Connecting the dots. On Saturday I couldnt drop paracetamol to my sick patient at Mulago National Referral and Teaching Hospital because the president was launching renovations of a national referral that has no paracetamol. Renovations that we health workers -disgusted and frustrated with government telling us there is no money for safe shelter and infrastructure for our patients - wrote to Africa Development Bank to fund using a grant from World Bank. Renovations that had nothing to do with NRM or Presidents Office. As I tuned into news that same evening, youth and elders alike were castigating a politician for wanting to change the status quo. Rebuking and admonishing anyone daring to ask why dont Ugandans deserve better. Even today, Im asked by contemporaries why I complain so much, how politics should be left to those who play dirty. Theres something inherently dangerous and precarious if we continue this way of thinking. This way of coping with the poverty and injustices in our midst. Its at once unnerving and scary. It tells me that we the youth, the one demographic that is more amenable to change; the one demographic more connected to, and can easily see how the rest of the world is improving; the one demographic that has had the benefit of a childhood in a classroom away from tendering cows and tendering gardens; that we the youth are not ready or are simply unwilling to take charge of our destiny. Its as if we will go to our grave at 81 years still believing that we are the leaders of tomorrow. We are utterly incapable of connecting the dots. We cant connect the dots that lead from; a lack of paracetamol in a national referral hospital; a tax burden that places the price of kerosene and electricity beyond our mothers reach; a head of state that spends more than the British Royal family on himself; and a lack of alternative voices in our politics. My sick patient in Mulago - the one who did not get the paracetamol I bought -and her whole family still say they will vote Museveni and NRM this 2016 election cycle. They castigate Mbabazi and other dissenters for daring to change the status quo. Connecting the dots.
Posted on: Mon, 20 Oct 2014 03:52:17 +0000
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