One of my favourite research topics is “Cultural Imperialism” and so you can imagine how I feel whenever I happen on material that describes or explains cultural imperialism. It makes me “woke”. Yes, this morning, Wednesday, 25th April 2018, I happened on and watched a video of an interview of Dr. Jorg Wiegratz (PhD) about his book: “Neoliberal Moral Economy in Africa”. I am “woke”.
I use the word “woke” herein to describe my state of being in the same context as “woke” is used in the women’s movement in pushing for progress to attain gender equality. Yes, “woke” to mean awake and not in the sense of “I am not asleep”, but in the sense of “I am aware”.
During his interview, Dr. Wiegratz gave insight into the contents of his book, which include, according to him, an analysis of how “economic deception” has become routine and has been institutionalised in Uganda; and how such institutionalisation of “economic deception” has normalised and intensified fraud, economic crime and trickery in doing business.
Basically, it would appear, our morals here in Uganda, in particular, have been ‘engineered’ and altered to the extent that our moral strength has been so weakened that we do not resist the evil that is unchecked liberal capitalism.
So weakened is our moral strength to the extent that when the “servants of capitalism” speak of promoting investors, of modernisation, of industrialisation, of liberalisation, of free trade, of blah and blah, we cheer them along.
We are subconscious of how those very “servants of capitalism”, the investors that they promote and the ideologies that they promote – modernisation, industrialisation, liberalisation, free trade, blah and blah – are the very root source of our poverty.
Instead, the “servants of capitalism” call us backward and we accept. They blame us for our poverty and we accept that we are the problem. Through deceit they seduce us to accept that our heritage, the wisdom and the knowledge systems that our ancestors bequeathed us, are the cause of our poverty.
And the master stroke of the “servants of capitalism” is their considerable success in brainwashing us to accept that in order to be ‘better’ we need to ethnocide the culture of our ancestors and to adopt a culture that is exogenous in origin. How so culturally dislocated we have become.
I do not deceive myself. I cannot single-handedly change the tide, but as I have become more “woke”, I have a choice to resist it. Resist all of the tide at once, I may not be able to; but resist some of it that I can, I will surely do.
I can and I will buy Dr. Wiegratz’s book.
I can and I will read Dr. Wiegratz’s book.
I can and I will with my new awakening from Dr. Wiegratz’s book better critique neoliberal capitalism and its negative consequences in Uganda.
I can and I will, starting with this blog post, encourage all Ugandans with means and good intention to buy and read Dr. Wiegratz’s book; and from the understanding that they derive from it, begin to ask and answer the question:
Who really is the root source of our poverty in Uganda?
I am a “woke woman” and so the revolution begins.
nowaraga.com 
8 responses to “The cause of poverty in Uganda”
Perhaps I come from a different world or am. More WOKE… paper money itself is a deception and a corruption entity and I don’t expect its systems anywhere beyond even Uganda to be any better.
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Thank you Norah. We are dealing with the same here in Palestine – I will be moving to Uganda in a few months and would love to meet you and discuss some of the overlaps in our situations. Please continue to write and thank you for the recommendation.
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Good one, Norah! That book by the Doc, is a must-read.
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“… economic deception” has become routine and has been institutionalised in Uganda; and … such institutionalisation of “economic deception” has normalised and intensified fraud, economic crime and trickery in doing business.” Pretty much sums up the state of affairs in Uganda, from the top to the bottom. The deception happens in the corridors of power, taking various shapes, including promising middle-income status by year blah blah blah, without providing any blueprint for attaining that; in the boardrooms, with crafty businessmen and women cutting corners and questionable deals; in the streets, with boda bodas inflating the price threefold if they suspect that you’re new; in churches, with the ever-imploring pastors finding ways to extort more and more from their spiritually needy, unsuspecting flock, and virtually everywhere.
We celebrate individuals who, without any evidence of the means, wake up one day and start splashing cash, showing off wealth they would never be comfortable accounting for. The same accountability is absent in the public service, starting at the very top – and that’s why we have people earning less than UGX5m becoming overnight business moguls and owners of castles and mansions they really don’t need. In the end, fresh graduates from University start stealing with urgency as soon as they get into the labour market, aspiring to join the showy lives they have been brought up to believe in.
The collective national dream has been hijacked by liberal capitalism and turned into selfish individualistic endeavours, with most people forgetting that it’s in their best interests to work on developing Project Uganda in our collective African ‘Ubuntu’ way so that it is a good place for generations to come. Instead, we get a little money from here and there and sell the soul of our very being. We forget that if we don’t develop together as a nation, our very own dreams won’t find a sustainable environment to thrive in. I could go on and on.
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Josh, sadly, I couldn’t agree more …
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Right on point: “It analyses especially the moral-economic character of agricultural produce markets in eastern Uganda.”
Case in point:
The company, he said, had in 2009 spent $4.5m (Shs16b) to train more than 17,000 farmers to produce mangos but the company in the hope that the factory would be operational but this has not happened, which has forced them to resort to imports.
http://mobile.monitor.co.ug/Business/Business/Anite-heckled-failure-operationalise-Soroti-fruit-factory–/2471018-4493830-format-xhtml-tccjdtz/index.html
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Thanks Norah for this information.
I hope the following information in the links will add on to the enlightenment :
https://thisisafrica.me/how-the-swiss-get-rich-at-zambias-expense/
https://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/oil-gas-and-mining/catch-me-if-you-can-exxon-complicit-corrupt-liberian-oil-sector/
“It is of note that they are the biggest corporate donor to the Conservative party led by Prime Minister Theresa May and donated 1.25m Euros to the Prince Charles Trust.”
https://www.buzzfeed.com/heidiblake/uk-refused-to-raid-lycamobile-citing-its-tory-donations?utm_term=.atGPlgKn8#.phEzQ53KZ
Asked about the letter, HMRC initially denied it was authentic, saying: “This is the United Kingdom for God’s sake, not some third world banana republic where the organs of state are in hock to some sort of kleptocracy.”
But they later admitted it was real and said it was “regrettable” that the line was included.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/6091792/tax-officials-refused-to-investigate-money-laundering-at-telecoms-company-because-they-donated-cash-to-the-tories/
*Bribery:*
Liberia’s president ordered a probe into a 2013 oil deal with ExxxonMobil Corp. Exxon didn’t immediately comment; it previously said the deal complied with all antigraft laws
https://blogs.wsj.com/riskandcompliance/2018/04/20/corruption-currents-u-k-refuses-raids-in-money-laundering-probe/
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