Land of my ancestors

I suppose, finally content with the fertile hilly soils, they decided to settle here. Colonialism found them here and in 1921, when the walls were going up, they were to realise that they were no longer just Bakongwe, Ba Mwisa Murengye, they would be Bakiga, but above all there would be forever be known as Ugandans. And with their taabes, and their anklets, their beads and animal skins, their gods too small, their names too singular, half dressed for the modern world, they entered the new era. There would be no more wars with their neighbours for loot and for women. It was time for school, for work, for nationality.

They were known for their strength and their stout figure, hardly unsurprising for a body built to climb steep altitudes. They are disparaged for their dialect- haughtily laughed up for speaking so crudely. Any deviation from the figure which has been cookie cut out for them is seen as mishap- not known for their beauty, for their soft spoken-ness or for their measured slow steps. No, that was not what their society hailed, then, it prized the strong, those who could cultivate and have dominion over the land and even the food they ate, was meant to build a machine.

But there was and is beauty in the culture and in the people, and once the comparisons end, it always begins. Skin colours appear, mystically, to range from shades of bright yellow to a warm black. But the tooth gap is no longer exaggerated by picks. There are no more heavy metal anklets worn up to the knees- those are for loose women. And so, even though, what was prized then, is no longer what is prized now, it is good to remember that, even the pharaohs were once great.

For a people who were well known for battle and dominance, the strive to keep the blood pure did not become one of the core values. They were not full – not of themselves- they- picked and mixed intonations and dialects of a similar language, pouring into and taking part of various ethnicities. Finally, the belittling and the complexes of others surrounding them have seeped into the genetics of the remainders- others have renounced the name, renounced the language for fear of being derided. Sweeping things under the carpet, calling spades big spoons, hiding behind the bush- these are new age tactics. They must be learnt. Every thing that doesn’t grow, will soon die. I guess. That is what they say.

If a factory is torn down but the rationality that built it is left standing, then that rationality will simply produce another factory. If a revolution destroys a systematic government but the systematic patterns of thought that produced that government are left intact, then those patterns will repeat themselves. – Robert M Pirsig

The time has come for a nation and faced with enemies other than ourselves, stronger, more powerful, quicker and futuristic, we as Ugandans and Africans should have made ourselves as one, but we crumbled at first exposure.

We have given all excuses as to why we have not redesigned the future we hope for, the word colonialist, a stale taste in the mouth. We gained the independence to destroy what was left. Every election season since I could vote, I have shuddered at the little things- the first to go would be the natural hair community vlogs- what, with refugee status- how can one afford to think about what curl pattern they have. I have not allowed myself to think about the other more serious things- only in my dreams do they confront me- blood. loss. ashes.

It’s the African curse. Once built, always crumbles. Stealing from the generation to come, stifling their own chance to survive, always to fill the black hole of greed, with the shortsightedness of a drunkard – drunk with power who would commit their own kind to years of damnation, generations whose conversations will not be, of vaccines, rockets and skyscrapers but civil war, poverty, genocide, strife and military coups. Cry the beloved country.