BY RICHARD SSEWAKIRYANGA
This article by Richard Ssewakiryanga, Senior Research Fellow, CBR, engages a sharp and timely debate on moral responsibility, intellectual labour, and elite silence in Uganda’s political life. Responding to Shemi Esquire’s critique of Mahmood Mamdani’s Book – Slow Poison, it argues for a more careful reading of what memoir, scholarship, and historical reflection can—and cannot—be asked to do. Rather than treating nuance as evasion, the piece situates Mamdani’s work within lived histories of displacement, restraint, and fractured identity. It challenges the expectation that every privileged voice must fight every battle, insisting instead on the enduring political value of complexity, witnessing, and honest historical excavation.