The Nation that laughs through its tears

Essay 1 of 7: How Uganda forgot its citizens 

COMMENT | Gertrude Kamya Othieno |  There is a strange comfort in the way Ugandans talk about their country. Roads that are full of potholes, stalled government projects, or dubious public expenditures, all are retold not in anger but with laughter. It is not that Ugandans do not see what is happening around them; it is that they have become experts at cushioning dysfunction with wit. The humour is disarming, but underneath it lies something heavier: resignation.

This civic detachment did not begin or end in the 1970s. It began with colonial rule and deepened through post independence decades of social, political, and cultural drift. The so-called “economic war” of the 70s, framed as a nationalist purge and a bid for self-reliance, left behind a vacuum filled not with structure but with improvisation. As state institutions crumbled, a new language emerged to describe those who thrived in the chaos: mafuta mingi, the well-greased, the connected, the few who lived large while others scraped by.

Then came ekikapo, a local woven basket that became symbolic of Uganda’s collapsing economy. Inflation had grown so extreme that ordinary purses could no longer contain the cash required for daily transactions. People queued at banks with ebikapo to carry their withdrawals, worthless wads of money with no purchasing power. That image of citizens lugging their salaries in baskets etched itself into the national psyche. It was a symbol not just of economic collapse but of a state detached from the real value of work, dignity, and planning.

Over time, these values hardened into a national instinct. Children who grew up in the shadow of that uncertainty are today’s elders, having passed on not just stories but survival strategies. The state, once believed to be the ideal, became a theatre, something to be observed, endured, and occasionally exploited but rarely trusted. Civic education, when it disappeared from schools, was hardly missed. Ugandans had already started teaching themselves a different way of relating to power: with suspicion, humour, and low expectations.

The result today is a society where governance feels like a distant performance. Citizens are no longer participants in the democratic process; they are spectators who have mastered the art of mockery. When a new road is built, it is hailed as a miracle. When public money disappears, it becomes the subject of sly memes and radio skits. Even the language reflects the disconnect: roads, hospitals, and public goods are casually attributed to individual leaders as if they were personal donations. “We thank them for giving us this.” Never mind that it was funded by taxpayers. Gratitude has replaced entitlement.

And then there is the normalisation of petty corruption. Terms like kitu kidogo and enjawulo are no longer whispered, they are expected, even joked about. Small bribes exchanged in plain sight raise no eyebrows. Development projects abandoned halfway are no longer cause for outrage. They are simply filed under “bw’ebityo” — “that’s just how things are.”

What Uganda has developed over time is not just a tolerance for dysfunction but a language and psychology that absorbs it. The real tragedy is not that the system is broken – it is that people have found ways to live with the breakage. To laugh about it. To move on.

Uganda may be one of the few nations where civic decline has been met not with rebellion but with resigned humour. A country whose greatest strength today is its ability to laugh through its tears. But behind every joke is a people who have internalised exclusion – and who have learnt, painfully, to expect little from the very state that claims to serve them.

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Gertrude Kamya Othieno | Political Sociologist in Social Development (Alumna – London School of Economics/Political Science – LSE) | Affiliated to Global People’s Network (GPN) – A Socio-Cultural Movement |  Email – gkothieno@gmail.com