By Andrew Mwenda
European ambassadors in Uganda, whose governments are funding a genocide in Gaza, somehow find the moral authority to condemn torture here. This is not about human rights. It is about power. They don’t believe we can fight for our rights ourselves! They do not see us as active participants in the struggle for our rights. They see us as passive spectators in it, mere beneficiaries of international charity handed to us by benevolent Europeans.
This is colonialism 101. Colonialism justified itself with claims of seeking our emancipation; so its mission was to liberate us from the tyranny of our customs and the despotism of our chiefs and kings. It’s flag were the three Cs: Christianity (to emancipate our sounds from “devil worship”, yes our religions were called satanic), Commerce to liberate us from our poverty, and Civilization (to liberate us from our institutional
backwardness).
Today the three Cs have been renamed and repurposed for continued control of our affairs. Christianity has become democracy; commerce is now trade and investment (foreign direct investment that either displaces or stifles the growth of our local bourgeoisie) and civilization, the imposition of European bureaucratic systems on our societies.
There are gross human rights abuses in Europe and North America but our ambassadors in their capitals are not lecturing and hectoring their leaders over this. Japan and South Korea are democracies who give us money but don’t indulge in these arrogant lectures. China funds our government but does not insist we become Chinese in our governance. India does similar. What is this in the European mind that gives them the feeling and entitlement to interfere in our internal affairs against international law – written by them?
We are facing a problem of a racial superiority complex. This is deeply embedded in the conscious, sometimes subconscious and even unconscious European mind. It just comes naturally to them often without them noticing it. Africans do not need help from Europe. We need collaboration. We should seek to liberate Europeans from their racial superiority complex. We can do this by being bluntly honest with them.
Ugandans deserve the right not to be tortured. But that is our domestic issue. It’s a war for us Ugandans to fight and win. When Europeans insert themselves in our struggles, they make local agency look like fifth columnists of foreign powers seeking regime change. This undermines the legitimacy of local activism.
Dear Europeans, while i acknowledge the importance of international solidarity in our struggle, I reject the means you use. Issuing lectures, summons and threats to our governments is neither prudent nor desirable; it is neither effective nor necessary. On the contrary, it discredits local agency.
For Ugandans (and all Africans) be wary of these interventions. On the face of it, they may look well intentioned and it is possible sometimes they are. But they are rarely helpful. Experience shows that they have done more harm than good. We can see their results in Libya, Somalia, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, – the list is endless.
