Post-election violence; Afghans a more civil lot?

For friends that might have missed the other week's news about Kampala, we here are all just thankful to Jesus for delivering the nation from some roaming spirit of genocide. Embryonic from a needless stand-off between the government and some (Uganda's largest)ethnic group, there arose a 2day destructive riot in a couple of districts, and business in Kampala was put on hold for the two days consecutive. So tense was the situation, that lots of people lost their property, some their lives,

and others had their livelihoods threatened. The economy was hit so bad as a couple of business enterprises were completely obliterated by torching. But thanks be to God, prayers of the saints went up before His Holy Throne. The Lord heard and Healed the land, now the place is calm and still like nothing ever happened, we have our good ol'Uganda back, and we declare in the mighty name of Jesus, that NEVER AGAIN!!. see this spirit started in Rwanda, in 1994 was in Kenya 2008/2009 and now the devil felt he could have a go at Uganda, Christians here have always known, that the devil is envious of the great out pouring of the Holy spirit amongst the citizens of this nation, and for this reason he has always wanted to bring up something to stop the Flow of the manifestation of the Holy spirit, on many occasions he had failed, until he discovered one sly weapon: division of the church. yes, and it worked to a great extent, he brought different churches against each other, preachers fighting against one another, causing the flock to bicker against each other and hence the entire church (saints) fell into disarray. One thing that shocked me most was a friend of mine that had given me the prophesy about this, one month before it happened, and he gathered quite a number of prayer partners who prayed together with him as the day approached, he got the vision in 2006!!

Well, nuff for catch up don’t you think? Yea, so let's move on to our topic at hand. Post election violence: About two weeks back, Gabon held their elections and one of the candidates was their fallen president's son Ali Ben Bongo, who, if we are to go by the electoral commission results, won the elections.
An issue that sparked off massive violent riots across the country and claimed at least two lives, leaving millions of people's property destroyed. It must be noted, that Gabon is not the only country where we have seen such riots being sparked off due to voters' dissatisfaction with the election results. We saw it not far back in Iran, it happened in Kenya, Zimbabwe and a few other emergent young democracies,

whether the violence and riots ever amount to any positive change, that is for you and me to mull about. But recently, i must confess to you, i was extremely amazed, and by none other than the nation of Iran, they went into the elections with Dreadful threats against their lives, the Taliban insurgencies were stepped up as election day neared, with even an attack less than 24hours before the election day, and another in the most notable of places, the area around the presidential palace, NATO's headquarters at the core of Kabul's most fortified district, in the equivalent of Baghdad's Green Zone.

But the voters still showed up, and with passion, they wanted to exercise their voting rights, quite a number turned up, that in some polling stations, they had to go past the final voting hour, so as to give every one that had turned up, a chance to vote. In what has now become norm of all elections, once again the voters in Afghanistan were screwed by the authorities, massive election fraud was reported all over the country, especially in the south. Widespread instances of fraud in the voter registration process, with the registration rolls including "phantom voters" and multiple registration cards issued to a single registrant, amongst numerous other problems.

A European Union election observer mission said it believed as many as 1.5 million votes — including 1.1 million cast for Karzai — were "suspicious”. Two days before the election, an investigation by the BBC also found and reported evidence of widespread electoral fraud and corruption in the Afghan presidential election. With all this evident fraud, I begun to fear that on the announcing of the winner of the elections, the opposition supporters are going to cause havoc and go on a rampage, i held my breath, waited to see how bad it'd get and for how long. To my surprise, the voters seemed to take it cool, yes some made their protests vocal, but not violent, this left me amazed, and I kept wondering, how can a country that's been so ravaged by wars, insurgencies and Taliban brutality act so civil in the midst of such injustices? Are they just tired of violence? Or they just don’t think riotous responses would yield them any change? I welcome any comments from you guys about this.
In your opinion, are the Afghans a more civil lot than so many of other countries where post-election violence has occurred?

Subscribe Enter your email address to receive notifications when there are new posts Powered by BLOG ALERT

What if Lehman had not died?

Hi every one, im posting a pretty brief post today, and prolly in the next couple of times i might be posting. not that i dont have wut to post, matter of fact I've ALOT!! but its only that im waiting for a kinda "rebirth" yea "the rebirth of Rod" coming soon:) well the date will be November 6th 2009. 9pm (local time). it'll be a friday in kampala, and boy, you dont want to know wut is gonna happen that day:)
You'll be totally BLOWN!!
well fast forward to the topic for today.....
one year back this month (September 15th 2008) the Giant bank Lehman Brothers filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection with the US bankruptcy court Southern District of New York (Manhattan)
It is claimed to today, that the collapse of Lehman sent panic waves through the entire wall street, and as a result;
1.The Dow Jones closed down just over 500 points on September 15, 2008, at the time the largest drop by points in a single day since the days following the attacks on September 11, 2001. (This drop was subsequently exceeded by an even larger plunge on September 29, 2008.)[1]

2. The collapse led to the depreciation in the price of commercial real estate. The prospect for Lehman's $4.3 billion in mortgage securities getting liquidated sparked a selloff in the commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) market.[1]

3. After Constellation Energy (company that operates over 35 power plants in 11 states (mainly Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia, and California)) was reported to have exposure to Lehman, its stock went down 56% in the first day of trading having started at $67.87. The massive drop in stocks led to the New York Stock Exchange halting trade of Constellation. The next day, as the stock plummeted as low as $13 per share, Constellation announced it was hiring Morgan Stanley and UBS to advise it on "strategic alternatives" suggesting a buyout.[1]

The impact of Lehman's collapse is claimed to have been so dire on the entire global economy, and up to date, we are made to believe that this is what led to the current global economic melt down.

I've been scratching my head for almost a year now about Lehman's collapse and its impact, and i found myself with this question, that I would love for you great friends to help me with, (as much as u can).I've posted this question on some other blogs with a small write up that im going to paste here as well.


What if Lehman had not died?

Im no economist, or one really good at interpreting the maths and terms involved in economic discussions.But much as im not, directly and indirectly, i am a victim of the global financial melt down. After listening to the BBC drama "The day Lehman died" i summed up the whole episode into one thing, that lehman's death led to the collapse of the US economy and down went the European economy, and so did the entire world economy. Realizing this, i was left wondering, what if the FED had bailed out Lehman brothers, or what if Barclays had bought up Lehman brothers, and let Lehman live? would
the world economy have survived? do you think we some how could have kept our jobs and continue living life as normal, based on the survival on this one gigantic company? or it could have been just another life line, and we could have continued walking on egg shells, always fearing that the world economy is on the brink of failure? im confused trying to figure out this, what's your take?


thanks to you all
I remain yours truly
Rodger Kasule

Subscribe Enter your email address to receive notifications when there are new posts Powered by BLOG ALERT

Business customer care in Uganda, an oxymoron?

Over two years back, I needed to buy myself a multi-functional phone, one that I would interact with frequently as I would with a computer, since by then I didn’t have a laptop. I'd heard so many adverts on the radio about "the lion in wireless" in Uganda (Simba telecom), even before I could ever afford to buy a small phone. So when I got money on me to buy a beautiful phone, I remembered the "captivating" adverts I'd heard on radio. I took time, went to simba telecom kampala road, along the “fidodido street”, it was about 5pm in the evening, I enter the shop and found a slim bespectacled dark skinned smartly dressed gentle man wearing a blue simba telecom logo shirt. He was having a hot exchange of words with a customer on his way out, I stood there for about 5minutes waiting for the gentle man to give me some attention, and help me out with the choice of phone I had considered after searching on the internet after 5minutes of waiting, when the customer with whom the gentle man was having a bitter exchange had walked on. The gentleman turns, looks at me and moves on to go assume his seat on the desk counter. To me, I felt so humiliated, when this man looked at me and chose to go back behind the counter rather than attending to me (after all, I wasn’t a visitor in the shop for crying out loud, I was a CUSTOMER!!) I felt like he weighed me basing on my outside appearance, and felt like I was incapable of affording the high priced phones the shop has. Up to today I still believe, that this was the case, because even during the altercation this gentle man was having with the previous customer, he always kept glancing at me and so he was aware of my presence, his ignoring of me was a real stub to me, I just turned and walked out of the shop. That very night I contacted a friend of mine in Scotland and asked him to ship me a phone, I would send him the money via Western Union.

Two years later, this past Thursday (September, 3rd, 2009) I felt I should buy a new battery for my phone, and as well get another plastic casing for my phone. I didn't have it in my plans to ever go back to simba telecom trying to buy something else. but well, this time, on top of the "all cool" radio adverts, they had a public address system outside the shops and they were calling in customers, wow, I am from the post office, and my mind goes, well, probably that guy was having a bad day back then? Maybe they even got better staff now, I think I should go pass by too see if they can get me a new battery and a casing for my phone. This time round, they had expanded, they were occupying about 5shops adjacent to each other on the same street. I went to the first one as you come from the city-square towards watoto (KPC) church, and in there, I found, two guys (probably in their mid 20's) and a lady, they saw me coming in, but they were talking about something that must have been really funny to them, so the girl kept looking at me while they conversed, one guy had his back on me, and the other was seeing me from the sides, I waited there for about 2minutes while they conversed, and I kind of understood, that may be I would be second priority to the conversation they were having. Humbly, I held on until they were done, then the girl goes back behind the counter desk, and then the guy that had his back on me, turns toward me, smiling he asks, hello? I say hello back and I ask him if they had what I wanted, he responds in positive, and tells me to go over to the last shop where blitz videos is (or was). "Well, thank you", I tell him. And I walk on to the last shop.
In here, there was a gentle man putting on a moslems' hat sited in a reclining chair behind the counter desk, and another lady, dressed in a green top sited behind the adjacent counter, counting money. the guy saw me first, and sat still looking at me, the lady glanced over at me and went back to counting her money, I still stood, and waited for at least one of them to attend to me with at least a hello (well last time I'd checked, that's how it was done in a show of customer care in shops) well, after counting the money, the lady now looks up at me and she goes, "hello?" I say hello back, and I tell her what I needed. she told me they don’t have the casings, then I ask, "how about the batteries?" gentle man now gets my phone from me, looks at the battery and shouts across the room to another colleague, "hey, do you have BL-5F", he shouts spelling out the type of my phone battery, the colleague replies in positive with a price tag that I felt was a ridiculous price to me, because a friend of mine had bought the same battery from Kenya 7times cheaper the price they were telling me. I get my phone from the man with a moslem hat's hand and I start to walk out, when I looked back (still shocked about the inflated price) the man and the woman were now laughing at me, gosh, this was so... so mean, I felt, I turn back and go back to them. I ask them "is that supposed to be funny? you are selling me this battery at a price 7times more than the price the battery goes for in Kenya, how fair is that?" the gentleman now starts to say, "that is the price we sell it here, if you want, then you buy in Kenya", I go, “but that’s not fair…” "Your battery is even a fake one" he responds. Jeez, now he was starting to insult me real bad, I ask them, is this the customer care here? "You just go and buy from Kenya, this is Uganda" I started walking out and the gentleman now cracks in laughter, still escorting me with his "go buy in Kenya, this is Uganda". I don't know but I can’t even explain to you how humiliated, belittled, and despised I felt treated by these chaps at Simba telecom. And this being my second (almost 3rd) experience with the staff at simba telecom, I felt these guys are offering way less than what they advertise in the papers, TV and radio, it will forever be hard (if even ever possible) for me to ever want to go back to these people or even recommend the shop to a friend. As I walked out, I heard the announcer on the PA system that was put outside saying, "...simba telecom, we are the best..."
Thinking about this, after some time, i remembered the words of one of the supervisors that had looked at my group's final school project that was aimed at enhancing customer care in businesses around Kampala. He had asked us if we were sure about the impact our project system would impact on the business people in Kampala, “because apparently, the customer care in the city is ZERO” he stated. And what even hurts most, is that thousands of young people (me inclusive) are out there on the streets looking for jobs and can actually do a much better job than these employees of "the Lion in Wireless" but a person that has a chance to sit in this envied position, is actually abusing their privilege. IT'S A PITY.

Subscribe Enter your email address to receive notifications when there are new posts Powered by BLOG ALERT