Federo makes Buganda real
Oct 06, 2005
AS I sat down to write my resignation from the Mengo government, I wondered why it took me long to cross the Rubicon given that I had always found the environment which was averse to new ideas intellectually constricting.
BY PETER MULIRA
AS I sat down to write my resignation from the Mengo government, I wondered why it took me long to cross the Rubicon given that I had always found the environment which was averse to new ideas intellectually constricting.
There was also that discomfort which always nags you when you make a point in a meeting which no one opposes but as soon as you disperse some crooked soul takes a reporter to an office and tries to prove to him that you were sent to Mengo as Museveni’s spy.
Thankfully at the end of my soul-searching I found myself unlike many people who have been suffocated out of Mengo in the past, more determined to fight for what Buganda, not Mengo, stands for. I discovered that at the end of the day this represents what I am and provides me with the tools for my existence in a wider society — my culture.
Culture can be defined in many ways but one dictionary definition which appeals to me is the one which defines culture as “the concept, habits, skills, art, instrument, institution, etc of a given people in a given period; civilisation.†Like a plant, which depends on osmosis for its growth, human beings are nourished by their culture and civilisation without which they become stunted.
Civilisation does not occur in a vacuum; it has to have a context within which set standards, models or patterns of behaviour evolve. The force for compliance with these standards, models or patterns of behaviour are cumulatively known as norms or enono in Luganda. When you remove these norms you kill a people’s civilisation and the result is a society of lumpens.
While culture can change easily according to new realities norms are more constant because they are the anchors for human behaviour. In this sense norms and culture can be compared to a game of chess where the number of squares on the board or the role of the various pieces do not change although the colours and size of the pieces can change according to one’s preference. If, however, one tried to change the number of squares and the role of the pieces the result will not be the game of chess we know and trying to play it will prove to be a chaotic enterprise.
To extend the example of chess further, the constitution of a country is a game of chess which reflects its society’s norms just as a chess-board and the pieces are the physical expression of the game of chess which is played according to its rules or culture.
Buganda’s problem is that we have come to confuse rules of the constitution or its culture with the norms which form the foundation for a particular practice, the stone upon which a concept is built.
Thus, how we elect the Katikkiro is a rule or culture but what makes one to be a Katikkiro is the function of a norm in this case the handing over of the Ddamula (symbol of office) by the Kabaka to the person who is elected to that office.
It does not therefore matter whether the Katikkiro is appointed by the Kabaka or by the Lukiiko or even through direct elections because the election is a rule of culture or practice which can change and has been changing over the years. What cannot change is the requirement of handing over of the Ddamula by the Kabaka.
There are four norms in Buganda which underpin the kingdom’s identity and without which it is incomplete. Because Buganda grew through annexation of foreign territory the country in the Kingdom has a significance which does not exist elsewhere. Each of Buganda’s eighteen counties was culturally integrated or foreign with the exception of the original three and apart from being an administrative unit, formed a sub-sect or sub-tribe within the kingdom.
For example I am a Mukooki from Kooki county before I am a Muganda and this concept plays a significant role in my psyche although I have never spent a night in Kooki and inspite of the fact that my grandfather left that area almost 130 years ago never to return.
Secondary, in order to overcome the question of who is a Muganda it was long ago settled that admission into one of the 52 clans was the only qualification. Accordingly, to be a Muganda is not a biological question but a cultural one. In effect, I am a Muganda because my ancestral territory was incorporated in Buganda and because I belong to one of its clans. Without any of these two characteristics I cease to be a Muganda and I become lost. It is therefore not surprising that today as before, county and clan football leagues in Buganda are the most popular sports tournaments.
Any society without leadership structure will atrophy. For this reason it was settled in Buganda, almost 800 years ago that the leadership structure would start from the people in a conical ascending order along two cultural and administrative separate lines which never meet and culminating in a cultural cum political sovereignity — the Kabaka. In this sense there cannot be a Buganda or a Muganda without the Kabaka.
The third norm therefore in Buganda’s social matrix of identity is an administration emanating or ending in the Kabaka which with time became merely symbolic when the Kabaka was made a constitutional monarch in 1955.
Once the issues of definition and organisation were settled an administrative structure was put in place which culminated in what is known as the 1900 agreement or the first written constitution of Buganda.
As a lawyer, I have been greatly impressed by two legal documents in history because of their brevity, simplicity and profundity and there are the American constitution and the Buganda Agreement, 1900. Both documents settled in their own diverse interests in an accommodative manner which spurred economic development for their countries.
When we talk about federo therefore we mean reinstating that system of governance, which will return our oneness in diversity. Subject to the national constitution this can be achieved by allowing Buganda, and other areas which so wish, the right to have the following:
A constitution for Buganda in which its various institutions will be balanced.
A Kabaka who is a constitutional monarch
A constitutional government at Mengo.
A constitutional Lukiiko
A local government based on the traditional counties and lower structures.
Equitable financial facilitation.
Of the six requests only the constitution and a system of local government based on counties have not been granted. It is not too much to ask that these issues be addressed and we have precedents to go by in the form of the Buganda constitution, 1962, and the Buganda Local Government law, 1965.
It is unfortunate that in its quest for federalism Buganda lost the focus on the real issues. But it is even more unfortunate that some Ugandans believe that you have to kill local civilisations first before creating Ugandans.
The writer is a Kampala advocate
AS I sat down to write my resignation from the Mengo government, I wondered why it took me long to cross the Rubicon given that I had always found the environment which was averse to new ideas intellectually constricting.
There was also that discomfort which always nags you when you make a point in a meeting which no one opposes but as soon as you disperse some crooked soul takes a reporter to an office and tries to prove to him that you were sent to Mengo as Museveni’s spy.
Thankfully at the end of my soul-searching I found myself unlike many people who have been suffocated out of Mengo in the past, more determined to fight for what Buganda, not Mengo, stands for. I discovered that at the end of the day this represents what I am and provides me with the tools for my existence in a wider society — my culture.
Culture can be defined in many ways but one dictionary definition which appeals to me is the one which defines culture as “the concept, habits, skills, art, instrument, institution, etc of a given people in a given period; civilisation.†Like a plant, which depends on osmosis for its growth, human beings are nourished by their culture and civilisation without which they become stunted.
Civilisation does not occur in a vacuum; it has to have a context within which set standards, models or patterns of behaviour evolve. The force for compliance with these standards, models or patterns of behaviour are cumulatively known as norms or enono in Luganda. When you remove these norms you kill a people’s civilisation and the result is a society of lumpens.
While culture can change easily according to new realities norms are more constant because they are the anchors for human behaviour. In this sense norms and culture can be compared to a game of chess where the number of squares on the board or the role of the various pieces do not change although the colours and size of the pieces can change according to one’s preference. If, however, one tried to change the number of squares and the role of the pieces the result will not be the game of chess we know and trying to play it will prove to be a chaotic enterprise.
To extend the example of chess further, the constitution of a country is a game of chess which reflects its society’s norms just as a chess-board and the pieces are the physical expression of the game of chess which is played according to its rules or culture.
Buganda’s problem is that we have come to confuse rules of the constitution or its culture with the norms which form the foundation for a particular practice, the stone upon which a concept is built.
Thus, how we elect the Katikkiro is a rule or culture but what makes one to be a Katikkiro is the function of a norm in this case the handing over of the Ddamula (symbol of office) by the Kabaka to the person who is elected to that office.
It does not therefore matter whether the Katikkiro is appointed by the Kabaka or by the Lukiiko or even through direct elections because the election is a rule of culture or practice which can change and has been changing over the years. What cannot change is the requirement of handing over of the Ddamula by the Kabaka.
There are four norms in Buganda which underpin the kingdom’s identity and without which it is incomplete. Because Buganda grew through annexation of foreign territory the country in the Kingdom has a significance which does not exist elsewhere. Each of Buganda’s eighteen counties was culturally integrated or foreign with the exception of the original three and apart from being an administrative unit, formed a sub-sect or sub-tribe within the kingdom.
For example I am a Mukooki from Kooki county before I am a Muganda and this concept plays a significant role in my psyche although I have never spent a night in Kooki and inspite of the fact that my grandfather left that area almost 130 years ago never to return.
Secondary, in order to overcome the question of who is a Muganda it was long ago settled that admission into one of the 52 clans was the only qualification. Accordingly, to be a Muganda is not a biological question but a cultural one. In effect, I am a Muganda because my ancestral territory was incorporated in Buganda and because I belong to one of its clans. Without any of these two characteristics I cease to be a Muganda and I become lost. It is therefore not surprising that today as before, county and clan football leagues in Buganda are the most popular sports tournaments.
Any society without leadership structure will atrophy. For this reason it was settled in Buganda, almost 800 years ago that the leadership structure would start from the people in a conical ascending order along two cultural and administrative separate lines which never meet and culminating in a cultural cum political sovereignity — the Kabaka. In this sense there cannot be a Buganda or a Muganda without the Kabaka.
The third norm therefore in Buganda’s social matrix of identity is an administration emanating or ending in the Kabaka which with time became merely symbolic when the Kabaka was made a constitutional monarch in 1955.
Once the issues of definition and organisation were settled an administrative structure was put in place which culminated in what is known as the 1900 agreement or the first written constitution of Buganda.
As a lawyer, I have been greatly impressed by two legal documents in history because of their brevity, simplicity and profundity and there are the American constitution and the Buganda Agreement, 1900. Both documents settled in their own diverse interests in an accommodative manner which spurred economic development for their countries.
When we talk about federo therefore we mean reinstating that system of governance, which will return our oneness in diversity. Subject to the national constitution this can be achieved by allowing Buganda, and other areas which so wish, the right to have the following:
Of the six requests only the constitution and a system of local government based on counties have not been granted. It is not too much to ask that these issues be addressed and we have precedents to go by in the form of the Buganda constitution, 1962, and the Buganda Local Government law, 1965.
It is unfortunate that in its quest for federalism Buganda lost the focus on the real issues. But it is even more unfortunate that some Ugandans believe that you have to kill local civilisations first before creating Ugandans.
The writer is a Kampala advocate