When George Orwell wrote about Big Brother in his book 1984, he missed an important fact. That big brother was a programmer and that the ever watching Big Brother could ever be positive (but he may have helped in defeating the Political Big Brother).

Programmers of all kinds, web, TV, applications etc love statistics and knowing. ?What are people watching, what are people reading, and which adverts are readers clicking? When, where, what and why?

But unlike the political big brother, we are not interested in controlling you and we create safeguards to limit our power. In most cases we get swayed by public opinion (yes, our interest ultimately is what you want and not what we want you to do). We encrypt passwords so that we cannot log into your accounts and help ourselves. Although we reserve the right to manually and automatically reset your passwords (next time you fail to log into your Facebook account, then maybe Mark zuckerbag could have changed your password and snooped into you account! You can consider suing him. Ha ha). ?We are more interested in the statistics than reading your private stuff. For instance, in case of user account driven websites how many times you log in, how big is your account and what are you reading, watching etc in case of general websites.

The reasons are obvious, to know how big your account is and if you are actually using your it, and also to help us help you by giving you what you want to read and watch.

The recent telecom price wars in East Africa (Kenya and Uganda in particular) are indicative of the new economic scramble for Africa and the battle for Africa's soul - a clash of business models - the western business model versus the eastern one.

A revelation in 'Rwanda: Competing for the world's top spots' by Andrew Mwenda of The Independent caught my eye and completely challenged my earlier perceptions about Post apartheid South African Businesses following the end of apartheid and cessation of white power and their northerly push seeking new markets in sub-Saharan Africa.

Mwenda says it was the Rwandan government (as told to him by Rwanda's former Minister for Works and Communications, Sam Nkusi) that induced the South African telecom giant MTN into investing in Rwanda and not the other way round. MTN was reluctant to invest in sub-Saharan because 'there was no viable market or investment security' in sub-Saharan Africa!

The Rwandan government however offered to meet most of the investment cost and MTN obliged. The success of MTN Rwanda motivated MTN to venture into Uganda and eventually to other sub-Saharan countries.

The dominance of Americans of African origin in the entertainment industry in general and Music in particular and the prevalence of music, dance and drama in many African cultures is evidence that Africans are an artistic people and many African cultures are intertwined in art.

Africa's tragic history involving first slavery and later colonialism, and her people's negative portrayal in religious literature especially the Bible has meant that African's lost their traditional means of conveying art, and that post colonial and independence African literature were, and have been predominantly obsessed with freeing Africans from mental slavery, asserting the dignity of African peoples and cultures, and countering the many prejudices about Africa and Africans.

Post colonial literature was greatly aided by the African Writers Series, then edited by arguably the greatest African writer of all time, Chinua Achebe, introducing talented writers from all over Africa to the world. AWS writers such as Achebe and Wole Soyinka in Nigeria and Ngugi wa Thiongo and Okot pBitek in East Africa to mention a few were at the fore-front of the intellectual emancipation of Africans through literature.

That the UN should back down and water down its own report accusing Rwanda and Uganda of committing genocide in Congo between 1997 and 2003 (the report covers the years 1993-2003) emphasizes the weakness of the UN and its continued manipulation by politics and politicians. It also points at Museveni's poor record as a 'revolutionary' and his trial of impunity in wherever he has been engaged in right from Luwero.

Museveni grew up in a bipolar world torn and spilt ideologically between capitalism and communism and shared between two superpowers that represented the two ideologies, the USA and Russia respectively.

In an age where capital had entrenched herself over many centuries thanks to her steady development in Europe and later in the Americas first in the primitive forms of slavery and feudalism and then later in the advanced form we know of today, she had written her history in blood and over the bodies of many slain and inevitably bred her own resistance.

In 2008, America elected her first non Caucasian President in Barack Hussein Obama a feat hailed by many (mostly liberals) in the country as a sign of progress, and a triumph of western civilization.

Obama's campaign was inspiring because his message was a promise of change in Washington from a politics of corruption to one of transparency delivered in a language of inclusion - urging Americans to focus on emphasizing their unity other than on emphasizing their differences.

He made use of new media especially the social networking site Facebook because of his unpopularity or lack of appeal among the established media houses to rally for votes. He also relied on a movement of young volunteers and unorthodox fundraising machinery where he relied on small donations (also because of his lack of appeal to big business) rather than large sums of monies donated by businessmen, big business and lobbies.

When H.E the President of the Republic of Uganda Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, addressing NRM special interest groups at Namboole Stadium, warned that any politician who engages in violence, sectarianism and bribery is an enemy to the party and could go to jail, anyone new to Ugandan politics would have hailed him and perhaps a distant liberal president in need of a sign from a continent stereotyped by many as a 'doomed' and 'dark' would cling to the statements as a gospel truth and a glimmer of light in the dark and hail him as a 'new breed of African ruler'. 

But to those of us who were inspired by a much leaner and idealistic Museveni over twenty years ago to hope and dream of a better Uganda, the lines are a tired litany of a boring song sung year after year like a hymn, without necessary ever seeing any walking the talk.
"Bribing, sectarianism and rigging are criminal. You break the law. Don't think that by cheating within the party you can't go to jail. You will be sent to prison..." Museveni warned. 

TODAY I woke up to good news - TORORO TO GET 230MW POWER PLANT!
According to the New Vision, "A Mauritius-based power firm, Albatross Energy, has applied for permit to build a 230MW heavy-fuel oil plant in Tororo, underscoring the increased investment appetite in the energy industry."

This, coming after I slept last night thanks to my first dose of good news from Tororo in a very long long time - I ate a very high protein fast food from Tororo that I found being promoted in a leading supermarket in Kampala.

The fact that it was being promoted was impressive but what I found most impressive was that it was actually tasty. I bought a few packets and hurried home not to cook it but to visit their website http://www.sebafoods.com/ and I was impressed.

Over twenty years ago President Museveni shot his way to power allegedly 'because the 1980 elections had been rigged' by the Obote II regime. Like Moses descending from the mountains, Museveni was armed with the Ten Point Program but unlike Moses, an AK47.
The youthful Museveni's 10 point program was a critique of the past and it promised among others the restoration of democracy and an end to corruption just like a certain Snowball and Napoleon had promised after deposing of their dictatorial and exploitative master Mr Jones from Animal Farm.
His earlier methods, though at variance with his 10 point program were excused and considered justifiable because of his moral high ground, after all hadn't he promised fundamental change, and hadn't he reiterated that his change wasn't merely a change of guard? Thus, Museveni's all inclusive NRM party system, his post-phoning of a return to democratic rule to 1995 from 1989, and the whines of Ssemwogerere that the 1996 elections were rigged, fell into deaf ears.