Bobi Wine’s Style of Activism Reminiscent of US Civil Rights Era

During a recent visit to the United States, Bobi Wine had the opportunity to meet and visit with Reverend Jesse Jackson, a pillar of the US civil rights movement. Though from different eras and backgrounds – not to mention countries – both men are committed to the same set of moral values and democratic principles.

“We are living in a military dictatorship back in Uganda,” Wine said.

“Political parties are, ideally, vehicles for change. Not only change, but vehicles for governance — for good governance,” he added. In Uganda, though, only parties that pose no true threat to Museveni’s rule have space to operate, Wine said.

“All the liberation efforts in Uganda have been carried out from the diaspora since, whenever Ugandans needed liberation, it has evidently been clear that there’s no room to operate from back home.”

Presidential run?

Prior to his meeting with Jackson, Wine met with Representative Bob Sherman of California. Before visiting the U.S., he traveled to Jamaica, where he met with Prime Minister Andrew Michael Holness.

But it’s the Ugandan diaspora that Wine is perhaps most keen to connect with.

“The diaspora has a great, great, great role to play in the politics of Uganda,” Wine said.

Wine is less interested in speeches, however, than dialogue. It’s constructive debate, Wine said, that will lead to ideas that can solve the problems Ugandans face.

Observers expect Museveni will run in Uganda’s 2021 polls. Saturday, Winetold CNN he’s “seriously considering” running for president himself.

That could be mean a showdown between entrenched power and a grassroots movement hungry for change.