BOOK REVIEW: ONE SMALL DIFFERENCE –AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

 A LIFE LIVED IN THE SERVICE OF HIS COUNTRY

AUTHOR: FRANCIS BUTAGIRA

PAGES: 136 PP

Available at all major bookshops

 

Francis Butagira has lived through the major inflection points of this country since Independence. It is always a pleasure to read the accounts of such people’s lives in their own words. In some ways their story pace second fiddle to the context in which the lived and their hand in forging our nation.

There is a lot that has been lost or is being lost, because a few good men refused or were unwilling to tell their story. This is important because one day these disparate accounts will be the source material for a proper telling of recent history.

In as far as Butagira contributes to this quest he cannot be faulted, his story will be a useful addition to the telling of this country’s history.

Butagira it will be remembered was the speaker of parliament between 1981 and 1985, during the second Obote regime. He came to the position by way of being MP for Mbarara West, which he contested under the Uganda People’s Congress (UPC) badge. He defeated current trade minister Francis Mwebesa in the 1980 elections.

But before that like many of his generation he graduates from a rural background to an urban, even cosmopolitan one – he served as Ugandan Ambassador to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU)UN and Germany before his retirement.

Looking at these elders accounts’, it’s clear that the tools for poverty eradication are within our grasp. While one can argue there was less competition in their time, the high percentage play remains stay healthy and go to school as as the surest means to social climbing...

The child of a parish chief, one may argue he was literally born with a silver spoon in his mouth, compared to the people around him, but you have to give him credit for taking full advantage of it unlike his other siblings.

He studied law In Dar es Salaam before doing his post grad in Harvard, was a judge of the high court before the allure of politics came calling.

Interestingly he became ambassador during the NRM era despite his roots being in UPC. He leaves us hanging on how he crossed to the Movement despite the hysterical protests of his leader, then exiled in Lusaka, Zambia. There must have been some moral dilemma there in breaking away from UPC, especially since he too maintains that charges of election rigging in 1980 were not true. He leaves us none the wiser.

The allegation of election rigging by UPC in 1980 served as the public basis for President Yoweri Museveni and his band of men going to the bush in 1981 and therefore a major sticking point between UPC and NRM.

The book sprints through his diplomatic career, which begun at the Organisation of Africa Unity (OAU) headquarters in Addis Ababa. There are interesting tit bits about negotiations with spirit medium Alice Lakwena, while he was high commissioner to Kenya. Lakwena was then a refugee in Kenya and wanted to return. Lakwena was the predecessor of Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) chief Jospeh Kony, she led the rebel Holy Spirit Movement, brainwashing her followers to believe that by smearing special oils on themselves, would make them immune to government fire, an adventure that did not end well for scores of Acholi youth.

Maybe bound to secrecy, but during his time as a ambassador were some of the most hectic times for the country. One imagines our involvements in the Democratic Republic of Congo must have had him working overtime at the UN, our transition to multi-party democracy and other questions about governance in Uganda must have exercised him as a diplomat...

Nevertheless, he is understandably proud of his work as diplomat, that being the biggest chapter in the book, given his longevity in the foreign service he must have served his country well.

Though short on detail, the book is competent record of a period of much interest in our country through one man’s eyes. It is a quick read, a broad-brush stroke through the life and times of the author. It would be served well by an update, where the author fleshes out more about his role, thoughts and perceptions about the key events in our history to which he was privy.

The book is to be launched on Thursday, 20^th July at Protea in Kololo and along with it “International Diplomacy” a compilation of his speeches and interventions at the UN.