ODREK RWABWOGO INTELLIGENTLY TRACES FOUNDATIONS OF NRM IDEOLOGY- SEE HIS REMARKS TO UNIVERSITY STUDENTS LEADERS ON 20/01/2014 ======================================================= Bridging the generational divide in the NRM. Whats your role as student leaders? Remarks made at the University student leaders retreat at the Pope Paul Memorial hall, Lubaga, Kampala, January 30, 2014: I am a first generation businessman in my family having crossed over from a small pastoralist household that found stability on the land in 1964. My wife and I are now making the first strides to complete the cycle on this land through modern commercial production and a product processing plant that serves the entire community. That I am here to speak to you having been notified only late last evening of your presence, isnt an accident. From the time I attained political consciousness in the 1990s, I have been a quiet but firm worker for the organisation called the NRM. This I have done in various roles first as a student leader, then as a Mobiliser setting up youth cells in various regions in preparations for the NYC law, later a Media practitioner and Communications person, a Motivator for young people and now an Entrepreneur creating jobs for our youth and paying taxes that run the country. Working quietly isnt an easy thing as many times you are faced with a choice to go silent on things you would otherwise stand against publicly. This is because my background and deep conviction espouses the spirit of consensus and harmony in decisions making. But working quietly can have advantages too. It sometimes gives one dispassionate, neutral and a dignified approach to things. You are able to see, evaluate and take action without much drama and the effect of limelight. To understand the NRM, one has to go to the foundations of things. Someone said for every ten men chopping at the branches, there is one hacking at the root of a problem to find a solution. Understanding the roots of things gives us a better perspective of the present and what might happen in the future. In June 1962, a man called Julius Kambarage Nyerere, leader for only two years of a young country called Tanganyika then, helped bring together all the fighting factions of Mozambique under one Movement called Frelimo led by Eduardo Mondlane. Mozambique like many Portuguese colonies was facing a ruthless and violent criminal occupation with thousands displaced from their ancestral lands in the southern Gaza district and all social and economic structures destroyed. This singular action by Nyerere was to start a journey that saw him influence directly and indirectly the rise of a new generation of leaders and deep political consciousness in the East, Central and Southern African States. One day, this story will be fully told by those who have been searching for the link between political stability and good leadership in Africa as opposed to the common theme of failed states on our continent. When it is done, Nyerere will stand as a tall tree among the forest of leaders of his time. He will be Africas greatest leader of all times. A year after this merger of Mozambican fighting groups, a young man who had been a nurse on a malaria ward in the Miguel Bombarda hospital in Lourenco Marquis (Maputo now) the highest educational attainment him and his generation were allowed, arrived in Dar Es salaam. That man was called Samora Machel. He was sent to Algeria with a group of other Mozambicans as the first seed of leaders to learn military and political strategy including fighting a guerrilla warfare. I invite you to look at the role of Algeria as an inspiring example in the liberation of Africa. A number of Young people who later rose to lead Africa including Nelson Mandela, were deeply inspired by the Algerian revolution against the French. A writer and participant in this revolution, Franz Fanon is a good read. In 1967 a group of students from Uganda, among them a young man called Yoweri Museveni enrolled at Dar Es salaam. They were later joined by another young man called John Garang De Mabior about 1969. Nyerere initially gave the Mozambicans a place in Bagamoyo to recruit, train and send fighters into Northern Mozambique to fight the Portuguese. Eventually because of infiltration and internal wrangles in Frelimo, he sent them further down in the district of Nachingwea at an abandoned sisal plant, just north of River Ruvuma. There Frelimo leaders focused on teaching total transformation of a man and creating a new man a process they called HOMEM NOVO. Obviously as you might know, Mondlane was killed by a parcel bomb in February 1969 and Samora replaced him. It is this Nachingwea that eventually hosted Yoweri Museveni and his own sprinkling of future fighters. When Mozambique became independent on account of the pressure exerted by Frelimo that led to a coup de etat in Lisbon and even slightly before, Frelimo was able to offer Yoweri Museveni and his men some apprenticeship in guerrilla tactics in Montepaz, Cabo Delgado province. Obviously as we know now, the Rwandan exiles who formed the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) were a brain child of the NRA and FRONASA before it. The Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement (SPLM) too was a product of these revolutionary fervour years in Dar Es salaam and so was MPLA of Angola then under Augustino Neto, ZANU under Robert Mugabe and Josiah Tongagara for Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia under Ian Smith), ANC under Oliver Tambo as Mandela was imprisoned in 1963. This is why for me Nyerere remains the greatest of African leaders whose story hasnt been told fully to the young generation. Why I am giving you this background? I would like that young university leaders of Uganda who aspire to impact the NRM and the countrys future, must understand the soil from which this organisation grew. Organisations just like human beings have genes and a DNA out of which we can accurately study their behaviour and even predict their future. Just like language and words grow out of a culture (what is called Etymology), so does (or should) a political organisation. So what then is the foundation of the NRM? In my opinion, there are three similarities between the NRM and Frelimo that can tell us some thing about the present NRM and its most likely future. These two organisations share the following: 1) They are both rooted in one word: PEOPLE. This is the first strike capability of the Movement whenever there is trouble in the country. The moment the NRM loses this element, it will cease to exist. This is why as young leaders you must posses the intellectual fearlessness, stamina, the yearning to learn the system and the courage to confront leaders, so called experts and policy makers who seek to divert the NRM from its core DNA; the people. Leaders who use people as ladders through tribe, religion and other backward alibis to get jobs in government are an enemy to the NRM even if they may outwardly profess to belong to the organisation. In business, some one said, because the lawn is well trimmed, the receptionist looks competent, the furniture is attractive, this doesnt mean that the company is doing very or well managed. Images can be deceptive hiding the reality of things. Listen to Samora Machel speaking in 1982 to a journalist who asked him why Frelimo had succeeded faster under difficult conditions unlike many political organisations in Africa: Here our power is consolidated; it is indomitable. This is because it is dependant on the PEOPLE. People do not defend abstractions; They defend concrete things. A piece of Land, a school, a hospital, a dwelling are all concrete things. The struggle is a concrete thing; the enemy too is a concrete thing. Listen to Maj. Gen. Pecos Kutesa speaking about the NRA struggle in the 1980s: Recently a Nigerian General came visiting and I was assigned to show him the Katonga bridge area which the President writes a lot about. I was the in-charge of that area during the war. And so as I took him around, he asked me questions: Where were your casualty evacuation points? I replied: the civilians (people). Where was your quartermaster for food and supplies? I replied: civilians. Awed, he asked if we had written about this. Then I hadnt written my book. He said in future, this would be forgotten and the role of civilians in the struggle downplayed. 2) The second similarity with Frelimo that allows us a deeper understanding of the NRM is its treatment of political enemies. The NRM believes that political opponents are there to be convinced, changed and subsumed and not to be assassinated. Where did this come from? In the second congress of Frelimo in July 1968, this organisation made a qualified distinction of the word political enemy. This conference was held deep inside the province of Niassa at a place called Matchedge in order to put notice to the Portuguese that Frelimo would defy them and hold a 400 people meeting inside the country even as the enemy rained bombs on them. This meeting was much like the Kikyusa meeting in Luwero by Yoweri Museveni of NRA and Andrew Kayiira of FEDEMU. This meeting of Frelimo pronounced a protracted guerrilla war alongside the mobilisation of the population in the liberated zones. It also affirmed that the enemy would never be defined by the colour of his skin but by his actions. This meeting also confirmed the emancipation of women from the double oppression under colonialism and men. This meeting begun the process of what I referred to above as Homem Novo. Listen to Samora again as he speaks about the foundations of this strategic shift in thinking: We entered Nachingwea as Makondes, Makuas, Nyanjas, Nyungwes, Manicas, Shangans, Rongas, Senas; we came out as Mozambicans. We entered as backs, whites, mulattos, Indians; we came out as Mozambicans....... Nachingwea was the filter and the mould of consciousness, the laboratory and forge of the Mozambican nation. I could say the above for the like of Pecos Kutesa and his generation who entered Luwero as school drop outs, many with no education and military background but came out as pressed up and fashioned leaders that carried our nation out of the abyss it had fallen into. From when they entered till they came out a new man had been formed. This in the younger days of the NRM was called Siasa. In his last days, the late Brig. Gen. Chef Ali spoke to me and he said: The death of Siasa in the movement is the beginning of the future troubles of this organisation. I submit to you that when a people based organisation loses the ability to attract and retain young people, we all should be concerned about its internal capability to keep the message going across generations. Our 1980s songs: motto wawa ka and Wushindi wetu Niyo lazima are not heard anymore. In Mozambique, I need to check if Kanimambo Frelimo is still sung. 3) The third aspect of these two organisations that helps you to understand the roots is their principle of Panafricanism. The NRM had a deep revulsion from its earliest days of foreign dependency and the thinking that we can only do things when people come to our aid as Africans. Where did it come from? Listen to Mwalimu Nyerere speaking in January 1968: It is impossible for one people to free another people or even defend the freedom of another people. Freedom won by outsiders is lost to those outsiders. However good their intentions or however much outsiders desired to free their oppressed brothers. Of course others can help a people who are struggling for freedom; they can give refugee facilities for action, and they can give moral and diplomatic support to an oppressed people. But no group or nation- however powerful, can make another nation or people free. The struggle must be waged by those who expect to benefit from it. An unhealthy dependency on foreigners has been a disease brought to Africa by the weakness of the pre-colonial structures that were subdued by the imperialists. This has had an effect on the confidence of Africans to stand on their own or to see themselves as people who can build lasting institutions. The NRM believes that as part of the struggle to grow, one must put planks of cooperation in a wide divide that our past history has put between us and our neighbours. This divide has denied us markets, growth, wealth and a sense of self esteem. This is why you see that the NRM, of all the parties in the country, has been resilient on the message of African cooperation. Listen to Samora speaking about cooperation: As soon as we took power and were able to govern, in only six months, we shut down the border and put sanctions on Ian Smith and his Rhodesia. Now isnt Zimbabwe a reality for all to see? I mentioned these three key areas but there are many others. I wanted to make a case to you that there is a certain type of soil, a DNA that gives us the NRM and for us to protect it, we got to understand it. This DNA many times has been called another name: IDEOLOGY. This word isnt always broken down in specific actions that can allow young people to fully appreciate. It is, many times, used euphemistically and philosophically without creating a sense of ownership by the listeners. The things I have mentioned as examples above, hopefully can help you appreciate this word by drawing certain characteristics. As I conclude I would like to share with you my key concerns about the future of the NRM; concerns that you probably might already know about. In this, I hope, we would be able to work together to find a solution. These concerns come from my twenty years experience working quietly under the NRM and seeing how the ground has been shifting, many times, not in our favour: 1) The inability of this organisation to tell a compelling and inspiring story of its work and where it has lifted Uganda from. Young people, like all of us, feed off Inspiration. That word can be likened to the drawing of air into the lungs to bring much needed oxygen for an organism to live. There is no price you can put to inspiration yet I see this powerful and inspiring example of a few committed people who sacrificed their lives to return the country to the wheels of progress, slowly becoming a cognitive burden on the minds of people and is lost to lies and subterfuge. It is sad that this is happening at a time when we see the fruits of freedom all round us in media, religion, political organisation etc. I can tell you that the media does not just shape what the public is interested in. The media is also shaped by it. Editors and media managers cannot ignore the themes and topics that we the people have seriously brought into the public domain. It is when we dont make a case of these themes in a very organised, well thought out and compelling manner, that we become the beggars of media managers or simply empty consumers of the garbage they churn out. So I would like to task you: what will you do for the NRM in your generation in regard to the above matter? 2) The other matter that bothers me has a lot to do with the history of the NRM. In my argument above, I have tried to show you that the etymology of an organisation determines how much of its life will be lived well. Both Frelimo, which I used as a case study and the NRM, begun as Liberation Movements and NOT necessarily political parties. In fact in both, the military wing shaped the political wing. I hope you know that wars are all ideological; they are first politics before they are extended into military conflicts. In Frelimo, the person and the structure of the party was called ESTRUTURA meaning the person is the structure on which a party is constructed and the party is the person. The NRM became a party, as we know, under duress not really out of conviction. On account of this, it has been so difficult to diffuse the party structures from the state structures. When these structures are fused, it is hard for the party to hold government leaders accountable because the people who would do this are doubling in both places. I deeply believe that a strong party with a functioning independent secretariat able to do research and lead policy decisions, can re-energise our structures and reach out to millions of young people lacking leadership in this area. It would also restore quality debate and discussion about the future of our country without people looking over their shoulders and wondering if their positions in government are safe. I would like you to reflect on this and give me some views. I cant leave this podium without asking you: What do you do for a living? How are you translating your student leadership capabilities into economic and financial reality that will guarantee your ideological independence when questions of political morality are asked? Uganda is no longer a dictatorship. There is so much freedom that the so many unmet needs of the country can translate into opportunities to exercise your entrepreneurial ability, if you decide. The second question is how are you managing social pressure and societys approval? Is it making you abandon the ideals you stand for? I will end with this example. Many of you might know that Mwalimu Nyerere who I quoted extensively in this lecture, also had an ambivalent attitude towards the young people who run into his country in 1971 with Milton Obote. He wasnt sure of their ability to understand and manage Ugandas problems and therefore he spent a disproportionate share of support to the people of his age, people like Obote who he thought he knew better would resolve Ugandas problems. I hope you know that the Tanzanian Defence Forces (TPDF) was deployed in Luwero alongside Obotes forces creating a moral and political dilemma for the NRA, who respected Nyerere but clearly understood that he wasnt well acquainted with our situation, courtesy of Obotes lies. Listen to Nyerere writing in 1991, five years after the NRA had stabilised Uganda: Whether one agrees or disagrees with any particular measures taken by the government of Uganda under Yoweri Museveni s leadership, no one can deny that Yoweri Museveni is a serious person, dealing seriously with very difficult problems. From the Presidents office it is not easy to keep close to the people so that mutual understanding and support can be created and maintained. The most humble and democratically elected leader just like the most power hungry dictator and anyone else holding a top position of power in his country, has to depend upon others for much of the information required for intelligent decision making: Not all informants always tell the truth, or indeed understand it themselves. But President Museveni is one of the leaders who tries to keep in direct touch with the people- to listen, to explain and to teach. An attempt to build appropriate political institutions through which people can exert power has begun. On a visit to Kampala in 1987, I was very much impressed when I saw a television programme in which President Museveni was standing, chalk in hand before a blackboard, explaining the ABC of economics to his members of the National Resistance council (the countrys new legislature). It was being watched with close attention by the workers in the hotel- it was they who drew my attention to it. I was impressed because the reality of Africa requires a teaching head of state much more than a populist rhetoric or displays of pomp and ceremony. Teaching involves speaking in a language which can be understood without falsifying the facts underlying the message you have to transmit. It also involves listening and answering questions as well as speaking. President Museveni seemed to me, then, to accept and meet these basics of being a good leader This statement simply shows you that if you hold fast and firm to a good idea and you are not swayed by society or looking same with others, conforming to the dictates of our cultural constraints, in the end even those who we struggled so much to get their understanding of our cause, will come knocking and approve of our sacrifice. Nyerere in my opinion was like the common story told of French school teachers who: adhere to a standard that grades students harshly and praises the good ones with extreme moderation. To get this approval from him must have taken deep thought. We all can impress our mentors at a certain time in their lives when we keep focused on the cause. So dont worry about social proof. Aluta continua! The Lord bless you all.
Posted on: Fri, 31 Jan 2014 16:32:40 +0000