In The Magazine

By Andrew M. Mwenda In his book, Weapons of the Weak, James Scott argues that studies of peasant resistance focus a lot on large scale revolts. ‘For the historical and archival records were richest at precisely those moments when the peasantry pose a threat to the state,’ Scott writes, ‘the …

By Patrick Kagenda Namboole Stadium outside Kampala was on March 13 the venue of an election that has become the talk of the country. ‘I have felt, smelt, experienced true democracy,’ screamed Dickson Opul to an excited crowd of about 1,000 people who gathered in the stadium last week for …

By Séverine Koen Following French footprints Its hard to believe Enora Nedelec and Guillaume Combot have been walking for over a year. Smiling, energetic and fresh-faced, one cannot readily fathom that they have been living all this time without the comforts of a home and have more than 4,000 km …

By Jocelyn Edwards On September 10th last year, police stormed the transmission room of the Baganda kingdoms Central Broadcasting Services (CBS) and carried away a link to the transmitter. The station suddenly went off the air.  Its licence had been revoked by the Broadcasting Council for allegedly stirring up tribal …

By Harold Acemah In Issue No. 101 of The Independent (March 5 , 11, 2010), Abbey Kibirige in an interesting and otherwise balanced article raised, in my view, a false alarm about ‘Mao’s motives in taking over DP’ and concluded that Mao could have a hidden agenda to use his leadership …

By Patrick Kagenda The Independent’s Patrick Kagenda talked to the new UPC president Ambassador Otunnu about the party’s future. Word around is that you are targeting the national presidency and that if you should fail, then you will return to exile. What is your position? I decided after a long …

By Maya Prabhu On March 1, Speaker of Parliament Edward Ssekandi was presented with a petition bearing the signatures of 450,000 people calling for the rejection of the Anti Homosexuality Bill, 2009. The petition was written, and undersigned, by a group referring to themselves as AIDS service providers, spiritual mentors …

By Andrew M. Mwenda I was on a train at New York’s Grand Central Station on March 5 when a friend from my days at Stanford University entered. I was overjoyed yet embarrassed; one part of me wanted to hug her, the other to hide. She is a successful lawyer …

By Maya Prabhu The rains have come. The streets of Kampala run fluid brown, ladies heads are half-hidden under thin plastic bags as they hop from island to island along the roadsides, and inside-out umbrellas quiver uselessly in the hands of miserable boda-boda passengers. Early in the hours of Feb. …

By Joseph Were The day the mountain Moved One survivor said it sounded like a bomb explosion. Another said the mud moved so fast that victims had no chance to escape. One man was in a church praying when he saw the mountain of rocks, debris, and mud pummeling downhill. …