Trump, Coffee and Surviving Uganda

When it was confirmed that Donald Trump would once again be President of the United States, I found myself marveling at what he had endured to reach that victory. How sweet victory must taste for someone so well-acquainted with the spirit of death. Having braved one of the worst media onslaughts, peer rejection, and being literally compared to the worst human being who ever lived—Hitler—he won, and it was a remarkable sight. Scores of Americans took to the polls to voice their distrust of a party whose policies no longer served their interests.

However, this post isn’t about whether or not Trump deserved the win or whether he is guilty of all he’s been accused of. This post is about something Africans, particularly Ugandans, haven’t experienced in a while: the freedom to choose. There are opinions on both sides of the aisle, and as a Ugandan, I watched the election process with a hint of jealousy. How good it must feel to have the freedom to make a choice, even if that choice is deemed irrational or foolish by some. How satisfying it must be to see someone you voted for rise to the podium and give a victory speech, or even to gather with others and commiserate with your preferred politician who didn’t make it. What does it feel like to have a politician whose educated, coherent views match your vision for the country? Bliss, I imagine.

As Ugandans, we’ve been stripped of that luxury at seemingly every turn. It wouldn’t be too bad if it was simply about the right to select the president of our country; that’s par for the course in Africa. We’ve long come to terms with the fact that democracy is purely symbolic here. No, it’s deeper than that. It’s the fact that in every industry, we are faced with a crippling choicelessness, forced to contend with mediocrity, overpriced goods, and low-quality everything.

Everywhere you look, Ugandans must choose between bad and worse—this must be one of the few places in the world where the adage ‘the customer is king’ doesn’t apply. In Uganda, the customer is something to be trampled on and exploited.

We don’t have alternatives to UMEME; when they inevitably fail, we can’t simply switch to a different service provider. We’re limited to Airtel or MTN, so when they siphon data or monopolize the market with substandard service, we fend for ourselves. The closed-door meetings don’t involve the Ugandan public, but later, when we have to pay extra for services or compete unfavorably with a politician’s product on the market, we simply accept it as another day in this strange country.

In another corner, the recent parliamentary bill sent shockwaves throughout coffee industry and left many feeling even more claustrophobic. The rationalisation of UCDA is yet another example of what it means to live in a country where decisions are handed down like orders from an inaccessible demigod.

However, it’s not all bleak. Being the resilient people we are, we strive to eke out a living amidst the potholes, dust, and URA on our backs. We do what we can when we can, and leave the rest to God. In the end, no matter how many times our politicians attempt to stifle our growth and kill our industry, we, like a stream forced to change course, find small ways to make our way through.

At a recent summit on blockchain, I saw this resilience firsthand. I met young, intelligent Ugandans discussing their challenges in an industry the old guard would struggle to understand, let alone regulate. Here they were, rejecting the stereotype of laziness attributed to them by their leaders, staking their futures on a technology revolution that most wouldn’t expect an African in Africa to embrace. These are the real heroes of our times—not the politician who bores his audience with stories of walking miles to school. No offense to him; his accomplishment is commendable, but these Ugandans are my reason to believe that one day, we too might hope to have the simple luxury of choice.