The Telegraph’s hit job on Muhoozi

How this newspaper’s work is laced with endemic racism that may even be unconscious to the author

THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | Most Western journalism on Africa has always been ghetto journalism. Now in last week’s story about Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba, this British newspaper, The Telegraph, took journalism to the gutter. There is no effort to establish basic truths, no pretense to impartiality, no attempt to hide overt racism. The article is patronizing and is as sickening to read as it is saddening to think about. This journalist, Adrian Blomfield, need not be condemned but pitted. Clearly, he didn’t know what he was doing.

Muhoozi is Uganda’s Chief of Defense Forces (CDF). He is also son of President Yoweri Museveni. Muhoozi is described in the article as a coming autocrat who is erratic. Yet little proof is presented to justify this assertion. The only “evidence” is a lone tweet questioning the constitution, itself sited out of context. Museveni is referred to as a “despot”, “dictator”, “tyrant” and his government as a “regime.” Muhoozi’s twitter jokes are presented as actual intentions or official policy pronouncements. So, the joke that he would invade Kenya, which the Kenyan government never even complained about, is presented as official policy. And so is the joke about marrying Italian premier, Giorgia Meloni.

You need to be sick in the head to present these twitter jokes as proof of Muhoozi’s policy preferences. Besides, if Blomfield was a genuine journalist seeking truths rather than intent on purveying prejudice, he would have sought an interview with Muhoozi to explain these tweets. If he couldn’t reach the CDF, there is the army spokesperson. Besides he could have called any of us, friends of Muhoozi, for comment. Instead, he seeks to character assassinate a man whom he gives no chance of reply. What happened to the principles of natural justice or of journalism?

The article itself is filled with characteristic Western self-indulgence and narcissism. The author and by extension his masters in Whitehall and at his newspaper, plus his readership in Britain, cannot see Uganda and its leaders as independent agents able to make judgements about their country as they see fit. Instead, he presents Muhoozi’s praise of Russian President Vladmir Putin as a misjudgment the West should be keen to note. So, to this journalist and his ilk, Ugandan leaders can only be right if they do what pleases London, Paris, Washington DC and Brussels.

What is wrong with an African identifying with the cause of Russia in its war against NATO fought over Ukraine? The West wants the world to believe their narrative that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 was “unprovoked” aggression. All Western media have been propagating this official view. This demonstrates that there is no free media in the West, only appendages of Western official policy. Only last year, Israel began a genocide in Gaza. Its leaders have articulated their intentions to ethnically cleanse Gaza in clear and precise language. Yet no serious Western government has come out openly to condemn this genocide. Instead, they aid and abate it with money, weapons, propaganda etc. No wonder this journalist did not condemn Muhoozi for his support of Israel in this war.

The West always want to present themselves as morally righteous; that their judgements are the only morally acceptable ones. They also deny us agency. If an African decides on a policy, it must be pleasing to them. If it is not, then it must be condemned. If Muhoozi had praised King Charles, kissed the ass of NATO over Ukraine, threatened to exterminate Palestinians, he would not have been criticized. To this journalist and his masters, we Africans are supposed to be agents of Western interests.

Across our vast continent, sons of presidents have been involved in many dubious financial and other economic dealings. There is no report of Muhoozi ever getting involved in such corrupt transactions. No one can even point to a business he owns. Instead, since he took over as CDF only three months ago, he has been cleaning up corruption in the military. Even before he took over as CDF, he had gotten the army to get involved in road construction, cutting down the costs that had been inflated. He has ordered people with sirens off the roads of Kampala, clearing the city of this menace. For a journalist and his newspaper who always pretend to fight corruption in Africa, Blomfield is dead silent on these achievements which mark out Muhoozi as a potentially good leader.

Clearly Blomfield, his newspaper and the interests it represents in London, are not interested in the good of Uganda, which to me is understandable. Instead, his interest is in how much of a puppet him and his bosses in London would like to see Muhoozi be. Unfortunately, Muhoozi is a pan Africanist. If London think that Muhoozi will kiss their feet in order to be given positive coverage in their media, they are mistaken. Africa has interests. These interests are best served by us being nonaligned in international big power wrangles. But that does not mean we do not have values and principles on the basis of which we make policy choices.

Besides, Blomfield argues that the West is going to confront another African “autocrat” or “strongman” in Muhoozi. He presents this as a bad omen for the “virtuous” West. But the West has for decades been propping tyrants across the world – in Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. Idi Amin in Uganda was brought to power by the British, Marshal Mobutu Sese Seko of former Zaire was kept in power by the Americans, and so was Siad Barre in Somalia, Samuel Doe in Liberia, Jean Bokasa in Central Africa Republic – the list is endless. How then can this journalist and his newspaper claim that the West has a problem dealing with tyrants?

Western efforts to present themselves as morally virtuous and others as being evil should be seen for what it is – a propaganda trick to win the hearts and minds of people in order to dominate them. It is the West that pursued colonialism in Africa, not the dreaded Russia or China. Colonial rule and its apartheid policies promoted forced labour, land alienation, extortionate taxation, genocide, racial discrimination etc. in Africa all in the name of promoting civilization. This was civilization at the barrel of the gun. This civilization that has transformed into democracy promotion has led to other disasters in Libya, Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq. Do we really need to be lectured and hectored after all this evidence?

*****

amwenda@ugindependent.co.ug