Museveni and African hairstyles

We have naively embraced Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) as the strategy for our development and international competitive bidding as the method for selecting those who build our infrastructure. Hence, foreign firms own the commanding heights of our economy just as they win all major construction contracts. This is largely because we believe that foreigners can manage and/or build things better than ourselves. This lack of faith in ourselves is much more damaging to the long term prospects of developing our country and asserting our African identity than Miss World Africa wearing an Indian weave on her hair.

The reader should not mistake me to be suggesting that we abandon English, chase foreign investors and contractors and drop our foreign names. Indeed, I am a proud bearer of the name Andrew, often dress in European clothes and English is the only language I am fully fluent in. The Japanese, Koreans and Chinese wear Western suits and speak English but have not lost their identity. As Aime Cesaire put it in his essay, `Discourse on Colonialism’, civilizations that withdraw into themselves end up suffocating themselves in their self-enclosure. And as Ngugi Wa Thiongo has argued, cultural contact is the oxygen of any civilization.

The real question is how do we adopt, digest and use foreign cultural, political and economic resources for our benefit? We should attract FDI not to supplant but supplement our local investors.

For example, Kiira Motors can partner with Hyundai (giving them a 20% stake) in order to benefit from their capital, skills, technology, experience, global market networks etc. Foreign construction firms are welcome if we can ensure they help us develop our skills and diffuse their technical knowledge locally. But Museveni has presided over a state that has handed the entire economy to foreign firms, displacing existing local firms and/or stifling their growth.

So the fundamental question is: who chooses which aspects of the African identity we should uphold and which should we ignore? I have not seen Museveni wearing traditional Kinyankore/Hima dress leave alone the kanzu (tunic) in decades. Our president treats traditional Africa religion as superstition as if Christianity is not equally superstitious. I, therefore, found his emphasis on the hairstyle arbitrary – not so much aimed at promoting some “authentic African identity” (whatever that would mean) – but rather to conform to his tastes.

Therefore, to address hairstyle and ignore language and religion, ideology and institutions in identity is to chase the rat and ignore the elephant in your plantation. The use of foreign languages and religions is more culturally damaging to the African identity than wearing a “non-African” (whatever that means) hairstyle. The overzealous reliance on foreign investors and contractors, often at the expense of local ones, is more damaging to our economy than wearing foreign hairstyles.

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amwenda@independent.co.ug