{UAH} To understand Besigye’ success as an activist, look at Bobi Wine

Written by YUSUF SERUNKUMA

Ever since his declaration of Plan B, after ditching electoral politics [Plan B, readable as intense activism and community organizing], Dr Kizza Besigye has come under criticism for his earlier similar campaigns.

The accusation is that there is nothing new here for Besigye, as all his earlier campaigns ended in failure. They were either successfully frustrated by government or ran out of steam. The most memorable examples of these "failed" campaigns include: walk-to-work, defiance campaigns, forming People's Government, and most recently, the noise campaign. What new thing is Besigye announcing, his critics have asked dismissively.

My contention is that those calling Besigye's defiance and other non-electoral campaigns failures suffer three terrible handicaps: (a) they never understood the complex intentions of the campaigns, (b) are uneducated about protest in its everyday forms, and (c) do not appreciate the shifts in politics of our time, especially the ways in which Africa's new breed of autocrats reproduce themselves through the infrastructure and symbolism of democracy. 

With these handicaps, they have been blinded to the very obvious successes and contributions of Besigye's activism. There is a long history to Besigye's espoused form of activism. As he spelled out recently in an effort to elaborate Plan B more, these campaigns are as old as oppression, and remain the more secure forms of protest for the blighted wretched of the earth. 

[There is a rich reading list here for those interested: Paulo Freire (1970) Pedagogy of the Oppressed; James Scott (1985) Weapons of the Weak; an illuminating essay by Allean Isaacman (1990) "Peasants and Rural Social Protest in Africa," and several others. There are other examples from the terrain of popular culture, which have also become common in Kampala].

The scholars stress that these campaigns are never meant to bring down the oppressor in big ways or in one big revolution. But, rather, they are more subtle and escapist. They are meant to (a) conscientize individual persons, and enable them mature as political subjects.

This also allows the oppressed to be aware of their power – as a group – and small things they could do to reaffirm their clout.  (b) They also seek to frustrate the oppressor bit by bit.

True to form, these campaigns tend to be individualized, lacking in form, and inconsistent.  The campaigns could actually cause more pain to the activist including humiliation, impoverishment or hunger. 

The subtlety of these campaigns could even render them unrecognizable by the powers being protested. To the larger body of observers – uneducated observers – these campaigns seem to end in failure.

They could range from laziness, refusal to pay taxes, extended claims of sickness, or even spoiling of equipment. In their incoherent manifestation, these campaigns tend to garner coherence and oomph.  It is the accumulation of these scattered moments that culminate into something monumental.

So, is Besigye declaring anything new? No. We need to see continuities – rather than newness – in Besigye's recent declaration of Plan B.  Does he stand to overthrow Museveni this time round? Not necessarily. There's fluidity that disables predictability. The man who set himself alight in front of the city hall in Tunis surely had no idea how his single act of self-immolation would change Arab Africa.

But we can look at Bobi Wine to appreciate Besigye's activism. There is no doubt that Bobi Wine is a man of great individual accomplishment and talent.  Before, I have likened him to Nigeria's iconic legend Fela Kuti and South Africa's Lucky Dube.

But I think he surpassed these two icons when he became a mainstream politician.  But notwithstanding his individual genius, it is difficult to delink Bobi Wine's transformation as a political actor from the works of Besigye. Bobi Wine is one of Besigye's many students – perhaps the most excellent of all of them.

Having grown up among Kampala's wretched of the earth, Bobi Wine's struggles and didactic music found friendship in Besigye's activism. 

Besigye's gruff voice articulated what Wine lyricized.  You could miss this harmonious symphony. The struggles of Bobi Wine's family and neighbours in Kamwokya and Katanga – especially food and water – were reflected in Besigye's fight for good governance.

Upon return from exile in 2005, Besigye was humiliated plenty of times.  From his ignominious arrest in Masaka, false treason and rape cases, drowsed in pepper spray at the Mulago roundabout, and numerous incidents of being thrown onto police pickup trucks, and the infamous "Besigye van," Besigye's pain became everybody's pain.

Besigye's pain became Bobi Wine's muse for activist music. And when the moment arrived, Bobi Wine emerged as the heir of his master. Indeed, it is accurate to argue that People Power is simply a poetic articulation of Walk to Work, Defiance, Noise Campaigns, People's Government, et cetera.

yusufkajura@gmail.com

The author is a PhD fellow at Makerere Institute of Social Research.

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"When a man is stung by a bee, he doesn't set off to destroy all beehives"

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