Songs and Politics in Eastern Africa

6. Folk poetry as a weapon of struggle: ananalysis of the Chaka Mchaka resistance songs of the national resistance movement/army of Uganda

129 6 Folk poetry as a weapon of struggle: an analysis of the Chaka Mchaka resistance songs of the national resistance movement/ army of Uganda Musambayi KATUMANGA Department of Political Science, University of Nairobi Introduction ThispaperrecapitulatesontheNRM/Aresistancesongs.Itexamines and analyses their structure and content with a view to showing how they facilitated transmission of the movement’s political programme and the organizing ideology. The argument initiated here is that in predominantly rural societies, songs constitute a salient medium through which organised resistance can transmit its political education to winning hearts and minds. Songs also constitute a medium through which the critics of the regime and social forces across class, ethnic and educational divides are united. The Ugandan process demonstrates the fact that conscience of peasants can be aroused to the extent that their mode of existence is appreciated and appropriated with a view to facilitating cultural transformation. Sung in different places, using different tunes and under diverse circumstances, songs can serve as an alternative medium for transmitting culture of resistance transformation and as a counter to ruling elite propaganda and marginalization. In the case of Uganda, songs constituted a critical component of Uganda’s struggle for a new national culture of social development. 130 Resistance process and mobilisation By its very nature, guerrilla warfare is a strategy commonly adopted by popular forces fighting a repressive regime. These forces are often disadvantaged by human and material resources. To counter its sublime poverty, the resistance leadership is forced to re rank elements sine qua non to achieving their intended objectives. For starters, the leadership must evolve a clear cause on whose basis the objective of the war is evolved. It must also have a good grasp of laws that have guided similar wars in other historical epochs, master their characteristics while eschewing mechanistic approaches59 . It must also familiarise itself with the enemy’s as well as its own situation. Any subsequent actions undertaken by the resistance must factor in these issues in its calculation. The theory of resistance on which the resistance process is constructed is conceptualised around this understanding. A theory of resistance is critical in enabling the leadership to avoid costly adventures while enabling guerrillas to gain time. In this case, time is a variable critical to facilitating the capture and consolidation of the resistance’s control over space. The latter is critical for engendering organization, development of political and military leadership and the undermining of the tangible and intangible centres of gravity of the enemy. For resistance groups, time and space are dialectical, mutually reinforcing and crucial for the survival of the entire process. The war is only winnable to the extent that it is protracted. Yet protracted wars are a function of popular support which must be nurtured. Political education is core to the development of popular support. It seeks to provide critical knowledge about the political economy and social issues around which state politics is woven. More importantly, it is critical to evolving political consciousness especially where little exists. Indeed once political consciousness is achieved, resistance leadership tends to use it to erode the congruence between the prevailing parochial and subjective cultures and totalitarianism. Parochial cultures are sustained by repressive regimes through the evolution of thin and thick versions of false consciousness. While the former not only camouflages but also rationalises exclusion 59 Selected works of Mao Tse-tung. ‘Strategic problems of China’s Revolutionary War’, vol. 1, p. 248. (New York, 1954). 131 along ethnic lines, the latter seeks to paralyze society with the so-called consequences likely to befall those who contemplate revolt. Reinforced by ignorance and fear of the military might of the state, peasants become blinded by their common plight and from the need for unity. They instead bow to the oppressor in a stony calm. The converse is the case for the enemy. It is this that engenders what la Boétie (1995) refers to as voluntary servitude. Political education in this sense constitutes the substructure of a successful resistance process. It is indeed sine qua non to mobilisation. The latter entails the process of creating favourable conditions for peasant support. Such support includes the provision of food, information, shelter and human resource elements. It provokes conditions within which guerrillas are able to swarm in favourable temperatures within the society. While every guerrilla fighter is in principle engaged in the mobilisation process, in reality organised groups tend to also set...