The Worst Part Of Living In a Dictatorship Is Not The Oppression

“You know what ?… Let’s switch off the internet for the whole country so that people cannot riot when we fake the election results.”

I currently live in such a country where we have had the same president since 1986 and he feels like he’s the only one who's got a vision for the country and makes sure he lets all the citizens know this.

As of 2020, Sub-Saharan Africa had 19 dictatorships and one of them is in my country.

He runs the country like it’s his cattle ranch, slaughtering people when it favors him, caging/ imprisoning those who call out his bullshit, deciding which animals(people) get fed or not and so much more.

Having lived in this country for most of my life, I have come to realize that dictatorships have the worst conditions imaginable but they have something much worse. That is the fact that people decide to surrender their lives to the service of those oppressing them.

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Dictatorships, poor countries, and the difference

I have lived in other countries before which have issues of abject poverty and corruption but where the governments have a check on how much power a president or any single person of authority can have.

Whereas many times these countries might seem like they have similar conditions to those found in dictatorships, it is not similar. In my observation after having lived in both a dictatorship and a country with severe poverty, I have since learned to separate the two.

Dictatorships are not necessarily poor. Many of them are resource-rich which is oftentimes what incentivizes these greedy leaders to over-stay their usefulness.

Poor countries on the other hand lack dictators and resources. Their conditions are routed in faulty systems that are supplemented by scarce resources.

Given an opportunity, both types of countries (with or without dictators) can rise out of their conditions and they often do.

During my time in India for example, I lived in some of the poorest communities which had no toilets and we had to go with a hoe to dig a hole if we wanted to make a “long call”.

That coupled with many other experiences I cannot mention here made me look at India as a country that had some parts of it hit by severe poverty.

In this country where I live now, however, conditions are not as bad as those I experienced in poverty-stricken communities of India.

The conditions here are terrible as well don’t get me wrong but unlike India, people here are not forced into such conditions due to the nature of their environment or anything like that.

People here are forced into such conditions because it is what they have become comfortable with. It’s some form of learned helplessness.

That is something very important if you want to understand the difference between leaving in a poverty-stricken environment versus living in a dictatorship that in turn makes people live in poverty-like conditions.

More often than not, poverty-stricken communities have several factors that are beyond them or beyond what any human being can solve with a snap of a finger.” Think deserts, wars, and the like.

In dictatorships, people often have a good environment and peace to live their lives but that comes at an expense. This is often in form of power centralized at one point mostly like a family which controls every vital sector of the economy.

Money that comes through those sectors has to pass through this “power source” where big chunks of it are lost to bribery and so on. This makes those sectors really costly to get involved in.

An ATM business would cost you about $5000 to start in the U.S but in a dictatorship, you wouldn’t even be able to file the papers you need. This is because if you survive the round of bribery of lower officials, you won’t have enough money to compete with families of Top officials who already own these businesses. Best case you fail…Worst, you get killed. There are now buyouts — more like takeouts.

But worry not, your dictatorial government already knows this so it creates some basic spin-offs albeit rip-offs from these economic arms, and pushes them to the common people as a way to sustain their lives.

The money got from these projects is not much. Between the limited supplies, poor quality provisions, and other rip-offs of such spin programs, It is just enough for people to survive.

They are more of subsistence projects than actual businesses that can sustain people for long.

People in countries like this who think these dictators have their best interests at heart also form cooperative groups with which they can mastermind and craft a proposal for presenting to the government (or optimistic still, to the world bank) for funding. A successful pitch will also mean an opportunity for the officials to get greedy.

An example that is actually a true story.

Let us say 100 people from a coffee farming village come together and decide that their coffee which was given to them by the government has now grown and it would be best if the government could help them purchase a machine for processing the coffee so that they can process the coffee as a lot instead of each farmer taking his one bag to the factory by themselves.

The government welcomes such proposals. Let us say that the project is to cost about UGX.197m~$53000. The government will record that as $400m ~ $107000. Guess where the difference will go.

Often that money never gets to the farmers that requested it even though it is approved and disbursed. But let's be optimistic here and by some miracle have that UGX197m appear on an account preferably the one submitted by the farmers.

That money still goes through the district authority who may charge up to 10% in “auditing” fees. These fees accrue until the farmers have (by luck) UGX 80million.

When this money gets to the farmers, it often cannot do anything worthwhile and the farmers themselves are stuck in this survival mindset that they will also embezzle some until they have only 20m left.

From UGX197 million to UGX 20 million. Totally normal.

That is why if you do a simple search, you will never stop hearing stories of donors coming to visit places in this country to which they donated money only to find nothing but a cleared grassland with cow dung littered all over the place.

If I lost you, let me make it a bit clear.

In dictatorships, everyone in a survival mindset. It doesn't matter how much money they have as long as they are playing this game, they are in this mindset.

People in this survival mindset know nothing other than working for themselves and their families.

It is common to hear people saying things like “for God and my Stomach” here. The president himself has once said that he works for his family. That is the typical mindset of all people in this country. Many are oppressed and desperate and the ones with the resources are also just as desperate.

People glorify the habit of spending every penny they get and there are some songs written about that as well.

For example in this song, the artist discourages people from saving money and encourages them to go spend all they have on parties. It’s funny that this is the same person campaigning for a seat as a member of parliament. Not for making policy or helping the community… No. Most people here go to politics so that they can tap into the money. As you can see, the country is not that poor — Just mismanagement of resources.

Politicians in this country have been known to make statements like “For God and My Stomach”.

It's not because they are bad people. It is how the country has taught them to think through years of oppression.

The whole country did not have internet for four days because the government feared people would riot so it was trying to survive by doing a bit of damage control but that was unnecessary because the people here as well were not willing to hit the streets in protest of the results.

People in dictatorships settle for mediocre lives because they have been taught to live this way which is worse than the oppression that they face.

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How you can help

I know very many people just read about the injustices and circumstances of dictatorships and feel the need to help in some way. I cannot provide all the possible ways you can help but there are some ways I think can help.

Do not think you are helping by giving money to the government or institutions.

In one of the schools I attended, there was a staff member who always came and took photos of us while we were eating.

Being African Kids that we were, we always smiled for the camera “African style”. We thought he was taking pictures for memories or his friends. It’s only years later that we found out he was using our photos to ask for financial aid claiming that we were orphans. We were not orphans. We were studying in one of the top schools in the country and our fees were being paid for by our parents.

Orphanages in this country are pretty much nonexistent thanks to all the money embezzled by the government and institutions that it was entrusted to.

The same goes for other institutions. In 2012, the prime minister’s office alone embezzled over $13m. Mind you, Uganda has over 1000 such offices. So do not bother.

If you really feel like donating, do it yourself and probably directly to the person or group you intend to impact.

Open up systems for Africans to work outside the ones in the governments’ controls.

Do you know what Clickbank and stripe have in common? They do not allow most of these African countries to take part in their business. I know that Africans have quite a reputation for impersonating African princes. 😆. But in all seriousness, I don’t think it’s very different from the rest of the world.

There are thousands of more companies like that available to the rest of the world but most of which you won't find the inclusion of African countries like mine.

This leaves a few businesses operating here and taking advantage of their uncontested monopoly.

And I get it, there are a lot of scammers on the continent and not to talk of legal mountains these companies have to cross to do business in these countries. Honestly, I think these are all excuses and they just do not want to have people in countries like this do business with them. (Or they think we don’t have the means)

Truth is, people in these countries like mine do not need handouts in form of donations.

They need opportunities to help them rise from whichever depths they settled. That is the best way you can help them.

My dad calls it empowerment. Although he uses it in the context of his children. He makes sure we don’t live the life he did.

I have access to more opportunities than an average Ugandan because I have traveled and seen what’s possible and how to get it. Most of the accounts I use however are foreign accounts because my home accounts won't be accepted.

But what of the millions that do not have these options? Your handouts are misplaced when you decide to give them to the government.

Do not get me started on people who are coming here to build schools. Unless you are going to build a state-of-the-art school, and staff it with good teachers, just don’t bother.

Schools here have been the biggest problem in dulling communities because they get unqualified people to run them.

If you felt the need to donate $50,000 for whatever reason don’t give it to the government. At least not with this current one. Maybe in the future.

For now, think of systems that help people make money. Do not think of giving anyone money because it's a waste unless you do it directly to them for a specific purpose that can be measured.

They need empowering but not handouts.

Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.