University hall windows were pelted with stone on the afternoon of Sunday 12th November 2018. Even the car that was parked near the entrance was left in tatters. The air became still at the scene of such aghast damage. The vandalism that happened at university hall yesterday was a culmination of a continuous series of events that happened that day. In the early morning of Sunday, students of Mitchel entered university hall chanting their songs and anthems. They got into the dining hall and closed it to restrict it to only themselves. A university hall student entered and they slapped him. Mitchel students were later forced out of the hall despite their continued remonstrance that University hall students should not again insult them when passing by their hall during Saturday morning jogging. It is from whence that university hall students threaten to refuse them access to the dining hall at lunch time. It appears Mitchel hall students did not take such a threat lightly. When they were coming at lunch time, they were seen with stones and sticks. This prompted university hall students to close the gate and deny them access to food. And the stoning is what followed. This is simply a narration of how things unraveled. I do not in anyway seek to point fingers on who the guilty party is this whole catastrophe.
Such acts of wrecking vandalism begged the question ‘how did we get to this point as Makerereans.’ But now I realise that was the wrong question to ask. Instead one should muse ‘when did we not ever see such things?’ The aftermath is immediately followed by social media haranguings condemning such acts of hooliganism like we were an institution in shock. When was naked hooliganism not brought straight to our faces? And why are we now shocked? When did we not know that in this Makerere of ours the bad man complex always works to the benefit of the derailer and casts the victim in a position of shame? Have we not witnessed hooliganism in guild presidential rallies especially at the ‘mighty’ Lumumba hall where students are manhandled for expressing dissent. Have we not seen student forced into riots however justifiable the cause. Did we not witness acts of vandalism, again, committed by the ‘mighty’ Lumumbists when the Mitchell symbol of culture was disfigured? How dare someone stands up one day on social media in their cloak of elite-ism and self-righteousness to finally condemn acts of hooliganism? Have they been sleep walking for way too long. Perhaps its time mention a few harsh truths that we pretended do not exist on this ivory tower.
Halls of residence are defined by the strength of their culture and solidarity. That’s why we extol some as powerful and others as weak. Most often there is a thin line between culture and hooliganism. Northcourt is often refered to with a lot of nostalgia as having been a giant on this bastion of academic excellence. This is because northcourt at that time was notorious for having the most brute of men on campus. And a brute knows no reason. He exerts his will and everyone else has to follow his bidding. This is what Dr Babumba once termed as the badman complex. That a bad man always asks the most provocative question ‘if I do this, what will you do to me’. Who wants to be a victim of such bigotry especially when the university administration does nothing but pay lip service to such egomaniac acts. The kind of bigotry that arouses a gut wrenching feeling of acrimony. And all this happens in a context where culture is mistaken for hooliganism and university rules are seen as merely moral obligations rather than enforceable rules. How many times have we seen these culprits brought to book? What happened at university hall yesterday is unfortunate but signifies some of the underlying idiosyncrasies that should be done away with before they destroy us. Hooliganism is hooliganism. There is no acceptable level of it if at all we want to expunge it from this university.
