(Part 1)
Yes, I just made that word up. “MUSEVENIDUSTRIALISM” is a new word in Ugandan economics starting from today Mon, May 5 2025 onwards. I bemoan that Hon Balaam Barugahara shall help me to patent it as an asset for future NRM economists and literal minds to expound and research.
In 1989, Uganda’s economy was liberalized as a pre-condition to be able to ‘fit in’ and trade with the then unipolar world order which after the collapse of the Soviet Union, had become a global economic hegemony powered and administered by the unsustainable American petrodollar and a consumptive debt-funded expansionist and environmentally draining economic theories as advised by Keyenes et al.
I hereby refer the reader to the completely well balanced “NRM 10 point program” which unfortunately we had to ‘upgrade’ shortly after liberation day. These updates were necessary and unavoidable due to the circumstances under which the NRA liberators found the world in. When they went to the Bush the world was already under a complete transition. The Soviet union under Gorbachev begun to crumble and that was the end of our ‘sponsors”.
Earlier, all the Liberators had known were Idi Amin’s totalitarian non-scientific economics led by emotion and reactionary eruptions and a broke but resources-rich Nation handed over by fleeing looters from Europe.
This liberalization came with several terms and conditions and the Political as well as Social classes of the time had to ‘trade-off’ many aspects. The proletariat, mainly Lango, Acholi and Baganda under Obote etc had to escape to diaspora where they continue to send back billions of dollars. The peasantry took refuge in Congo and IDPs, new Rebel groups (contradictions) such as ITONGWA, Lakwena, Kony thinking arose from within and without.
Classical Economics determines Politics which inturn causes Culture and the reverses are true whichever format you choose. E=P=C. This implies that if an Economy is to CHANGE for the better or worse, the other 2 directly proportional components will also change as a matter of simple maths. You cannot change one without affecting the other therefore. Many have tried.
Chairman Mao of china had hoped to Industrialize the peasantry without enabling free access to the global market. The result were several changes to his thinking by his successors like Deng Xiaoping and even Xi Jinping.
It was therefore true, even in the traditional African class setting pre-colonialism and under medieval European feudal and serfdom economics, that if you want to Keep Workers (or any population for that matter) submissive in your company or under your reactionary leadership (opposite of revolutionary), you must ensure that their Economics, Politics and Culture do not change at all. Ensure that their culture is doctored for your own purposes for example by making Colonies have names such as Queens Avenue, Lake Victoria etc.
Bakuli road is still Berkeley however much we try.
However the issue with this old feudal practice of “Lords verses servants and/or slaves” is that it all already collapsed. It’s a defunct ideology, tested and discarded by most scholars, even the most stupid dictator will try to pursue Industry albeit carefully. Industrialization does not come with only benefits to everyone therefore. Usually Politics takes the first beating followed by Culture. That’s why after the Chinese CCM defeated the Kuomintang, the party embarked on a Cultural revolution,,in Vain, as the end result is not what Mao had envisaged. The Communist Party of Russia also fell out of their ideology of Marxism-Leninism and some adventurer after Stalin begun the process of “deStalinization ‘ before he was stopped by the next party leader till the whole system collapsed and Russia took what it could. The other Spoils where shared among US and Western European Bourgeoisie.
Africa was not spared as just like today, their economies were ‘tagged” to the global. Africans had to fight in world wars they never even understand till today.
Subsequently, still aided by global interference, after independence, the only powerful Lord in Africa is King Mswati today, but all original African land Politics and Culture was toppled by incoming forces of global Capital and Industry, emancipated peasantry and a coalition of new industrialized and educated workers. In England, today, Prince Harry has had his security removed by former ‘Bakopi”. Every OLD Political leader PRE Industry including the Csar of Russia and Haile Sellasie are GONE devoured by the inevitable venom of conventional Industrial economics by less than 5 men.
Economic empowerment of the masses is therefore typical example of an unavoidable “Gwowonya Eggere” (The one whose Leg you Heal MUST use it to Kick the Doctor). This is human Nature.
According to Tamale Mirundi in his short but prudent book to the Bazzukulu titled “If Museveni comes back in 2026”, he states that “Humans are Very forgetful” and expecting for example a current generation born under NRM to understand the difference between Good governance and Poor is next to impossible. He blamed this on the Poor documentation of Obote and Amin inefficiencies so as to help the future which is current, to compare. With the Appointment of OWANAPAEDIA as Presidential advisor on such archives, am glad that His Excellency heeded to Tamale’s call. More still needs to be done.
Even with records. Humans will still forget or ignore most Positives that came into their lives as natural behavior where animals are fine-tuned to be aware and remember of mostly Negative aspects that Happen in their lives today and the past.
Do you know how many drive on NRM built roads while jeering Gen Museveni daily just because they saw one pothole? But they have forgotten that just a few years ago, that whole road was murram with ditches like humps of a sweet potato garden, and then they were not jeering??.
But they are not to blame. They have none can else to blame for anything but all they know today, Gen Museveni. To be the most only important uselful leader therefore comes with trade-offs too. One is being a target of unfair criticism and disregard of your real positive works that form majority of production and even employment and wealth creation today.
You are able to remember your Teacher’s canes more than the algebra they caned you to learn to help you, isn’t it? Don’t mind. It’s normal. That’s now the issue the NRM has with a population that is NEW and has NO MEMORY.
But most forget that for NRA/M to choose the path that “doesn’t encourage rememberance” was a tactful TRADE-OFF to ‘fit into the globe”. There is no issue with Uganda children singing a song about Afande Drago. It would be cool. Afando Drago the Dragon.. But USAID wouldn’t fund such a song. Afande BLACK, Cobra, Kazini , Rwigyema songa mbele etc
We for example also dropped Nationalism (different from Patriotism) empowering activities such as Chaka Mchaka because Nationalism blocks the advent of foreign Capital and causes Protectionism of trade according to Keyenes.
Our new ‘partners’ post liberation, the IMF and World Bank can’t allow such with their Money therefore. We reduced NALI intake till recently, never took trouble to patriotisize our Schools and left their MIND change and indoctrination to foreign global whatever to decide.
In China, Russia, USA everything that is taught to a child is for a Reason pre-determined by the State, but what is Babligan Babligan??? …Nobody knows but our children still sing it) … Baby Jesus, l love you instead of, Oh Uganda, I love You, I love you, you are my Savior. … Everyday…. Both nursery rhymes lead to DIFFERENT category of laboring citizens with different intentions to society with no doubt and must influence National Economics and Politics of that baby and her peers in Future ultimately. The IMF wants them to sing Baby Jesus though, workshops where you drink MILO, Cadburys etc to shape your ‘taste”. But you ask them for Money for PDM. ..hmm. This is because African massline empowering programs like PDM if successful will cause a Loss of Power to control the now cheap African labor by the Global capitalist therefore. Now you have begun seeing the difference between MUSEVENIDUSTRIALISM and Industrialism” as you were taught.
For example cooperatives which were a social system of production more closely related to the typical African way of work had to be dropped for the sake of Foreign Capital influx as well as investments, which have undoubtedly caused immense growth to Uganda whose Economy has been growing at an average of 5% p.a annum since Gen Museveni led a liberation struggle that had hoped to usher in more cooperatives, barter trade, hospitals and services and even Tourism managed collectively and owned and managed by the People of Uganda only.
That is called ‘perfect communism” a political Economic development theory contrary to Keyenes’s but by Karl Marx and Engels and other thinkers such as Socrates and even Amenemope of Kemet thousands of years ago. But to make $500bn by 2040, even the current 6% is all we shall get IF we don’t introduce MUSEVENIDUSTRIALISM. We need 10% p.a National Growth till 2040 to make it. Rwanda is always trying, hitting as high as 9% because they have begun MUSEVENIDUSTRIALISM before us.
Ugandan Capitalism which arose after the 1989 liberalization surely surpassed the NRM’s ten point plan of “mixed-economy” as today, private Sector enterprises mainly powered by foreign mid-term investment dollars have dominated the Economy. This is the same case in Japan, Kenya, Shanghai, New York, and any Society one would define as ‘industrialized’ today. The Entrepreneurs, mostly foreign and a few Ugandan elites own Uganda and the earth but yet, the disparity in wealth between a tiny minority of about 1% and the majority opposite continues to widen and hence leading the whole now globalized and interlinked Political, social and economic system to a risk of exploding like Post Industrial Revolution of Europeans that led to 2 devastating World wars.
Just before the Russians and all Europeans decided to begin Political revolutions” in the late nineteenth ighteenth and early twentieth eenth century, a sort of ‘European spring” engulfed the West, and then copied by most Europeans and then the Chinese under Mao Zedong followed by AFRICANS who liberated themselves from Western Slavery using the same tactics and help from the liberated Giants, there had been an INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION that had turned the agrarian and peasant masses of Europe into ‘Industrialized apes’ that ‘worshipped machines” to attain Food and Profit. Industrial development though sounding sweet may therefore be a Politicians worst nightmare if not managed well.
The Economy of the whole Planet thus developed from 1800-2000 more than it had ever developed since Man (Genus Homo) begun Making Tools millions of Years ago in Africa.
The above history and philosophical session is vital and shall be dissected further in my upcoming Book, “Unstoppable Uprising of Africans” and it will be paramount for a Ugandan political Economic planner to grasp the concept of ‘Musevenindustry”, why it still DOESN’T Exist (but is a planned successor in an upcoming Economic revolution after the now almost complete triumph of Musevenomics) and how igniting it can SAFELY lead Uganda to the desired $500 billion GDP from current about $50bn by 2040. It also elaborates why the Presidential Skilling Hubs are the only engines that can ensure a growth of Industry but while avoiding all the other ‘curses” that came with the rapid Industrialization of Europe. Such ‘curses” included loss of Political power to the newly empowered proletariat (working middle class), loss of morals and cultures to corporate greed and destruction of the environment that now leaves us with a messed up climate. It’s raining but it doesn’t want to rain, in May??
Patrick “Jago-Minyang Makombo” Asiimwe is an NRM Political Economic theorist, and ARDC MASINDI
