Dr.  Besigye is not a Freedom Fighter nor a Liberation Leader, Just a ‘Useful Idiot’

Dr. Kizza Besigye, a Ugandan cosmetic politician is not a freedom fighter, neither is he anyhow a liberation politician. No words can describe him well, other than the words used by Lenin in a denotative or connotative reference to Leon Trotsky as just a ‘useful idiot’ to his enemies. Lenin intended no offense to Trotsky, neither do I have intentions to execute ad hominem degradation on Dr. Besigye, what is at stake and hence subject to public discourse is his quality of political thought process. His efforts have been apparent, but devoid of strategy, whatever he has been doing is redolent of political snobbery, let us call it royalist consciousness. And such sham political socialization cannot liberate Uganda from its recurrent socio-political quagmire.

Those without education always display public believe that Besigye went to the bush to fight for liberation of Uganda from political brutality of the leaders of those days, no.It is not true, Besigye never went to the Bush. This is what happened; 1n 1985, Yoweri Museveni had been in the bush for over nine years, waging guerrilla wars on series of governments, he was only left with around six months to take over Uganda, Museveni had over ten thousand guns and guerrilla fighters in the bush, most of them around Kampala, the fighters in the bush ran out of medicine and nurses, the major disease was Malaria.Museven chose to rampage and ransack Mulago Mission Hospital in Kampala, in fact in Wandageya. To capture nurses and medicine and take them to the bush to serve the guerrilla fighters, Dr. Besigye and several nurses were among the plunder in addition to medicine. This is how Besigye went to the bush and remained there for some six months up to the date Museveni took over Uganda to form NRM government. So Besigye did not go to the bush out of self-immolation and self-sacrifice to fight for liberation of the people of Uganda, he was a royalist working in a national hospital , enjoying all the comforts of middle class life in Kampala when he became a prisoner of war forcefully taken to the bush.

Some Besigye scholars often extent some kind of collegial relationships to Besigye by faulting Yoweri Museveni for making pregnant Besigye’s girlfriend or wife, it is not yet clear . Unto these claims, I don’t have any definite facts, but I just have a philosophy, and this is the philosophy; Politics and War is realm of unfairness. Here unfairness means any available means you can use in order to make the opponent weak. It is a praxis of game theory which most of social scholars describe by using the words ‘real-Politik’ or ‘Machiavellianism’. And if anything Yoweri Museveni is a gifted practitioner of Machiavellianism. That is about Museveni, but on the other hand, women whether married or not married, do have a right to practice sexual freedom, they have a right to choose who to make them pregnant. Same case to men, all men want to have babies with women they prefer, in most cases men blindly prefer women that are physically attractive. In the same tandem, women also have sexual psychology that make them to prefer breeding or having babies with more violent men, more intelligent men, more rich men, more athletic, more famous, more powerful men and men with superlative physical attributes. Fortunately Museveni had all these qualities, Besigye did not. A young Museveni had more attractive face, a young Besigye had the facial features as the ones he has today, what could a woman do?

What young people don’t understand is the fact that well-seasoned Ugandans are very happy to live under police brutality of Yoweri Museveni other than going back to life under Kabaka, the Monarch of Buganda Kingdom. Yet, political dreams and desire for ages of Besigye and Bobi Wine combined still is to revive the Buganda Kingdom, and have a Kabaka, specifically with royal Baganda blood in power. Besigye and Bobi Wine are a combined epitome of an equanimity for Uganda with a political system of Kingdoms where Baganda that have the royal blood running in their veins have the sole right to become Kings or Kabaka’s , but the rest of Ugandans who are none Baganda to be servant citizens weeding banana fields owned by tribes-men of Kabaka, on the pretext that they don’t have the royal blood hence they are condemned to the state of being perennial servant of servants to the Monarchy.

Contextually, one has to accept that quality of political thinking among the populace determines quality of government to be formed. Hence, by extension, royalist propensity in popular political thought is among the key precedents of current political socialization in Uganda. Unfortunately this is the political thought culture which Dr. Besigye and his ethnic camarilla don’t want to switch in guest for inclusive and participatory politics. What I am writing here is not fiction, it is the picture of popular political thought among the people of Central Uganda. Both educated and illiterate. My fresh experience with this thought culture was mid last year when I was attending an International Science Conference on Geospatial Information Science (GIS) in Nairobi where I met a geomatic engineer with doctorate level of education in geomatic engineering, also working as a researcher and a lecturer at Makerere University. This is a well-educated scientist supposed to have a thought process guided by facts, modernity and objectivity. When I asked him to tell me his name, he pronounced his name slowly and religiously before telling me that he is from the royal family of Uganda, and his name is royal as well as his blood. I asked him if there is any scientific basis one can use to differentiate royal blood from non-royal blood. He said that he is not aware of any science, but the fact is that he is not like other Ugandans. He said this while shaking his shoulders in a manner to extol his historical heritage of social snobbery.

Very many social scholars interested in history and literature of Uganda politics have always faulted the class psychology behind ethnic basis of monarchical politics of Kingdoms in Uganda. For example, basic reading of White Teeth, a novel by Okot P’Bitek, and also Politics of Class Formation in Uganda a collection of essays by Mahmood Mamdani will give you vivid picture of ethnic exclusion as an endemic social mind-set among the people of Central Uganda. This kind of mind is also the basis of thought system and national consciousness behind the desire for revival of Buganda kingdom as a political system. Boundless sentimentality of ethnic royalism and ethnic snobbery is also the main motif , hence fault line in Kintu , a novel by Jennifer Nasumbuga Makumbi, where the writer goofs by missing to expostulate criticality of Egyptology of Baganda which clearly states that Baganda people originated from Egypt , their grant father is the last born in the family of three sons; Masaba was the first born son( he was the father of Bamasaba) , Bukusu the second born son was the father of Babukusu) , and Kundu the last born son was the father of Baganda . Masaba and Bukusu were sons of the first wife and Kundu the son of a second wife, all were the sons of Muntu. Unfortunately, Makumbi has different position on the origin of Baganda in her royalist inclined book, Kintu. In the book it is narrated that Baganda of Central Uganda came from Rwanda. My foot! No community in Africa came from Rwanda, people in Rwanda all have an origin from other places. In fact all historical archives, evidence from archaeology and researches in paleontology clearly point out that Rwanda is not and will never be a cradle of any community in Africa. My extensive reading of Cheikh Anta Diop provides enough scientifically tested evidence that people in East Africa, West Africa and North Africa had a cradle in Egypt, a phenomenon described as Egyptology of African people. It can be understood that Makumbi wrote Kintu, when Rwanda under Paul Kagame was attractive in terms of public governance and public policy implementation, this must have been basis of snobbish conscience which made Makumbi to prefer her origin to be in Rwanda from the Banyarwanda great grant parents but not in Egypt.

So, when opposing the government you have to be revolutionary but not a royalist in emotional and intellectual orientation, this is what Dr. Besigye is not aware. It is this Royalist consciousness that gives the enemies of Dr. Besigye an easy time. One cannot help to tell why Dr. Besigye came to Kenya to attend launch of a book by Martha Karua. It was self-defeating choice for Dr. Besigye. Personally I treasure and relish women writers, ranging from Simon De Beauvoir, Nadine Gordimer, Aruhdhant Roy, El Nawal, Nasreen Taslim, Damalire Kuku, Okwiri Oduor, Leila Aboula, Chimamanda Adichie, Maya Angelou, mention all others! Given opportunity I will always read women writers before I can read men in writing. But for sure I cannot read Against the Tide, a memoir of Martha Karua. This is a rational choice I am making without any intention to offend. If anything I expect nothing scholarly from Martha Karua.Before even reading her book I can accurately predict that she must be complaining about bad politics by Daniel Moi but not bad politics by Jomo Kenyatta. She must be talking about distorted feminism focused on protecting the rights of Single-Mothers in Kenya, yet the women in Nairobi, Kenya calling themselves single mothers in most cases have one child without identifiable father but using more than twenty boy-friends to bring up the child. Factually speaking, these are not single-mothers, but polyandrous mothers. I don’t know if mother Karua can be intellectually audacious to write a book about polyandrous mothers apart from showing neurotic hatred for the current government in Kenya headed by Dr. William Ruto .The hatred she exudes for no other reason but because the government has a soft-spot for Raila Odinga. Unfortunately, this is the kind of a book that Besigye was coming to be the chief speaker at its launch in West-lands Nairobi in the mid of November 2024, a trip he did not finish well, he was abducted by the commandos and taken back to Uganda only to be detained at Military prison. I am so sorry for him. However, above all else, Besigye also goofed, next time when he comes to Kenya he is obliged to think first, and not just to think but think beyond his cosmetic politics in order to develop a mettle fit enough to remove Yoweri Museveni from power.

Alexander Opicho writes from Nairobi, Kenya)