The events in South Africa are shocking. But what’s more shocking is the fact that the State of South Africa cannot hold.
The first role of a State is that a state must maintain the monopoly to violence. And this, it achieves through its apparatus such as the Police and the Army.
It through this monopoly of violence that the state is able to prove its legitimacy. A State only holds to those regions where it is able to exercise violence and come out decisively as a winner.
That is what makes Museveni exceptional. Museveni is the first President of the State of Uganda. He is the first President in the history of Uganda to have full control of each and every boundary of Uganda. He humbled the Karimojong, he co-opted some, he drove some out of Uganda and once that was all done, only then could he begin on other things.
Even the ability to announce a lockdown and enforce it, that is proof of a strong state. A State and Violence are one thing. If tomorrow, you stood at some playground in Kabale and declared war on Museveni, he deploy to the maximum, push you out and destroy you. Just to ensure that nothing threatens the hold of the state.
When you see that army person in your village, that police station, that is the State. That is why the situation in Ethiopia, Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and many other countries. How can the State claim to be strong when large chunks of your country are not under its control?
From the look of things, it seems like only Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda hold this continent together. The States in these four countries are States. Both in function, in violence, and in the exercising of this violence.
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