Talkative Polity. Florence Brisset-Foucault

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      ONE

       The Ebimeeza and the Political Culture of Kampala’s Upper Class

      “IT IS THE COMMON PEOPLE [WHO COME]. THE EVERYDAY MAN and woman that you meet on the street. [. . .] Day-to-day people, the common man comes around, expresses himself freely.”¹ This is how one of the first producers of Ekimeeza introduced me to the show when I first went to Kampala in 2005. In day-to-day conversations and in the media, the ebimeeza were indeed often described as popular spheres of discussion, where “ordinary citizens” could come and air their views.

      The ebimeeza emerged, however, within a very restricted social circle, and were originally imagined as the fulcrum of a culture of distinction. Actually, what characterized them was their plasticity: the fact that people used them to promote very diverse models of citizenship and political culture. This tension between the imagination of a high-quality debate among men of culture on the one hand, and popular democracy on the other, marked the ebimeeza from their inception until the 2009 ban. This tension was constantly debated, never actually clarified, and was at the core of the state’s ambivalent attitude toward the talk shows. Actually, the question of whether or not the ebimeeza should be opened to the masses had important implications within the emic debate on the nature of democracy in Uganda, and involved deeply antagonistic imaginaries of citizenship.

      The first ekimeeza to be launched was held in English and resulted from the broadcast of discussions held among a group of friends who used to gather in one of Kampala’s famous clubs, Club Obbligato. The ebimeeza thus need to be resituated within a particular history of sociability practices, and in the trajectory of a specific group: the Ganda business class. A close reconstitution of their emergence shows how these new possibilities to take the floor and express oneself were not the result of radical struggles for “freedom of speech” or for the participation of “the common man” in politics. Instead, they were linked to a history of interelite relations within the political, economic, and social establishments. The study of the ebimeeza thus allows for the genesis and social grounding of the Movement State to be revisited and enables going against the grain of the official historiography that portrays it as the result of a univocal “social revolution” that gave back power to the grassroots.

      FIGURE 1.1. Opinion piece by David Ouma, “Bimeeza Took Debate Down to the People,” Monitor, 24 January 2003, p. 8.

      Over time, however, the social perimeter of the discussions was enlarged to other ethnic and social groups, particularly, but not exclusively, through the creation of new shows in Luganda. A new generation of orators emerged, although this did not emancipate the ebimeeza from the bourgeois context that led to their initial development.

      An Upper-Class Cradle

      The history of the ebimeeza is linked to a particular place in Kampala—Club Obbligato—which was located in Industrial Area, a mile away from the city center. The club comprised a vast courtyard, with a bar, a stage, and a large thatched roof covering a pool table. Three businessmen purchased the premises in 2000.² The group then approached Afrigo Limited, headed by Moses Matovu and James Wasula, who managed Afrigo Band, one of Uganda’s oldest and most famous musical groups, to propose that the performers settle in at Obbligato and perform there regularly. The three purchasers and Afrigo Limited formed a partnership and managed the club together.³ Led by Moses Matovu, a percussionist and saxophone player born in 1950, Afrigo Band was created in 1975 and has produced around twenty albums of Afro-beat and rumba music.⁴ The group became famous after they were hired by Idi Amin to perform during his luxurious parties.⁵

      FIGURE 1.2. Club Obbligato in Kampala, 2007. (Photo by author.)

      FIGURE 1.3. Ekimeeza audience #1 at Club Obbligato, 2007. (Photo by author.)

      When I was in Kampala, attending a concert cost USh7,000, which was prohibitive for the majority of the population. At the concerts I attended, the club was full and the majority of the people were men over forty, because of the entry price and also the musical style. It was often possible to spot famous political personalities at concerts, such as Nyombi Thembo (minister in charge of Luweero Triangle, and later on minister for information communications technology); Brig. Kasirye Ggwanga;⁶ and even Salim Saleh, President Museveni’s half brother, who “pop[ped] in and [did] the entole dance.”⁷ According to a journalist, “In this rich man’s entertainment spot, patrons are generous like their ancestors were during the harvest season. There is Jomayi, a popular purse happy man [Jomayi Consultants is a real estate agency]. When a business deal is successful or when his football team wins, expect free beers on him all night long.”⁸ During the day, clients might find a well-stocked buffet with typical Ganda food for USh7,000 (around £2, which is relatively expensive in Kampala). Thus, many members of the clientele were part of the wealthy upper class, with connections to the political establishment.

      FIGURE 1.4. Ekimeeza audience #2 at Club Obbligato, 2007. (Photo by author.)

      As one of the owners of the club, James Wasula, told me: “[In 2000] it was a new place; [we wanted] to attract our friends and meet us at that place, to build a clientele.” ⁹ One of the owners’ friends, Alan Shonubi, recalls: “[Wamala] wanted to launch his business [. . .] and in order to get more people, he started to give out some free lunch, and [. . .] as a result we started talking and then you know we choose a topic and talk about it.”¹⁰ These discussions eventually became the Ekimeeza weekly broadcast.

      The first participants in the debates at Club Obbligato, those who were there before the radio began to broadcast the discussions, were called the “historicals” by the other members of the ekimeeza. By tracing the “constitutive networks” that led to the emergence of this small group of people,¹¹ it is clearly possible to see how the first ekimeeza prolonged sociability practices typical of a certain section of the Ganda elite: the corporate businesspeople who managed to protect their assets and status relatively well during the years of dictatorship and were ready to invest (financially and politically) in the reconstruction of the new state under Museveni.¹²

      Among them was for instance Paul Mbalali Wamala, the owner of the club. He was born in 1950 into an affluent Ganda family.¹³ His maternal grandfather was Simeoni Nsibambi, a wealthy landowner and member of the kabaka’s government who was considered one of the founders СКАЧАТЬ