Over the last two weeks, we have shared here what we considered important feedback from younger Compatriots on the question of ideological clarity.
The comments are important because the Compatriots gave the subject attention, and took the trouble to engage with us.
Today, we give a response. We now flag what we see as the central concerns and, or, questions – which our friends raised.
Is the time for national ideological orientation efforts, long gone? Our short response: On the contrary, no. More and stronger efforts are needed – and yesterday …
Should emphasis now rather be rather placed on “learning statecraft”? Our short response: “Statecraft”, however defined, whatever the circumstances, always has an ideological or philosophical anchor …
The “elite cannot unlearn” how they have been “educated”, “socialized” … Our short response: Yes, they can …
Special information packages – with content reflecting social and demographic segmentation – are needed … Our short response: Absolutely. Except, the essence of the message must never be diluted – whatever the external appearance or “packaging”
Ideology “must be made attractive” … Our short response: This viewpoint speaks to presentation, packaging … That, is secondary … And must never turn into obfuscation of the essence of the message
…Ideological efforts are “not felt” … Our short response: This indeed could be the case, especially when referring to the humble efforts of individual spokes in the wheel … But it could also mean that we are not sure about what precisely we are looking for … Because the totality of Government policy formulation reflects a clear and definite ideological foundation on the part of the leadership of the Revolution … Not random thought or guesswork
The youth “have not been taught” … Our short response: Yes, they have. The more important question is, “what have they been taught”? The related questions – which must be asked and answered repeatedly: What is Ideology? What is ideological work? Why is ideological clarity of utmost importance? What would all this entail in the national specificities of Uganda?
We conclude by sharing below, excerpts from our January 2022 article, “Revisiting the Fundamentals”. It speaks more elaborately, to the concerns we have responded to, above.
“… We could not, however, fail to promptly respond to very important concerns expressed by a Compatriot who has worked for a long time with the private sector, and with a leading parastatal. His concern was that our repeated emphasis on ‘ideological clarity’ comes across as ‘abstract and outdated’
…To respond adequately … we have had to borrow heavily from the notes we prepared for an August 2019 discussion (hosted online by a senior leader and Comrade) on the present and future of our country – which unfolded as a discussion around our Ugandan ‘Middle Class’.
It was our considered but very humble contribution to that 2019 discussion, that robust as it was, we the participants had unfortunately developed our ideas around philosophical misconceptions, and also failed to separate strategic from tactical tasks. This, we feared, leads to erroneous diagnosis of the problem, and therefore to erroneous prescription of what needs to be done.
… In terms of conceptual challenges and themes, we flagged and still flag categories which we consider critical for a meaningful national conversation. Even where there are divergent approaches, working definitions must be agreed as a matter of necessity.
‘Social Classes’ is one such category – extremely important. ‘Social Classes’ are large groups of people which differ from one another, in the distinct places they occupy in a given mode of production of material wealth and sustenance.
Classes are not only distinct social categories, but are distinct ideological categories, representing distinct socio-economic interests and espousing distinct worldviews.
There are fundamental questions which must arise in examining specific modes of production of material wealth and sustenance, and their related class content and structure. Which classes own the major means of production? Which classes own the smaller means of production?
Which classes work the means of production? Which classes appropriate (or do not appropriate) the surplus value created by the process of production? Which classes or social strata are divorced from the direct production process – but service the state? Who are the intelligentsia? Who are the bureaucrats? Whose interests do they serve?
Then, very importantly, we must look at the historical place of Capitalism. It has established itself as a global system over the last 600 years. Is sub-Saharan Africa at its dominant center? Or is sub-Saharan Africa still hostage in the periphery of Global Capitalism? Characterized by what Yoweri Museveni together with others, has described very simply as “enclave economy” – islands of prosperity in a morass of structural poverty?
Has contemporary globalization since the early 1980s changed this underlying essence? Has the collapse of Communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe changed this underlying essence?
In our discussion, it is to very important to consider specifically what kind of classes are thrown up by the defining underlying essence we have mentioned immediately above. Does, for example, the “Middle Class” in the advanced capitalist country and nation espouse the same interests and ideological complexion as our local variant?
How does this play out in our post-colonial state where no national ethos or psyche has as yet emerged? Where, in fact, no nation (in the classical sense) or stable multinational commonality – is work in progress?
Where the embryonic classes are still very much classes “in themselves”, and not yet classes “for themselves” – where all bear the clear birth marks of our localized and introverted peasantry still largely locked in subsistence economy? A peasantry whose sporadic interface with the market is only via the production and marketing of primary and unprocessed commodities …
… In all this, how do we manage society at the level (in classical terms) of incomplete and distorted nation, state and class formation? Where the classical political party (as a uni-class and uni-ideological entity) does not, and cannot, yet exist – at least for the next two generations?
How does our Political Economy apprehend a hotchpotch of economic structures – which do not yet articulate a clear mode of production, in the pervasive shadow of Global Capitalism?”
David Mafabi
Senior Presidential Advisor/Political Affairs (Special Duties) State House