Foreign News Musings: 2016, the year of backing the wrong team (US Elections, Brexit, and Colombia)

I follow international news quite a lot and, as a result, I tend to have opinions on a wide range of international events and goings-on.

Many times I follow international news events with a certain level of detachment. I follow the news, get to know the basics of what is going on and when that particular item or event is no longer in the news I quickly move on to whatever else replaces it in the headlines.

On other occasions I find myself so invested in a particular developing story because maybe it might have implications for my life or work.

However, there are times I find I am so into some foreign news stories even when they might not have any direct relevance to me. It is like how you can watch a football game between two teams you’ve never heard of but over the course of the game you find you are rooting for one side over another.

2016 has been a typical year in the sense that I have followed some news stories quite closely, and I have supported different sides in a range of elections, referenda, debates etc. all over the world.

However, I cannot remember any other year when most of the sides I have supported have performed so badly. 2016 has had many “bad” outcomes for me as far as taking sides in international affairs is concerned that it seems every side I have backed has failed or performed poorer than I had expected.

I will use just three of the major examples- the US presidential elections, the Brexit referendum and the Colombian referendum on a peace deal between the government and leftist guerrillas commonly referred to as FARC.

In all three of these examples  found I was following the debates and campaigns quite closely and  became convinced that I knew which side would carry the day but in all I found myself on the losing side.

With the Brexit debate I took in the analysis of the pundits and reinforced it with my own understanding of what I thought the British were thinking. I figured nobody in their most objective state of mind would want to leave the European Union. I figured that the ultra-nationalists and the anti-immigration groups (who I thought were the ones most opposed to Britain remaining in the EU) would never carry the day. I was wrong.

A majority of Brits voted to leave the EU (59.1%-48.1%)

In the case of the Colombia peace deal I took the view that most Colombians would “see the light” and vote for the peace deal, I figured that no straight thinking person would be opposed to a negotiated end to a conflict that had lasted 52 years. There were those who were campaigning against the deal because they favoured a military solution to the conflict and some who supported a peace deal but only one that ensured heavy punishments for the FARC commanders, which they felt the deal on the table did not address adequately. I figured these were a minority who would be easily defeated and international news channels seemed to agree with me. Again I was wrong.

A majority voted NO. It was a small majority (50.2%-49.8%) but a majority all the same.

Finally the one I am still processing-how Donald Trump wound up being the President-Elect of the United States of America. A lot has been written on this, and lots more is still being written, so I will not get into the details that everybody is familiar with.

Like most mainstream media and the political pundits that filled the pages and airwaves, I was pretty sure that there was no way Donald Trump could win. I felt that though he had surprised everybody by getting as far as he had in the primaries, the national election would be a different ball game and the vast majority would vote for Hillary Clinton. I was wrong once more.

While the three examples I have given seem to be very different, they have a common thread going through them-the experts and mainstream media read the mood of the people wrong. In all these cases the mainstream media (the one I was most likely to follow) gave the impression that the majority of the populace was on the side of the establishment and anybody going against the establishment was most likely painted as being narrow-minded, short-sighted, not very informed etc.

In Britain the “Leave” campaign was characterized as being full of bigots who were against immigrants or working class people who didn’t quite understand the benefits of remaining in the UK. In Colombia the proponents of the “Yes” campaign held that anybody against the peace deal was either simply hawkish or a rich urban middle-class person who had no appreciation of the suffering the war had cost the poor Columbians in the countryside. Trumps supporters were dismissed as racists and country bumpkins who did not appreciate what it took to run the country and maintain positive relations with America’s neighbours.

Obviously I am over-simplifying but the point is that those that lost were all surprised because they had taken “the others” for granted and became overly confident of the numbers of those supporting them. Colombia’s Juan Manuel Santos had gone as far as saying that his people had no Plan B for when they lost the referendum because there was no option but to win.

I, like millions in the countries in which these referenda and elections were held, based my opinion on the mainstream media and the establishment pundits and I eventually found out just how off the mark I was.

Uganda Commmunications Commission not doing enough to sensitize on Digital Migration

Kampalans lining up to buy GOTV decoders. What most don't know is that
digital migration is not the same as subscribing to a digital PayTV provide
r (photo courtesy of Daily Monitor)

The confusion surrounding the recent switch-off of some TV stations in and around Kampala, as equipment to enable migration to digital television was being installed on the Kololo TV mast, exposed just how little sensitization has been done to prepare the public for digital migration. 

The Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) has done a poor job sensitizing Ugandans on the digital migration to the extent that even the few who  have an idea of what digital migration is about associate the move to digital with subscription services like StarTimes and GoTV.

UCC has not done enough to sensitize the public on the purchase of free-to-air decoders (for which no subscription is required) and how these will work. It has instead kept quiet while the PayTV stations are raking in millions from people who are under the impression that without a subscription from a pay TV provider like GOTV they will not be able to watch any TV when the switch to full digital is complete.

The UCC should be clearly telling people that they are now only testing the digital signal and hence people will still be able to watch their analogue channels for a while until the full switchover is done. They should then further explain how the migration will work and how the people will be able to get their favourite channels for free as they have been doing before migration.

The UCC should also take steps to either import subsidized free-to-air set-top boxes or at least prepare, and publicize widely, a list of trusted distributors from where people can go to buy set-top boxes that fit their price range. A clear distinction should also be made between free-to-air set-top boxes and those for which a regular subscription will be required.

As of now the UCC is silent on all these issues, which fuels suspicion that they might be in cahoots with the Pay TV companies, helping them reap big profits while the population is still ignorant. 

All this comes on the heels of confusion over which standard for terrestrial digital television Uganda would adopt. First UCC said it would be DVB-T (Digital Video Broadcasting — Terrestrial) then it later changed its mind and decided on the more advanced DVB-T2 yet many consumers had already purchased DVB-T decoders mostly from StarTimes, which, on top of not offering them free-to-air channels, will soon be rendered obsolete. This was on top of UCC misleading people in the early days that those with digital satellite receivers/decoders from companies like DSTV would not have anything to worry about from the switch from analogue to digital because these decoders were already digital. What they failed to mention was that DSTV decoders (and those of other satellite TV services like ZUKU) decode DVB-S/DVB-S2 (Digital Video Broadcasting — Satellite), which though related in some ways is not the same as DVB-T/DVB-T2

The UCC website is also woefully lacking in any useful information on digital migration. The site only has a press release on the just concluded switch-off of TV channels on the UBC mast and a page on “Minimum specifications for DVB-T2 digital set-top boxes for the Ugandan market”, which even for somebody like me with some knowledge on digital television is too technical. 

UCC should at the very least have a FAQ page that answers most of the questions consumers are likely to have and also allay some fears based on conflicting information. There should be a simplified explanation of the set-top box specifications that does not only make sense to a technical person. There should be a well laid out time-frame over which the migration is going to take place in different parts of Uganda.

The website is just one channel through which information can be relayed but unfortunately it can only be accessed by only few people. Therefore a lot more sensitization has to be done especially on the local radio and TV stations over coming months so that by the time the global switch to digital is complete a lot more people are aware of what is going on. 

A billboard here and there in combination with the odd press conference and accompanying press release in the national English language papers will not do.

Also printed in the Daily Monitor

Anti-gay bill claims more collateral damage

Victoria University Kampala

The controversial anti-homosexuality bill before the Ugandan parliament has claimed more collateral damage. The latest victims of this bill are the students of Victoria University in Kampala whose academic future is uncertain after the University of Buckingham in the UK has suspended its validation of Victoria University degrees because it is becoming "increasingly concerned about the proposed legislation in Uganda on homosexuality and in particular the constraints on freedom of speech".

The full University of Buckingham statement reads:

Over the last few months, the University of Buckingham has been in discussions with our partners, Edulink, who own Victoria University in Kampala, Uganda, about our continued validation of some of Victoria University’s courses. We have both become increasingly concerned about the proposed legislation in Uganda on homosexuality and in particular the constraints on freedom of speech in this area. In the light of this we have agreed to suspend our validation on the assurance that Edulink would produce viable arrangements for existing students on our validated courses to complete their studies. We will of course assist Edulink with any validation support needed to achieve this

From the above it appears that the UK university has decided to pull out of a collaboration agreement with Victoria University based simply on the premise that a bill whose content it has misgivings about is likely to be passed into law by the Parliament of Uganda.

First of all, as the full title of the controversial piece of legislation makes clear, it is just a bill. It is a private members bill (tabled by a backbench MP as opposed to one tabled by, for example, a cabinet minister, which would suggest government's endorsement). It has not been debated and passed as law and as such it is unfair for Buckingham University to use it as the basis of evaluating its relationship with an academic institution in Uganda.

Secondly, the law on homosexuality in Uganda is still the same as it was in 2011 when University of Buckingham and Victoria University entered into an agreement where Victoria University awarded undergraduate degrees accredited by the University of Buckingham. At the time of this agreement the bill in question was almost two years old and had already gained notoriety worldwide. So what has changed since?

Victoria University has also released a slightly more detailed statement on the issue in which it presents the current situation as the result of "fundamental differences between the two nations’ respective 

laws regarding equality and diversity, which cannot be reconciled". However, given the fact that the University of Buckingham is not the only British university that gives accreditation to degrees and other qualifications obtained in Uganda its reaction hardly seems warranted.

The situation appears to be a case of an institution that has nothing to do with the anti-gay bill being unfairly made to suffer the consequences of the bill by another institution that, pushed by zeal to show that it opposes a bad law in another country, reacts without giving much thought to those that are actually being affected by its actions. Sort of like the misguided defacement of the Uganda Law Society website by Anonymous in protest against the same anti-gay bill.