{UAH} We have to face the reality, past and present to save Uganda

There are people who react to my writings and even quotations emotionally. These are largely the elites that have benefited from the injustice imposed on others and want to maintain the status quo. Consequently they use harsh words with a view to silencing or humiliating me.

The Enlightenment Movement in the 17^th and 18^th centuries was founded to challenge absolutism. Those involved including John Locke, Voltaire and Thomas Paine suffered tremendously including living in exile, thrown into jail but eventually their ideas caught on and helped Americans and French to liberate themselves.

I ask Ugandans to read my writings and listen to me with an open mind. There is a message I am communicating from New York. Telling the truth without fear and favor is my signature characteristic.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu captured eloquently what I have in mind when he wrote "Reconciliation, as we so forcefully found out, is not about being cozy; it is not about pretending that things were other than the way they were. Any attempt at reconciliation, which does not face up to the past, including sometimes uncomfortable realities, is not true reconciliation at all and will not last"(Bill Sutherland & Matt Meyer 2000).

Why Uganda's politics is messy is in great part because Ugandans have not faced up to the reality. They sweep problems under the carpet hoping they will go away.  Since the Lancaster House independence constitution negotiations in 1961, Ugandans have not been honest with one another. They have appeased one another, to gain political popularity. As we have experienced appeasement has had a short life span in Uganda.  

I am prepared to break that cycle of appeasement, whether I become popular or not.  I will therefore tell you what I think is correct whether based on my initiative or reacting to others.

The two notes I published today on Buganda were in reaction to a statement made on Sunday by a commentator on Luganda program of Radio Munansi about 'superior' Buganda ideology and policy in pre-colonial Uganda.

Those who think Baganda will do what they like as they did in pre-colonial days to their own people and neighbors are forgetting that we are now in the 21^st century and living in a global village that is struggling to respect human rights and freedoms, good governance and rule of law.

Eric Kashambuzi       

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