THE PEOPLE ARE CALLING YOUR BLUFF

Last week Major General Matia Kyaligonza and his body guards got into an altercation with a traffic police woman on the Kampala-Jinja road – to put it mildly.

The hapless police woman whose “crime” was to call them to order for breaking the traffic laws – making U-Turn where they were not supposed to, was roughed up for her trouble.

This would have been filed away as another urban legend surrounding the General were it not that it was caught on camera, with the general’s identity hard to deny.

"This country has a torrid history of military abuse. The worst excesses counted back four decades ago, when soldiers had no qualms disposing of people permanently or bundling them into the boots of their cars and driving them off to unknown destinations but certain ends.

The fact that the manhandling of Sergeant Esther Namaganda almost broke the internet on Sunday; the fact that she even could go and report the senior officer to the nearest police station; the fact that the general’s actions have been called in question loudly and publicly is a sign some would say, of how far we have come as a country.

Even more important for me is that the people are calling the bluff of the bush war veterans, “You said you went to fight for a restoration of democracy, so that is the standard we will hold you to”. Which is as it should be.

Holding those in power accountable has also been aided immeasurably by social media, where now everyone is a media house to record and transmit the happenings around them at will.

"Democracy is not an event but a process, which involves among other things, compelling the powerful to conform to the rules. Progress is never achieved in a straight line and progress often doesn’t look like it, often a case of two steps forward and four steps back...

Of course some people will argue that the only crime the general committed was getting caught, that these violations are happening every day. While very much in the public eye but far from the cameras which would alert the chattering masses to the transgressions.

Well even that is progress, that the perpetrators of the violations chose to do them under the cover of dark or away from prying eyes.

There was a time centuries ago that the kings of Europe used to have the power of life and death over their subjects, when France’s Louis XIV could declare L’etat c’est moi (I am the state) and King Leopold could use the state machinery to subjugate the people of his private possession Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo and still sell it back to Belgium for a tidy profit.

These despots did not relinquish their hold on power out of the goodness of their hearts. They were compelled to do so first by the parliaments they set up, which in themselves were concessions to mounting pressure for a say in the governance of their countries, and then by the people as communication improved, word could get around faster and people could be mobilized easier.

"One thing that can be said for the NRM though is that while they were the initiators of opening the political space by, their experiment with direct democracy, sticking to electoral cycles, maintaining a vocal if not rowdy parliament and eventually lifting the ban on political parties, they have often enough shown themselves willing to go where the wind blows – not always in directions they would have liked or preferred...

Every so often there is push back, but they have their have often shown presence of mind, even sense of occasion, to sheath their claws before things got too far out of hand. Not always, but enough times to allow progress to continue.

But it is like they say, when you give a man an inch he will take a mile or that after you have given the people some they, like Oliver Twist, will beg, even demand for more. That is the natural order of things.

It is the sign of the times. Everywhere not only in politics, but also in the economy, in society generally the old command and control structures are coming under scrutiny, under threat even, and it will take a different mindset to not only appreciate these changes, but leverage them or step out of their way all together.