Transcript from Ekimeeza fieldnotes:
In today’s Ekimeeza, one incident that stood out was the president, who addressed the people on labor-day through television and said that Uganda has not made a lot of progress economically because the people have a luxurious lifestyle. The big discussion that followed was whether the private toilet driving along the president’s 24-car convoy could be considered too luxurious.
The example of the toilet car certainly gives an idea of the waste and over- luxurious lifestyle of the president, yet, people at the Ekimeeza pulled the toilet-car topic out of context by discussing which of the 24 cars was the toilet-car, what could be other irrelevant cars in the convoy and if the toilet car always drove along with the convoy. More half the participants touched upon the topic of the toilet car, all with their opinion about the appropriateness of the vehicle. The ruling party supporters present at the debate started accusing some other participants of having cars and thus being luxurious and the whole discussion turned into a row about minor issues.
When instead of a disapproval or support of the single ‘toilet car’ issue, a more objective and statistically sound claim had been made, like the actual amount of money spent on the president’s personal luxury, there would have been less confusion and less subjective debating possible. Numbers and facts give people the ability to build an argument and puts the personal opinion of the speaker along the sidelines.
In my last TH!NK post I started analyzing the discourse used during the radio-talkshow Ekimeeza, where citizens meet in Kampala to engage in an open debate about social and political issues. Lose accusations are common and juicy stories seem to be used much more than concrete facts. This can be attributed to both the availability of numbers and statistics and civilians’ ability to interpret numerical data. The lack of basic mathematical knowledge can have far reaching implications for a society. In Uganda this lack of basic math skills among the population shows with most money transactions, where calculators are used as soon as counting to 10 does not suffice. As a test I now and then ask people to estimate the amount of chicken in a pen or the amount of bottles of coke in a fridge, most of the times they are either way off or will just tell me that they really do not know.
Another explanation for the large amount of subjective and unfunded arguments in the political discourse at Ekimeeza is the sheer absence of statistical figures. During my interviews with radio stations and politicians this was a recurrent issue. There are very few numbers available, so arguments in a discussion tend to refer to incidents and memorable events. It is not the amount of money the convoy of the president costs a day and what percentage of the national budget this constitutes in a year, but the topic of discussion is the incident that there is a toilet car driving along with the convoy. Although both arguments indicate that the president may be spending excessive amounts of money for personal luxury and comfort, the numerical argument cannot be as easily contested, forgotten or mixed up with other arguments.
In a survey I did among 33 participants of the Ekimeeza I asked what sources they used to prepare for the discussion at the Ekimeeza. The great majority answered their main sources were Friends, Newspapers and Radio shows. TV was to a much lesser extent used as a source and internet, books or other sources were hardly mentioned. I also asked how they could access independent statistical data. There were four people who mentioned parliament as a source of statistical data. Some sittings of parliament are screened on TV and the general public is sometimes allowed to attend at the sittings. Three people came up with the internet and the rest could not name an independent data source which could provide statistics. It must be said that a lot of people that filled in the questionnaire did not seem to understand what ‘independent statistical data’ was. Some of the answers were: ‘by talking to friends’ or ‘by observing people’. Yet there was nobody who could mention an agency or publication that could supply them with statistical data.
The fact of the matter is that not only the general public and the Ekimeeza speakers seem to rely on newspapers and radio as basic source of information; even politicians use excessive amounts of unfunded arguments to state their claims. Not only does this become evident at the Ekimeeza where MP’s and sometimes ministers come to speak, also in the television program that broadcasts live from parliament it shows that politicians are not required to have expert knowledge on the matters they are responsible for. A typical speech seems to revolve around the tactical posturing of the individual speaker, where in one monologue alliances are established, affiliations are confirmed, the personality of the speaker is promoted, the chairman is appreciated and a personal opinion is given. Some speakers are very skilled in this sort of speech, but in the meantime, very few people benefit from this kind of discourse.
This is part of president Museveni's motorcade, the toilet car is the sixth vehicle..
Hello Wouter,
Nice post with lots of memories. Especially the inability to count. I remember many national parks officials asking me if I was a doctor because I could do 5x250 + 125 + 10x30 without a calculator. Before they had reached their calculator I would have given them my figure. If they came to a different conclusion (sometimes way off) I had to beg them to punch in the numbers again because they made a mistake.
For many in Africa the digits appearing on a calculator are the truth and I wonder how many are ripped off.
One important question I am asking myself. How can we ourselves be sure that we are receiving independent and reliable data from our ‘independent’ agencies?
Hi Johan,
Thanks for your comment and relevant question. As a fellow Dutchman I will use some Dutch examples to illustrate my answer.
- In Holland, their are several independent organizations working on social research, oppinion polling, market research etc. Think of organizations like TNO, EVA, TNS NIPO, Maurice de Hond, Synovate etc etc.
- Experienced and embedded investigative journalists know where to find the right sources to solidify their arguments. They will search for verifyable facts and translate facts into a well argumented story. Their reputation depends on this.
- Citizens of the Netherlands can also take initiative to obtain data and information. When the government fails to adequately explain itself, citizens can for example go to the national Ombudsman who deals with complaints from citizens towards the government.
These, and other institutions have, over time, established reasonably transparent accountability mechanisms for citizens to check up on government and companies. Furthermore, citizens are educated to think critically and to do some research themselves. Although a lot of Dutch people unfortunately prefer reading tabloids or watch soap-series all day, people have enough options to educate and arm themselves with data and knowledge.
Dear Wouter,
Although I agree with some points you make, it might be dangerous to base all your utopian democratic assumptions solely on your ‘magic bullets’ facts & information. In an article I recently stumbled upon this fetish with knowledge and facts was given an interesting twist. Here is a short summary:
It is one of the great assumptions underlying modern (western) democracy that an informed citizenry is preferable to an uninformed one. Knowledge is the best remedy, facts make people better thinkers, information will enlighten us etc. Maybe this is not so true as we always expected. A recent study has shown that facts don’t necessarily have the power to change our minds. In fact, quite the opposite. In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger.These findings open a long-running argument about the political ignorance of American citizens to broader questions about the interplay between the nature of human intelligence and our democratic ideals.
Most of us like to believe that our opinions have been formed over time by careful, rational consideration of facts and ideas, and that the decisions based on those opinions, therefore, have the ring of soundness and intelligence. In reality, we often base our opinions on our beliefs, which can have an uneasy relationship with facts. And rather than facts driving beliefs, our beliefs can dictate the facts we chose to accept. They can cause us to twist facts so they fit better with our preconceived notions.
A study showed that people who were given a self-affirmation exercise were more likely to consider new information than people who had not. In other words, if you feel good about yourself, you’ll listen — and if you feel insecure or threatened, you won’t. This would also explain why demagogues benefit from keeping people agitated. The more threatened people feel, the less likely they are to listen to dissenting opinions, and the more easily controlled they are.
Just consider this as a philosophical note to balance your interesting article. Because although people are appearently not always convinced by facts, it’s better to have some then none!
Here is the link: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/07/11/how_facts_backfire/?page=1
Ciao Marlies
Brains the biggest threat to healty democracy?
PS: Another conclusion I can draw from the article that I mentioned in the above post is that people who are drawn to populists and demagogues have low self-esteem; do you reckon that explanis Wilders&Co;!?
@ Marlies,
Interesting are the Michigan researches. And I think they make a lot of sense.
I agree 100% with you on the Wilders & Co theory. Create fear regarding Morrocans and you win the elections. Create fear of nuclear installations (Iraq): not true, yet there is war. That is why I don’t completely agree with Wouter that all independent organizations supply us with accurate stats.
Hi Wouter,
A mighty post. Thanks for delivering it. In fact, you all.
I couldn’t agree more with Johan over this. I strongly believe that data we receive from most organizations and media outlets are not fully independent, reliable and accurate. We have to be watchful.
@johan: indeed. but as is appearent from the michigan research; creating fear only works with people that have low self-esteem. I dont really understand your argument about how creating fear leads to independent organizations not supplying us with accurate facts? If you are refering to political parties; I think their ‘facts’ are never neutral in the first place!
Perhaps we can draw the conclusion that the facts are not the problem (as I first stated) but the psychological mindset of people determines wether or not they perceive facts as false or true? (low self-esteem seems to have negative correlation with believing facts that dont correspond with your own perceptions).
Wouter I still think you are completely right about the need to obtain more factual and objective data. Specially because there are virtually no facts at all in the Ugandan debates about public spending. Im looking forward to your next post!
That post title certainly caught my attention
@Marlies.
Sorry, I should have put my sentences a bit more accurate together. What you conclude is not what I meant, but that is my mistake.
I was referring to the war in Iraq. How many ‘independent’ data did we get that told us that the Iraqis have weapons of mass destruction. This created fear and public support for the invasion. Afterwards nothing was found.
Hi All,
@Marlies, thanks for your interesting contribution. I would like to point out that peoples believes by which they judge facts are made up of experiences and information in the first place. I am not saying that by presenting facts, everybody will change their point of view imediately but over time some of these facts will stick. Peoples perceptions will not change overnight, however, I do not see this as an argument to refrain from collecting and distributing information on basic living conditions, based on factual data.
@Johan & Luan, I totally agree on your concern that the facts presented to us have an ‘agenda’. However in more developed nations at least there is something to choose from. In any case,we should always be critical of data. this is why I feel that its not the data itself we should try to develop, but instead, the methods of collecting data. New Media could help us in this matter as information can come directly from the source. In our time, people have obtained technologies with which they can transmit information themselves instead of just receiving. This gives us many opportunities. Unfortunatly, the opportunities to organize some sort of global civil platform has not yet reached its potential. Or is this just another Utopian Democratic Brainwave I’m having?