Correspondences on Iran and Uganda

Dear reader, a wonderful Ugandan, Victor Okoth – a PhD student at Northwestern University in the US – shared some friendly fire on what appears like contradictions in my writing.

I am forever grateful to all the feedback, and Victor precisely touches a core aspect that I felt needed more engagement as we move into 40-years of Yoweri Museveni – a man, who supposedly claims to espouse an anti-colonial posture despite his rabid embrace of the new colonisers in town, IMF and World Bank.

Why do I approach Iran and Uganda differently despite both governments being brutal? Victor allowed me to make this debate public.

25 Apr 2026

Dear Yusuf: I hope April has treated you well, and that May treats you even better. My name is Victor Okoth, and I am a fan of your column in The Observer.

I write to share some thoughts on the fairly well-informed propaganda in your articles since March 4, especially covering the Iran war and relating it to our politics. I suspect this will get buried in your mail but in the off-chance that it catches your attention; I’d appreciate a response.

My thoughts are premised on the tension in two themes which run consistently through your columns. The first, and more forceful, is the perniciousness of the (neo)colonial control in which we Ugandans and our rulers, and all colonized peoples broadly, negotiate our lives.

The second is the illegitimacy and brutality with which our rulers (not the colonial super-rulers) exercise power over us. I hope I have read you well over the years because they form the premise of my critique.

In the analysis on Uganda, you often resolve the tension by categorizing our rulers and their crimes as extensions of colonialists and their crimes. However, in all your analysis on the Iran war, there is no tension between the two themes whatsoever.

Your identification of the colonialists as the bad guys is correct; however, in its absoluteness (was that intentional on your part or not?), it seems to excuse the badness of the anti-colonialists.

For example, the heavy handedness and criminality with which the Iranian government treats many of its citizens (re-inform my propaganda if it is not so credible) isn’t very different from that with which our Ugandan government treats us.

I think there is an irony in that many governments with anti-colonial convictions abroad act like colonialists at home, and I feel that the Iranian government is one such government.

What is your best propaganda on this irony and what is the best way, analytically and practically, to deal with such governments? Surely being an anti-colonialist doesn’t make one a good guy, just as much as being a victim doesn’t make one a virtuous person.

Warmly, Victor

29 April 2026

Hello Victor: Your email is the most beautiful feedback I have read in a long while.

Thank you so much for this careful reading. First of all, I love the idea that you called it “fairly informed propaganda,” especially that you appreciate the historical and conceptual usefulness of opinions and so-called facts, as all being propaganda.

I loved this very much. Second, the tension you point out in my analyses of Uganda is not really a tension.

I prefer to see it as (a) layers of our exploitation/brutality, (b) the ends to which brutality and exploitation happen. In Kampala, we have a bunch of neoliberal/colonial caretakers.

Workers, if you like. But like all regimes of power – and this is a key point for me – they are brutal; dangerous. There could be levels. But power is essentially brutal. Problem for me is that Kampala brutality is in service to the empire – not for national ends.

It is to protect the interests of foreign capital. Did you see my articles, “Museveni’s Resume of a Colonial Emissary” Part I and II? (I have also written elsewhere, that my major problem with Museveni is not his brutality or long-stay, but rather the emptiness of his long-stay).

This takes us to Iran: Has the Iranian government been brutal? Of course. Just like the Americans and Germans and Britons. But for Iran, their brutality is meant to protect their sovereignty – and sovereignty defined in political economic terms.

For them, it is not just a claim, but a demonstrable fact. (Could be propaganda). I don’t know how much you know about Iran, but their case even justifies their brutality on its own: It is a country resource thieves (US, Israel and Western Europe) has sanctioned for sport; scientists, and Generals openly assassinated.

Open foreign coup plotting, and endless threats of invasion, in addition to humongous bad press. A government living like this will definitely suspect many of its nationals for working with the aggressor (which has been proven many times for Iran).

The government will definitely become brutal against its own people – and this oftentimes includes many innocent folks. I wrote after the Tanzania elections debacle that the so- called global human rights movements, and democracy merchandisers from Europe and North America terribly deny us the opportunity to appreciate local grievances as organic, but rather as externally enforced.

In fact, when brutal govts argue that they are responding to external threats, they aren’t really making up things. Even if they would be telling lies, the aggressiveness of the so-called human rights movements makes it difficult to make out the fine details.

In other news: Have you seen my book, Surrounded? Please look it up. I’m endlessly grappling with this myself. Again, thanks a lot for the wonderful email.

yusufkajura@gmail.com

The author is a political theorist based at Makerere University.

Victor Okoth is a PhD student in Civil and Environmental Engineering program at Northwestern University in the United States.

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