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.

My Swahili journey and why Ugandans do not speak the language

I recently decided to start teaching myself Swahili, which is the most widely spoken language in East Africa.

I wanted to learn Swahili (or Kiswahili as it is called in Swahili) because I have been a keen supporter of the East African community initiatives and I am a firm believer in the idea of an East African federation.

However, over the years I have increasingly began to feel like a bit of a fraud because of my inability to speak any Swahili.

I have been finding my inability to speak Swahili at odds with my preaching the gospel of integration and getting East Africans to come together as one.

Because Swahili is the de facto langauage of the East African community, I felt I was not setting the right example myself by not speaking Swahili, which I believe is the easiest step an individual Ugandan can take towards being part of the bigger East African family.

It is now a few weeks into my "Learn Swahili" project and everything is going rather well. I wish I had embarked on this earlier.

However, as I have been studying Swahili, I have also been reflecting on why the language is not spoken as widely in Uganda as it is in other East African countries.

Everybody will tell you that Ugandans do not speak Swahili because it is a language that was long associated with brutal military dictatorships and their soldiers but this, while true, is only a small component of the whole story.

The reasons why Swahili never developed as a widespread lingua franca in Uganda have more to do with opposition to in from the kings of Buganda and the early Christian missionaries.

The British in Uganda had decided in the early 20th century to promote the Swahili language as a means of communication among lower levels of government and as a language of instruction in the early years of education.

However, the Christian missionaries at the time resisted, and worked against this, because they associated Swahili with Islam and they felt that teaching Swahili might somehow give Islam a foothold in Uganda.

This missionary opposition to Swahili might not have amounted to much if the Kabaka of Buganda, Daudi Chwa II, had supported the policy of teaching Swahili.

But Kabaka Chwa was not only opposed to Swahili, he was actually quite emphatic about how he would never allow the language to be taught in his kingdom.

Kabaka Chwa believed that teaching Swahili would lead to a situation where it became the lingua franca of the Uganda Protectorate and he was afraid this would then diminish the cultural influence Luganda, and by extension Buganda, was already beginning to have on the expansion and establishment of British rule in the protectorate.

The Baganda collaborated with the British from the beginning of their establishment of the Uganda Protectorate and they had been rewarded with lands from other kingdoms and communities and Baganda chiefs were being used to spread British rule to other parts of Uganda especially in the East and parts of the West.

This had led to a situation where Baganda had been elevated to a special status by the British and by default Luganda had started to gain an equally special status in local administration and education outside Buganda.

It is against this background that Kabaka Chwa felt that Swahili would diminish this new found status of Luganda and he thus opposed its teaching in Buganda and since the British depended on the goodwill of the Baganda at this time, they acquiesced to the Kabaka's demands.

Because British colonialism spread out from Buganda to the rest of Uganda, when the teaching of Swahili in Buganda was abandoned the Swahili project died for all practical purposes though efforts to teach it continued up to the late 1940s.

In the late 1960s President Milton Obote, through his "Move to the left" initiative had laid out plans to make Swahili a national language and a unifying force in Uganda.

Obote was a great admirer of President Nyerere of Tanzania and he wanted to emulate what the Tanzanian president was doing at the time to do away with tribal identities in Tanzania and create a Tanzanian identity through Swahili.

However, Obote was overthrown before his plans could take off.

Therefore by the time the military dictatorships of the 70s and 80s came around Swahili was already pretty much dead and it has been struggling since.

Anyway, I am committed to my pursuit of fluency in Swahili and I hope by the end of the year I will have attained a level of proficiency that will enable me hold general conversations on most common topics. By the end of next year, I want to be able to write, talk and debate on any topic of interest.

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.

The dirty politics of radio ownership in Uganda

After the resignation of the Minister for the Presidency,  Kabakumba Matsiko, from cabinet over accusations of abuse of office and causing the government financial loss while she was Minister of Information, following the police's discovery that a radio station she owned (Kings FM in Masindi) was using a mast and transmitter that belonged to UBC, I thought that there would be no more stories on stolen masts and other misused UBC equipment. However, this week the media reported that 35 more cabinet ministers were to be probed for abuse of public resources (read using UBC equipment and services without paying) and it is starting to look like Kabakumba’s case might be the rule rather than the exception.

Two thoughts came to my mind when I reflected on the media stories:

1. The UBC must have acquiesced to its equipment being used for free (despite the official line saying those using UBC equipment without paying were doing so by colluding with some lowly employees)
2. Are there any opposition politicians being being investigated?

I could not help but think that UBC has been aware for years that all these high ranking politicians were using its equipment for free. I even began to think that maybe the ministers were enjoying an unofficial perk from the government for their support- a way of making it easier to own and manage a vital mobilisation asset.

While I was going over these issues, I came across a report on radio ownership and its impact on political speech in Uganda by the African Centre for Media Excellence (ACME) that put things in perspective.

The report, based on a study carried out by ACME just after the 2011 presidential elections, shows to what extent the politicians in the ruling NRM party are controlling the political discourse in the country through their ownership of radio stations. A disproportionate number of the 280 radio stations registered in Uganda are owned by NRM leaning politicians and businesspeople. This in itself would not be improper if the radio licensing playing field were level. However, it is anything but.

According to License to Censor: The Use of Media Regulation to Restrict Press Freedom, a September 2011 report by Freedom House; 

"Ownership in the radio sector, which has the widest reach, particularly in the rural areas, is more opaque, with a significant proportion of outlets controlled by political actors or their close associates."

It is virtually impossible for a known opposition politician or a businessperson openly sympathetic to the opposition to get a license for a radio station in Uganda. It becomes nearly impossible if such a radio station is to operate in an upcountry location.

The main opposition party, Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) has tried unsuccessfully on a number of occasions to obtain a license for a radio station. According to the ACME report;

"The party had secured UShs 190 million (approx. US$ 76,000) from American donors to set up a radio station but it was denied a licence by the Broadcasting Council on the grounds that a political party was not allowed to own a station. When that course failed, the party tried to buy off two existing radio stations in the hopes of circumventing the licensing procedure. But there is a catch: the law prohibits the sale or transfer of a broadcasting license without the approval of the regulator. In other words, without the regulator’s clearance, a broadcasting station cannot change ownership."

At this juncture one might argue that the law does not allow all political parties (including the NRM) to own radio stations and therefore FDC should not expect any special treatment. However, in reality the NRM does not need to own its own radio stations because it already has the UBC operating as if it were the broadcasting arm of the party. This means that the NRM can use the government media for its own ends and it can also control the oppositions access to said media.

UBC’s lack of impartiality was highlighted in 2011 when it accepted money from FDC to run campaign adverts for Kiiza Besigye but only run very few, ostensibly after pressure was brought to bear on the management from above.

Even without UBC in the picture many party NRM party functionaries, cabinet ministers, government officials and NRM-supporting business people like Amama Mbabazi and Mike Mukula (here are some more examples) own radio stations through which they can disseminate the party’s agenda and on which opposition views are hardly ever aired.

Even private unaffiliated stations are wary of hosting opposition politicians because they do not want to get into trouble with the authorities. In a country where government authorities (like RDCs) can arbitrarily vet who appears on a radio talk-show and cause trouble for the hosting radio station, station managers are often likely to give opposition politicians a wide berth. The following example, from the ACME report, serves to illustrate the difficult position station managers who try to be fair to all parties find themselves in.


 "At Open Gate FM in Mbale, eastern Uganda, the director, Charles Mukhwana, said that the station was “always open” to all political views. They tried their best to be balanced and independent though they were sometimes compelled to consult with the RDC and the security authorities when it came to hosting “controversial people”. This, he said, was because they did not want to clash with the government. As Mukhwana put it, “We think we are partners and also they give us the licence to operate.” As a balancing strategy, they ensured that no opposition politician was featured on a talk show without a member of the NRM on the same show."


With such a state of affairs it would not be far-fetched to assume that the current probe into the rot in UBC will not go the full distance because its unlikely that the NRM government will come down hard on its faithful and also because control over the political discourse through controlling who owns and determines what gets aired on radio is of utmost importance to those that rule this country.