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SO, the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) came and went. I presume the haters have busy nights nowadays, ripping up the roads and other evidence of good work that miraculously burst onto the scene on the eve of CHOGM.
No one is perfect and Uganda is no exception but boy, did we show some mettle as we hosted CHOGM.
I fumed at the international headlines here in the UK all week. Seeing that nothing was going wrong as perhaps expected, they were biased and intent on robbing us of our 15 minutes of fame.
Most of the British TV reporters were busy reporting from places like slums. They transmitted very sad stories, you would think they had gone to Uganda to cover a funeral.
The war in the north was one of the main features, like they’ve suddenly realised there’s a war going on there.
I am sure prospective investors decided to continue spending their money in Malta instead, because there were beautiful images of the Queen’s visit there before she boarded her plane to the heart of the ‘doomed dark continent’.
Al Jazeera was the most positive of them all. Watching as they held interviews with heads of states from the beautiful balconies of the new hotels with views of the city below or from green hotel compounds, I felt proud. At moments like these I would poke people in the ribs and point to the TV screen. To this you would hear the usual: “This? Uganda? I had no idea it was this beautiful.” Europeans! But do you blame them?
They’ve constantly been made to believe that Africa is a basket case, so they choose to spend their holidays and money in places like London, Paris, Barcelona, Lisbon etc because whenever CNN is in these places, you don’t see slums, AIDS patients, dirty, crowded hospitals, limbless beggars etc. These places aren’t perfect either, but BBC, CNN etc would rather their citizens spent their money in the West.
Still, CHOGM gave us some sort of foundation on which to build. The worst thing that can happen is for us to go back to our usual procrastination and political idiosyncrasies and let this foundation rot.
Kani Twehamye
UK
Published on: Saturday, 1st December, 2007
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