Gardner Thompson

Governing Uganda. British Colonial Rule and Its Legacy Gardner Thompson

An extended piece on the British colonial state mostly focused on the 1940s, arguably the most neglected decade in the study of Uganda's colonial history. The argument at its centre is that the Second World War exposed the central and abiding boundaries of British power; and laid bare the basic truth that the colonial state was inadequate and lacking in the necessary knowledge and imagination to adjust to the demands of the new global context. It further shows how the war transformed conditions of relative African co-operation and acquiescence, and British-Ugandan collaborative economic relationships. The author's thesis is that there is a line of continuity from the colonial state as exposed by the Second World War, to the notorious fragility of the Ugandan state after independence, to the present Museveni regime. He suggests that a useful perspective may be to consider how African society impacted on British rule - besides the usual consideration of the impact of colonialism - and that it may no longer be accurate to consider the colonial period as a historical discontinuity. The author draws further parallels between the similarities of the Ugandan regime of the 1950s and the Museveni governmemt, proposing that a better understanding of this period may shed light on the crux of the problems of present-day government in Uganda. The author is Academic Vice-Principal and Head of the History Department at Dulwich College, London.