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Change Ethnicity to What You
Fancy - Be a Muganda, Then Luo
The East African (Nairobi)
COLUMN
25 February 2008
Joachim Buwembo
In most African cultures, there is a saying to the effect that
when you live long you get to see many things that were
unimaginable during your earlier years. Those of us living in
Uganda today are that lucky, for we are seeing a major societal
transformation that could not be imagined a few decades ago.
Look at the ethnic group into which everybody used to be born.
Those days, you were a Luo because your parents were Luo; a
Muganda because you were born into a Baganda family, complete with
a totem. But today, ethnic groups are becoming ideological. In
fact, you can cross from one ethnic community to another, and back
to the original one if need be.
Today, you get an ethnic group by conviction, by practice. Your
name might suggest which ethnicity you were born into, but it has
little to do with which ethnic group you now belong to. For
example, if a
politician supports a certain Bill which is against the interests
of the ethnic group he was born in he is likely to be expelled by
the elders, and they will assign him a new ethnic group to
subscribe to.
But this changing and assigning of ethnic groups was first tried
out about five decades ago, and started at the top. There was this
young politician from Lango who dazzled the aristocratic Baganda
by his gift of the garb. As negotiations for independence were
taking place in the UK, a Muganda politician called Benedicto
Kiwanuka did not seem too keen on his native Buganda's special
requirements in post-independence Uganda.
The shrewd son of Lango called Milton Obote astounded the Baganda
monarchists with what became famous lines, which went like, " I
don't care whether the Baganda come to Kampala on foot, by bus,
train or ship, as long as they join us..." They loved him. They
allied with him and he won the elections. They declared him a
Muganda and baptised him Bwete.
A few years later, he violently overthrew their king and ruled
them under emergency laws for several years until he was
overthrown by soldier Idi Amin.
THEY LOVED AMIN - THEY SAID THAT he was, in fact, the son of a
late king who sired him while on a tour of the northern region.
And because he was a father of twins, they bestowed upon him the
befitting Baganda title of Salongo.
Amin did his thing for eight years and on being overthrown, he was
replaced by a Muganda university teacher who was in turn replaced
by lawyer Godfrey Binaisa. The Baganda were not amused. Much as
Binaisa was born a Muganda, they decided he was no longer one,
rearranged his name to Bin Issa and assigned him to Southern
Sudan, where his mother had once worked as a missionary teacher.
When it became clear that Binaisa was not working for the return
of Obote, the Baganda started liking him and restored his Muganda
status. But he was overthrown by Paulo Muwanga, a Muganda but a
friend of Obote. Muwanga immediately lost his status as a Muganda
and was immediately assigned Tanzanianship.
For most of the past two decades, Uganda has been governed under a
no-party state system called the Movement. While previously
political parties had strong roots in ethnic groups and religion,
everyone by law belonged to the Movement, so there were no other
natural criteria to assemble along. So tendencies within the
Movement started defining which ethnic group the man on the street
would assign the leaders. When the late Cosmos Adyebo from Lango,
was named prime minister under a
Munyankore president, the Langi elders, who had no lobe for the
Movement government, renamed him Ndyanabo.
During the constitution making process in the mid-1990s, the chief
prince of Buganda, the elderly Besweri Mulondo, was a delegate in
the constituent assembly. It was he who dealt the final blow that
killed Buganda's quest for a federal status. He was disowned and
the only argument that remained about him was whether he was a
Tanzanian or a Murundi.
Now there is a serious debate on the land laws coming. Since
Buganda kingdom and culture are founded on land, we are about to
see many people being reassigned new ethnic groups...
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