Culture-Society

Mr. Lobober, the Vice-President of the Republic of Lobomewa had just finished meeting the tenth delegation within the last twelve hours. Delegates from various organizations ( students, women, farmers, teachers, labor, etc.) all came to persuade him to become the candidate for the presidency. Although this was expected to be a mere formality, it was not. As the deadline for nomination approached, Mr. Lobober’s failure to declare his candidacy turned into a major political crisis.

Plato, the great scholar of Ancient Greece, said that the differences between rich and poor should not exceed a ratio of one to four. In the eighteenth century the influential writer, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who gave birth to the notion of the “Social Contract”, argued that the invention of private property and immoderate accumulation are the origins of great discord among peoples. He also was one of the first to advocate a return to democracy, a system of government that had got lost once the Greek empire declined. He saw the modest reforms of his era as “garlands of flowers along the chains of iron”. He died a decade before the French Revolution but was celebrated by its leaders.

Though the finality of life is the same for everyone, how one dies may depend on one’s status in life. Below is an excerpt from a novel based on life in the 1980s and 1990s, but it is so true in real life even today. The story began with a radio announcement which went like this,

“Here are personal announcements read to you by Labalpiny. Mr Joseph Inyangat passed away on Saturday morning”.

That was the announcement of my girlfriend Alice’s father’s death.

In 2017 the office of the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) released a report which for the first time explicitly named US military forces in the field and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operatives in secret prisons as possible war crimes culprits for their alleged use of torture and rape. Because the American soldiers were based in Afghanistan, which is an ICC member, the ICC in theory has broad jurisdiction over crimes committed by combatants on Afghan soil. 

Propaganda is a double-edged sword. With propaganda, there is a risk that you go on believing your own message. Though wishful thinking about the New World Order is on both sides of the ongoing war in Ukraine, one wonders if the western world media can wish away the Russians from the face of the earth? Let's start with the roughest example of all time: Adolf Hitler. Before the war against the Soviet Union in 1941, he promised: “We just need to kick in the door and the whole rotten building will collapse”.

In the wake of the American debacle in Afghanistan, questions are asked about the limits of American power. The same might soon be asked of Russia and NATO.

Other questions relate to the persistence and resilience of the Taliban, and to the future of governance, women, religious minorities, and so on, in Afghanistan.

A concerned world also speculates on the influence of the emboldened Taliban on the future of terrorism.

But let me reflect on the heart of the problem, the problem of God.

It is Lenten period for Christians around the world. This is a special preparatory period during which believers are invited to grow and deepen their relationship with God. Among the recommended spiritual practices designed for spiritual growth are prayer, fasting, reflection and meditation. In one of the recent editions of Sunday Monitor, Musaazi Namiti raised contentious knife-edge questions about God’s relevance in human affairs, especially during war and conflict in his article “Wars illustrate how God is irrelevant in human affairs”.

The United Nations Convention on International Mediation Settlement Agreements, also known as “The Singapore Convention on Mediation” is a convention that applies to international settlement agreements resulting from mediation. It sets out a legal framework for the right to invoke the mediation settlement agreements as well as for their enforcement among the member states. The Convention facilitates international trade by using mediation as an alternative and effective method of resolving commercial disputes. The Singapore Convention on Mediation (the Convention) was adopted in December 2018 in Singapore and Uganda was among the first countries to became signatories to the convention on 7^th August 2019.