Reaction in Buganda
By T. R. M. CREIGHTON UGANDA'S problem is African disunity. The Federation's is white supremacy. There is, therefore, no analogy to be drawn between the troubles in the two areas, although riots and arrests, emergencies and banishments must look deceptively similar at a distance. Uganda could be a second Ghana by now if it could have produced a national movement broadly based enough to command confidence or a national leader of anywhere near the calibre of Kwame Nkrumah. That it cannot is Uganda's misfortune, due to the Europeans' nineteenth-century habit of draw- ing arbitrary lines on a map, surrounding wholly discrepant tribes, indigenous political systems and ethnic groups, and calling the result a country.
But it is hard to forgive those Uganda politicians who are now exploiting these differences for reasons of Baganda tribal separatism, frustrated Personal ambition or fuddled good intentions. These appear to be the main constituents of the National Freedom Movement (alias Uganda National Movement), though the Buganda court, with characteristic deviousness, is keeping its part in the association dark. It is certainly not a national movement. It is not clear that it repre- sents anyone except a minority among the Baganda; it has no positive programme; and it is the work of a mixed bundle of malcontents who cannot fit into the established and progressive political life of the country.
Colonial Office policy is to develop Uganda as `a predominantly African country with adequate safeguards for minorities.' The minorities are 50,000 Asians—some of them exceedingly wealthy. There are no white settlers and no ques- tion of a continuing European domination. Sir Andrew Cohen, in five years which set the coun- try firmly on the road to representative African self-government, developed African local,govern- ment to a marvellously high standard of efficiency and responsibility. District Commissioners are advisers to the African Councils in most of Uganda, with no power to command, and, though some of them found the change hard to accept at first, it has been successful. His policy, and his successor's, is to introduce by gradual stages an electoral system founded on this sure basis, so that the present largely appointed Legislative Council may evolve into a representative elected chamber, and cabinet government, based on the Popular vote, may replace the present system of Ministers nominated by the government. Today just over half the Council of fifty-four sitting members are Africans. Only ten are directly elected, a few more represent local councils, the remainder are appointed by the Governor. There are nine Asians and twenty Britons, largely government officials. Of the twelve senior Ministers, three are Africans, one Asian, the rest British civil servants; of five junior Ministers, two are African. This is a long way from self- government, but it is rather different from Sir Roy Welensky's pride in his one African Under- Secretary and handful of African Federal Party MPs elected by a mainly European electorate.
Uganda is on the road to representative govern- ment and, even if (as some Africans and Euro- peans believe—wrongly, I think; it is only ham-fistedness and timidity in a highly intractable situation that gives the impression) Mr. Lennox- Boyd would like to go into reverse and revive the idea of a Kenya-dominated white-supremacy East African Federation, this could not be done. The advances of the past ten years, and Sir Andrew Cohen's work, have created an irreversible change whose conclusion can only be representa- tive self-government. The African representatives are not 'stooges' of the government who have earned the contempt of the African but fiery, pas- sionate men who, having got a foothold, would prove very hard to dislodge. Uganda Hansard is a diet of paprika and chillis compared with the Rhodesian plum-duff of the Federal Parliament. The question is not whether representative self- government will come, but when.
What is holding it up is the refusal of the Baganda to collaborate. They are one-fifth of the population of the country. They evolved an unusually highly organised system of government and kingship before the Arabs and British .came to Africa. The Kabaka claims that his lineage is as long as Queen Elizabeth II's. They have always thought that they were, as Sir Harry Johnston put it, 'a length of black cloth and a mile's run ahead of the other tribes.' Today their tribal exclusiveness is being played on by the small reactionary set of the Kabaka's courtiers who have strong vested interests both of money and of power in maintaining a tottering feudal monarchy in Buganda. Ostensibly because they refuse to recognise the British right to preside over consti- titutional change, but actually because they are not prepared to merge any of Buganda's autonomous individuality in the wider nation unless they are sure they can dominate it, they have refused to participate in direct elections or fill the Baganda seats in the Legislative Council; and thus the ad- vance to self-government is held up.
These are the forces manipulating the NFM to promote instability. (It is sad to see that sincere man Mr. Eridadi Mulira caught up in these toils, and one hopes that when he understands what it is all about he will, with his usual moral courage, give it up.) The British have in the past been maddeningly slow and infuriatingly patronising, but responsibility for delay now rests securely with the Baganda oligarchy. Their people support them for traditional reasons—the Kabaka is semi- divine—and would just as gladly follow a lead in the opposite direction.
The best hope for the future is the Uganda Congress Party, which, after a very chequered history, has crystallised into a spare, realistic group of sensible nationalists, prepared to sit in the Legislative Council and work with the British for independence. If they act wisely, they may emerge as a true national movement. They will deserve all our support.
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