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The storm in North Africa
Opinion: Why some African leaders are smiling.
Rosebell Kagumire is a young Ugandan multimedia journalist working on media, women, peace and conflict issues. Her blog won the first African journalist blogging awards hosted by Panos West Africa in 2009 and the 2010 VOICE blogging fellowship by Oxfam GB.
January 2011
It’s been more than a month since protests that began in the Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid spread across North Africa and the Middle East. The protests in Tunisia were sparked by the action Mohamed Bouazizi, a 26 year old street vendor who on December 17, 2010 set himself on fire in front of the municipal building protesting his ill-treatment by local police who confiscated his merchandise.
By the time Bouazizi died on January 4, 2011, protests had gripped Tunisia, many Tunisians poured in the streets to challenge the regime of -President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Ben Ali was later forced to flee to Saudi Arabia, ending his 23 year old rule.
The Tunisian revolution, entirely engineered from within, spread ripples to the rest of the Arab world and protests have been going on ever since. Africans have largely followed the protests in Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria, Yemen and Sudan through different media. In Uganda where local TV stations air direct feeds from Al Jazeera and other international networks, many people especially in the capital have watched in disbelief. They have hardly seen determined people standing up to a regime without the help of a gun.
Many Ugandans in the social networks have facebook status and tweets warning or wishing the same could happen in Uganda. I have refused to be optimistic about the events in North Africa. However a good look at Zimbabwe, Angola, Cameroon, Congo-Brazzaville to Uganda you would understand the excitement.
The protests in North Africa have been largely around unemployment rate, corruption, poor living conditions and curtailing of freedoms of masses by the regimes. A look at the statistics tells you a story that would trick most of Africa into thinking they too could have a shot at bringing down their own dictators.
Almost two thirds of Egypt’s population has been born since President Hosni Mubarak came to power. Unemployment rate is North Africa has been high as their leaders live a royalty life. Corruption has been so rampant that the middle class in these countries never saw the reason why they paid taxes. The living conditions in these countries for most of the population were terrible. Only one percent of rural people in Tunisia have access to clean water and unemployment was at 14.2 percent as of 2009.
Compare the situation in these countries to Uganda you will find a lot of similarities.
About 77 per cent of Uganda’s population is youth. According to a 2008 World Bank report, Uganda has the highest youth unemployment rate and the youngest population in the world.
Lastly the revolutions going in North Africa have been helped by the use of new media which has had a well reception in the whole of the Arab region in the last decade. In the rest of Africa, many youth have not seen a computer and while telephones have increased the participation of youth in freedom of expression, the youth can’t easily maneuver when government puts a crackdown. And those on social networks are not yet using them for the cases that affect their daily lives. In 2006, the government jammed radio stations which were airing election results and people had to rely solely on the Electoral Commission (EC) tally center. The EC, which has been ruled incompetent by the highest court in the land, to be the only source of information Ugandan’s democracy remains at the mercy of a few men.
Most people in Uganda generally are in two categories those that fear the regime and those that fear life after the regime. Those in fear are aware that they will be crashed because we have seen heavy military equipment (one usually saved for combat) in the streets of Kampala when the youth have come out to demonstrate in the past. Those who fear the life after can’t start imagining the scenario.
This happens in many other African countries where rulers have given themselves more years and abrogated constitutions to leave nations with a chance of having a life president. So for now I remain skeptical of my country seeing any of what’s on TV and I hope that these revolutions bring meaningful changes to these countries. That no one will hijack a peoples struggle just like it happened in Iran decades ago.
Read this article in full here: http://rosebellkagumire.com/2011/02/01/why-african-leaders-are-smiling-at-the-storm-in-north-africa/
By: Rosebell Kagumire
