Edward Frederick William David Walugembe Mutebi Luwangula
Muteesa II (19 November 1924-3 December 2019) was the 35th and longest-reigning
Kabaka (King) of Buganda, suceeding his father Daudi Cwa II on 22 November 1939 until his death, after which he was succeeded by his fourth son and current King Muwenda Mutebi II. His reign spanned the Uganda Protectorate, the East African Federation, the Protectorate of Buganda and the proper independence of Buganda, that was obtained on 4 July 1976.
The Kingdom of Buganda had been unified in the 13th Century and had been one of the largest and most powerful states in East Africa, before it was, after many attempts, colonized by the British who incorporated it into the Uganda protectorate in 1894 ; Buganda was a center to the British colony, with his kings maintained and converting to Anglicanism, while many Baganda enjoyed high ranks within the colonial administration and the country enjoyed prosperity as a producer of coffee and cotton. It was in this context that Muteesa II was born on 19 November 1924, the fifth son of Kabaka Daudi Cwa II ; he was elected to succeeded his father at 15, with a regency assuming full powers until his majority and coronation on November, 19 1942. As leader of a British protectorate, Muteesa was educated in Uganda before completing his studies in Cambridge, where he was even commissionned as a Captain in the Grenadier Guards ; due to his royal status, he wasn’t allowed to see combat during the World War in spite of his demands.
Most of Africa campaigned for independence at the time, and Uganda was no exception : the country saw uprisings in 1949 and the British created an East African Federation in order to better prepare Kenya, Uganda and Zanzibar to self-reliance within the Commonwealth, as it was done in Canada and Greater Rhodesia ; Muteesa, known as “King Freddie” in London, was opposed to the idea alongside his fellow Ugandan monarchs, fearing to fall under the domination of Kenya, a white settlement colony. The chaos of the Kenya War (1953-1963) proved his point of view right and his efforts into containing independence-minded politicians at bay within his kingdom reassured the British, who dissolved the stillborn Federation in 1962 and decided to rely more on the Ugandan petty kingdoms.
Independence in the short term for British Africa was an evidence, and Muteesa II managed to create a true working relationship with Prime Minister Enoch Powell, convincing him that the differences were too great between all the kingdoms of Uganda and that the issue of self-reliance could only be resolved with a true integration into the Commonwealth. The Kabaka had other issues at home : Milton Obote, a Lango from northern Uganda, had taken power as Uganda’s Prime Minister with his Uganda People’s Congress, advocating for a parliamentary federation of Uganda, where the kingdoms would only be autonomous parts ; the Kabaka, relying on the royalists united within the Kabaka Yekka (King Only) party, had enjoyed near-absolute control over his kingdom, the most powerful of Uganda, and grew to see Obote as a rival who would depose him if given a rein at power. He convinced Powell that Obote was a Pan-Africanist revolutionary and a would-be dictator, and obtained the deposition and exile of the Prime Minister in 1964 ; Obote would be assassinated in London on April 1968, an action where many observers saw the hand of the Kabaka and MI5 himself. Nevertheless, on 15 April 1966, the Uganda Protectorate was dissolved by London and replaced into smaller protectorates corresponding to the kingdoms, such as Buganda, Busoga, Bunyoro, Ankole and Tooro, all scheduled for independence within ten years and as parliamentary monarchies, modeled on the Winchester System ; northern Uganda was integrated into the Nile Colony. Buganda became independent on the first day of the year 1976 and as ruler of the strongest kingdom, Muteesa II looked like the true master of the former Uganda.
First forced under a parliamentary monarchy with the British, headed by former Obote associate Paulo Muwanga, Muteesa II still feared that his reign would be cut short by republican agitation and that, as the true father to Buganda’s independence, he deserved to personally lead his small kingdom. As such, Muteesa II lead his own coup d’état on October, 9 1978, seizing power with the help of his personal guard and changing the Constitution of Buganda to grant him the status of an absolute monarch, without any separate head of government. The move was met with concern from Buganda’s allies, but Muteesa quickly made clear that he would remain a full member of the Commonwealth and commit himself to the modernization and prosperity of the Baganda. Even if industrial economy aren’t that developed in Buganda, the country is renowned for the quality of its agriculture and its mining facilities, allowing its capital, Mengo, built under supervision of the Kabaka around his own palace, to be one of the most densely populated cities in Africa, even if some have pointed the anarchic urbanism of the city and the toll taken on the environment of neighbouring Lake Victoria. During the 41 years of personal rule that followed, Muteesa II ruled Buganda with an iron fist, quelling Pan-Africanist, republican and ethnic dissent, even going as far as extending his rule towards his neighbours, making Bunyoro-Kitara a virtual puppet state after waging a small war (1979-1980) and intervening in the Busoga Succession Crisis (2009-2014) ; the King had to deal with an assassination attempt in 1981 and a military coup attempt in 1983, but managed to maintain his absolute monarchy, keeping all under his rule ; the most controversial decision of Muteesa II’s remains the outlawing of homosexual practices in 1993, designed to accomodate the highly religious and conservative citizens of Buganda, along with officially “protecting the Baganda family from the perversions brought on from the outside world”. Persecution of GRSM in Buganda still continues to this day, even if it’s not punishable by death anymore, and remains a hard stain on Muteesa’s legacy ; nevertheless, others continue to herald Buganda as one of the most peaceful countries in Africa, relatively prosperous in spite of its small size, and a true European ally in an era of Azanian irrendetism.
Muteesa II’s cancer was a well-kept secret in his last years, keeping him in London for treatment while his heir Muwenda Mutebi II assured regency. On his 95th birthday, the Kabaka fell into a coma before finally passing away on December 3, 2019. The Lion of Buganda, the Sun of the Great Lakes, the Father of the Baganda had reigned for more than 80 years : his reign had seen the rise and fall of the Confederation of Workers’ Republics, the rise and fall of the colonial empires, the rise and fall of countless nations, the Greater Game, the development of the atomic bomb and the Zwischennetz, the conquest of the Moon and Mars, human clones and intelligent robotics. He was the longest-reigning monarch of the Twentieth and Twenty-First Century at the time, even beating the Dalai Lama and Louis XIV ; during his rule over Buganda, he saw six German Kaisers, three monarchs of England, four Russian czars, eighteen different French heads of state, eighteen Presidents of the United States, the fall of the Empire of Japan, seventeen Presidents of China.
Some see Muteesa II as a historical anomaly, an absolute monarch in the numerical age, a tribal leader in liberated Africa, a tyrant who served his white overlords. Others see him as a father to his people, who obtained them liberty, freedom, protecting them from the many plagues that befell on Africa during the century, keeping them in a tight leash in order to achieve prosperity. The only thing that’s certain in that Muteesa II incarnated Buganda for almost a century, for better and worse.
