Season of Dissent

Abstract

As the old saying goes, the sight of brown leaves falling from trees should serve as a lesson to those still green. The Arab Spring of this past year took several of the world’s leaders by storm. These men of power thought themselves safe. They fell like dry leaves. It’s been a lesson noted by Yoweri Museveni, who has steered Uganda’s ship of state as president for a quarter-century. This past April, many in Uganda thought the country was on the cusp of a rebirth of its own. Brandishing matches and lighter fuel, young men and women set bonfires ablaze in the capital of Kampala, stoking riots that left several people dead and hundreds jailed in their wake. While the would-be revolution was ultimately stillborn, it left its mark nonetheless. The energy in Kampala feels different these days. The riots themselves were sparked by the arrest of the country’s main opposition politician, Kizza Besigye. Beginning in April 2011, a group called Activists for Change organized a popular protest called “Walk-to-Work,” with the goal of drawing attention to the country’s soaring commodity prices. For the most part, protesters conducted themselves peacefully. But in late April, when Besigye was arrested in a particularly violent manner (the charge: engaging in an “unlawful assembly”), the backlash was almost immediate. The next day, hoards of urban youth—poor, under-employed, and underserved by the state—took to the streets. The subsequent government crackdown was swift, furious, and for an unfortunate few, deadly. Uganda’s latest upheaval had its roots in the economic downturn of this past year—a downturn that hit the country especially hard. Headline