{UAH} 42ND ANNIVERSARY OF ISLAMIC REVOLUTION

ISLAMIC REVOLUTION: LESSONS TO LEARN BY UGANDANS AND AFRICANS


BY AHMED KATEREGGA MUSAAZI


AT INTERNATIONAL ISLAMICUNIVERSITY IN UGANDA, KAMPALA CAMPUS, KIBULI

TO MARK 42ND ANNIVERSARY OF ISAMIC REVOLUTION

ORGANISEDBY THE AFRICAN JOURNALISM INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
(TAJIIA) TOGETHER WITH HOMELANDMEDIA GROUP IN CONJUNCTION WIT CULTURAL
COUNBSEL OF THE EMBASSY OF THE ISAMIC REPUBLIC OFIRAN

ON MONDAY FEBRUARY08TH 2021 A.D.






As Uganda was battling Tanzania in an eight-month war from October
1979 to June 1979, there was a popular uprising in Iran, one of the
ancient nation states, which climax was the declaration of the Islamic
Revolution.

Some of the most popular world headlines on UBC news, as the former
Radio Uganda was called then, were the popular uprising in Iran and the
China-Vietnam war.

So, Ugandans were eager to know what was going on in Iran and Vietnam,
the way they were following their own war with Tanzania which climax
was the fall of Kampala to Tanzanian forces and Ugandan exiles on
April 11th 1979 and the fall of the whole of Uganda on June 3rd.

Iran or Persia is not new to Africa and East Africa in particular. The
East African Coast from Mogadishu to Mozambique, for over 1,000 years
has been trading with Arabian Peninsula, Persian Gulf, Indian
Sub-Continent and the East. Some of the traders became settlers and
contributed to the rise of the city states the most powerful being
Kilwa, Mombasa, Malindi as a result of Afro-Arab intermarriages that
brought in a Kiswahili culture.

Among the new settlers as a result of trade, and some coming as
refuges due to political and religious disputes in the Gulf, are
Shirazi, from Shiraz province in Iran, and hence, the revolutionary
party that liberated Zanzibar was called Afro-Shiraz Party under the
late Sheikh Obeid Karume, who became President of Zanzibar and First
Vice President of the United Republic of Tanzania after 1972 Zanzibar
revolution.

In my home Ssembabule district, formerly Mawogola county, there is a
former capital of Kitara empire under Abachwezi dynasty (1350-1500)
where, beads from Iraq,
were excavated. So, there was at least, trade links between the Gulf,
and the Great Lakes Region of eastern and central Africa.

The 1979 Iranian Revolution Islamic Revolution was a series of
events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynasty under
Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and the replacement of his government with
an Islamic republic under the Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
The revolution was supported by various Islamist and leftist
organizations and student movements.

Demonstrations against the Shah commenced in October 1977, developing
into a campaign of civil resistance that included both secular and
religious elements The protests rapidly intensified in 1978 as a
result of the burning of Rex Cinema which was seen as the trigger of
the revolution, and between August and December that year, strikes and
demonstrations paralyzed the country. The Shah left Iran in exile on
16 January 1979, as the last Persian monarch, leaving his duties to a
regency council and Shapour Bakhtiar, who was an opposition-based
prime minister. Ayatollah Khomeini was invited back to Iran by the
government, and returned to Tehran to a greeting by several thousand
Iranians. The royal reign collapsed shortly after, on 11 February,
when guerrillas and rebel troops overwhelmed troops loyal to the Shah
in armed street fighting, bringing Khomeini to official power. Iran
voted by national referendum to become an Islamic republic on 1 April
1979 and to formulate and approve a new Islamic republican constitution
whereby Khomeini became spiritual leader of the country in December
1979. The rest is history. The Shah died of Cancer at Cairo in Egypt in 1980.

In its series to mark 10 years of the Islamic Revolution in 1989, East
Africa Events, then a Pan African popular magazine published in
Tanzania, ranked Iran, at the peak of the Cold war, as the only
country that was neither pro USA and its Western allies nor pro
defunct Soviet Union and is Eastern allies.

While celebrating Uganda's silver jubilee of independence, where the
then President of Ghana, the late Ft. Lt. Jerry Rawlings was a chief
guest on October 9th 1987 at Kololo Independence Grounds, President
Museveni said that immediately after seizing power in 1986, he was
asked whether he was pro- East or pro-West, "I said l am pro myself,"
the President said. By then it was not easy for a country to be
nonaligned in words and action. Iran did so, so was Uganda.

Are there lessons for Uganda and the rest of Africa to learn? Yes of
course. Unlike Africa, except Ethiopia, Iran has been independent
through history and in 1975; it cerebrated the 5,000 years of an
uninterrupted monarchy. However, that does not mean that it had not
become a puppet or a satellite state of US which Iranian nationalists
resented. It had to fight tooth and nail to consolidate its
independence.

Ugandans regained independence in 1962 and fell short of getting a
revolution in 1966 Uganda Crisis but became a republic in 1967, in a
series of unpopular events spear headed by the then Prime Minister and
later President Milton Obote, and the climax was 1971 coup d'état that
brought Gen. and later Field Marshal Idi Amin in power.

The 1966 Uganda crisis was not a revolution because in addition to turning
Uganda into a republic by force of arms other than by a popular uprising, the
traditional kings were replaced with an imperial president who also
subsequently replaced kings' chiefs with his own without empowering
the masses to vote for them and without even organizing a presidential
or a parliamentary election. That is why in his own words, Prof. Ali
Mazrui called Obote, "A great man with great mistakes," like what he
called the late Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana as "...a Leninist
Czar."

Unlike Imam Ayatollah Khamenei, both Obote and Amin failed to fulfill
their promises. Obote failed to hold election and continued postponing
it using a state of emergency in Buganda and later in Uganda. Amin did
not even hide under such, but proclaimed himself President for life
until he was removed by Tanzanian forces and Ugandan exiles in 1979.

While Iranians realized their sovereign dignity and territorial
integrity under the 1979 Islamic revolution, Ugandans who had hoped
relief after the fall of Amin regime in the same year, realized that
they were under Tanzania's occupation as leaders including Yusuf Lule
(April-June 1979), Godfrey Binaisa (June 1970-May 1980) were removed
before leading even for a year and the controversial 1980 general
elections were rigged in favor of Milton Obote's UPC with the backing
of Tanzanian forces under the late President Mwalimu Julius Kambarage
Nyerere. This sparked off a five-year bush war spearheaded by now
President Yoweri Museveni, and the rest is history.

Like Ayatollah, Museveni under NRM empowered the population with
writing a new constitution and holding regular presidential,
parliamentary and local government council elections. Economic
recovery, social welfare al in a 10 now 15-point program.

On a state visit to Iran, President Museveni paid tribute to the late
Khomenei for the way he was spear heading the Islamic revolution, by
recording cassettes in exile, which were sent to Iran for people to do
the uprising step by step. So, in one way or another, the late
Khaomenei inspired President Museveni.

In Iran, Imam Ayatollah did not hide under interim and provisional
governments for years as it has been the case in Uganda and the rest
of Africa, disguising as correcting what went wrong. Within 1979, a
new constitution was made, a referendum was held where an Islamic
state was endorsed and elections were held.

Such an Islamic state would have been expected in other Muslim
majority countries like Saudi Arabia and Somalia which are a hundred
percent Muslim. While Islamic republics of Pakistan, Mauritania and
Afghanistan have the loud sound national titles, the actual Islamic
republic remains Iran.

The other important aspect was the separation of powers and checks and
balances in a nation state. While in traditional Western liberal
democracies, as a result of the 1688 Glorious Revolution in England,
the 1875 American war of Independence and the 1879 French Revolution,
the separation is between legislature, executive and judiciary, and to
the extent, the media. Yet in Iran, it goes further in separation of
powers between spiritual leaders like the Imams, and temporal leaders,
like parliament and executive.

For Uganda, the separation of powers along those lines, is between
political leaders i.e., executive, legislature and judiciary, and
traditional and cultural leaders i.e., kings like Kabaka of Buganda,
Kyabazinga of Busoga, Omukama of Bunyoro, Omukama of Tooro. Uganda,
like the rest of Tropical Africa, which is multicultural and multi
religious, with no state religion, cannot entrench in the
constitution, spiritual powers to be exercised by the clergy be
bishops or imams.
However, there is an Inter Religious Council of Uganda that is working
well with the National Council of Elders, which can come in as a
mediator, conciliator and arbitrator in times of crisis. However, it
is yet to be put in the constitution.
Even the Qadhis' Courts that were put in the constitution in 1995 have
not yet been operationalized as the enabling law has not yet passed in
parliament. Such courts, according to provisions of the constitution,
are charged with handling disputes of marriage, divorce and
inheritance in the Muslim community, as it is the case in neighboring
Kenya.
That would have helped in solving Muslim leadership wrangles as those
appointed Qadhis would be qualified, appointed by Judicial Service
Commission in consultation with Uganda Muslim Supreme Council. For
example, the Chief Qadhi of Kenya is appointed by the Kenya Judicial
Service Commission in consultation with the Muslim Supreme Council of
Kenya.

The most significant achievement of the Islamic revolution is
self-sufficiency partly due to the sanctions imposed on Iran
immediately after the revolution. According to former Uganda's
Ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Iran, Dr. Muhammad Ahmad Kisuule, in
all Middle Eastern countries, it is only Iran that is self-sufficient.
Others, despite oil wealth, depend
on imports. They have little manufacturing and even value addition
capacity.
Yet when similar sanctions were imposed on Uganda in 1972 as a result
of Amin's declaration of the Economic War where thousands of Asians
who had dominated the commercial and industrial sectors were expelled,
we failed to be self-sufficient, resorting to smuggling. Even African
countries that had never had internal or external upheavals since
independence were not different from us.
In 1991, Iran had its first trade exhibition at Lugogo Indoor Stadium,
and most of their goods and services were provided by the
cooperatives. But for us here, we killed the cooperatives when Obote
as President empowered the Minister for Cooperatives and Marketing to
appoint Secretary Managers, and when NRM came in, it fixed the last
nail. Attempts to revive cooperatives have not yet made an impact.
Efforts by the current Minister of State in charge of Micro Finance,
Haji Haruna Kasolo, should be commended. But micro finance and
directorate of Cooperatives in the Ministry of Trade, Industry and
Cooperatives, should be merged. The Kingdom of Buganda under Katikkiro
(Prime Minister Charles Peter Mayiga) is also supplementing on the
revival of the cooperative movement.
The other aspect is nuclear energy. The Islamic republic says that it
is developing it for peaceful purposes Uganda has enough uranium to
develop the same for energy not on for itself but also for the region.

While Uganda and other African countries are busy importing foreign
languages and cultures in addition to colonial and neo colonial ones,
Iran outlawed using a foreign language as a medium of instruction in
basic education or primary schools. We may be global in speaking
English, French, Chinese, Russian, but we will not be original
innovators if we don't do that in our mother tongues or national
languages.
East Africa Community should be commended for promoting Kiswahili as
the lingua franqua in the region, but it is not the official language.
The official Language is English and soon, French will follow as
Franco phone countries Congo are soon joining. Kiswahili should be the
language spoken in EAC Summit, Council of Ministers meetings and East
Africa Legislative Assembly.
As Persia is to Iran, is Buganda to Uganda. Iran has Persian as
national and official language, but Uganda has none of the native
languages e.g., Luganda, Runyakitara, Luo, as a national language.
Instead, it has English as the official language and Kiswahili, as the
second official language. But Luganda is the most widely spoken
language throughout the country.
Both Uganda and Iran are United Nations Organisation and Organization
of Islamic Cooperation member states, which in the words of President
Yoweri Museveni, has replaced Non Aligned Movement, and their chambers
of commerce are members of the Islamic Chamber of Commerce which is
championing an a Muslim world common market. They have a lot to learn
from each other.

Haji Ahmed Kateregga Musaazi is a former President of Uganda
Journalists Association (UJA) and now a Communications Assistant with
Government Citizen Interaction Center (GCIC), Ministry of ICT and
National Guidance and Deputy Spokesperson at Office of National
Chairperson (ONC) of National Resistance Movement (NRM ) Kyambogo.

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