You should never be good enough

You want to be successful in life, to excel at what you do, to be relevant. In the ceaseless race to the top rung of life’s ladder, you may find yourself ahead of several people. However, some will be ahead of you.

You may reach the pinnacle of your chosen vocation or career and become world-famous but to many out there, you should never be good enough to achieve what you did.

At every corner of your sojourn, you will find throngs waiting. Some were ahead of you but stuttered, and, now stuck, they cannot bear to have anyone else pass them. They will eagerly trip you. To them, you should never succeed, you should never excel, you should never be relevant. They are ready to rain on your parade because no matter how well you do or how hard you try, they have decided that you should never be good enough to get ahead.

They will pick on the tone of your skin, the schools you went to and those you did not, to determine how you should never be good enough to move along in life. They are better than you and you have no business trying to climb to their elevated social perch.

When you slip, rather than hold your hand to help you up and on, they will cut it off instead.

In the building that is life’s journey upward, you should never be good enough to add a brick. They want to own the whole building because they are loathe to share success. Whether they win or lose, everybody else must lose. If they as much as suspect you to be pulling ahead of them, you become an enemy that must be destroyed.

Ubuntu is dead.

In the insanely competitive world of Formula One racing, a Black driver called Lewis Hamilton equaled the record for most race wins on 11 October, 2020. The record, set by F1 legend Michael Schumacher, had stood since 2006. For the curious, Lewis has six world championships under his belt, one short of the 7 held by Michael. If you are familiar with the complex world of F1 motorsport, these statics defy logic.

Image credit: termiontrack.com

On the day he clinched win #91, a much older driver commenting on the feat said that whereas Lewis had won all those races, he was not good enough to be talked about as a great driver, not even among the best three of all time. Many F1 fans across the globe were dismayed by these belittling comments.

To Sir Jackie Stewart, Lewis should never be good enough to excel at his craft the way he has. It all counts for nothing.

Lewis’ response was telling:

“I don’t think you should knock anybody for the way they do things. I get knocked by many people, particularly older drivers. I don’t know why. Maybe one day they will get over it but I have so much respect for the past legends, even those who continue to talk negatively about me all the time. I still hold them in high regard.”

He added:

“In 20 years’ time when I am looking back, I can promise you this, I will not be talking down any young driver who is coming through and succeeding. Because a responsibility as an older driver is to shine the light as bright as possible and encourage those.”

Well said Mr. Hamilton. There is, after all, hope for Ubuntu (Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu—I am, because you(we) are).

An excerpt from an ancient poem “Desiderata” by Max Ehrmann goes thus:

“Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.”

Postscript:

At the time of posting this, Lewis Hamilton had secured his seventh world title with victory at the Turkish Grand Prix. In doing so, he wrote his name alongside Michael Schumacher in Formula One's record books as the most successful driver of all time.

Uganda Police Force, give us yogurt for 2021

The crowd-control methods employed by the Uganda Police Force are as barbaric as they are disdainful.

At the bottom of the UPF insignia are the words “Protect & Serve”.

On the UPF website (https://www.upf.go.ug/), their vision is stated as “An Enlightened, Motivated, Community Oriented, Accountable and Modern Police Force; geared towards a crime free society” (sic), and their mission is “To secure life and property in a committed and professional manner in partnership with the Public, in order to promote development”.

This is not reflection, even faintly, of the actions of an institution I have witnessed over the years.

Video footage is widely available of the rank and file of the force behaving more like brute beasts than partners with the public. They relish beating people to within inches of their lives, fire live ammunition at them, and generally behave like demoniacs in uniform.

 Image credit: rightsafrica.com

After each episode of their wanton bloodletting, they have the mouth of Enanga Fred to sanitize their runaway insanity. He liberally spouts lie after lie in front of the cameras while keeping his round face straighter than Lucifer’s.

I have tried to reconcile the vision of UPF and their actions, and failed miserably.

That was until I came across a small article on the Wikipedia website about the origins of the force.

“The Uganda Police Force was established in 1906 by the British administration. At that time, it was referred to as the Uganda Armed Constabulary with the primary responsibility of quelling “riots and unrest”.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uganda_National_Police)

For the curious, to quell means “to thoroughly overwhelm and reduce to submission or passivity”.

Does that sound to you like “protect and serve”, “secure life and property”, or “community oriented”? Wonder no more. The Uganda Police Force was founded to quell riots. That is their DNA, that is who they are. As they say, a dog that bites is a dog that bites.

It has been relatively quiet since the last major quelling that ended with scores of citizens killed or maimed by the guns of the Force. Do not be fooled, that it is the calm before a storm. With campaigns heating up across the country, it is a matter of time before our protectors unleash upon us more teargas and bullets.

Mr. Inspector General of Police, let your men and women go ahead and spray us liberally with teargas, lest you be publicly reprimanded for sleeping on your job. However, in the spirit of the festive season which is upon us, I have a suggestion for you.

Instead of teargas, kindly use vanilla-scented theatrical smoke, and in place of that stinging pink liquid, use strawberry-flavored yogurt.

Imagine our collective pleasant surprise when you lob teargas canisters at us in the middle of a violent quelling, and as we flee your raging wrath, we get engulfed in the sweet aroma of vanilla. As we come to our senses and wonder if Christ has indeed returned to earth, you drench us in strawberry yogurt. Images and videos of complete strangers hugging and frenziedly licking the yogurt off each other will be beamed across the world.

That could mark the beginning of your redemption, a forgettable year never to be forgotten.

Happy 2021 officers, men and women of Uganda Police Force.

Prompt in Death

I took ill one day and when my condition did not respond to natural remedies, I was hospitalized. After a little while, word went out that I was in a very poor way. A few kind souls made time to visit as I lay wasting on the hospital bed. The room reeked of antiseptic, making me feel faint almost all the time. I had not a few lengthy prayers said over me, and some textbook admonitions too: be strong, do not give up, have faith, think positive, speak your wellness into being, crap that I knew already, that now disgusted me.

I did not need lengthy prayers from my visitors, really. Shorter, crisp ones would have suited me just fine. Maybe I was more gravely ill than I knew and they figured I needed a generous dose of divine intervention. I was far too gone to care anyway. Without taking anything away from the effort of my friends, I did not need clichéd lines of encouragement regurgitated to me from self-help literature about how I needed to have a positive attitude, how to speak my healing into being, how my words become my reality. I knew most of that BS because I happen to read it and about it all the time. It was all starting to grate my ears.

I just needed someone to take my hand and tell me, notwithstanding whichever way this would end, that everything was going to be okay. Someone to make light of my situation, someone to tell me a good story, someone to crack me up with a crass joke or two. I longed for someone to share with the history of my past, my triumphs and failures, the good and marred memories, the great leaps and broken dreams, hope and despair, love won and love lost. I wanted to be vulnerable at last.

As the days passed, it became clear to me that my life was steadily ebbing away but I remained stoic in the face of my plight, with no fear whatsoever about what lay beyond my present reality. I had made peace with my past and I often hummed an old, favorite hymn to myself.

“Abide with me; fast falls the eventide..”

During the long, lonesome spells when I had no one visiting, I pondered where my “friends” were, the thousands scattered in cyber space, those who “followed” me and “liked” any and everything I wrote. But I was mindful that they were busy balancing the delicate act of life and of living, so much so that my impairment was most likely a weak bleep on their radar. Many wrote me words of encouragement, promising that they would come and check on me as soon as they could “spare” some time to. But with each passing day, the time eluded them.

I soon made peace with that too. I held nothing against anyone. I understood their predicament.

Inevitably, the hour arrived when the silver cord was severed, when the golden bowl was broken; when the pitcher was shattered at the spring, the wheel broken at the well. I sped onward through the vast unknown, the strained strings of the final verse of my favorite hymn fading slowly into the distance..

(Image credit: https://www.google.co.ug/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwic5NCkxqnWAhUGuhQKHcyGAg4QjRwIBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lanlinglaurel.com%2Fdeath-pictures.html&psig=AFQjCNGGms8YWeECJeThWdYLSKYmjLTvPA&ust=1505645691488785)

“Hold Thou Thy Rood before my closing eyes; shine through the gloom and point me to the skies; Heav’n’s morning breaks, and earth’s vain shadows flee..”

The news quickly spread that I had been gathered to my ancestors, news that was received with a mixture of shock, disbelief, and a macabre measure of relief in some quarters. Soon enough, plans for the interment of my remains were underway. On a warm and moonlit night, a vigil was held in my remembrance. A huge fire was lit in the compound around which my friends gathered speaking in hushed tones. Once in a while, a brave soul laughed out loud, causing me to laugh along silently. Sparks from the fire fiercely flew heavenward but unlike me, they died a few feet into their journey.

Having been known to be a Christian, my funeral service was swiftly arranged the next day and was attended by 520 friends and family, lovers and ex-lovers, creditors and debtors. The entire ceremony lasted 2 hours and 5 minutes or nearly 1,100 man-hours. Tears flowed freely, hymns were sung solemnly and I was eulogized liberally. A generous collection was made to, ostensibly, offset the costs of my sendoff and it was duly handed over to my family.

How fitting!

At the graveside the day after, the clergyman implored The Maker to judge my poor soul mercifully, to recall my good deeds and not count my misdemeanors against me, and to receive me to Himself. 910 people attended my burial which stretched across approximately 6 hours and cost over 15 million shillings ($5,000). As per my instructions, mercifully adhered to, the following words were etched on my tombstone:

“I once came to this sod, I changed lives, I crossed over”

On a personal note, from somewhere closer than we all know, thank you friends for responding swiftly and promptly to my demise. Thank you for the beautiful casket in which I now lie permanently. Thank you for the wreaths, especially those made with roses, they smelled heavenly. Thank you for the time, for the money and for all the other resources you invested in the last, still moments of my colorful life here on earth. Thank you for loving me generously in death.

Thanks, but no thanks.

I could have used some of those flowers while I still breathed. I could have received countless gifts from all the money spent to make sure that my dust returned to the ground whence it came. The whole journey of my farewell consumed innumerable resources and over 7,000 man-hours, nearly a year’s worth of time. This is time we could have spent together celebrating life, not death. Coffee, laughter, travel, cuddles, hugs, innovation, encouragement; serious stuff and silly stuff, the entire gamut of life.

In death, no matter how ostentatious, regardless how prompt, they were all meaningless, cold and lifeless, a chasing after the wind. Ergo, I do not give a rat’s behind what you do for me when my breath has deserted me.

Be prompt in death by all means, but do not forget to be urgent in life. Do life with me while I still have life.

I could have gone on but the cock has crowed faintly in the distance and of necessity, I must extricate myself from the cold, stiff clutches of the Grim Reaper..

Greed or Poverty?

It was either UGX 50,000 or they would not touch the car. The group comprised about 6 energetic youth. This is team A.

Team B would have none of it. It was a couple, clearly of Oriental extraction. They spoke broken but passable English. Team A spoke Luganda. Only.

Team B was in trouble. The driver of their SUV had misjudged a deep gutter while making a left turn. The gutter completely swallowed up the left front tire. The monster car was now stuck, balancing on two wheels at a precarious angle. This was right in front of the Makerere university main gate.

The foreigners begged and pleaded with team A to help them lift the car out of the gutter. Their pleas fell on deaf ears. Clearly, negotiations had broken down. The problem was exacerbated by the lack of a common language. Team A speak no English, team B speak no Luganda. Does that qualify as a catch-22?

Time check, 9:30pm. I am walking on my way home when I come across the scene of the mishap. Normally, I do not meddle in business not my own. At the end of a long day, a driver's error of judgment was certainly not my business. Then a line from the Good Book came to memory. Thank heavens for Sunday school.

"And you are to love those who are aliens, for you yourselves were aliens in Egypt."

I have never been an alien in Egypt but purely in metaphorical terms, I have been one many times over. Spur of the moment (and a fuzzy Sunday school conscience), I decided to intervene.

I quickly identified the de facto leader of team A and addressed him directly. In faultless Luganda. By my appearance, I did not fit so he quickly listened up.

In all fairness, your fee of UGX 50K is way too high. Team B is not going to pay up. Better come up with a compromise charge.

UGX 30K.

I told him it was still high but I would talk to team B to "re-start" negotiations on behalf of his team. This seemed agreeable with him. The rest of team A were now gathered around him, listening intently to me.

I walked over to the foreign couple. The lady spoke animatedly, wringing her hands in despair.

Please help, please help, please help, blah, blah. We are taking a sick person to the hospital. She implored me repeatedly to intervene and help them free the car. Clearly, I am the messiah here.

I told her to calm down. Team A was ready to help but they would need payment for their time. The alternative was to hire a breakdown truck but that would be too costly. She consulted her counterpart, the elderly gentleman on the wheel and came back with an "offer".

UGX 10K.

I communicate the new offer to team A. It is flatly rejected. 30K or nothing.

Back to the distraught lady. (Why I am even doing this, I have no idea!). I tell her to raise it to UGX 20,000. She seemed about to faint and I soon understood why. She thought that each member of team A was demanding that amount. A whooping total of UGX 120,000! I told her no, no, no. UGX 20K for everyone.

She nodded her head vigorously. Palpable relief. Back to team A.

The last offer is UGX 20K. Don't be fools. Get the car out, get paid, go home. I made it clear I did not want a cent of the money, I was just helping. They looked at me like I was an alien. I certainly didn't fit. They cheered raucously and quickly jumped into the gutter.

I made a quick assessment of how best and fast to get the car out. I then divided and deployed them accordingly. I stood aside, ordered the driver to fire up the engine, rev it and engage the reverse gear. He complied eagerly. Team A heaved, huffed, puffed and lifted. 12 eager hands and 10 seconds later, the car was out of the gutter and rearing to go. I did not lift a finger to help.

Relief all around and more cheers. The lady handed over the UGX 20K to the leader and thanked us all profusely. I cautioned the driver to be more careful and walked off.

Alone with my thoughts, I pondered whether I had just witnessed help prompted by greed or poverty.

20K amongst six men meant about UGX 3K per head. This was less than a dollar. It all seemed like a pittance to me and thoroughly pathetic. But I did some quick math and realized that in dollar terms, their rate was about 85 cents per head for 10 seconds of "work", which would be about $8.50 a minute or $60 an hour. For an 8-hour work shift, that would amount to a handsome $480 a day.

I remembered a remark made by one of the boys as they went off to share the money. "Mwana, mbadde yala naye nfunye sapa". Loosely, "I was down on cash but now I have got supper".

I imagine it was not out of greed that they helped.

Winnie Byanyima And The Miracle of Wine Into Water

The Gospel according to St. John records a curious miracle in its second chapter. At a wedding in Cana of Galilee, Jesus commanded water in six stone jars to turn into wine and it did. And from the reaction of the crowds who partook of it, it apparently was quite good stuff. For centuries since then, alcohol-centrics have had a field day justifying some of their excesses basing on this singular miracle (it is not mentioned anywhere in the three Synoptic Gospels). It is in dispute however if any serious drinker really needs a miraculous excuse to hit their favorite bar.

That miracle is so entrenched in Christianity that few escape its mention while growing up. And I am no exception. I heard it told so many times that the miracle itself lost its appeal to me along the way. Mention of it would only serve to elicit the most blank stare from me. And that is in no way to take away from the awe of the moment back then but time passes and dulls the senses.

That was my standard reaction until I heard the song "Wine into Water" by T Graham Brown. Apparently, he loved the bottle so dearly that it had plunged him to depths he could never have imagined possible. At the very bottom of the alcohol pit, he felt he could not sink any further and cried out for help. Divine help. He picked up his guitar and together with Steve Wariner, they penned this memorable country tune.

When I first listened to the lyrics, the water into wine miracle took on a new significance. I realized that sometimes in life, we come to that place where we wish for a reversal of our fortunes. What at the time appeared as a good thing to us can be the one that now enslaves us and we pray to the gods that they restore things to their factory settings, wine back into water. A near-impossible feat if you ask me. I have been there on some occasions.

And when I read about the altercation between Winnie Byanyima and security operatives camped at her home in a Kampala suburb, the wine song sprang to mind. For those unfamiliar with Uganda's politics, the country held presidential elections about three months ago. The main opposition leader Dr. Kizza Besigye disputed the result of that election and has since been incarcerated in his own home under unclear circumstances. Armed security personnel have laid siege to his private residence since that fateful 18th day of February 2016.

Winnie Byanyima happens to be his wife.

The story goes that Ms Byanyima returned to the country a few days ago only to be confronted by armed men in uniform demanding to check her bags before she could be granted access to her home. "Seriously???!!!" she must have exclaimed. In the aftermath, she took to Twitter to express her displeasure and revulsion at such a flagrant violation of her privacy and rights.

You need to hear this. The said Ms Byanyima is not your run-of-the mill woman. (And neither is Dr Besigye her husband).

They have both featured prominently on Uganda's political landscape for the last 30-plus years. Wikipedia gives us a glimpse of Ms Byanyima's lofty stature (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnie_Byanyima). She is an aeronautical engineer, politician and diplomat. She served as the director of the Gender Team in the Bureau for Development Policy at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) from 2006. She has been the executive director of Oxfam International since 2013.

She was born in 1959 in Mbarara District in the Western Region of Uganda. Her parents are Boniface Byanyima, one-time national chairman of the Democratic Party (DP) in Uganda, and Gertrude Byanyima (RIP), a former schoolteacher. Clearly, politics runs through her blood.

Ms Byanyima attended the prestigious Mount Saint Mary's College Namagunga in Mukono District. She went on to obtain a bachelor's degree in aeronautical engineering from the University of Manchester, becoming the first female Ugandan to become an aeronautical engineer. She later received a master's degree in mechanical engineering from Cranfield University, specializing in energy conservation.

Following the completion of her training as an aeronautical engineer, Byanyima worked as a flight engineer for the now defunct Uganda Airlines. When Yoweri Museveni launched the 1981–1986 guerilla war, Byanyima left her job and joined the armed rebellion. Apparently, Museveni and Byanyima had been raised together at the Byanyima household as children, with the Byanyima family paying for all Museveni's education and scholastic needs.

If all of this is anything to go by, it is obvious that Ms Byanyima and Museveni's relation is more familial than political. But most important, Museveni, Byanyima, and her husband Kizza Besigye were all combatants in the National Resistance Army (NRA) during the guerilla war that brought Museveni to power in 1986. He has ruled Uganda since.

From that point onwards, her star just kept on rising and shining brighter with every passing year.

After Museveni captured power, Ms Byanyima served as Uganda's ambassador to France from 1989 until 1994. She then returned home and became an active participant in Ugandan politics, serving first as a member of the Constituent Assembly that drafted the 1995 Ugandan Constitution. She then served two consecutive five-year terms as a member of parliament (MP), representing Mbarara Municipality from 1994 until 2004. She was then appointed director of the Directorate of Women, Gender and Development at the headquarters of the African Union in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. She served in that capacity until she was appointed to the UNDP job UNDP in November 2006.

I repeat, Ms Byanyima is not a run-of-the-mill woman.

You can safely say that she's been there, seen it, done it all. Imagine her fury at returning home recently only to be confronted by armed "thuggish looking men in civilian clothes" who demanded to look inside her bags (and probably frisk her) before she could be allowed into her home. Imagine the humiliation she felt, a humiliation fueled by the fact that it was orchestrated by instruments of the regime she had shot to power, a regime whose ideology she had served to shape during her days on the inside, a regime she had finally turned her back to and transformed herself into its pariah in the process. It is a heavy price to pay and it must weigh heavily on her mind.

If by any chance Ms Byanyima has listened to T Graham Brown's "Wine Into Water" song, these lines must resonate with her during these trying times in her life.

"And once upon a time, You turned the water into wine

And now, on my knees, I'm turning to You, Father

Could You help me turn the wine back into water?

Could You help me turn this wine back into water?"