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Uganda: Behind Gadaffi's Revolutionary Thoughts
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The Monitor (Kampala)
OPINION
3 May 2008
Posted to the web 5 May 2008
Let us stand back for a moment. We may have been grossly mistaken. The scorn and invective that have been hurled at Col. Muammar Gadaffi in the wake of his recent visit to Uganda could have been a touch too harsh, a season too soon.
The Libyan leader of course had said two things that many Ugandans instantly judged to be obnoxious and totally unwarranted.
At one function, he opined that revolutionaries like Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe and Uganda's Yoweri Museveni should not retire. The other opinion was that the Bible was a forgery. Being a third-rate Christian who recognises God only in the context of a surprisingly simple creation myth that arose out of a very complex cultural and political experience, and is intrigued by the emotive power that the idea of this deity exercises over so many otherwise level-headed people, I can sit with the Gadaffian notion of a forged Bible (or any other holy book) without my blood getting hot. As you can see, I am in a generous mood.
With the same generosity, I am looking at his idea that Gen. Museveni should not hand over power... just like that.
We all seem to have overlooked the defining qualification - the condition - that Gadaffi prescribed for the continuation of Mr Mugabe and Mr Museveni's rule.
It is the clause of "good things". Mr Museveni or Mr Mugabe were assured of Muammar's recommendation as long as they were still doing "good things" for their people. Now, of course, it is a bit tricky when we come to deciding whether "good things" are still flowing from the revolutionary.
A well-oiled propaganda machine could keep alive a myth of good things, long after the store had dried up. Ordinarily, regular elections (not seriously rigged ones) would give us a rough idea what the citizens think of the shifting balance between good and bad things. But then one such election might throw the revolutionary overboard... just like that. And, being a revolutionary, in the same way that he could not be removed by the device of presidential term limits, he cannot be toppled by a peaceful election result.
This difficult Gadaffian dialectic needs closer scrutiny than it has received. Nowhere does he say that a revolutionary rules until they are dead. Also, nowhere does he say that a revolutionary is incapable of doing bad things.
However, since he does not go by easy means, the only logical deduction is that (if a ruling revolutionary is deemed to be doing bad things), they must be overthrown in a revolution.
Paradoxically, in a sense, a revolutionary who dies in office or retires peacefully weakens the power of the revolutionary ideal.
He denies the citizens an opportunity to enact the rituals of repudiation and violence that drive out an existing regime and usher in a new order. We must remember that Gadaffi overthrew a whole monarch.
For him, then, events like the forthcoming 2011 election in Uganda are mere formalities that periodically confirm that a ruling revolutionary is still doing good things. Once the citizens (by some intuition?) decide otherwise, the most (or even only) glorious course is to stage another revolution.
The Libyan leader has not responded to the ferocious (Ugandan) attack on his ideas and his character by saying that, you Ugandans are ignorant; you are empty tins or daft mushrooms; you are negative or reactionary forces or anything like that. After helping our two great revolutionaries, Gen. Idi Amin and now Gen. Museveni, he has proved his credentials.
But he has nothing new to act on. The ball is not in his court. Elitist armchair criticism in newspapers is very old-fashioned stuff. Similarly, from Zimbabwe, Gadaffi sees pictures of Morgan Tsvangirai's variously swollen face and "Owino" suits.
No beret; no ammunition belt; no AK47. The uncoordinated anti-Mugabe farce does not register on his Richter scale as a true revolution. A foreign monarchist respects your traditional rules of inheritance. A foreign democrat waits for and helps you to run your next round of elections.
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How is a foreign revolutionary supposed to help you before you start the next revolution?
The reality is that Uganda is behind Gaddafi's Oil$, employment, investment and economics. They are very aware that Idiot Dictators like Gaddafi are eay milking cows. Uganda and many others are surviving on the 'trash bins' of the developing nations' dictators, like Gaddafi.
The entire parasites of the world, especially the developing nations are laughing at Dictaros like Gaddafi and as a result have been distorting and extorting the poor Libyans, becuase of their incombent life long scum bags who have been called leaders and the like.
Gaddafi and his idiot dictators have been oppressing their on people and... [Read Full Text]
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