Friday 2 December 2011

US troops in Uganda, Social Learning Theory and Gaddafi’s ‘Execution’

Friends,
Sending US troops to Uganda to reportedly hunt down Kony Joseph and LRA has not generated big headlines around the world. It has been done very quietly and I’m very suspicious about it. My only worry is that there seems to be no visible political reforms in Uganda, a situation that can lead to anything. Things are no longer looking good in Uganda and this is worrying me so much. When a situation is as bad as it is right now, the government becomes paranoid and starts killing and imprisoning its own citizens openly especially those that criticise it regularly.

Americans always side with the side that will make them look good back home, and in most cases, it is the people in case of a revolution. But if there is no revolution, they will always side with the people in power or government( and in this case, it could be argued that they are in Uganda to help President Museveni but not the people of Uganda).

Like in Libya, if a government disappears, new governments pop up virtually or automatically because that is simply in the nature of social life given current conditions. Obviously, when someone has been a president for such a long time, they tend to think they are different from other human beings, but the fact is that one day Museveni will not be president of Uganda, Mbabazi will not be PM or anywhere near government, and possibly another set of tribes will be dominating the economic and political sector other than Banyankole and Baganda, simply because society always evolves automatically.

This is the reason why I don’t believe in revengeful acts, murdering someone because i don’t like them and the death penalty because, apart from the fact that it is immoral, I know societies will always change whether leaders like it or not. For instance, If it was true that killing a dictator or a murderer gives more positive results, then states with a death penalty would have lower murder rates than states without a death penalty. That is not the case.

In Libya’s case, Brother Gaddafi(RIP) was a dictator but his execution isn’t going to deter other dictators from doing what they have been doing.  Dictators normally don’t change their behavior because another dictator has been killed. They will feel his death for a while and probably shade some tears in their bedrooms but they will go back to feeling like ‘Napoleon’. President Museveni will remain a ‘barking dog’ despite what has happened to Gaddafi. He is probably gonna issue a statement in a few days time calling westerners all sorts of names and scaring Ugandans, like Gadaffi(RIP) did at the start of this campaign, and he wont change an iota, trust me on this. I challenge anyone to list the dictators who have changed their behavior after another dictator has been deposed and executed?

I don’t know whether some people are familiar with Bandura’s social learning theory( SLT)  but it explains a lot about people’s behavior and how they learn to behave that way. Bandura argues that an individual learns by observation, imitation, and modeling. For instance, I watched a video of Bukenya [former VP of Uganda] recently after being released from prison and I was astonished to see him still rolling eyes, like Museveni, while giving a speech in Kakiri trading centre- despite the fact that the media has been pointing out that he is imitating President Museveni and he should stop it.

Similary, dictators just learn to become dictators or monsters. Nobody is born a monster, I believe, though my lovely wife disagrees. My wife believes that some people’s bad behavior is inherited. She quoted some theories which I can’t remember now but she is convinced that some people don’t deserve to live in this world because they are monsters. I , however, disagree.

I believe every behavior is learned from somewhere. Museveni surely must have a good side of him which if we had not allowed him to accumulate too much power in 1990s, we would have benefited from that good side. Children also learn aggressive behavior by observing others, but if there is negative consequences, there may not be any imitation.That’s why parents control what they watch on TV or see elsewhere.

NTC and NATO should not have killed Gadaffi.I think they intentionally eliminated him. They did not want a Mubarak circus in Libya but that worries us a lot about the kind of government NTC are gonna run.  They should have given him a chance to stand trial, but then again, Brother Gaddy brought all this on himself. We wrote articles and posted them in the media and on our Uganda Muslim Brothers & Sisters( UMBS) forum where we have got members that were in direct contact with him- including Uganda’s ambasador to Libya, but I guess he never listened. Why couldn’t he give up power? Why did he choose to fight a war he clearly wasn’t going to win? Mubaraka is still eating sausages yet he is not different from Gadaffi(RIP).
I’m still sad about Gadafi’s death and i hope Allah forgives his sins but he never helped himself. He chose to walk through a landmine, and that was not wise.Inalilahi wahina ilayihi rajihuna.

 Byebyo ebyange.
Abbey Semuwemba

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