A friend of mine holds the opinion that Ugandans appear to have a serious problem with financial management and when matters get sticky —- as they’re bound too for every profligate person — we resort to blaming foreigners who toiled to build their empires.
He believes that in our culture it’s more important to appear wealthy than to be wealthy, that’s why the lavish weddings, parties, fleets of cars and all such.
GRANTED!
What he forgot to mention, however, is that we also have a weakness for self-loathing. For some reason, we consider it virtuous when we slight ourselves, and that’s my friend’s biggest weakness; only he doesn’t know it.
That’s why he denies the fact that there is a refugee problem in this country, a big one, and saying so is not xenophobia.
There’s everything wrong with a country’s genetic makeup when foreigners have it better than the locals as a matter of course. If you let a visitor sleep in your Master Bedroom, it’s not because you’re hospitable; it’s because you’re a fool.
But that’s what happens when you have a leadership that spends 40 years glorifying foreigners while denigrating it’s own citizens. Eventually the citizens become well acquainted with their weaknesses and meekly accept to occupy the lowest caste in their own country.
YES, we have weaknesses BUT we must find a way to make Uganda work for Ugandans FIRST. This is our heritage.
Would you bequeath your wealth to a stranger just because your own children are less competent?
Someone who works with a refugee agency once told me something that stuck with me to this day. He asked a little kid who lives next to Kyangwale refugee settlement in Kikuube district that; “what do you want to be when you grow up?”
“A refugee,” replied the kid, without any need for contemplation.
Only the innocence of a child can encapsulate this problem. Children from indigenous host communities stand outside the fence of the camps begging for leftovers from the refugees comparatively lavish meals. It’s a humiliating experience for those people and in the mind of that kid, being a refugee is associated with privilege.
That’s not just wrong. It’s also unsustainable. Eventually the host communities become hostile to the foreigners and that’s not pretty. I pray for the sake of our nation that we find the right balance between hospitality and self-interest so that we never get there.
