Western Religion Keeps Africa Poor - Plo Lumumba

yes the question and the place of culture is one that must preoccupy our minds particularly on an occasion such as this when we are gathered here to commemorate slightly by a few months one 100 years since the passing of the omukama ca of the buoro kitara Kingdom we are gathered here to remind ourselves of the place of culture in the lives of our societies and when we do so we do so because we are aware that the buoro kitara and the many kingdoms that we have in Uganda and indeed in the continent of Africa have

been victimized by other civilizations but we know that prior to the rude disruption of our governance systems African kingdoms were organized the buoro kitara kingdom was organized and even the European historians and anthropologists who have tried to say no recognized that they were the buganda kingdom was organized the Toro were organized the vanan were organized the shook in what is present day South Sudan were organized the yua were organized in what is present day Nigeria they are kind were organized the Zulu were organized we were organized and our organization as an African people was informed

by order and compassion the history of Africa is therefore a history of welcoming other civilizations in in the hope that they would reciprocate but history teaches us that they did not it is Ghana's quam kuruma who writes and it is not only the Europeans who started that journey of disruption and exploitation the Arabs did it and we don't talk about it as loudly as we should they came and they took us into slavery and they castrated our men so that when you don't see dark skinned people in the numbers that we should in the Arab

world is because they castrated men and we must never forget that the Portuguese came they were in West Africa they were in the Congo and we welcome them as we normally do and we still do and no sooner had we welcomed them than they made the claim that they had discovered us they discovered us they claim they discovered our mountains which we had lived next to for ages the French came the Germans came the Italians came the belgians came the English came all in the arrogance and they made their way and in what we now

call Uganda they came to the buoro kitara kingdom and they were resisted by [Applause] cab and a man called beaka came and he was beaten by Caba history teaches us but then they went away and they assembled in Berlin in 1884 and 1885 and they divided us into what we now have as you Uganda as Tanzania as Kenya we are now 54 and still counting but what we must never forget is that at all time we resisted those who say we never resisted are mistaken we did they planted the seeds of division I can still

remember those famous words of Nigeria chin in his book Things Fall Apart when he says that they came and planted the seed amongst brother and brother sister and sister and things fell apart and they have remained apart they came and they disrupted us they told us that our God was not God they came with a God and today when you go into many households of those who claim to be Christians or those who are Christians you find the image of an actor called Jeoffrey Hunter being received as the image of of Jesus Christ they came

and told us that our names were not good names and they gave us names they came and told told us that our natural features had to acquire different names so they came and found L muan and say no it is Lake Albert they came and found Lake our lake with our name they say this is Edward they said another one is George The Falls which we had lived with he said this is maruson and even our national park they called it Elizabeth and when they went down they found L narar and said this is Victoria

and when they went down they said that the false mosun was Victoria Falls they came and told us that our culture meant nothing and we believe them and unfortunately we still believe them so today when we are gathered here to commemorate one of the great African STS we must ask ourselves fundamental questions uncomfortable questions and those questions relate and rotate around the question of the thing that is called development what is this thing called development I remember not so long ago the great Tanzania Founding Father muu Julius being interviewed about development and he said from

where we sit development is not confined to the size of what the Europeans call the gross domestic product GDP that to us is not development he said development cannot in our estimation be capita income that is not development development must not be restricted to the number of skyscrapers that we have no that is not development development cannot be understood to mean that we must go to the Moon that is not development development from what we see and what we call development is to have an environment where there is a spiritual social political and economic contentment

so let the Americans go to the moon but we want water in our households and I still believe that in our understanding of development we must recognize that development is about our ability to recognize Humanity in ourselves it is those civilizations that have CLA that they were developed that have visited great pain upon the world the Europeans tell me throughout the ages which other civilization has visited pain upon Humanity like the European tribes whether those tribes are Germans whether they are British whether they are Italian whether they are English which whether they are the belgians

there is no civilization other than civilizations from Europe that have visited pain upon others like they have when in 1914 the European tribes were fighting amongst themselves they called it the world war when they fight themselves they call it World War from where they sit what they do is the world when they fought again between 1939 and 1945 they did not call it tribal War they call it World War and we were inducted into those Wars they came to us and they told us that our cultures were not good so that even today as I

speak to you instead of addressing you in kahili or yo luganda they have captured our tongues that I'm now speaking to you in a foreign tongue I look forward to the day when in an assembly such as this I'll address you in the kah language I look forward to that day I look forward to the day when we shall have totally liberated ourselves that we will be able to appreciate that indeed when we talk about development we talk about the totality of cult in they say he or she who abandons he our culture is a

slave and there is a sense in which we remain enslaved how do we remain enslaves just look at your names including my very own look at it who is this individual that is called Patrick for whom I am named who is he why is is it that on the day that I was baptized they could not allow me to use my local name why why is it that when we are referring to ourselves we refer to ourselves as anglophone as frankopan as luopan and right now we are even always in the business of referring to

ourself as other F soon we will be sign ofon this is what we are doing to ourselves on a daily basis in the name of development when we run our governments and their University professors here when they teach political science oh what science do they teach they teach the ideas of somebody from the United States they talk about Max VOR they talk about Adam Smith they talk about John Austin they talk about H they don't talk abouta they don't talk about muta they don't talk about Shak maulu they don't talk about us because we are

totally dominated so that even the universities that we run the law that we teach the political science that we teach the history that we teach the geography that we teach is so eurocentric that on this day when we remember we must also exercise the spirit of slavery mental slavery that we may welcome a new spirit of freedom because if we don't we will be dominated throughout the ages you know as I talk about development I think about this continent this continent that has known slavery the omuk himself was taken away from the comfort of his

kingdom and spirited to seashells he stayed there for over two decades when they had neutered the society then they allowed him to to come back he did not get home he died on his way but this country for a long time did not even recognize him until later in the day but we still recognize Prince Charles with a name in the middle of kalala I look forward to the day when such names shall no longer exist in the streets of Cal when I think about this continent and I think about how we were colonized and

I think about how we regained our independence and no sooner had we regained our independence than we adopted the very same things that we inherited from the white colonizers so that if you go the Ugandan Parliament the Kenyan Parliament the Ghan Parliament the Zimbabwean Parliament the Nigerian Parliament as the great africanamerican John Henrik said they are mimicry of what the colonizers left for us and he says and I agree we will never succeed on the basis of that kind of organization we were told and we are still told that in order to run a government

in order to run a Judiciary you must run it in the manner that the British taught us to Do complete with the manner in which they dressed in order to run a parliament we must run a parliament like they did and our speaker must still wear some Woolen white thing which people stopped wearing many years ago but we is still where and even when we run our Affairs we must do it in the manner that they did we are mimicking them and when we think we have developed indeed we are not that is what colonization

did to us so today when we are gathered here to remember we are asking ourselves is there not something in our tradition that we could use to change the continent of Africa and why is that argument legitimate and necessary it is legitimate and necessary because when Ghana became the first country to regain her independence the first subsaharan country to regain her independent always be very careful because the the Sudanese will tell you that they Reg gained their independence in 1956 and Ghana in 1957 but I always remind them that the real Independence in Africa was

with Ghana in 1957 and I can still remember those powerful words of Ghana's quam kuruma on 6th of March 1957 say that the independence of Ghana meant nothing if the rest of Africa was was not free but even as you spoke those words Kuma was quite clear he was clear that flag Independence the mere fact that we have the Ugandan flag or the Kenyan flag or the Ugandan national anthem or the Kenya national anthem or the Ghan national anthem or the Nigerian Anthem was not sufficient that there was something else and he reminded Us in

1965 that Africa was getting into the most dangerous stage the stage where the former colonizers would become more deadly through the neoc colonial project no sooner had he written his book than they overthrew him no sooner had he written his book than they started destroying what we had inherited from them so those of you who are students of History will remember the 1960s you'll remember in 1961 the congales thought that they had regained independence under Patrice Emy lumumba they killed him after 9 months the toes thought that they had regained independence under syanu Olympia they

killed him 19 1963 the ghans thought that they had regain Independence in 1957 they overthrew in Kuma in 1966 they thought in Nigeria that they had regain independence with namik and abubakar tfar Bala they overthrew him in 1967 the malians thought that they had regained independence through Modo they overthrew him in 1968 the algerians thought they did so through Ahmed they overthrew him in 1968 Africa as I speak now and I want you to cast your eyes across the continent of Africa and see the crisis of governance and therefore begging the question is there a

place for African culture and governance tell me whether there is peace in the Democratic Republic of Congo tell me whether there is peace in Sudan tell me whether there is peace in Northern Mali tell me whether there is peace in Somalia tell me whether there is peace in Cameroon tell me whether the Europeans are not telling us what to do tell me whether they do not send their agents across every country tell me whether the IMF and the World Bank are not trying to interfere in our Affairs tell me whether they are not telling us

who a man is and who a woman is tell me whether they are not telling us what to he tell me what are they not telling us they are telling us that if we don't have culture they'll give us their culture tell me this is the state in which we find ourselves and therefore today when we are assembled here to remember and we ask ourselves whether there is a place for culture in development we all ourselves a duty to Define what culture is you know European anthropologists they are the notorious ones they tell us that

when you talk about African culture they have no culture they could not right not true when the Europeans were living in caves we already had the benan Empire longer than the Chinese walls we already already had the monomotapa Empire we already had the walls of [Music] tuuku before the Europeans knew whether it is the earth that went round the Sun the Doone already knew astronomy as it is known today they knew when they could not ride the Africans had already identified the value of zero in mathematics when they did not know about cesarian section operations

of that nature already taking place in the continent of Africa when they were dying in snow and in ice in Ethiopia in AUM they were already building the underground edifices in lella they were they were building pyramids in Sudan and in Egypt they already libraries in cage Pythagoras and all these people were already learning their Philosophy from orun among theba we were there we had a culture that was complete complete with science complete with mathematics compl with the Arts and when they say we have no art they forget that they have stolen all of them

and they are to be found in the museums in Europe if we had no culture and if we could not do the thing they say we could not do why were they pling the things that they planted why because we are the culture and what you do is that you destroy a people's culture and then you create another culture and make them think like you want them to think this is what they did not only to us who remained in the mother continent they did it even to our brothers and sisters who are taken to

the cariban those who are taken to the Northern America those who went to Southern America they did it and they took away our language and if you doubt me I want you to watch Alex Haley's Roots and see how the main character kin was beaten that he may abandon his name and acquire new culture but those who have a culture and those who believe in it will never abandon it that is why we are remembering Uka maaba because he's too tall those of you who do not know will remember that incident in a hostel where

the UK's arm had been amputated and he kicked one of them the time to kick them is now the time to kick them is now because when we kick them then they'll realize that our culture was not dead our culture was merely in commos and we are beginning to rise and we are beginning to redefine what development is the great Ghan Nana Kina Nika the 5th has written a book which I commend to all of us the place of culture in governance the Ghan example and he tells us that he has over the years looked

at governance in Africa just like we have and the governance structures that we inherited have not served as well well if you look at Uganda since she and her political Independence the history of Uganda is repl with painful moments the history of Sudan painful moments Somalia painful moments Ghana painful moments Congo painful moments Rwanda painful moments Burundi painful moments Nigeria painful moments Algeria painful moments Liberia painful moments South Africa painful moments Zimbabwe painful moments it has been a history of pain because our culture was taken away and when we thought that we had a solution

to our problems a new wound appeared how many of you remembering in 1980s when they came here and told us the solution to the African problem is multi-party politics and we believed we formed parties in the Democratic Republic of cono at one time there were 233 of them we formed them we started holding elections then we discovered in Africa we can hold elections you can have the highest number of votes but he who is announced the winner is the winner the number votes not withstanding we discovered that then we are asking ourselves what can we

do if this foreign cultur failed to solve our problems we thought that when we regained independence using other people's culture our education would help us today we have many graduates from our many universities but yet we can't solve our medical problems in Uganda it is only those who can AF cannot afford medical attention in Europe or India or Dubai or South Africa who go to Mur in Kenya it is the same in most Africa is the same so even the promises we made to ourselves about development in medicine we have not realized them then we

said we would have education and we have universities and we teach Engineering in those universities but when we want to build roads we want to build the expressway from Cala to anbe it is not the ug who do it is the Chinese who do it when we want to build express way in Nairobi is the Chinese who do it when we want to build anything in Africa is the Chinese who do it what happened to our engineering when we want to do anything we still depend on them and our problem still continue we still send

our young men and women to the Arab world to Saudi Arabia to Qatar to all those other countries and those who don't send take themselves there by crossing the Mediterranean SE what happened to us do we still have the spirit of omuk oh we are weak un conquered and captured this is the question that we must ask this morning for this afternoon what is the place of culture there are those who say that Africa is too diverse there are too many cultures which one will we adopt is it not of the buor is it that

of the baganda is it that of The Boro is it that of the basoga is it that of any of our many communities or the Zulu or the ca or the P or the kakan or the oruba or the or the men we ask who said that we cannot have a mixture of those cultures who said who said that we cannot borrow that which is good in the Toro culture or the Yuba culture who said that when we combine them we cannot come with a system that will then fit us who said who is telling

us that today as we remembera we are reminding ourselves that we can do it we can do it because history has demonstrated that it can be done you know they came and told us several years ago that there was something called Millennium development goals there were eight of them then they reigned their cost then they increased they did not reduce they became 17 now sustainable development goals and those gos said the things that we knew we knew how to plant [Music] trees we had an idea of what medicine is we knew about education and we

still know we knew about climate change we knew how to deal with sustainable development and sustainable environment we knew but they tell us you did not know we must meet and the Europeans started inviting us to meeting from 1975 the most recent was in Dubai the 28th and we go to such meetings and when we come back we Marvel at what we said now that Uganda has discovered oil and every African countries discovering oil they are telling now we must leave oil alone we must now Embrace other things the role of culture in development I'm

suggesting to us that the time is now that Africans must look for a solution to governance I must commend the current Administration they came and found that cultural institutions had been burned and they restored them that restoration was the beginning of the realization that a people without a culture cannot go anywhere but I would urge this Administration and coming Administration that count C institutions must have enhanced roles in governance cultural institutions must be given stronger positions in governance because it is only when you do so that you'll begin to see them in their full Splendor

you know in many African societies and I say this with all due respect to heads of states in different African countries you can go to Nigeria and the president of Nigeria makes a pronouncement saying all the eura people must be inoculated against tuberculosis and when you go back you'll discover that the response is only 20% but when the only of Yuba says all yorubas must be inoculated the response is 90% the same thing here in Uganda there are certain things which if the traditional rulers say the people will obey why do they obey what is

it that thing is the thing that we must discover and that thing if we mix it with the kind of governance system that we have is going to lead us in the right direction I still do not have an answer but I think that there is something in it what is it that Thea has that the kabaka of buganda has that the only of e has that the king of the maulu has that the king of the theti has that when they speak people obey what is it why did we lose it can we regain

it it is not to say that all traditional rulers are perfect no there are certain aspects of culture that we must jettison but there are certain positive aspects of culture that we must Embrace because culture is dynamic and I'm suggesting to all of you who are gathered here today that the time is now the time is now for Africa to realize that there is a place of culture in modern day medicine the time is now for Africa to realize that there is a place for culture in education the time is now for Africa to realize

that is a place for culture in politics and governance the time is now that Africa must realize that there is a place of culture in Resource Management the time is now for Africa to realize that there is a place for culture in giving pride of place to our women in governance the time is now for Africa to realize that there is a place of culture in ensuring that our family is retained the time is now for Africa to recognize that if we do not protect ourselves other cultures will come and dominate us the time is

now for Africa to realize that our languages must be protected otherwise we'll be speaking Chinese and Indian as our mother tongue although they were never our mothers the time is now the time is now therefore for us to wake up in the knowledge that we must instruct our Ed institutions of Higher Learning to begin to investigate what it is that we are teaching several years ago a great Nigerian who is a singer called fella son teacher don't teach me nonsense for too long now many of our institutions have been teaching us things that we ought

not to be taught we must ask ourselves now what are we teaching our young men and women the Koreans are doing it the Chinese are doing it the Indians are doing it the time is now for we Africans to do it the time is now for Africans also to begin to patent some of the things that we have how is it that the clothes which are Africans are patented by the Chinese if you are not very careful even these dances which are buor dances will be patented by Chinese so that when you want to dance

the buoro Kara dance you've got to seek Authority from Beijing the time is now for us to begin to understand that intellectual property goes beyond culture and that it must be given its recognition so my fellow countrymen and my fellow Africans the question that we are here to ask this afternoon is this if Africa desires to grow sustainably how can we leveraging on the spirit of attain it who was this omuk who was he he was a personification of courage and today I'm asking you that we must Embrace courage cowards die many times and I

marging you this afternoon if we are going to allow culture to dominate our thinking in the realization that culture is not static I'm asking you to embrace and to remember omuk maaba because he was courageous today I'm asking you to remember the memory and to give pride of place to the memory of ukab because when it was necessary he was a diplomat I am asking you that because it is necessary to be diplomatic we must embrace the spirit of diplomacy because it is only by embracing the spirit of diplomacy that you are going to ensure

that you get what you deserve today as we remembera I want you to remember that he was an example for others those who are students of History will remember that in as much as he learned from the Toro the Toro learned from him and the buganda learned from him I want you to remember that that is necessary I want you to remember that Uka makab was also compassionate even when he used violence and force at certain times in other words there comes a time when instead of turning the other cheek you must use the other

fist I'm now telling you that we as African must ask ourselves when is it the right time to turn the other cheek and when is it the right time to use the other feast and I'm saying that you can do so by ensuring that you follow another quality of omuk maaba he was resilient many of you would have died in seashells he stayed there for 23 years in an environment that was hostile but he said I'm not going to die in a foreign land although he died here in what is territorial Uganda he was on

his way home I am reminding us that we must never forget our homes because if you forget your home you are a slave I have no doubt in my mind that if Africa is to grow Africa must Embrace culture if Africa is to realize our potential we Africans must Embrace culture and I am asking Africans as we go forward we must be Warriors for culture we must be Warriors for that which is true so those of you who are baganda here be proud bandas those of you who are Tauros be proud Tauros those of you

who are Boga be proud SAS those of you who are Zulus be proud Zulus those of you who are LS be proud LS those of you who are Lango be proud langos and those of you are Boro because we are in your midst be proud Boro because it is only in that way that combined together we shall produce an African spirit and in the spirit of africanness I I can tell you it is not going to be easy there are going to be many roadblocks we will rise and fall we will rise and fall we

will rise and fall but ultimately we will stand and history will remember us as those who rise and rise and Rise God bless you [Music]