It is unspeakable to order people to speak or not speak a language

I read with consternation President Yoweri Museveni’s order to the so-called 'Bafuruki' in Bunyoro to speak Runyoro. Ironically this comes at a time when some of us think that the president would be contrite and apologise over the letter he wrote to Minister Beatrice Wabudeya concerning ring-fencing all the key leadership positions to keep out the non-ethnic Banyoro. From the outset Mr Museveni’s order that the Bafuruki speak Runyoro is utterly wrong and is a grave human rights violation. It is against the right to self-determination and an affront on human dignity, which is a hallmark of human rights. I am also worried that after Bunyoro, the president may turn to Ankole and to those whose grandparents migrated from Kigezi to stop them from contesting for leadership positions.

Like I have argued above, the president’s order points to stark contempt over a multiplicity of ethnic groups settled in Bunyoro; the Bakiga-Banyankole call it ‘akamanyiro’. It is a huge sign of disrespect and I am sure that in developed communities such an order would lead to resignations because it is scandalous. I am sure whoever cares to know knows very well why Thabo Mbeki resigned in South Africa. Public leaders such as the president should exhibit exemplary decency. It is absurd that in Uganda indecency has been elevated to a norm rather than an exception. This is shameful for the African continent and to the global pan-African movement to which Mr Museveni is a patron. Accordingly, I call upon all genuine pan-Africanists wherever they are to show concern for the developments in Uganda because if they are neglected they may lead to ethnic cleansing. We cannot as Africans begin to divide one another along socially and politically constructed issues such as ethnicity or tribalism. As I have stated before in the previous issue of Pambazuka, ethnicity or tribes are social constructs and as such they are artificial. This is why I personally take all the occupants of Bunyoro to be Abanyabunyoro.

To people who toe Museveni’s line of thought, I wish to re-echo the words of Martin Luther King Jr : ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere’. I wish the president would take note of this. I am actually amazed to have read that the president continues to naively argue that what he is doing is constitutional. It may be provided for within the constitution, but when it impinges on a certain section’s fundamental rights and freedoms, it is unconstitutional and some of us will not hesitate to challenge the constitutionality of the president’s actions.

It is interesting to know how the president intends to enforce his order. Is he going to arrest people who are not speaking Runyoro? I would rather the president concentrates on winning the 2011 elections genuinely since after the 2006 Supreme Court ruling, Kizza Besigye said that he would never go to court over poll theft. More importantly, he stated that Museveni and all genuine Ugandans should be prepared for anything – including the very worst – if Museveni tinkers with the electoral process again. You can fool some people for some time and indeed you can fool all the people for some time but you cannot fool all the people all the time; the time comes when they say enough is enough. Accordingly, the violence that happened in the aftermath of the botched Kenyan polls may not spare our pearl of Africa. Nonetheless, the president’s miscalculations might be good for the opposition in the long run, although in the short run I know they are extremely bad for believers in human dignity and indeed human rights.

By pitting ethnic communities against one another, Museveni is using the divide-and-rule strategy which implies that although the colonialists left, their unholy habits have stayed. It takes a lot of convincing that Museveni went to the bush to liberate and unite Uganda. I am sure the president has lost remorse. I am fully convinced that the reason for the president saying what the Banyoro tribalists want to hear is to divert the attention from the fact that Bunyoro communities are planning strategies for sharing oil proceeds. He knows very well that the adage 'a house divided against itself cannot stand' holds true. I would rather the various Bunyoro communities put all their heads in one thinking-basket and lay out strategies on how to harmoniously live together and profitably benefit from the oil proceeds. I am sure Bunyoro has enough to satisfy all its occupants’ appetite but does not have enough to satisfy all their greed.

Finally, it is in Museveni’s interest to revisit his hard-line comportment because Bunyoro is occupied by multiple nationalities that have roots and relatives across the entire country. It would be naive to think that if the president turns guns against the Bakiga, Acholi, Alur and Langi in Bunyoro, those nationalities living elsewhere will not feel enraged. Accordingly, I know it is a big joke when Museveni says he is winning over northern Uganda with the return of peace, when he is busy opening a can of worms elsewhere. To borrow Mahmood Mamdani’s phraseology in his book ‘Imperialism and Fascism in Uganda’, instead of focusing on the national question, we are remorselessly busy focusing on the nationality question. Ultimately, instead of looking at each other as Ugandans, we glorify our petty issues that divide and do not unite us. Hence we look at ourselves as Baganda, Bakiga, Banyoro, Acholi, Langi and so on, instead of looking at ourselves as Ugandans. We have ultimately promoted human indignity rather than human dignity. We must guard against that and be the change we wish to see in this world.

From a sociological perspective the president is trying to de-culturalise the ‘non-Banyoro’ communities and I would wish to be informed on whether that constitutes part of his mandate. The president is supposed to be a fountain of honour, but I am sure if he does not reverse what he is doing he will surely be the subject of shame and ridicule. I wish to aver that those who give sound advice to the president are his staunchest friends. Sadly, he has chosen to trust sycophants and flatterers!

This is unfortunate indeed, for the president will be famous for idiosyncrasy and eccentricity and this will cost him the local and international reputation he has garnered over the years. The former beacon of hope may soon become an architect of hopelessness and despair. We must not tire in telling the president that it takes ages to make a name but microseconds to destroy it.

We need to put the following issues into consideration as we analyse President Museveni’s order:

1) Most of us have bought land in Buganda and are indeed settled in Buganda either by choice or by circumstance. What I mean by circumstance is that most of us work in Buganda given that Kampala, Uganda’s capital, is located therein. It houses the administrative centre, commercial centre, health centre (exemplified by Mulago Hospital, which has sunk into the doldrums) and educational centres such as the country’s top schools and universities led by the mighty Makerere University (which the government is slowly but surely killing by denying it funds for research and other scholarship needs). Despite the fact that all nationalities converge in Buganda, none has been forced to speak Luganda. At least among the issues over which the Buganda agitate, there has been no demand that all residents or occupants of Buganda speak Luganda by necessity. I am sure the president would have vowed to crush anyone making such a demand for he is deeply attached to his language, Runyankole. Besides, this would mean that his children would never get to understand let alone speak Runyankole. None would like such a scenario. Accordingly, Museveni has done what in Runyankole-Rukiga dialect we call ‘okurenzya enkari orwigi’, an expression which metaphorically and figuratively means going overboard.
2) We speak Rukiga in Ankole, the Bafumbira speak a dialect related to Kinyarwanda in Kigezi, the Banyankole-Bakiga settled in the Rwenzori sub-region speak their dialects and not Rukonjo or Rutooro, and we have people in Mbarara and Bushenyi (Ankole) who comfortably speak Luganda. Should all the people be forced to speak the native languages or dialects of the localities wherein they are settled?
3) Assuming that forcing the various Bunyoro communities to speak Runyoro was to be legitimate (which it is not), would the non-Bantu communities settled there not find it difficult if not impossible to speak Runyoro? Would they be charged with certain offences and thereafter prosecuted?
4) When does one cease being labelled ‘a mufuruki’ (an immigrant) if the people born in Bunyoro and their children and grandchildren are still regarded ‘Bafuruki’? Does it mean that the descendants of Banyakigezi settled in Ankole are also ‘Bafuruki’? If so, is the president not a mufuruki wherever he is? History shows that he or his parents shifted from Rukungiri (which is in Kigezi) to Ntungamo and later to Mbarara, an area that has been named Kiruhura thanks to Museveni’s creation of minute districts for political expediency?
5) In 2002 when President Museveni coerced Fred Ruremera (an ethnic Mukiga) to step down for an ethnic Munyoro after the former had won the Kibale district chairmanship, I raised the following questions and I wish to put them in black and white now:
• Do the Bakiga settled in Bunyoro have rights to vote? If so, why don’t they have rights to be voted for?
• Fred Ruremera was given a job by the president after the president coerced him to step down. Accordingly, I asked, if Fred Ruremera was rewarded with a job what was to be given to his supporters who had voted for him expecting a turnaround or improvement in their welfare? Is a leader supposed to deliver services directly or be used as a conduit for the delivery of services to their followers?

As far as my understanding is concerned, none of the two questions were answered and I still find them relevant now.

Finally, there was a headmaster in a certain rural school in Bushenyi who spent 11 years working for the school. In his first five years his performance was superb and he was looked at as a super headmaster. In the next three years his performance began to dwindle as the law of diminishing marginal utility set in. During his final three years he would stock firewood when there was no paraffin for the lanterns to aid the students to read and he started defaulting on teachers’ Parent–Teacher Association (PTA) allowances even when students cleared all their dues. This reminds me of the Bakiga-Banyankole saying which goes ‘nowahinga ahorobi ayinuka’, literally meaning even if one was tilling a very soft ground, they must retire. Finally, as Joe Oloka Onyango put it, ‘10 years in power, you are an elder; 15 years in power, you are a veteran; 20 years in power you are nearly extinct; and 20-plus you are a liability.' Accordingly, we can tell what ‘leaders’ who have been in power for more than two decades are.

The directive by the president to ‘ring-fence’ leadership positions in Bunyoro and ordering the non-Banyoro communities to speak Runyoro is an affront to the right to self-determination and human dignity, the hallmarks of human rights which the National Resistance Movement (NRM) has vowed to defend over the years. It is also distasteful to continue labelling people ‘Bafuruki’ and to lock them out of political participation in their own country. We are likely to have an equivalent of the French Revolution here in Uganda.

Finally, if Ugandans, pan-Africanists and all well-wishers including the international and donor community fold their hands and cross their legs, the situation will surely get out of hand. All of us have a role to play to nip the looming crisis in the bud. For God and my country!

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Vincent Nuwagaba is a human rights defender.
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at Pambazuka News.