Those Leaders Who Don’t Learn From History End Up Miserably

OPINION– What is happening in Uganda today happened in ancient Europe and France in particular. In France Napoleon Bonaparte discouraged the teaching of arts subjects and even reached an extent of banning the teaching of History and Political education completely. According to Napoleon, the products of these two subjects were becoming threats to his planned life presidency which one can today term as “paka last”. In the same way the teaching of Political education in Uganda was stoped some years back with the survival of History remaining at the mercy of God. One time I heard the president rebuking Universities which are teaching development studies. Now he is paying science teachers much higher than their arts counterparts. In actual sense he is discouraging the teaching of arts the same way Napoleon did. However the down fall of Napoleon in France was nothing to do with products of arts subjects but his military miscalculations. He resorted to war mongering in the neighbouring countries with the aim of becoming the most significant military figure on the European continent. Unfortunately Napoleon’s foreign military policy turned out to be a boomerang to his regime. He started fighting wars in Moscow, Britain and many others as he purported to be promoting peace on the European continent. The countries I am talking about are like Uganda that has resorted to fighting wars in Somalia, DRC, Central African Republic and South Sudan in the name of peace keeping. At the end, Napoleon lost popularity both in France and in the neighbouring nations hence his overthrow became inevitable. In the same country (France), when King Louis disregarded the middle class i.e teachers, lawyers and journalists etc, the victims resorted to enlightening the rest of population like the illiterate business people and peasants against the regime and eventually the french revolution broke out, bringing the end to the regime of king Louis. In other words, the overthrow of a mighty regime does not require artillery weapons but meer loosing popularity among a big section of it’s population. It happens when the political head is adamant enough to respond to grievances of the so called minor people especially during crisis like economic depression and famine. Utterances like “if bread is expensive try cake” as it was in France, or telling hungry city dwellers to eat muwogo when they own no gardens is like adding insults on wounds. Dealing with a frustrated population is indeed risky. In France, the peaceful revolution which started with a lot of compromising attitude requesting for reforms from King Louis ended up into the reign of terror. This has happened in some other continents outside Europe including in Africa where we are residents e.g Rwanda’s Hutu-Tutsi dynasty of 1994 was a result of the regime’s failure to address grievances of one section of the population. If I was a political head of state, I would at all times pay attention to issues biting a common person who uses no weapon to fight because their wars have always been successful. We have all seen civilians in some countries like Egypt and Tunisia, Burkina Faso, Libya Ivory coast and many more, causing the overthrow of adamant political regimes. Some African leaders are like the restored bourbon monarchy who learnt nothing and forgot nothing. As minor as teachers’ strike may seem to be, if left unaddressed, Ugandan peasant population who believe to be suffering just because they never went to school may fore see vicious cycle of illiteracy in their homes and eventually poverty when their children are denied education, sent back to their homes just because the government to which they keep paying taxes has adamantly refused to settle teachers’ grievances. If arts teachers are insignificant how many scientists have ever headed this nation since colonial time to date? By paying science teachers much higher than arts teachers we are creating social classes of population in the the same working environment. We shall have the upper class (the nobilities) who can afford cake and lower class who even can’t afford mwoogo within the education sector; We shall have the dominant class and the minorities by statuses; the highly motivated on one hand and the disgruntled, disoriented, demotivated, and disgusted on the other hand; we shall have the self starters and those who will be pushed to work..

Those Leaders Who Don’t Learn From History End Up Miserably

Museveni Will Be No Exception

Publisher

Uganda Today

Rotary International & CBS Host Spectacular Kaliisoliiso 2025 Gala at Hotel Africana

Publisher

Uganda Today

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