HAM?

There is a new move towards erasing the African identity in the most effective and profound manner anyone can erase an identity- by name. Africans of undiluted ancestry, dating back thousands of years ago are going by names like Derek Shepherd and Anita Glory.

I wonder if some of the movements behind this standardisation of all groups of people would be just as happy themselves to go by any other name – a Larry Ssemanda perhaps, untraceable to their original ethnicity. Maybe we should all colour ourselves with paste, make ourselves all uniform. Some of the most esteemed women in this town are already orange-black, and not by birth. Old photos are cropping up like evidence once thought buried.

“What is in name? That which we call a rose by any other name would still smell just as sweet.” Elon by any other name, maybe Melon, would sound just as suave- Melon Musk. Yet, even an app such as X, is constantly referred to only by relation to its first name Twitter.

It’s not only names that are being disposed of, our low sense of self has now spread to accent. As usual, we Africans are so ashamed of being African, that we are afraid for any native tongue bias to be detected in our speech. A BBC article recently reported that Nigerians are paying well for new accents in order to speak in a more American way. I have a feeling they are not being trained to speak the Black American way. We Africans are notorious for being un-united in any sphere that requires unity- not at home and definitely not in foreign places.

Our own public speakers are already now rattling words in an American accent. The American accent being one among many- they forget that there is more than one way to be European. There are French, English, Italian and Greek accents. [Are Greeks, European? Their debt situation might have made their genealogy suspect.] Though, even in Britain and France, it is said that people from different regions speak distinctively differently and can be identified by origin solely by the way they speak. In Wales, they speak a Celtic language which is nothing similar to English.

So, while we are still struggling with how to pronounce “twenie twenie three” and “twira”, while sounding like Obama or Biden, other people have the liberty to actually focus on the nuances and delivery of their message without worrying about the approval of a global certification of accent. I’m not immune to the constant realisation [even this word “ri- a- lize” versus “ri- alize” – is being targeted] that I say hop for both hope and hop [I was alerted to this] and I say “bo-da” for both border and boda-boda [ after reading an article written by an English man where he said that the word “Boda” morphed from the word “Border” in Busia town, I realised I had just pronounced the words exactly the same.] I wonder when in Busia town- the letter r was ever enunciated in a word like border. Bad for bad and also bird. Hat for hat and also heart. Just when I’m wondering if it is necessary to learn all the new ways to speak [ignore the Gen Z grammar deficit- This hair is hairing, This outfit is giving], I hear Japanese and Koreans’ attempt to speak Hingrishi and things fall apart .

It is hard to focus after hearing “Ey-braham” and “Sera” and the god of the heathen “bale”. I wonder sometimes if some supernatural force indeed is using accent differentiation to prevent the message from coming across. It is even stranger that most of these names are in Hebrew and not English. The name Goliath for example, is pronounced “Goli-at” in Hebrew. It is the equivalent of insisting on calling Iraq, “ai raq” when its inhabitants have over and over again, showed you that it is pronounced “eraq”.

If everything we are is of such low quality, why did we not go extinct? Isn’t it the law of nature that everything of a weaker form is eventually subdued by the stronger?

It is not enough that drums and dancing are reserved only for cultural celebrations, and badly played keyboards on maximum sound are the only musical instruments allowed in village churches, but now our names must disappear too.

Why are we always keen on being anyone but who we are? We do not need to embrace it all. We can accept what was bad for us and leave it behind and then treat with reverence what was good. We are not the ones who made ourselves a gold calf after seeing God. We are also not the ones who created the guillotine.

Yes, a full English Breakfast sounds more sophisticated than Katogo, but some group of people stuck to eating with [chop] sticks and it became arguably the most admired exotic cuisine; and, however wispy or sparse their hair gets, I have not seen a non- African woman wearing an afro textured wig. If it was possible to get a hair transplant that grows out as Brazilian hair and a lace front, our hair would be extinct by now .

The Jackson five didn’t escape it. Worldwide fame didn’t help the ever flowing fountain of evolving hate that Africans love to drink from. We don’t even believe we deserve better. We would rather live in filth and then travel to Netherlands to marvel about how clean their streets are. We feel like we don’t deserve love. We don’t really believe we deserve care. We certainly don’t deserve the best, unless someone else created it for their own people.

That is why most of our schools teach us how to eat bean weevils and why the askari will maul you for tasting chicken. Now some Ugandans are offended when anyone associates them with grasshopper eating but they are quick to jump onto the ‘sea food experience’. They will happily eat mussels, squid, octopus and prawns. They will also excitedly try escargot.

We are like a child whose own mother never loved them, the child who is always at the neighbour’s house looking for love and acceptance. The neighbour only has food enough for her own and no matter how much she tries to include him, she just can’t take him along when her own children are going for swimming and she definitely cannot take him for the family photo.

If it were not for the rich percussion of African drums, powerful enough to raise the hair on your skin, African music would have ceased to exist. [The poetry we enjoy in Luganda music and between the bride and groom’s parties at Kwanjula’s; and the poetry in Kwevuga should not be just a passing amusement. It should be harnessed somehow, not exploited, not cheapened, but protected. ]

We give flavour to the world. Without us, all the laughs would be a hollow ha ha ha, not a rumbling nondescript sound from deep within, shaking our stomach and making us gasp for air. We have the tightest curl pattern and the darkest skin. Our way of living in harmony with nature conserved the earth.

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If you were not part of dress choosing or fitting, you’re not the first on the makeup line and the makeup artist does not even know your name, you don’t know where the venue is and you’re in an unspoken state of “what are we?”, you are not the Matron. Attend or don’t attend, you are not crucial to the occasion.

If the lowest common denominator of the group keeps making fun of you, or speaks to you in a condescending way, you are the second lowest common denominator of that group and you are competing for last place, you just don’t know it.