A man of flaws and curiosities

My name is Tumukunde Collins. I am a man of flaws. My father Mr. Katoto James Mustapha was also never a perfect man but he was nevertheless my imperfect hero. Sir Alex Ferguson in his autobiography remarks about Irish fans and their love for people who are flawed. The likes of George Best, Gascoigne, Jimmy Johnstone. They saw reflections of themselves in these imperfect heroes. They understood the frailty. I too have learnt not to judge or criticize anyone because criticisms, like homing pigeons always come home. Maybe we would not do better if we jumped into the skins of these imperfect heroes and walked around in them.

But in my whole make up, I have found nothing so flawed as my righteousness, my personal relationship with God. I have always wanted to please God, be his servant but I have intermittently failed. The path of my Christianity faith has been thorny full of many setbacks. If it was not for the love of Christ and his re-assuring grace and mercy, I would be condemned eternally.

My great character trait is my self belief. That belief in myself that knows no bounds. It has also become a source of my despair when I have failed to achieve in all spheres of life. In my high school, I wanted to be the best footballer, and represent the school team. I was voted soccer captain in my senior 1 because of my footballing abilities. Everyone admired how I played soccer and it made me feel special. This created expectations in me and made me want to prove myself over and over again that I was as good as people thought I was. It never always panned out that way. Sometimes, I increasingly became selfish with the ball and did a little too much that infuriated my fellow team mates. But to me it was just about self-actualization in my talent that everyone knew I heard. They even nicknamed me wasted talent. Nevertheless, I earned myself a certificate during National coca cola football championships. I promised myself not to train for school team in my F.5, a decision I never regretted.

In my A level, I engaged in other social disciplines which I excelled at to say the least. My academics were good as well. I prayed to God to grant me government scholarship at university level and the gates of heaven opened that door for me. I joined law school on government scholarship and to this, I largely attribute to God’s favour. I remember my mother becoming hysteric when she heard the news from me. For my whole entire being, I had never been proudest till that moment. To see my mother cry tears of joy greatly reignited me with pride and passion at the same time. I was to do law and I wanted to become the best lawyer there ever was. Right now in my fourth year, I look back with mixed emotions about how things could have been different. I wish I had a CGPA of 4 and a first class but that is not to say, I have totally failed myself. I have always thought that I work hard in law school. But for some reason, I never got excellent grades. Instead I would get average grades like Cs and B’s at best and some underwhelming grades am not proud of. Nevertheless, I have always found the study of law intellectually satisfying. It has stimulated my curiosity on some many deeper levels. It has quenched my insatiable thirst in its abyss of unending knowledge. I have relished learning the law, its common law doctrines and exceptions.  My great admiration for judges like Lord Denning, Lord Diplock, Lord Reid et al has inspired me to be a colossus of the legal discipline.

I am also deeply religious. I have always asked God to help me perform better in my law course. After all, it was by God’s grace that I made it into law school with distinction. However, close to 4 years down the road, my relationship with God has been variable. The distractions have been many. I have had to learn to live a balanced life. To balance my spiritual, academic, and social life. At times I have been a lukewarm Christian while at Campus and I don’t know whether this has had a bearing on my academic performance but I deeply suspect so. I try to live a normal life, to be fulfilled in all spheres of life which also explains what has been my approach to Christianity in the past years. To this I attribute my scholarly inspirations like Aristotle. His teachings about virtue have had an immense influence on me. Aristotle defines moral virtue as a disposition to behave in the right manner and as a mean between extremes of deficiency and excess, which are vices. At times I have worried more about being virtuous than being Christian and yet the Bible teaches us that ‘seek ye the kingdom of God and the rest shall come unto us’. This implies that we should put God first in all that we do. The two teachings are not necessarily contradictory. However, it is nevertheless hard to reconcile them. Since Christianity condemns a lukewarm approach to salvation i.e. being neither hot nor cold.  This has been one of the greatest philosophical puzzles I have had to overcome in my whole entire life. Though my faith is strong and deep rooted, my curiosity for other worldly disciplines has served as an opium to my mind.  In my study of law I have also encountered two different world outlooks in Marxist jurisprudence i.e. idealism v materialism. Idealism emphasizes that the spiritual is prior to the material and therefore affects the outcome in the material world whereas Materialism emphasizes the material as prior to spiritual and therefore affects the spiritual. I have come to appreciate these two world views. They represent two parallel world outlooks that people have in this world. For some people achieving material wealth is seen as an end in itself and they will do anything to achieve this in order to have a sense of fulfillment. For others, achieving material wealth is not an end in itself. They look at life from a moral lens. That is not to say that materialists have no morals. Their moral conscience is determined more by what advances their material gain rather than spiritual gain. Conscience is what determines right from wrong, not necessarily what is good or bad. We all know what is good or bad but our sense of right and wrong differs. For idealists, material gain has to come incidental to their value systems and beliefs. They cannot sacrifice their values for material gain. Materialism in itself implies selfishness. To idealists, everything in the universe is seen as an extension of the Supreme Being that is God. They therefore have to love others as they love themselves. In this world of ours that is increasing becoming materialistic, we also see crime rate increasing for example robbery, prostitution, murder, poverty, social strife brought about by our selfish desires. Materialists are more likely to be corrupted by material gain to bring about any undesirable outcome. As for myself, I find inspiration from the words of former Supreme Court justice, Kanyeihamba: “character and integrity are my riches both here and in the afterlife”.  I believe more in the ideal than the material.  It is who I am at the core. However I also see myself as an idealist as realist and look at how the world can be changed in an ideal way without being lost to reality.

My love for artistic and creative work is one of the things I identify with. I find honesty in expression through art and craftsmanship. Which makes me endeared to the artistic. I have had love relationships, some good some not so good. I have lost in love and also won (if there are indeed losers and winners in love). Love between a man and a woman is a beautiful thing but also hard to realize all the time. Love is the best part of me. My whole life has been a story of love. All our lives ultimately, are about love. My mother taught me loving and kindness. In my heart, I have never been envious of anyone. I love my friends and my enemies (if any). Other people I neither love nor hate them.    

OF FRIENDS AND PAYING THEIR DUES

There is this classic movie I watched called the God father. In the movie, Michael Corleone the main protagonist coins a phrase “friendship and money, oil and water” to the wicked catholic priest who was eager to receive a cheque from him. Of course, it was later realized that the catholic priest intended to defraud the boss of the Cosa Nostra.

Michael Corleone in the Godfather movie by Mario Puzo.

Enough of the movie. However, the phrase builds on the point I want to make in this article. I have come to appreciate the deep philosophical view from that phrase. Ask yourself. Why it is that people we consider to be our friends, almost always never pay us back when we lend them money and yet those people with whom we have less acquaintance to always meet their payment obligation when we lend them? For some reason, when we ask our friends to pay us back, we become a problem to them. The request becomes more of a bother than a deal to be honoured.  They start to tell us how they are well aware that they owe us therefore not necessitating any ‘constant’ reminder on our part and yet take forever to show any signs of paying us back. They even castigate us for being so demanding of them that we feel like the proverbial foolish wicked man whose master forgave his debts but murdered his comrade in cold blood when he could not pay him. We become nuisances, self-centered people that do not understand their ill-plight and struggles. They forget that in the day of their distress, they ran to us and we gave them reprieve from their problems. When their problems are out of the way and their immediate interests served, we become part of their future problems.  One friend of mine (name withheld), in justifying his nonpayment, even went as far as telling me that when I lent him money, it became his and so he could give it to me back at his own convenience. Imagine the temerity!!! They expect us to always be understanding and empathetic when they say they don’t have money due to many problems they are facing. And yet if one looks closely, they are merely pitting their own selfish interests against ours. And in concentrating on their own needs, ours become secondary. They do not realize that human needs are so endless and can never be completely fully fulfilled at any one time. They forget that at one point, we may have foregone our immediate needs and helped them go through a hard time. They forget that we showed them loving and kindness when we selflessly helped them. Besides that, when men of good sense make agreements, they must hold them in sanctity. Good faith must always be kept at all times - fides sit servanda. This is a universal principle of fairness and justice. Even though obligations might not always be strictly performed, a good friend acting out of goodwill always extends time for the other party to meet their obligations. But alas, unscrupulous men still won't meet their obligation to pay simply because doing so, is and cannot be regarded as being in their immediate self-interest. On pure principle, no matter how pressing their interests are, they ought to keep their word and pay up. Nevertheless, they will make excuses and become angry when we remind them of their obligation to pay. Can these people really be our friends? Machiavelli writes in his book, The Prince;

“Friendships that are by rewards and not greatness and nobility of soul, although deserved, yet are not real, cannot be depended upon in time of adversity’’.

These people we sacrifice for in their times of need and then forget us when we want them to repay the favor cannot surely be our friends. They later alone cannot be expected to help us in our times of adversity when the necessity for our friendship is far off.

White Privilege in Africa

In Africa, it is common to see natives accord special treatment to white people. Whereas African natives are hospitable and generally warm natured towards foreigners, the preferential treatment they give to white people in markets, local kiosks and hotels deserves special scrutiny. A close associate of mine once expressed his contempt at the brown nosed behaviour espoused by Africans towards white people whilst denigrating their fellow natives. He gave a bitter account of his younger years when he was in a football academy with a white kid named Tristan that always got better treatment from the coach while the rest were treated like second rate players. This was one of the many tales about white privilege that we have all experienced on numerous occasions. So what influences this first class treatment that white people almost always get in Africa. One only needs to re-examine colonial history to learn that a lot of the reverence that the white man gets from the native is the white man's own making. He is the orchestrator of the white man's privilege that has been deliberately imprinted upon the native as I will labour to explain below:

Two worlds divided apart.

The native was segregated against during colonialism especially in settler colonies. Frantz Fannon in his book,( The wretched of the earth) argues that the colonial world was divided into two compartments.  The settler's town was a strongly built town, all made of stone and steel. On the other hand, the town belonging to the colonized people, or the negro village, the medina was a place of ill fame, peopled by men of evil repute. They were born there, it mattered little where or how; they died there. it was a world without spaciousness.  There was no native who did not dream of setting himself up in the settler's place. Therefore part of this modern inferiority complex stems from this compartmentalization of the colonial world. By being subjugated into these shanty areas, the African native dreamt of living in the settler's world and becoming his equal. This was also the case in Uganda where Africans hard to earn the right to live within the radius of the metropolitan capital of Jinja-Kampala.

As if it was not enough for the settler to delimit physically, that is to say with the help of the army and the police force, he painted him as a sort of quintessence of evil. Native society was not simply described as a society lacking in values, these values had never existed in the colonial world. The native was declared insensible to ethics; he represented not only the absence of values but also the negation of values. He was, let us dare to admit, the enemy of values, and in this sense he was the absolute evil. He was the corrosive element, destroying all that comes near him; he was the deforming element, disfiguring all that had to do with beauty or morality. This explains the white man's lofty standards of democracy, human rights to which the African should conform in order to be counted among the civilized peoples of this world.

Western education model

In Ngugi wa Thiongo's book (Decolonising the mind), he writes that the white man's privilege is because of the western education model that we have in Africa. The African has been taught that all knowledge begins with Europe. All that he learns is in relation to Europe and not to Africa. Europe is the epicentre of his civilization and therefore he owes it his enlightenment. Few people realize how powerful literature is, in that we’ve had more white people writing about Africa than Africans themselves.

The economic superstructure.

In colonies, there was also the economic superstructure that entrenched the white man privilege. For the white man, the cause was the consequence. You were rich because you are white. You are white because you are rich. This perception persists up to today. The economic might accumulated from the colonial rapacious state was used by the white man to impress the local natives. The scale, the grandeur, the sheer boastfulness of colonial head quarters was used to stupefy the locals and dazzle them of the white man's wealth and might. The idea being that if you look like a ruler, the people will treat you like a ruler. For example, early explorers like H.M. Stanley, nicknamed Kakiraminkyenkye (one taller than reeds) by the local Ankole people of Western Uganda, hired native potters to carry him on their shoulders using palanquin chairs. As a result of such schemes, most natives still give white people better treatment as means of self aggrandizement.

The Whiteman's church

There was also the influence of the church. The Church in the colonies was the white people's Church. She did not call the native to God's ways but to the ways of the white man, of the master, of the oppressor. And as we know, in this matter many were called but few chosen. From Chinua Achebe's Arrow of God, the church can be seen as the only avenue for western education and civilization. In Ferdinard Oyono's Houseboy, the white man's church could even mete out corporal punishments to atoners. It was the only passage through which the native could save himself of his own darkness and become saved. It was also the buffer between the poor native and the settler.  Through the church, the native learnt to dress like the white man, speak like the white man and achieved salvation that was only meant for the white man but for his grace. 

Western cultural imperialism

Having said that, one cannot forget to mention western cultural imperialism to which the native is subjected to. The native's culture is diluted through formal western education, the media, his own creativity is suppressed, and he is handed down the white man’s. The African intellectual's world is divided into two; his own and the white man's. The balance is hard to achieve and he thereby becomes an opportunist. The white man's language becomes his own. Both the material and the metaphysical world of the white man becomes his own. The African man's journey is a teleological one, his predetermined end to be more white than black. This is especially worse in French colonies where there was a policy of assimilation unlike in British colonies. All these colonial factors have contributed to white privilege that still persists up today.

Although Africa was decolonised in the second half of the 20th century, the legacies of colonialism still remain. Up to now neo-colonial tendencies still take root on the continent through Bretton woods institutions like the IMF and the world bank, donor aid cycle of dependency and foreign debt. The African continent must cut itself from the last vestiges of colonialism by being self reliant, getting African solutions to African problems. Africa should put in place its own economic institutions and make its own rules. African countries must re-shape their education systems, reclaim their pride and dignity by preserving African culture and literature.

Running for office: A Barmecide feast?

Everywhere you set foot in Makerere, you will usually be beset by walls awash with candidates posters written on eye catching campaign slogans. The same goes for social media platforms especially WhatsApp. There’s no way you can escape the election fever that is running through campus right now. For those who have been fortunate enough to stand, you will know that these are very unsettling times. The thought of your opponent campaigning can keep you awake in the dead of the night, thinking and pondering on the outcome of the election. The lapse of otherwise productive time that could have been used to attend to academic pursuits is another price to pay. Without forgetting money of course, that sweet sound of coins clanking in ones’ pocket. A combination of lost time and money is a kamikaze expense. One that can leave you with gaping pockets and a stack of books staring right in front of you. It is a heavy price to pay. The stakes are therefore always high for all running candidates during this electoral period. The danger of losing is easily upset by the glory of emerging victorious. It is like seeing ripe fruits at the very top of the tree and climbing to pick them. The higher you climb, the feebler and less firm, are the branches. This is what made Theseus (a hero in Greek myths and fables) to remark that where there is danger, there is glory. However after getting into positions of power, it won’t take so long for successful candidates to realize that not all is rosy at the top. That reminds me of the proverbial sword of Damocles story. According to the story, Damocles was pandering to Dionysius, his king, and exclaimed to him that Dionysius was truly fortunate as a great man of power and authority, surrounded by magnificence. In response, Dionysius offered to switch places with Damocles for one day so that Damocles could taste that very fortune firsthand. Damocles quickly and eagerly accepted the king's proposal. Damocles sat down in the king's throne surrounded by every luxury, but Dionysius arranged that a huge sword should hang above the throne, held at the pommel only by a single hair of a horse's tail. Damocles finally begged the king that he be allowed to depart because he no longer wanted to be so fortunate, realizing that with great fortune and power comes also great danger.
Some leaders worry about the kind of legacy they will leave behind whereas others simply want positions of leadership for monumental purposes. Yet it is those who seek to impact any real change in the societies they live in that will be more afflicted by the experience of being a leader. For them, the experience is like hot iron in a blazing furnace.  How they handle challenges faced in leadership indelibly leaves a strong mark on their character for better or for worse
The thrill of entering into the corridors of power with hope to change things for the better normally results into despair upon realizing that the system is built not to favor any real change. It is like the proverbial feast of Barmacide (derived from the story of a hungry beggar invited by a barmacide prince to a banquet, which proved a long succession of merely empty dishes, and which he enjoyed with such seeming gusto and such good-humour as to earn for himself a sumptuous real one). How one adapts to such realities is what determines how well they will do in office.  We live in a society with inflexible systems, initiative in student leadership is greatly frowned upon. It only takes the ingenuity of a true leader to accomplish his goals and objectives. Without such ingenuity nothing can ever be achieved. Prospective leaders should also know that being unpopular or disliked is also an attendant risk of being a leader. They will scrutinize your every move, what you say in public, how you behave. They will criticize you at the earliest opportunity that they get. Therefore, a leader should not waste a lot of time on trying to be liked. True leaders should also learn not to follow utilitarian views of a great majority, that common vulgar mass but must do what they think is best. People will respect a leader who is truly excellent and scrupulous in what he does. Such a leader should not fear rebuke from those who oppose him. Since being truly excellent, he will gain the people's favour in times of adversity. Leaders must also learn to take decisions for the greater good, even if it means being unpopular for a short while. What will accuse him/her will later excuse them. What a leader cannot afford to be above all, is to look indecisive and intransigent. He must guide against this as if gathering against a hard rock. A leader must confront challenges as and when they come, without letting them drag on. This is my letter to all future candidates.

A WORLD OF VALUE IDENTITY

A WORLD OF VALUE IDENTITY

Washing my mother’s car is not something I did every day. But today was a Sunday and after a family prayer, humility came naturally. When asked to do a job on the car, I did not hesitate or think that my mother was bugging me like she always does, to be a good boy.

So Sunday morning I washed mum’s car. The rarity in doing the task made me relish it even more. I washed and rinsed it a good number of times but every time I looked at it from a different angle, I saw a dry patch already formed on it. It always made it appear as though I had done an awful job. Then I would fetch water and rinse again and again. I washed that car!!!. Even the tyres were scrubbed and silts removed from underneath its body armor. I was determined to do a job. A spotless job. An Italian job. But why an Italian job, I thought to myself, and not let’s say a Collinso (my nickname from a Kenyan friend) or Ugandan job for that matter.

The closest idea I know about Italians is from Hollywood Italian movies like the Godfather or reading Mario Puzo’s classics like the Sicilian. But here I was determined to do an Italian job which loosely translates into a perfectly well executed task. That’s when I realized that these are simply value identities attached to a specific people either out of direct encounters with them, mind engineering by big story tellers i.e. the media (Hollywood included), or a preconceived bias about other people we have never seen or heard of, what Chimamanda Ngozi terms as the one sided story. One only needs to walk down the annals of history particularly World War I & II to appreciate the impact of value identity. In Hitler’s Germany for example, the Germans considered themselves a superior race to the rest of mankind because of his dogma. On the other hand, the Japanese last resort in the face of defeat by the world powers was carrying out suicide pilot expeditions in enemy territories, also famously known as kamikaze operations. This could not have been possible if the Japanese did not have a deeply grounded belief in the element of honor mostly associated with Japanese samurai warriors. Regardless of their extremities, these value identities influence the moral character and resolution of a people. Which brings me to my next point. What value identity do we have as Ugandans and how should we be identified as a people. How can we forge a truly national character and be identified by it rather than aggravating our tribal differences. Most often, values are instilled and built within a people by its leaders. US president Delano Roosevelt’s freedom from fear speech and President Paul Kagame’s Agaciro campaign are just brief examples. Agaciro means dignity. You cannot talk about dignity without cleanliness.  No wonder it is easier to pick a coin than a polythene bag in the Rwandan capital.  Others values are simply historically adopted like the hatred between the Jews and the Palestinians. America is also known for the American dream, for igniting new hope for brighter prospects and freedom. These were inherited from the forefathers of that great nation and they have transcended generations.  That does not make America any less racial or tribal in character but the ideals that make up the United States embolden every citizen to work towards forming a more perfect union. The United States of America is what it is because of its whole encompassing character. American actress Meryl Streep echoed this sentiment at the Golden globe awards remarking how Hollywood is full of ‘immigrant’ actors and actresses whose inestimable efforts have contributed indelibly to that thriving industry. She then joked that the whole industry would all have to be chased away because of Donald Trump’s ill attitude towards immigrants. It is the belief in such values not the written presence of the same that has made the United States of America develop a pantheon of value system institutions that command respect and reverence. A case in point being the federal court injunction against President Donald Trump immigration ban against Muslims. Here in our Uganda, people are re-arrested after having been granted bail.  Most recently, High court freed a Rwandan national imprisoned by Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence but the security operatives have not complied with the decision of court to restore his personal liberty. Which makes you wonder whether we still have a belief in our values and the institutions that embody them. Should we then lose heart and discard them all together. Trample these ideals in the dust because of a few instances of non-compliance with the grand norm that we more readily get to know about rather than instances of compliance with the same. I say that we continue to have hope in our constitution and in our national character as Ugandans. Our national conscience maybe shattered but we have to mend it. We have to believe in the promises of our constitution. The past and present cannot break us. Let us believe in the future. Let us believe in Africa. And here is a message for Mr. Donald Trump, and the western media that reports only gruesome pictures of famine and starvation. You cannot belittle a people. This is the greatest war that we now face as Africans. That war hinges on value identity. A war far greater than a missile ballistic war. It is a war to claim our pride and dignity.