♪♫ Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni raps his way to election
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni (Antony Njuguna/Reuters)
Stand back, Kanye, a new star is rising. Yoweri Museveni, the 65-year-old president of Uganda, has decided to reach the youth vote through a medium they'll understand: rap. Inspired by a young voter, Museveni allowed his voice to be recorded and set over a simple beat while chants of "ah" and "oh" play in the background. A rather simplistic video accompanies the song, with Museveni shyly asking from a podium, "You want another rap?"
Museveni has led the country for 24 years during a period of relative stability. His winning the next election is seen as a foregone conclusion. The Wall Street Journal reports, though, that the song has injected a new excitement into the race.
In a written essay about his rap, titled "The Confluence Between the New and the Indigenous," he talks about how he hopes to honor ancestral music with the young style of music. His first song uses a traditional children's rhyme that talks about the taste of buffalo meat, trading cows for wives, and sons exacting vengeance for their fathers.
By
Melissa Bell
| January 7, 2011; 8:06 AM ET
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Melissa Bell’s article about President Museveni’s campaign in Uganda has incensed many people all over the world. By omission, it trivializes the continued suffering of the people of Uganda under Museveni’s autocratic regime.
Melissa fails to mention widely available information indicating that Mr. Museveni’s campaign is actually being financed in part with millions of dollars plundered from the state’s treasury despite a collapsed health, agriculture, education and transportation infrastructure on which most Ugandans depend. In a country were the majority of the population lives on less than one dollar a day the President on January 5, 2011 forced through a bill for Shs600 billion in "emergency" spending even as the opposition accused him of using public funds for campaigns. The bill included Shillings 18.6 Billion ($7.8M) for “donations” under his new personal “White House” budget of Shs. 95 billion in extra funding -- a figure which is over and above the total White House original budget of Shs. 80.6 billion.
All this against a back ground of newly published genocide materials by Todd David Whitmore, professor of theology at Notre Dame University.
This should be the story.
Henry
http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/-/688334/1085306/-/cjc2y6z/-/index.html
Posted by: HMukasa | January 7, 2011 1:50 PM | Report abuse
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