Congratulations to Ugandans on your first Umuganda, or as you prefer to call it, the National Cleaning day. It is important however, that you understand what Umuganda is, if you are to make the most of it. When you understand, you will realise that you what you call it is almost as significant as the event itself.
Umuganda is many things, the least of which is cleaning, important as cleaning is. Umuganda is decolonisation, it is development, it is national pride, it is your sense of self and nationhood, and even your unity as a nation. And yes, all of that can be symbolised by a broom in hand.
But you have only just begun, so allow yourself to crawl before you can walk. The deeper understanding can come later. For the moment, some of you were just walking around, wondering why you should bother, waiting for 10 am, so you can continue your business as usual. Others were like little children suddenly allowed to play in the road, that is if children were given bottles of beer to swig as they gambolled in the middle of usually usually traffic chocked roads.
But there were a few who got close to understanding the true meaning of the exercise. They may be the first to remember what it felt like to say, without irony, “Keep Kampala beautiful.”
Perish the thought of course, that you could possibly be emulating Rwanda, although in time, you will come to learn that it is in fact, admirable for neighbours to learn a thing or two from each other. But you are probably not there quiet yet.
As you get there, at your own pace, you will see your National Cleaning Day, as your neighbour Rwanda sees it, and you may even begin to refer to it as your own Umuganda.
Decolonising the mind
Umuganda does not start with a broom to sweep your neighbourhood. It begins with an understanding that whether or not you are a property owner, you are the owners of your land, and not tenants.
It is within living memory that colonial administrators would demand to know what you were doing in certain parts of your own city. The mentality that your land was not your own has all too often been difficult to shake off.
When your neighbours in Rwanda, come out for Umuganda, they perform whatever their neighbourhoods need, decided by them, after which, each administrative area, will have a meeting, during which they discuss their wellbeing and the wellbeing of their neighbourhood, their community and even their nation.
Enforcement is rarely called for, because people feel ownership of the problems and the solutions. They are the owners of the land, of their neighbourhoods and they feel a responsibility to keep them as they should be. The cleaning comes automatically as a byproduct of that feeling.
Respect for self and a sense of national pride
First comes a respect for the self, then it follows that your neighbourhood, your nation must reflect your dignity, your sense of self worth. That sense of self regard, ownership of your own problems and your own solutions, because you are not a tenant in your own land but the owner, automatically leads you to picking up the broom.
National Unity
For Rwanda, Umuganda is not regarded as a government initiative, it is seen as Rwandan one, with the government getting behind it, as part of its service to the people. Whenever their other duties allow, government officials, ministers, the police, army, join the head of state to take part in Umuganda.
Neighbours, districts, provinces, the entire nation comes together as one, to meet whatever need that has been decided for a particular Umuganda – plant trees, dredge a river, build a wall or refurbish houses for the vulnerable – the entire nation comes together in what is both a practical and symbolic gesture to say, we are one.
The cleaning is important, but it has never been the essence of Umuganda. There are after all professional cleaners whose responsibility it is to keep the nation in a state of cleanliness that as self respecting people, the cleaners themselves as every other Rwandan expect.
Like begets like
And so, congratulations to Uganda, irrespective of how you begun. If you persevere with your National Cleaning Day, you will see yourselves reflected in the more pleasing surroundings, which in turn will inspire you to do and demand more, better, and before you know it, your National Cleaning Day, may be transformed into Umuganda, with all that that entails.
