Baganda must press for reforms
Mar 17, 2009
EDITOR—Although I am not a Muganda, as a Ugandan with shared history of colonialism, I would advise ordinary Baganda to press for political reforms that will genuinely want to address their problems.
EDITOR—Although I am not a Muganda, as a Ugandan with shared history of colonialism, I would advise ordinary Baganda to press for political reforms that will genuinely want to address their problems.
The Baganda are very faithful friends to non- Baganda once one makes a breakthrough in this area, through ideology or some other means.
They are also rich in history. Unfortunately, they have been oppressed by the earlier colonial administration that saw communally- owned land given away to a few landlords or chiefs who served the British colonial interests.
Much as the ordinary Baganda are proud of the institution of Kabakaship and the many positive cultural practices that their king as a symbol represents in their lives, they should be sensitive to their own identity.
Nobody wants to remain a serf forever. Nobody wants to remain a tenant on the land that their ancestors owned and should have bequeathed to them had there not occurred the violence and disruption of colonialism.
Colonial administrations were no more than military regimes led by governors, who though civil servants in their country, wore military uniforms and exercised power over the colonies against their will.
The descendants of the chiefs appointed by the colonialists have clung to the land that was stolen or grabbed by the British administrators to buy the collaboration of sections of the colonised people through the divide and conquer agenda.
At the moment there is no need for the landlords to perpetually continue demanding rent from the impoverished villagers, knowing the history of how they inherited the land.
These are the beneficiaries of neo-colonialism that everybody ought to get away from should they continue resisting change meant to realise genuine independence.
In addition, serfdom as practised in parts of the central region is a culture that is a friend to slavery. Slave-keeping societies are not particularly progressive in this age. For this reason, I greatly sympathise with the Baganda villagers or tenants.
Some of the Baganda villagers and tenants cannot particularly enjoy a free society with the weight of feudalism on their shoulders. The continuity of feudalism that required some people to forfeit their land to the chiefs builds on inequality in the country and usually leads those under it to turn to cultural aggressiveness or to unconsciously remain complicity in maintaining a status quo that actually oppresses them.
Moreover, as these groups of people are continually denied ownership of the land of their ancestors, they are expected to sing praises to their “natural rulers†in the processes of upholding their cultural values.
But what values do these people have when all they know is obedience to feudalism against their wishes? What other values are there when these peasants who don’t even own the land they have tilled and paid rent for, for many decades find no hope, but simply resign and remain at the bottom of the pyramid?
Is this the Uganda that we should be proud of where there are internal inequalities maintained by the structures laid down by the colonial policies of yesterday and taken advantage of by the global capitalism of today?
What is the remaining role of a nation-state if it doesn’t work for these citizens?
Jenn Jagire
Ontario, Canada
The Baganda are very faithful friends to non- Baganda once one makes a breakthrough in this area, through ideology or some other means.
They are also rich in history. Unfortunately, they have been oppressed by the earlier colonial administration that saw communally- owned land given away to a few landlords or chiefs who served the British colonial interests.
Much as the ordinary Baganda are proud of the institution of Kabakaship and the many positive cultural practices that their king as a symbol represents in their lives, they should be sensitive to their own identity.
Nobody wants to remain a serf forever. Nobody wants to remain a tenant on the land that their ancestors owned and should have bequeathed to them had there not occurred the violence and disruption of colonialism.
Colonial administrations were no more than military regimes led by governors, who though civil servants in their country, wore military uniforms and exercised power over the colonies against their will.
The descendants of the chiefs appointed by the colonialists have clung to the land that was stolen or grabbed by the British administrators to buy the collaboration of sections of the colonised people through the divide and conquer agenda.
At the moment there is no need for the landlords to perpetually continue demanding rent from the impoverished villagers, knowing the history of how they inherited the land.
These are the beneficiaries of neo-colonialism that everybody ought to get away from should they continue resisting change meant to realise genuine independence.
In addition, serfdom as practised in parts of the central region is a culture that is a friend to slavery. Slave-keeping societies are not particularly progressive in this age. For this reason, I greatly sympathise with the Baganda villagers or tenants.
Some of the Baganda villagers and tenants cannot particularly enjoy a free society with the weight of feudalism on their shoulders. The continuity of feudalism that required some people to forfeit their land to the chiefs builds on inequality in the country and usually leads those under it to turn to cultural aggressiveness or to unconsciously remain complicity in maintaining a status quo that actually oppresses them.
Moreover, as these groups of people are continually denied ownership of the land of their ancestors, they are expected to sing praises to their “natural rulers†in the processes of upholding their cultural values.
But what values do these people have when all they know is obedience to feudalism against their wishes? What other values are there when these peasants who don’t even own the land they have tilled and paid rent for, for many decades find no hope, but simply resign and remain at the bottom of the pyramid?
Is this the Uganda that we should be proud of where there are internal inequalities maintained by the structures laid down by the colonial policies of yesterday and taken advantage of by the global capitalism of today?
What is the remaining role of a nation-state if it doesn’t work for these citizens?
Jenn Jagire
Ontario, Canada