Besigye’s methods have been used by cult leaders before!

May 04, 2006

In 1653, Francesco Giuseppe Borri of Milan, Italy, a Roman Catholic city state, founded a cult by claiming to have received a vision from the Philosopher Archangel that God had chosen him to be the Capitano Generale of the Army of the new Pope Innocent X, which would seize and revitalise the world.

In 1653, Francesco Giuseppe Borri of Milan, Italy, a Roman Catholic city state, founded a cult by claiming to have received a vision from the Philosopher Archangel that God had chosen him to be the Capitano Generale of the Army of the new Pope Innocent X, which would seize and revitalise the world.
Borri claimed Archangel told him he now had power to “see,” peoples’ souls, and would soon discover the philosopher’s stone, which was said could turn other metals into gold! Borri’s acquaintances who heard these claims were impressed because he was previously not known to be a superman. But as Borri gathered crowds, the Italian Inquisition pounced on him, and whoever delved in the occult, so he fled Italy for Austria and Holland, where he claimed “all my followers will get joy,” that was never.
Today charlatans still use these methods to modernise the looks of cults, be they religious, business, fashion, art, science, or politics, although rarely know they are building cults. So, when ‘His excellency’, Universal Colonel and Doctor Kizza Besigye went to Masaka last weekend, he predicted and declared “President Museveni will go before 2011,” he became an astrologer, and we should not get surprised. Besigye is at liberty to talk like a parrot that has eaten too much pepper, but he should remember the Yoruba saying “he who pelts another with pebbles asks for rocks in return.”
“It is just a matter of time, and the time is about for him to go. When we went for the elections, which was of course rigged, and we even went to courts of law, the idea was to give him a chance to go peacefully and for you people to see him waving to you as he went,” Besigye argued.
According to Besigye “since he (Museveni) chose the other method of leaving power by stealing elections, so will it be. Your present suffering will not go as far as 2011.” The NRM can tell Besigye that a “lion’s liver is vain wish for the dogs” because dogs will never kill a lion to have its liver for supper!
And Besigye knows he undermined Museveni and the NRM from within when he joined the traditional opposition during the Constituent Assembly (CA) and 1996 presidential elections, held a hammer and told lies in the 2001 elections, hob-knobbed with armed rebellion, and returned last October hoping to be elected president through force, orchestrated violence, blackmail, and foreign support, which all failed. So, there is no credibility in his new soothsaying that Museveni will fall before 2011.
After failing in all the above since the CA to which Museveni nominated him, Besigye has now discovered the enormous but people’s empty need to believe in anything so that he creates the cult-like following that FDC is. Besigye is trying to make himself the focal point of that desire, purporting to offer a cause, and a new faith to follow. FDC leaders employ vague words full of promises and huge enthusiasm over rationality.
As a corollary to vagueness, Besigye employs fiery enthusiasm to appear to have specialised knowledge on every subject, and gives simplistic solutions to problems whose causes go back into time, well-knowing most people want to hear simple although false solutions.
Having got a following courtesy of the DP and UPC, which lent him electoral support in 2001, Besigye has mastered the art of political deception for his followers to worship, defend, and entice others to join the fledgling cult called FDC.
He is adored and seen as incapable of doing wrong and his supporters can commit crimes like arson, assault, slander, and loot shops under the guise of defending him, and he keeps silent! And because human beings are gullible, and we live in times of “great transformation,” to democracy and prosperity, we cannot endure long periods of doubt, and so when any new cause-elixir, get-rich quick scheme, art movement or latest technology is dangled, we leap into the waters with both feet to take the bait, however false.
The chronicles of new trends have made mass following for themselves only to be found wanting like the religious sects in Uganda, or criminal groups like that of Alice Lakwena, and Joseph Kony from Gulu, or the Catholic clergy Rev. Fr. Joseph Kibwetere, Joseph Kataribabo, and Sr. Credonia Mwerinde in Rukungiri, Besigye’s home district.
At the peak of their activities, they were so attractive to their people and seen as transcendental and whoever expressed doubt was cast out, and now, the truth came out with so much tears.
When Besigye sits on a wooden stool and crowds swarm around him he knows they will get communal attention, mood and emotion and will be less able to reason to sort truth from calculated lies, unlike if talked to individually or in smaller focused groups.
In this setting, analysts know that any deficiencies in Besigye as a charlatan is hidden by crowd zeal as passion and enthusiasm sweep like contagion, which often leads FDC crowds to react violently to anyone or even an effigy that dare spread a seed of doubt, as they did at Bulange during the campaigns.
To keep his cult united, Besigye is now driving deep seeds of “them-versus-us,” dynamic hate campaign, where his speeches are punctuated with warnings to “extremist people in NRM who harass my supporters,” but never refers cases to police as if he has a separate government, and Besigye becomes negatively destructive.
Ends

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