New cultural vandalism in Uganda

Since 1986, Uganda has witnessed unprecedented proliferation of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), accompanied by multiplying institutions devoted to introducing numerous GMO varieties.

These are imposed on our people through propaganda characterising our time-tested crops as “primitive.” The statistical reality is staggering: where indigenous Ugandans once survived on approximately eighty-five food varieties before colonial invasion, we now subsist on roughly six, including millet—itself distorted through genetic modification.

This agricultural homogenisation represents not merely biodiversity loss but cultural annihilation. Each lost crop variety carries generations of accumulated knowledge—planting seasons, preparation methods, medicinal applications, ritual significance, and culinary traditions.

When the seed disappears, so does the knowledge embedded within it.

Foreign governance and leadership culture

The new cultural vandalism manifests profoundly in governance structures. Uganda has adopted foreign leadership culture characterised by centralised control masquerading as decentralisation.

The Local Council system, rather than empowering communities, functions primarily as a surveillance mechanism. This governance model operates through what might be termed “Bantustanisation”—the creation of fragmented, dependent administrative units—and militarisation that prioritizes regime security over human security.

Indigenous leaders, where they exist at all, play second fiddle to leaders whose legitimacy derives from exogenous origins and connections. This foreign governance culture extends to peace and security frameworks that consume public money, generate spiraling indebtedness, and expand surveillance and militarisation while neglecting social, political, economic, and environmental development.

The money culture and development deception

The present regime’s exacerbated interest in the foreign sterile culture of money finds expression in government programs: Entandikwa, Operation Wealth Creation, the Parish Development Model, and various Emyooga initiatives.

These programs enforce a money culture that crushes the weak and highly vulnerable cultures of indigenous communities, accompanied by systematic impoverishment of these same communities.

The deception operates through targeting programs to partisan individuals—those known to be members of the ruling party—while propagating the falsehood that individual wealth will eventually “trickle down” to benefit communities.

The total communities do not benefit from these preferred development programs; instead, they witness the enrichment of politically connected individuals while collective wellbeing deteriorates.

Dispossession and the creation of human pollutants

Land grabbing, dispossession, and displacement have converted indigenous communities into “human pollutants” within their own ancestral territories.

Communities are transformed into internal refugees or, worse, into new modern nomads—people physically present but culturally unattached to land that once defined their identity, sustained their livelihoods, and anchored their spiritual existence.

This detachment from land represents perhaps the most complete form of cultural vandalism, as indigenous identity remains inseparable from territorial connection.

The destruction of natural life-death ecological cycles

Traditional burial practices among Ugandan indigenous nations reflected profound ecological understanding. The Basoga, for instance, would place deceased community members under the canopies of the Ficus tree (Omugaire) at the base of the stem, allowing natural decomposition to release nutrients into the soil.

Water flowing down the stem would wash these chemicals into the earth. Animals—domestic dogs, wild dogs, foxes, jackals—would consume the flesh; birds of prey would consume the eyes. This practice integrated death into the cycle of life, returning bodily resources to the ecosystem that sustained the community.

Later, the Basoga buried their dead in backcloth at six feet depth, understanding that at that depth, bacteria and fungi necessary for decomposition remained active. Even by 1962, they maintained this practice.

Similarly, nomadic pastoralists traditionally left their dead to nature, moving onward rather than interrupting the ecological cycle through burial.

Contemporary burial practices have disrupted this natural life-death ecology. Modern methods handle dead bodies through:

· Chemical preservation

· Plastic coffins

· Wooden coffins

· Nylon and non-cotton cloth

· Concrete graves, sometimes tiled, at three to four feet depth

These interventions prevent trees from accessing the resources of dead bodies and reintegrating them into the life-death cycle. This disruption contributes to what might be termed “biological desertification”—a process explaining, in part, why the Sahara Desert advances southward.

It also illuminates diminishing food resources in both urban and rural areas, as nutrients that should enrich soils are sealed away from ecological circulation.

The closed society culture

Contemporary Uganda has witnessed the mushrooming of closed society culture preferred by present-day rulers, replacing the open society that characterized indigenous governance. This occurs paradoxically alongside new technologies—Internet, social media, artificial intelligence—that theoretically enable unprecedented openness.

The closed society culture operates through surveillance, selective information access, and the cultivation of fear, undermining the participatory, transparent decision-making processes that characterized indigenous governance systems.