Ugandans celebrate Bastille Day

Today is Bastille Day, July 14, it is the National Day of France held to commemorate the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille fortress for political prisoners and freeing them. 

The French Ambassador to Uganda Jules-Armand Aniambossou is holding celebrations at his Nakasero, Kampala residence. The day is celebrated with a mixture of solemn military parades in Paris and easygoing dancing and fireworks all over the world. 

 The Bastille fortress, located in Paris, was a notorious state prison used by the French kings in the 18th century. Uganda’s history, like that of the French, witnessed periods of bad rule, hence the country joins the French in this celebration. 

Political prisoners and citizens were held at the Bastille on the orders of the king. Similarly, citizens were detained there at the whims of bad French leaders.

Once arrested, you neither had an appeal nor access to justice. Like in any history of oppression, the people rose up.

Indeed, true to their character of courage, the ordinary French people stormed the Bastille and set the prisoners free.

Bastille symbolized the harsh rule of the Bourbon monarchy under King Louis XVI. However, on July 14, 1789, the French swore that enough was enough with the bad rule. 

The taking of the Bastille signaled the beginning and turning point of the French Revolution of 1789. The revolution brought to an end the ancien régime in France.

The ancien régime, (French: “old order”) political and social system of France prior to the French revolution. 

Under the regime, everyone was a subject of the king of France, as well as a member of an estate and province.

All rights and status flowed from the social institutions, divided into three orders — the clergy, nobility, and the third estate (other institutions). There was no national citizenship. 

France was declared a republic in September of that year, ending the 800-year-old monarchy, and in January the following year, King Louis XVI was executed by guillotine on grounds of treason. 

In the months that followed, thousands of people considered enemies of the new republic were executed in a reign of terror, including Marie Antoinette. 

France at that time had a population of 26 million people and was the most populated country in Europe with bad governance.

Arguments for social, political, and economic reforms were advanced but not heeded by the monarchy. 

At the tipping point of the revolution, the bourgeoisie resented their exclusion from political power. 

The peasants were less willing to support the outdated feudal system. The philosophies had been read and published widely in France, more than in other states.

French participation in the American Revolution had driven the government to the brink of bankruptcy.

Crop failures in much of the country in 1788, coming on top of a long period of economic difficulties, compounded the existing restlessness. 

The French monarchy was no longer seen as divinely ordained and was unable to adapt to the political and societal pressures that were being exerted on it.

On the first anniversary of the fall of the Bastille on July 14, 1790, delegates from across the country assembled in Paris to proclaim their allegiance as one national community at the Fête de la Fédération.