This is not a mere election. The nation is already looking at piles of the dead, the wounded and the languishing in prison for having a mind that opposes a wrong status-quo. The president is in all-out war to silence real issues of the people. There is no more representation, just paying homage.
The common values of Ugandans – democracy, culture, justice, equality, opportunity have all vanished right before our eyes.
Amidst this chaos, the senior generation is wondering which war the approximately eighteen million Ugandan youth are fighting? Many haven’t pieced together what it means to grow up in the shadow of a brutal regime, and are struggling to come to full terms with how political events have shaped this generation.
Now the youth are active recruits in a war between their history and their future. As each side picks its recruits, the youth aren’t shielded from the attacks and the policies that have raised the eyebrows of Ugandans.
The primary war of the youth is therefore, one of decision making – on which side of history to belong – a stalking past, or an uncertain future. Do we evolve our political and economic opportunities to greater heights or decline and keep our reclusive ways which history has so generously handed us. This decision has to be known and made down to the least among us.
This is our primary war – without making up the mind, working for change, nothing could change!
To me, what’s going on is not an election – for to call it an election is to say that the government is playing by the rules of an election.
This is a real modern struggle, in which Ugandans must return government to its role of working for them. They must necessarily attain the ground first, upon which real issues can be brought forward, not silenced. This is the war of a generation.
