On a recent trip from Jinja to Entebbe in Uganda, the taxi I was in trailed the vehicle of a State Minister through battering rains on a battered road, skimming at 140 kilometres per hour. The Land Cruiser spliced traffic at this constant speed for over an hour, twirling like a footballer between potholes, freight trucks and bicycles in the whispery night. “It’s good to follow ministers,” my driver Farouk tells me, pointing to the red blinking lights at the back of a vehicle. The butt of an AK-47 sticks out of the right-side passenger window, where a military escort sits. “They have strong blinkers, easy to follow. Uganda is an enormous country in proportion to Rwanda. Its some 30 million people have long been part of the East African Community; its politics, economy and identity one with other African giants such as Kenya and Tanzania. Entebbe airport has frequent and direct connections to dozens of countries in Africa, Asia and Europe. Foreign banks operate offices in Kampala, Entebbe and Jinja. A large number of foreigners, from Britain, India and everywhere else means that Uganda is, for all intents and purposes, ‘connected’ within the global networks the way Rwanda dreams to be. Yet the road we drive on is truly awful, far worse than any important highway in Rwanda. There are no painted stripes dividing lanes, absolutely zero traffic lights illuminating the highwayfull of pedestrians as well as carsand not one sign once of highway patrols keeping Uganda’s citizens safe. Why, after 21 years of relative stability and growth, have certain things not improved? As I talk to Farouk, conversation turns to the car we are following. “If it wasn’t for corruption,” he says, “Uganda would be very far. And you can see what he means.Rwanda gets an incredible amount of flak from the international community on its heavy-handedness with certain subjects. For everything said, the true litmus test of the RPF will be its attention to daily life; its concentration on the little things every citizen experiences that show the responsibility of the government. Policies that make peoples’ lives better, rather than states stronger, will be the ones that separate Russias from Americas; the societies where freedom speaks and moves because people are not overly concerned on a daily basis about matters of ultimate survival. Ugandan highways at night between Jinja and Entebbe is a place where focus on survival seems paramount. And corruption has a huge part do with it. The things that become sacrificed when money is ill spent are rarely those that destroy the ‘state.’ A military will be weaker, but never weak, because of corruption. The executive will never suffer. Businesses may flourish, and services may stay, but things like road upkeep; the thoughtfulness of highway signs, and traffic upkeep will be the things long forgotten. Whatever you may say about the RPF, the world Rwandans live in today is one generally free from chaos. There is a structured order to lives, and in that, the daily life. From morn till eve, the basic physics of life (police presence, traffic order, rigid but necessary licensing) allow for the luxury of dream and luxury to concentrate on something other than survival. That’s what the pursuit of happiness is. Uganda is a flourishing country, and it is exotically blessed, but there is a serious lack of structure in the society. Upcountry, and well many parts of Kampala, really look like they have been simply ignored by those in charge. Obviously it a sweltering swelling city to deal with, utterly more complicated, diverse and electric than Kigali at this point, but it’s been twenty-one years. There are many things that can cause this. It is never appropriate to appreciate only a point, but a matrix. That being said, Rwanda’s relatively minute corruption cannot be ignored. It is one of the biggest differences between the two countries, and it shows.The fight on corruption really is a matter of survival. Ends
