But before doing such a terrible deed, the warrior demanded that the peasant holds his testicles so that they do not touch the ground and get soiled. After the Mongol had done his deed, and was ridden away, the peasant started dancing and celebrating. His terribly abused wife was confused.
He could not understand where her husband was getting all this joy from. It was puzzling. The husband then told her, “At least, I have soiled his testicles. They are dirty.” He had released them into the dust.
The joke is often told [mostly by revolutionary Marxists] to laugh at opposition groups that tend to magnify and celebrate small things—yet they have the capacity to deliver on the bigger ones.
In the joke, the peasant is ridiculed for finding victory in simply soiling the testicles of a rapist, instead of using his machete to slash them off in revolutionary fashion. Yes, there would have been consequences. But that is the journey towards change.
Then enter the Museveni-Bamuturaki- Ssenyonyi-Cosase drama: I have watched the ongoing Cosase inquiry into the appointment of Ms Jenifer Bamuturaki as the head of the recently revived—and proudly lossmaking—national airline, Uganda Airlines.
Dear reader, unlike most commenters, I have zero problem with Bamuturaki’s lack of qualifications (even if this is apparently true, as so far established). Neither do I have any issues with her appointment being another display of Museveni’s tribalism as he hands all kith and kindred space at the dining table. It is neither the threats to MP Joel Ssenyonyi. These things can never be the reason for my ire. This is Museveni 3.1.1.
In fact, for me, the problem is with MP Joel Ssenyonyi. Why? What the heck? Why is this a life and death issue? In fact, if Ssenyonyi gets himself killed, I would laugh at him for allowing himself to be killed for a small cause. [But I know he is just messing around]. When did Museveni’s Uganda ever stick to the academic qualifications detailed in any Human Resource Manual for appointments?
Come on, Joe. Because at the end of the day, as long as Mr Museveni still wants her, Bamuturaki will stand tall as CEO of Uganda Airlines. And we’ll be left shaking our heads wondering why it was even an issue of contention in the first place. It is for this reason that I have all my eyes on the people squeezing life out of this small woman? She is simply a latecomer to a feast that started 36 years ago.
Unlike many speculators, I am convinced Hon. Ssenyonyi and team are not “shaking the tree for the golden leaves to fall” as is custom in the corridors of parliament. The ghost whisperers of parliament have told us about that harmonious symphony between NRM and opposition legislators when it comes to “shake the tree.”
That opposition MPs have to act tough, threaten the system, the NRM MPs talk to the system, and the golden leaves fall. Surely Ssenyonyi is not playing any of this. But even if him and team were, I do not begrudge them at all. It is still Museveni’s parliament. Mine is an axe I still have to grind with our so-called opposition folks: why endlessly take us through these senseless drills of performative politics?
How much evidence do we need to know that Museveni and his co-conspirators are like a cartel, holding everyone at ransom, gifting clan and kindred? That we knew this well is the sole reason voters lifted you from amongst them and sent you to parliament—with parliament understood as the new space for struggle—from which the poisonous tree could be cut down.
To embarrass Museveni and his co-conspirators is dragging us into celebrating soiling the testicles of a Mongol warrior. But there is more to this analysis of mine [and this is most worrisome]: If, in the most unlikely circumstance, Bamuturaki is actually dropped from becoming CEO of that PR airline, you can never accuse Museveni of being a non-democrat.
Parliament works, they’ll say. The process of squeezing blood out of Ms. Bamuturaki (successful or not) actually plays into Museveni’s game on the bigger scale. Once that woman is sacrificed, it would cement Museveni’s democratic credentials as a man who respects parliament. And you’ll be passing one classified expenditure after another.
In truth, bwana Ssenyonyi, good job on this Bamuturaki thing. But no, thank you. As voters and members of the wananchi, we ask that you step out of the comfort of Parliament Avenue.
Pick your red overalls and take parliament to the people of Kampala. They sent you to cut down the tree onto which poisonous fruits grow, not to wrestle with its small fruits. The problem is the tree.
The author is a political theorist based at Makerere University
inarticle} inarticle}
