Africa Still Needs Brains
Aug 07, 2003
AT an August 1, 2003 meeting with two European defence ministers, President Yoweri Museveni made a very refreshing explanation about the continuing quagmire in Africa.
AT an August 1, 2003 meeting with two European defence ministers, President Yoweri Museveni made a very refreshing explanation about the continuing quagmire in Africa.
Michelle Alliot-Marie of France and Andre Flahaut of Belgium, fresh from Bunia in the troubled DR Congo region of Ituri, called on the President at his country home in Rwakitura, Mbarara.
Earlier in the day, President Museveni had met British Overseas Development minister Baroness Valerie Amos, and she too was evidently on a learning curve about Africa’s woes.
To their credit, without assuming, the Europeans wanted the President to take them on a mental tour of the Great Lakes region. He did not disappoint.
Using the analogy of a human body, President Museveni was able to show that African problems may vary in scope and intensity but are similar — all traceable to colonialism.
The President explained that during colonial rule the Europeans modeled African states, as we know them, like a human body in which the brain (read head) and the rest of the body are separate. The brain/head of the colonial state was white (Europeans), while the body was black (Africans).
The attainment of so-called independence by Africans was the equivalent of having oneself beheaded or the brain scooped out. Independent Africa was in reality left brainless. The continent became a zombie groping in the dark.
The post-independence African leaders, whom Museveni described as “colonial auxiliaries†were like other parts of the body trying to work as the brain.
Our own Uganda best illustrated this African crisis. Idi Amin Dada, now vegetating in a Saudi Arabian hospital, was the epitome of the muscle of the colonial state, where he worked as a ruthless element in the army.
But with the advent of independence, Amin, who had only been known for his brutality in junior army positions, was catapulted to heading the Uganda army. Given that the other independence leaders — Milton Obote et al-predictably proved no substitute for the colonial brain, Amin too easily became the brain of the Ugandan state!
And as sure as darkness follows daylight, Amin being the raw muscle he was, did only what muscles do — act without reasoning.
After President Museveni had made this simple exposition of the African crisis, the ministers remained speechless.
If the President had not added anything else, the Europeans would have concluded that all hope was lost for the continent.
But, again using Uganda as an example, Museveni explained that the first solution to the continent’s problems lay in having African brains run the state. He said the Ugandan state of the last 17 years has been stable, enlightened and progressive because the intelligentsia runs it.
One can only appreciate the President’s argument when you reflect on the absurdities of the pre-Museveni leadership in Uganda. In the wake of Amin’s illness, I have had occasion to chat up people who witnessed how he toppled Obote in a creeping coup.
So amateurish and impotent was Obote’s handling of the situation that even an LC1 chairman in today’s Uganda could have done better. A retired general who served in the army then told me how Amin’s intentions against Obote became open to a ridiculous level.
He related how, for example, before the coup, Amin as army commander, walked into his office bear-chest, in shorts and went into a rage, saying some people wanted to kill him! Of course, when Amin, who was evidently a psychotic took over, his excesses were unequaled.
Obote later suffered a much more absurd ouster at the hands of the Okellos (1985). Current Gulu LC5 chairman, Col Walter Ochora, who announced that coup — as 2nd lieutenant — often jokes how he was the defacto president for two days! Obote who had long been in a drunken stupor hardly knew what was happening, and Gen
Tito Okello who later took over had actually fled to southern Sudan.
President Museveni’s
perspective makes one see sense in a seemingly ridiculous newspaper
picture the other day in which Liberians fresh from burying their dead jubilantly hoisted a Nigerian colonel shoulder high in ecstasy.
In the Nigerians,
who had just landed
as an intervention force,
war-plagued Liberians saw saviours — saving them from themselves!
They need a brain
at the head of
the country.
Ends
Michelle Alliot-Marie of France and Andre Flahaut of Belgium, fresh from Bunia in the troubled DR Congo region of Ituri, called on the President at his country home in Rwakitura, Mbarara.
Earlier in the day, President Museveni had met British Overseas Development minister Baroness Valerie Amos, and she too was evidently on a learning curve about Africa’s woes.
To their credit, without assuming, the Europeans wanted the President to take them on a mental tour of the Great Lakes region. He did not disappoint.
Using the analogy of a human body, President Museveni was able to show that African problems may vary in scope and intensity but are similar — all traceable to colonialism.
The President explained that during colonial rule the Europeans modeled African states, as we know them, like a human body in which the brain (read head) and the rest of the body are separate. The brain/head of the colonial state was white (Europeans), while the body was black (Africans).
The attainment of so-called independence by Africans was the equivalent of having oneself beheaded or the brain scooped out. Independent Africa was in reality left brainless. The continent became a zombie groping in the dark.
The post-independence African leaders, whom Museveni described as “colonial auxiliaries†were like other parts of the body trying to work as the brain.
Our own Uganda best illustrated this African crisis. Idi Amin Dada, now vegetating in a Saudi Arabian hospital, was the epitome of the muscle of the colonial state, where he worked as a ruthless element in the army.
But with the advent of independence, Amin, who had only been known for his brutality in junior army positions, was catapulted to heading the Uganda army. Given that the other independence leaders — Milton Obote et al-predictably proved no substitute for the colonial brain, Amin too easily became the brain of the Ugandan state!
And as sure as darkness follows daylight, Amin being the raw muscle he was, did only what muscles do — act without reasoning.
After President Museveni had made this simple exposition of the African crisis, the ministers remained speechless.
If the President had not added anything else, the Europeans would have concluded that all hope was lost for the continent.
But, again using Uganda as an example, Museveni explained that the first solution to the continent’s problems lay in having African brains run the state. He said the Ugandan state of the last 17 years has been stable, enlightened and progressive because the intelligentsia runs it.
One can only appreciate the President’s argument when you reflect on the absurdities of the pre-Museveni leadership in Uganda. In the wake of Amin’s illness, I have had occasion to chat up people who witnessed how he toppled Obote in a creeping coup.
So amateurish and impotent was Obote’s handling of the situation that even an LC1 chairman in today’s Uganda could have done better. A retired general who served in the army then told me how Amin’s intentions against Obote became open to a ridiculous level.
He related how, for example, before the coup, Amin as army commander, walked into his office bear-chest, in shorts and went into a rage, saying some people wanted to kill him! Of course, when Amin, who was evidently a psychotic took over, his excesses were unequaled.
Obote later suffered a much more absurd ouster at the hands of the Okellos (1985). Current Gulu LC5 chairman, Col Walter Ochora, who announced that coup — as 2nd lieutenant — often jokes how he was the defacto president for two days! Obote who had long been in a drunken stupor hardly knew what was happening, and Gen
Tito Okello who later took over had actually fled to southern Sudan.
President Museveni’s
perspective makes one see sense in a seemingly ridiculous newspaper
picture the other day in which Liberians fresh from burying their dead jubilantly hoisted a Nigerian colonel shoulder high in ecstasy.
In the Nigerians,
who had just landed
as an intervention force,
war-plagued Liberians saw saviours — saving them from themselves!
They need a brain
at the head of
the country.
Ends