As a martyr of fact!

In the TV series, Unanimous, nine strangers are sent to live inside an underground bunker, totally detached from the outside world. What’s at stake is a $1.5million winner-takes-all cash prize. The game only comes to an end when all nine contestants agree at once on one person from amongst themselves that they’ll award the full sum of money–hence the name unanimous! As if getting that many strangers to agree on anything isn’t already hard enough, with every second that passes, the money shrinks by $1. A vote is conducted every few days. Only at that point does the countdown clock freeze. If a unanimous vote isn’t reached, the clock resumes. Therefore, the sooner they agree, the better. Else, they all lose. If ever the phrase time is money made sense, this was it! Additionally, should a contestant decide to quit the game for whatever reason–protest or otherwise–the money is automatically slashed by 50%. So, not only is it critical to reach a place of agreement, it’s also vitally important for everybody–friends and foes–to get along.

If you’re resident in Kampala, it’s unlikely you’ll have qualms agreeing that, hitherto, May had the most cruel character of all the months this year. It seems as though the demons responsible for mayhem convened and their dispatcher commanded, “May you go out there and wreck some havoc!”. And just like that, they took his words quite literally and descended on the city in the fifth month!

In my lifetime, I haven’t witnessed this measure of gun violence happening in a span as short as four weeks. The month kicked off with a cabinet minister getting admitted into the afterlife by his own guard on 2^nd May. This, undoubtedly, was the spark that triggered a long series of inexplicable gun-related murders. On the night of 6^th May, the unknown shooters of Isma Olaxess, a prominent vlogger, may have purposed to make sure he didn’t live to see (in every sense of it!) the light of day again, by taking out his optics in a spray of bullets right outside of his home. Between then and the end of the May, nearly a dozen souls were extinguished in brutal fashion. As it would turn out, the Al-Shabaab had no plans of feeling pity for us or doing our gallant servicemen any favors when they attacked a UPDF base in Somalia; mauling and killing scores. The crowning, as it were, was the gunning down of a city lawyer in his compound on 31^st May, under mysterious circumstances. Overall, we did lose quite a bit both at home and away. That’s scary!

However, we did win on one touchy front! Or did we? As if to welcome his fellow countrymen into the new month and perhaps uplift their spirits, Mr. Museveni signed the controversial anti-gay bill into law in the final week of May. At its core, the rationale for the law is to protect the family unit, especially minors who’ve got dysphoric tendencies and are particularly vulnerable to the prowling promoters of these unnatural lifestyles. In assenting to the bill, the President effectively opened a can of worms.

Development partners do finance a sizeable chunk of Uganda’s annual budget to a tune of about 40%. Of that, the US is the biggest contributor with roughly 47%. That’s something in excess of $5bn. As fate would have it, before Museveni’s signature ink on the document could even dry, Biden issued warnings, saying Uganda would be slapped with trade and travel sanctions if the law isn’t repealed. The Speaker of Parliament already got a taste of that with the revocation of her US visa. Digging deep right into the foundation of these donations, it’s not difficult to see the strings that are always attached. If these retributive threats don’t smell like blackmail, I don’t know what does!

The law, which has been labelled by external actors as one of the ‘world’s toughest’, is certainly nothing close to what you’re likely to find in countries like Saudi Arabia or one of those strict followers of Islamic law. The Saudis would probably send you to the gallows just for walking around the streets of Riyadh with floppy hands. That’s if you’re lucky. On a bad day, they might serve your head to you on a silver platter! Yet there’s hardly friction between the US and Saudi Arabia–presumably because their relationship is well oiled!

Looking at the course we’re taking, Uganda may in fact be on the verge of getting martyred economically for standing by its people’s values and beliefs. I guess that’s the price you pay for sovereignty. Besides, martyrdom isn’t exactly a new thing around here. We’ve previously died for things we believed in. Hopefully this too will turn out to be a choice of great pride than shame. Therefore, Happy Martyrs’ Day!

For the few that are unfamiliar with today’s commemoration, every few weeks or even months to 3^rd June each year, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims, sometimes millions, from across the country and African continent embark on the grueling journey–mostly on foot–to a revered site in a place called Namugongo, 11km north-east of Kampala city center. They throng this place in remembrance of the Uganda martyrs. Its quick evolution into an annual religious exercise where the faithful come from near and far in the hope of catching a blessing from the ‘saints’ isn’t something of a surprise. Wouldn’t it be wonderful though to know how it all began?

In the late 1800s, it’s said a couple of dozen Christians were executed and incinerated in this location on the orders of the infamous then-ruler Kabaka Mwanga. Butt!–that’s a huge butt, and in a moment you’ll understand why!–there’s an air of controversy as the real reason for their execution is, to this day, shrouded in some mystery. While many scholars say it was primarily a result of their newly found faith in Jesus, others say the King and his close associates had a fetish for young boys. Apparently, this whole Christianity phenomenon was causing his boys to begin shunning the King’s sexual advances, and he didn’t appreciate that development. As the custodian of life and death in his day, if you didn’t supply his sexual needs, that was utter insubordination; thus, your fate was a matchstick away–one matchstick and a few logs of firewood! This is the other extreme of the untold Namugongo story that always quietly lingers during this season, but somehow nobody ever talks about.

The Namugongo memorial site–or shrine, if you like–is less than twenty-five minutes away on foot from where I am. However, on my part, I decided that the only pilgrimage I’ll be making today will be across the road to buy a snack, and return home. That should be no more than five minutes.

It’s mid-morning; there’s heavy police deployment in the neighborhood and surrounding areas. Vehicular traffic is limited as hordes are either trekking or riding on Boda Boda motorbikes to and from Namugongo. An earlier downpour may have been God’s way of sieving the real Christian devotees from casual opportunists and revelers. In case you weren’t aware, this whole event is a cocktail of a ton of things and can get quite confusing if you’re not a focused devotee. Starting off early in the week as some sort of trade fair, it soon mutates to a market, then a prayer gathering, then political convention, before quickly escalating to a full-fledged meat fest and open-air party. Finally, after many have left, this place gradually returns to its usual serene self; perhaps accommodating the occasional stranded pilgrims who conveniently don’t seem to remember the way that led them to the site. Or they simply gave up their return fare the previous night in exchange for some pieces of juicy chicken thigh at Rasta’s grill.

It’s on my way to the other end of the road that I come across a fervent roadside preacher in her mid-50’s. She’s passionately delivering her sermon for the day to passers-by. From my understanding, her message has got a lot to do with protecting your buttocks! I really wish this were a joke, but it’s not. In her own words, she said, “If you don’t accept Jesus, they’ll use your butt!”. Matter of fact, she used a fairly graphic noun that I can’t repeat here. I could’ve stopped to seek clarification from her regarding “they”, cos I’m wondering, “who’s they?”. However, there was plenty of risk in doing this: she’s quite loud, and the sermon is already sensitive as it is. So, I quietly marched on and went about my business. Tell you what: if I said I wasn’t terrified at her style of delivery, I would be lying. Also, I didn’t exactly understand that part where she’s repeating the same statement and looking in my direction. Later, though, while mulling over it, I did appreciate her sermon. She was essentially saying: Museveni may have saved your ass, but only Jesus can save your soul!

So, anyway, shortly after Biden threatened to deploy sanctions, he tripped and fell at an Air Force Academy grad ceremony where he was the special guest. Friday afternoon, I spent almost half an hour convincing an acquaintance that the man had only tripped over a sandbag that had been placed on the platform where he stood, and it was nothing more than that. However, he categorically stated to me that Biden’s fall was nothing physical but had been the result of African spiritual intervention and retaliation at him for issuing threats at Uganda! “Who am I to dispute this?”, I thought to myself.

The warning of donor withdrawals, penalties and whatnot, is a sign that the reprisals are intended to plunge us into desperation mode. If we’re to emerge out of this rabbit hole, it’ll take some radical steps. It’s probably a lot more complicated than turning on a kettle, but we’ve got to start somewhere!

Uganda’s an extremely blessed nation on many levels. However, we’ve got to trash those deeply-ingrained selfish mindsets and stop running the country like it were a family business; where only a handful benefit from the country’s vast wealth while the other stakeholders, at best, nibble on crumbs and hobnob with the rich. With a uniform, consistently targeted focus, and unanimous agreement on the direction we would like to see the country take, it’s totally conceivable that we can reach the place of self-reliance faster than imaginable. There’s so much at stake: the sooner we look past our differences–political, ethnic, religious or otherwise—and learn to get along with one another, the better. Short of that, our martyrdom will have been in vain!

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