
Kampala City Council has embarked on an exercise of renaming streets and markets.
The background to this has often been marred by confusion. It is indeed true that many eminent Ugandans have not been recognised as well as they could. So the solution has been a simplistic one — get rid of the names of non-Ugandans, and replace them with Ugandan ones.
On the surface, this appears to be appealing, especially to those of raw sentiment: get rid of British names, we are no longer a colony. Of course the irony has been lost upon them that they mostly express these sentiments in English.
English, as well as a lot of the infrastructure being so renamed, are part of our historical legacy. It is a historical fact that colonial officers like Gerald Portal, Grant, Speke, Ternan, Colville, Lugard, et al, as well as Mwanga, Kabalega, Obote, Madhvani, Kakungulu, Babiiha, Alidina Visram, Charles Lwanga and others, are part of our heritage. They should all, respectively, be given their place in history. Many of the colonial officers were instrumental in the setting up of modern Kampala and other urban centres, whose histories and future transcends the terms and myopia of some of our serving urban officials. Why should we begrudge people their place in history? It would not do to change today what more enlightened generations could conceivably reverse tomorrow, would it?
When it came to power in 1986, the NRM government, burning as it was with nationalistic zeal, desisted from changing names. This enlightened position, that respects and seeks to preserve our history, should prevail. Otherwise the solution is to expand our infrastructure and name it after those we are yet to recognise. Ends
I FIRST met the president-elect of Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (popularly known as Lula) in Tripoli many years ago. He is known to many regular visitors to Libya and especially associates of the Jamahiriyya’s international solidarity centre, Al-Mathaba, in the 1980s and 1990s. The Al-Mathaba was at the heart of Libya’s internationalism and many revolutionary groups, parties, liberation movements and rebels of all kinds of ideological orientation and differing legitimacy, from all the regions of the world used to converge there for conferences, seminars, workshops, cadre training and other kinds of meetings.
The Latin American groups were a noticeable group among these groups for many reasons. They were usually better-organised and tended to co-ordinate more among themselves. Their groups acquired a kind of iconic image because of their being the direct targets (and neighbours) of US led imperialist stranglehold on their countries. Most were leftist groups: Maoists, Stalinists, Marxist-Leninists, Workerists, Trotskyites. There were many of them engaged in anti-imperialist armed struggles very different from the various African and other groups. The Africans were coup-plotters, vanguards without mass parties or movements; popular liberation movements like the ANC, PAC, AZAPO, SWAPO, BCMA; ‘progressive’ governments most of whom came to power through coups like the PNDC in Ghana or Sankara and later Compaore’s Burkina-Faso; militant academics, students and youth; rebels with or without causes attracted to Libya’s revolutionism; an assortment of Green Book study groups and cadres of the Revolutionary Committee Movement and Third Universal Theory. With the exception of the NRM of Uganda, most of the other groups in Africa that came to power in the 1990s (like the EPLF/ TPLF of Eritrea and Ethiopia) were not part of the Mathaba group.
Most of the African groups were faction-ridden and ideologically very sectarian. And many were just built around egoistic individuals just waiting to become presidents. It was not unusual to find different groups from the same countries all vying for support and recognition.
As further evidence of the Latin Americans’ superior organisational culture and social base in their countries during the long unjust sanctions against Libya, the Latin American groups did not suffer much as did many of the African groups. Instead they regrouped themselves, with Al-Mathaba’s support, in the bi-annual Sao Paulo Forum in the 1990s. Lula and his Workers Party played a critical role in creating this forum for a broad leftism in Latin America. They always invited fraternal delegations from other parts of the world but there was no doubt that it was a Latin American affair. At these meetings one never failed to be impressed by the high level of organisation and camaraderie between the groups linking their national struggles within the regional sphere and global dynamics. Cuba, the Sandinistas and Lula’s Workers Party of Brazil were always the most popular at these meetings in spite of their different approaches to the social transformation project. That diversity and tolerance and firm base among their peoples made it possible for leftist parties and ideas to remain relevant in these countries.
It was the era of revolutions and anti-imperialist struggles and many groups tried to outdo each other in proclaiming their militancy. Libya saw a beehive of activities for these groups in those days.
Only very few of the groups took formal democratic non-armed struggle seriously. The Sandinistas, FMLN of El Salvador and the Workers Party of Brazil were the most important exceptions. When the Nicaraguans lost power in elections after 10 years (in 1989) not a few of the revolutionary militarists declared with self-congratulation that it was a mistake for the Nicaraguans to have accepted an electoral route to socialism after capturing power. The continuing inability of the Sandanistas to regain power in Managua coupled with FMLN’s failure (despite both being the largest single party) to form a majority government further strengthened those who did not trust the electoral process. But against all these, Lula and his party kept faith with the people, did not allow the doubts of their comrades and suspicions of their allies to detract them from their chosen path of struggle. More than two decades after launching the party and after three previous attempts, Lula has been elected president the largest country in Latin America. Ends