A few days ago I shared this post, which basically adds to the many warnings (within and outside the Fediverse) that the U.S. is quickly descending into fascism. What is new?

One of the (private) responses came Nuwagaba Gift, a 21-year old teacher, community organizer and farmer from Uganda, and we ended up exploring some of the historical details of this Sturmabteilung (SA). Among other things, Nuwagaba pointed out the crazy story of the co-founder and leader of the SA, Ernest Röhm, who, before he was killed in night of the long knives, was recruited by the Bolivian military ataché of the Netherlands to serve in the Bolivian army…

The present is crazy, but the past was also pretty insane…

In the end we decided it would be nice to get to know each other a bit better in a Jitsi call (thanks https://meet.waag.org/ ), to which I also invited two friends with ties to the same region in Uganda. Today we had that call, which brought together Uguanda, the Netherlands (my friends) and Colombia (where I currently stay).

Nuwagaba showing us the banana garden

Nuwagaba showed us around in the community garden that he is running with some friends on some rented land. It was great to hear how he uses the garden in his biology and physics classes, and how is trying to bring young people together his “Fill the Empty Stomachs Farming Initiative”. (If you can spare a few euros/ dolars, it would help them reach their goal: to buy their own land).

When he asked me how people are fighting hunger here in Colombia, I shared with him how the current Colombian government is trying to address the country’s enormous inequality by implementing land reform, but that corruption and right-wing resistance is making it very hard. Unfortunately, Nuwagaba told us, Uganda is not that different.

Talking politics

In the end we agreed that we have no choice but to bring people together, to continue organizing our communities to push for change. And that maybe, at some point, we can do so by connecting our students to each other. We will again check in with each other in a month.

In random encounters like this, the Fediverse shows what the internet could have been, and can still be: a place of active connection, learning, empathy, cross-boundary political organzing, mutual support.