50 years on, is Uganda truly independent?

In the olden days, the colonialists used crude methods of literally stealing resources and taking over leadership positions whilst making Africans subordinates and slaves. I could relate this to the system of graduated tax where adults above the age of 18 used to be chased around to ensure they met their tax obligations even when some were unemployed. Of course over time it became obvious that such a state of affairs was too backward and, in fact, many people lost their lives as they drowned in rivers while running away from tax collectors!

On 9 October 2012, Uganda will celebrate 50 years of independence from the crude colonial rule of old. I do not intend to spoil the party mood, but as we prepare the dancing shoes for the occasion, we ought to stop and ask ourselves the all-important-question: is Uganda really Independent? Or have did we simply change from graduated tax to Value Added Tax (VAT), which is paid by every citizen even when there’s no ‘value added’? Why should a newly born baby be taxed? Oh yeah, one has to pay tax on those inch-long baby clothes and diapers for a day-old child!

One thing that many of us normally do not pay attention to is the fact that the colonialists were not stupid in letting the Union Jack to be replaced by the Black, Yellow and Red flag. No one should even think that the colonialists were defeated by the prowess of the Ugandan forces. No. The colonialists are still here with us. In their metamorphosed state, they do not have to come to Uganda to rule us, but they do so by remote control; they do not have to come to Uganda to pick up slaves, but Ugandans queue up for visas to hand themselves to slavery. And if they wanted, the colonialists could come over, buy all the land in Uganda at a giveaway price. But why bother to take the land away when they can invest on it and wire the proceeds back home whilst paying peanuts to the local citizens (owners of the land as provided in the Constitution)?

Think of this: for a Ugandan who travels to the United States of America, he needs not less than Sh2,500 today to purchase an item worth one unit. Conversely, if an American came to Uganda today, using a mere $1, he would purchase 2,500 units in Kampala! Yet due to lack of a common currency in African regions, a lot of imported goods must be purchased in dollars. So do you need to be colonized any more than this? Uganda has been rendered too cheap that anyone with a few dollars can fly in and have a blast in the capital Kampala. Yet merely getting a visa to visit other countries one must first sweat, leave alone the brutality of cost of living abroad.

Yes, you’ve heard it said that the jobs many Ugandans do abroad are things like baby-sitting, cleaning toilets, caring for the elderly, working on farms, and I guess some even serve as sex workers in the red light districts! How can people who are INDEPENDENT be reduced to this level? How can independent people be so desperate? What’s lacking in independent Uganda that Ugandans cannot happily work and earn a decent living at home with their families and only go abroad as tourists?

I came across an interesting definition of independence on the Wikipedia Website: ‘Independence is a condition of a nation, country, or state in which its residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over the territory.’ The bit of ‘or some portion thereof”, for me is the perfect definition of the independence that we attained and the very one we are celebrating 50 years on. We only received a portion of the ‘independence cake’, but the biggest portion was retained by our colonial masters and for this we’ve continued to beg from them to give us droppings of our very own cake!

I think through and through, the present day discreet type of colonialism is the worst, because days gone by, resources would be taken away but at least in an attempt to establish a life close to what was back ‘home’. Ugandans benefited from the white man through decent infrastructure and some social amenities. That’s how South Africa has managed to elevate itself to a European status - they even get snow!!!

So if you asked me whether the White man should come back and take over leadership of Uganda, I would vote Yes. On condition that we have a levelled bargaining field, at least now that many of us can read and write.

I think that the 50th nnniversary should only be a moment for us to light a torch and see how far we’ve come and assess whether we got a deal in 1962 or a raw deal and then decide on the Uganda we’d like to see 50 years from now.

So is there a chance to have a fresh bargain? Yes, we must start by appreciating ourselves as Ugandans and feeling proud of our nation, our people, our land, our resources. Once this is done, then we shall not let nasty Chinese products flood our markets anymore; we shall negotiate better Shilling-Dollar rates; shall decide our political destiny; and, hey, many Ugandans could even marry white women instead of offering themselves away cheaply. With no grain of doubt, independence can be the sweetest thing for any country and its people: only when it is in practical.

For God and my country!