So it is that time again. The pace is picking up, the bars are full of a buzz, everyone is murmuring, the excitement and the fear in equal measure. We are heading into the national elections for President and Members of Parliament. While many Ugandans are getting pumped up and international donors, business people, and other governments keener than even the Ugandan voter, I am a very big skeptic of democracy in Africa, and particularly in Uganda.

For one the needs of Ugandans – and likely many other citizens in African countries – are far more basic than casting a vote. Yes, if you are reading this you can clearly see the connection between casting your vote and your needs being met, but 80% of the country do not. Most rural people are struggling with putting the next meal on the table, their backs are bent, facing the ground, digging up the ground to make a living; too oblivious of what is going on at a national level. The politicians are very aware of this disconnect so they manipulate the situation by buying the rural vote – often with very basic things such as matchboxes, quarter a kilo of sugar – or by merely making smoke-screen promises.

When I look at the presidential candidates I get even more discouraged. Five minutes listening to their speeches you realize that this is not about building a nation, but an obsession with the opposing candidate. Every strategy, every punch line is about how evil their opposite number is not the gaps in infrastructure, national health service or some other important national agenda. There is a funny way leadership affects the morale of followers. When I sit at a table with friends and discuss politics, they seem to have resigned to looking out for themselves, cheating the next person to make that big break in life we all desperately seek. Ask them why and they will tell you that after all, whoever gets into a position of power looks at fattening his/her purse instead of guiding resources to the benefit of those less fortunate. I wonder what is so attractive about being rich while everyone else is poor?

So how about we put aside the drama of elections and allow Ugandans to HIRE a president? Think about it…Bill Clinton, Festus Moghae, Joachim Chissano, Mary Robinson, etc. There is an unending pool of African and, if you so wish, global talent that goes to waste every four, five or six years. These are great leaders that have done remarkable jobs for their nations and could have similar or even better contributions to our country. With our priorities set, we hire one of those presidents that has stepped down peacefully and sign a performance based contract with clear targets for their 4 year term…and yes they can be fired! We certainly have the resources to afford this talent and they will certainly not take their positions for granted lest they be booted, which may be embarrassing globally  It will also curtail in the “pests” pausing as politicians we currently have, only looking out to fatten their bellies while the very people that elected them to office get skinny!

Citizens should have the constitutional right to HIRE a President of their choice!!!

• Gwai-lo- Chinese for Ghost Man. 
• Ang Mo- red hair sometimes Ang Mo Kow, red haired monkey or Ang Mo Kui, red hair devil, in Singapore and Malaysia.
• Gaijin- foreigner in Japan 
• Farang- foreigner and guava fruit in Thailand
• Gora- India, hindi for white sometimes used with the affix, gora behenchod (someone who has sexual relations with their sister). 
• Gringo-  foreigner, throughout latin america though often specifically Americans, 
• Indlebe Zikhayi Langa- those whose ears glow in the sun, in  Zulu 
• Oyinbo- peeled like a banans  in Nigeria

My guess is that with the exception of Japan us "red haired monkies whose skin resembles a peeled banana (and or guava fruit) and ears glow in the sun" are universally charged significantly more for goods and services that would be provided at significantly lower rates to natives. Of course this is understandable, on average most of us have far more money, don't have a handle on how much things should cost, and are only going to be in the country a few weeks so we probably won't feel the pinch. 

Unfortunately, for those of us that are permanent residents, and especially for those of us attempting to start business in these regions to provide goods and services not currently available, not only does this present us with a great deal of daily irratation I would argue it also presents  a long term economic danger to the residents of the countries we operate in. But before I get into that let me provide you an example of what happened to me today: 

I run a solar company in Uganda called Village Energy, which I started with my Ugandan partner, Abu Musuuza, who owns an equal share of the company. Sadly despite this, at this current juncture Abu has to be responsible for initiating the vast majority of our local supply contracts because inevitably if I try to negotiate them, people will want to charge me exorbitant rates. But sometimes, because Abu is managing our sales operations in the field, I have to go into town and do my best to negotiate. 

Today, I went downtown to buy wires, switches, and wire clips. Over a six month period, I had finally managed to find a place that I felt was charging me reasonable rates. But even though I had bought the exact same items the day prior, when I went in today for some reason, the same person I had paid the last time decided he wanted to charge me three times what I was charged a day ago. The problem was the same thing had happened this morning with my motorcycle mechanic, and the day prior with a wood working shop that supplies us with wooden struts for our solar panels. So, I'm sorry to say,  I flew off the handle. Got in the guys face and yelled at him that I was never coming back to his store and that he just lost a valuable customer. It was probably unnecessary, but I would argue that its also unnecessary to see a foreigner and decide that instead of a steady customer what you need is a margin increase on a single sale. I promptly left the store and went to the next shop where a nice woman gave me a better rate. Though when I counted the wire clips in boxes that were marked 100 clips, I only found 80 clips (a 20% difference).

Some would argue this is just part life starting a business in a developing country. Well if that's case than its a part of life that's driving foreign investment out of Africa. Recently I had a friend visit me who represents a social investment venture fund based in Nairobi. He told me that there was a steady stream of investors walking into his office from all around the world, with dreams of starting venture funds in Africa. According to him about 80% of them pack up their bags and go home after about one year, after feeling very, very un- welcomed and constantly cheated and scammed by everyone around them.  Sadly to most of Africa, white people are walking ATMs machine that, fully with a little cajoling, freely distribute cash. 

Of course, there is plenty of blame for this phenomenon to go around. The history of colonialism had foreigners move in and endlessly exploit the developing world. A history of western racism and discrimination,  probably gives many folks here a desire to see a certain retribution paid. I would also argue that for the last 70 years, a history of "aide" has made the situation even more untenable.  At the end of the day, the biggest driver is probably the fact that people in the developing world also don't have much to survive on and if they can make an extra buck at the expense of a muzungu then so be it. 

But here is the thing. Every foreign investor that you drive out, every business they start that you charge exorbitant rates means that thousands and possibly millions of Ugandans are not going to get employed, receive training in new skills, feed their families, send their kids to school, save up their money, and possibly even start their own enterprises. In the case of Village Energy, every time I get charged an exorbitant rate for any services, that means that many families will not have their dangerous, expensive, cancer causing kerosene lanterns replaced by clean efficient, manufactured in Uganda micro home solar systems. It also means that I can't hire as many employees as I would like. 

Honestly, this really doesn't have to be said. I'm largely only saying it out of endless frustration. Uganda's government should have learned its lesson after Idi Amin drove out the Indians in the 70s and watched the economy collapse. Its not as dramatic now but if 80% of foreign investors are leaving because of so much frustration, then its a tragedy on a similar scale. 

But I'm not one to outline a problem without offering a solution. What Uganda, and many country's need is two things: 

1. Government Legislation to end racial and ethnic discrimination (particularly I would argue discrimination against businesses and individuals on discriminatory pricing). 

2. An Organized Civil and Private Sector that attacks this problem head on, as a fundamental threat to the country's economic well being. 

We should start some sort of group (company or NGO) that creates a set of standards for good business practices, and rule number one should be: 

1. Do not inflate prices based on your customers race or ethnicity

This rule can be regulated by creating a list of businesses that willingly subscribe to such practices and advertise themselves as a "Fair Pricing Business" operating in a "No Discrimination Zone." Any profits lost from inflating prices would easily be made up with increased sales volumes when muzungus, muhindis, and muchinas flock to these stores, to the detriment of those that continue to discriminate against us.

Foreign investors and progressive local businesses  unite! You have nothing to lose but discriminatory prices, and a world of economic prosperity and equality to win!

 It started as a normal enough day. For the last few days, Eric, who is a visiting electrical engineering student from Duke, and myself have been attempting to make a hot wire foam cutter and we've met with variable success. After destroying a toaster in an attempt to extricate the heating element, and combining a 12V transformer with a wooden frame and guitar wire, we discovered we would need more current, and so like many a day in Uganda, we jumped on my TVS 125cc Max-R Motorcycle (the best engineered bike from the Indian Sub-Continent) and drove into town.

 Downtown Kampala, for the unitiated is an extremely chaotic place. The streets are crowded with 14 person passenger vans called Matatus, with the torsos of conductors prodtruding from the windows singing the vehicles various destinations. “Nakawa, Nakawa, Jinja Road, Lugogo, Ntinda, Bukoto.” On every block, in addition to the vans there are 40 motorcycles,  20 or so bicycles laden with large bags of bananas (aka matoke), and a hundred pedestrians with equally gigantic bags of stuff on their heads. All of them moving every which way as the matatus swerve around 8 inch deep potholes, causing everyone else to shift accordingly.  That’s about one square block of downtown Kampala. 

 Parts shops in Uganda are also incredible. As I was telling Eric today, you feel as if every morning trucks arrive with all the world’s detritus:  old auto-parts, broken televisions, factory reject generators, discarded cell phones and audio equipment. All of it comes to Kampala where  an incredible number of workshops crammed into the smallest corners, with 10 people working in 15 square feet will break things apart and almost seemingly through nothing more than will power and incredible mechanical aptitude gained by ceaseless fucking around will make things work.

 But as usual, navigating this milieu took forever. A local guy offered to lead us around, the first shop he took us to a guy offered to build a hand wound transformer for 35,000 UGX (about $15) but we were worried about the reliability. So we began a four hour transformer hunt.  About five shops later we still hadn’t found what we were looking for, well, at least not at a reasonable price.  As we were heading back to the first shop to talk to this fellow about building one.

 It was on our way back that it happened.  We were at a major intersection near a place called King Fahad Plaza, on a street that sloped steeply down towards the Old Taxi Park, a central transportation hub where a thousand matatus maneuvering in open lot that turns into a lake of mud in the frequent rain. But even in that mud, they must transport hundreds of thousands of passengers a day to hundreds of destinations.

 The first sign of trouble happened when I heard a high girlish scream piercing the air. “My Chain, Theif! He stole my chain!” The entire street turns to watch as a young boy in a green shirt and dark khakis runs, but at the same time makes attempts to look incredulous. Later, Eric would tell me that he overheard someone in the crowd say that he had actually swallowed the girls gold necklace.

 A group of men coalesced from the street and quickly gave chase. It didn’t take very long for the kid to be grabbed. As I watched from the opposite side of the street three men reached him first, one a traffic officer, dressed in a white uniform and blue beret. I thought to myself “at least that policeman will protect him.” That thought quickly dissolved when the officer shoved him against a car and begin kicking him with his black shiny boots. The kid dropped to the ground and the throw punchs as his head, then kicks to the ribs, then ten people stamping on him like he was a bag of bones that needed to be crushed.

 The rest of the crowd joined in, there were maybe thirty people taking turns, taking a kick to his head, his chest, pulling at his clothes, ripping off his shoes and next going for his pants.

 I had read about mob justice in Africa. I had heard the stories of extra-judicial killings. I even had some experience when my own wallet was stolen in Tanzania, and amazingly the thief was apprehended and I met him at a police station. After my wallet had been returned the police begin to beat the thief in an attempt to get information from him on who he worked with. Despite my protests they refused to relent, and continued hitting him on the arms and head with a wooden baton.

 But there at least there was some semblance of control, it was clear they had no intention of killing the man who had stolen my wallet. At least not while I was watching. My protests eventually got them to stop…but they told me it was necessary to extract a confession and information about his gang.

This was uncontrolled chaos, and the crowd seemed to have an uncontrollable blood lust to see this kid murdered under their feet.

I’m not sure when I made the decision to do something. In retrospect it wasn’t very precise. I just remember walking, moving closer, thinking what I was doing was crazy, then shoving my way through, and then suddenly there I was standing above this bleeding half naked teenager, cowering in  the fetal position, bleeding from several wounds that were pink and red on his black skin. My arms were out- stretched, shoving people back.

“He’s a thief,” “A thief” people kept yelling. Staring at me as if I was the crazy one. Amidst the crowd was the woman whose necklace the boy stole, no doubt now lodged somewhere in his esophagus and not coming out without a bowl movement.  The woman came towards me, an upper class fashionista Ugandan. She was wearing tight designer jeans, an olive top, and clutching some kind of brand name purse. Her face was dominated by oversized sunglasses with white frames, and I could make out in perfect, boarding school British, “He took my chain…why are you stopping them?”

 “Get the police. “  I said, “You are not going to kill him. Go get the police.” The crowd kept at it, “He’s a thief, he deserves it!” Cold sound, biblical logic I guess. Eye-for-an-eye, a life for a gold chain.  I stared at the women, and in slow even words I said again, “Go get the police.” Trying to imply somehow in my gaze that she was better than this, that whatever anger she had at this boy was not worth his life. For some reason I seem to have gotten through, at least to her. “Ok, hold him here, I’ll get the police,” she said and with that disappeared.

 For a minute then the crowd held back, unsure what to do in the presence of this thief’s white benefactor. The boy grabbed onto my leg sitting up in a daze, then made an attempt to stand. I helped him up, which is when his bloody arm must have brushed my shirt. “Don’t hurt him, hold him here, but don’t hurt him,” I yelled, in a vain attempt to reason with people. The crowd lunged forward, and the boy, quite logically, ran, pushing through with amazing strength considering the beating he had just received,  and took off down a side street with half the crowd in hot pursuit. I thought about running after them but as I was thinking they were quickly disappearing.

 I turned around suddenly worried about my companion Eric, and still receiving dirty stares from the leftover crowd, found him a short distance away, no doubt waiting to step in if things became ugly. Our guide was still there, with a strange smile on his face, and he motioned that we follow him down the steps of a nearby building into the safe hollow of shops within.  Before I did someone stopped me on the street. A plain looking middle aged Ugandan man, with a goatee, perhaps a local shopkeeper. “Thank you… for what you have done,” he half whispered in halting English. I nodded and went down the stairs, wondering why he couldn’t have done something himself.

 About ten minutes later Eric and I were back on our search, trying to pretend I guess, that everything was normal. Just another crazy day in Kampala.  Unfortunately it may have been a crazy day for us, but business as usual on the Kampala Street.  After a while, Eric suggested that I could go sit down for a while and he could finish the shopping we needed to do. As I usually do when frustrated with my life in Uganda. I retreated back to Nakumatt, a mall, as fancy as you would find in most towns in America, where I sat down at a yuppyesqe café called Mokka Terrace, and got a really well done cappuccino and inspected the patch of blood on my shirt.

 Much has been written about mob justice, and extra-judicial killings in Africa.  But honestly, given the right environment, it’s not an unusual human predicament, no different than hangings in the Wild West, or lynching in the American South.  Mob justice happens anywhere that the rule of law is weak and people have so little that the cost of a crime that takes their personal effects is very is so high that only blood will pay for the smallest infraction. It happens when police and judges can be bought off for a penance, and when elections to hold officials accountable are manipulated. But it also happens, as per usual, when good people stand by, like the shopkeeper who spoke to me, and do nothing. But please don’t think that just because you live in the West things are any different.

 There is a story that I read about once, involving a young woman named Kitty Genovese, who on March 13, 1964, was  stabbed by an assailant, then left outside her apartment complex bleeding to death after being attacked by an assailant. Her killer left then returned after  10 minutes, raped her, stole $49 from her wallet and then left. All of this took place over the course of half an hour in densly populated New York neighborhood, clearly visible through windows and the screams audible through walls. The headline that ran in the New York Times, after an investigation was done  ran a story entitled“38 People who Saw murder Didn’t Call Police.” One man reportedly turned up his radio so he wouldn’t have to listen to Genovese screaming.  There is also of course the more drastic case of the Holocaust. Many people would be surprised to learn that just a few miles down the road from Auschwitz  there was a peaceful little town that woke up every day, went to work, mowed the lawn, and watched on as trainloads of human beings were brought into town and mysteriously vanished into the barbed wire surrounded camps at the towns edge.

Perhaps the Holocaust isn't an appropriate comparison, to one small teenage thief. But overall I think the same principals apply. After all, a society that accepts mob justice, perhaps may also accept the extradition of its minorities and ransacking of their shops as Uganda did in the 70s under Amin, and if that as acceptable, perhaps liquidating a competing tribe isn't such a bad idea either. 

Another part of me says, being a foreigner, gave me an advantage. I don't own a shop on Kampala Road, and though I've been mugged twice in the US, I didn't take the same economic hit that someone who is robbed in Uganda usually takes. I can retreat back to the mall, my cappuccinos, and in the end if all else fails, fly back to the United States. Still there is no component of my psyche that would justify what I saw this afternoon. The question remains, how can Ugandan, and really societies throughout the developing world be changed to make these events a thing of the past. 

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