Rough life in an African illiberal democracy
Daniel Nelson
Bobi Wine: Ghetto President pitches you face-to-face with the rough and tumble of Uganda’s political and election battles as pop star-turned-MP Robert Kyagulanyi takes on the country’s 36-year dictatorship.
And when I write rough, I mean rifle-butting, rib cracking, head-kicking, eye-spraying, live-bullet brutality that includes torture, abduction and murder. Very rough.
The wonder is that the engaging Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine perseveres despite the constant intimidation and physical assaults on him and his team. His resilience, bravery and determination are incredible.
So is his optimism - perhaps vordering on naivety - and that of his wife, Barbara (“I am just an image of the women who are going through worse things”). They insist that the opposition can be united, that President Yoweri Museveni will be defeated, and that a new, better, political era will be ushered in. (Museveni, though the main target, does not feature much in the film, because the camera focuses on the actual dirty work, which is dished out by the “security” forces. In a couple of interviews with foreign correspondents, Museveni comes across as arrogantly self-satisfied. He includes “homosexuals” in his list of groups fomenting discord, though that might be a sign of his confidence that Western journalists’ stories are irrelevant.)
Co-directors Christopher Sharp and Moses Bwayo have made a devastating record of the government’s heavy hand over the past five years (which they would like to be screened widely in Africa and to Western donors who keep Uganda’s funds flowing). In addition, thanks to the astonishingly complete access offered by the Kyagulanyis, the film also shows them in an intensely personal way, in moments of reflection about themselves and each other, at home with their children, or thinking about the risks to those helping them.
After a screening at last year’s London Film Festival, Uganda-born Sharp admitted that when Kyagulanyi saw the film he said “You’ve made it too depressing.” But the perpetuation of a ruler for almost four decades, and the accompanying authoritarianism, is indeed depressing.
It could have been worse, says Sharp. “I believe what’s going on in Uganda is horrific. But we decided [when making the film] it would not be a catalogue of horror.”
If you want a powerful insight into life in an illiberal African democracy, this is the one for you.
Moses Bwayo has applied for asylum in the US. Asked in London why Bwayo had not sought refuge in the UK, Sharp said that “there would be no chance of Moses getting asylum in the UK, particularly at the moment”.