In honour of Dan Nsubuga

It was a cold night. I lay on the wet grass under a lusterless moon brooding. That afternoon the military had stormed the streets; their red tops spelling danger, their gaping guns ready to spill blood. The atmosphere soon turned smoky with bursting balls of teargas choking many. The rumble of gunfire shook the foundations of the city like an earthquake and citizen Dan Nsubuga lost his precious life.

Rest in peace, Dan, your death was not in vain.

My mind raced back to 30 years ago when a young revolutionary who had just captured power stood on the precincts of parliament and waxed lyrical about the fundamental change he was ushering in. It was a fundamental transition from a violent and capricious past to a new dawn of good governance capped with constitutional reforms, institutional revival and economic transformation whose benefits would spill over to the rest of Africa.

Today, when we should be running faster along a path illuminated by the light of democracy, it's flabbergasting the military are stomping the city not in the time of war, but during an electoral process of choosing new leaders. It's obvious the best years of the old man with the hat are far behind him. His seniority has become his senility. The narrative of impotent institutions and the tumor of corruption testify dismally against him. He has hit the panic button by letting the dogs out to stop the wind of change. They shoot and smash up things while he creeps back into his power and seeming invincibility, unfeeling about the suffering proletariat he ostensibly came to redeem three decades ago.

These things make me brood and weep over my country. Then I wipe my tears because the Dan Ndubugas are not dying in vain. The time for military politics is fast running out.

The definition of love

Love is the greatest word ever crafted out of the English alphabet. But it's more than a word. It's the invisible force from which we derive sustenance as a people. It has nothing to do with wearing red on Valentines Day and drinking old wine in heart-shaped glasses. Love is way, way deeper than that.

Love is a glue

It's a treasure found only in the heart and so precious it can never be bought. Whereas money can blind some men and women to give you their bodies, that has never translated to love because true love is a gift freely given and  unconditional.  

Love is the glue that binds a man and woman so firmly that they live together as one in holy matrimony for the rest of their lives, and raise children to take after them as best as they possibly can. The posterity of the human race is hinged on that. 

This does not come easy. That's why love is patient, kind and so understanding it easily forgives and focuses on bringing out the best in others. Love is basically the embodiment of the best human virtues and ideals. Things like jealousy, insensitivity, selfishness and other destructive emotions and misdeeds only serve to slow down the moving wheels of love. Pride, too, because it makes you feel superior. And when you deem yourself better than others it's easy to dismiss them under the pretext that they have nothing to offer you. But the understanding that we are all imperfect makes it easier to stick as one in thick and thin. 

Love in essence never insists on having its way but rather respects the wishes of others. It's not about "give me give me give me". Only ticks and fleas do that. Love should be a competition to please one another!

Overall, only three things are vital for us to live fulfilled lives. Trusting in God steadily, keeping hope alive and loving extravagantly. The last is the most important.

The philosophy of the mountain goat

I recently met an old lady learning how to drive and wanted to pluck her out of that old car through its little window and hug her like I've not hugged anyone lately. You have got to love an old lady with the heartbeat of an optimist; defying wrinkles and the stoop of old age to learn a new thing and fulfill the desire of the heart that her younger phase of life denied her.

The mountain goat has amazing resilience

Often I hear people disqualify themselves saying things like, "I'm too old to dance ballet", "going to Nambole to watch a live match is for young guns like you" etc. In consequence they live boring lives and die having not lived at all, which is sad considering the variety of pulsating and adrenaline-inducing ventures the world longs to blow us away with.

We're given one life that must be lived to the full. I want to believe Neil Armstrong was not the best qualified astronaut, but was the keenest and most daring, and that earned him special pleasure and legacy as the first man to step on the moon. Which should provoke us to live without excuses and invoke the courage in us to pursue what we want to pursue, get where we want to get and be what we want to be. 

It may require digging deep like Sepp Blatter did to master the world's five major languages. His ability to speak fluent Italian, English, French, German and Spanish gave him a cutting-edge that lasted him 17 years as FIFA boss. 

"I'm a mountain goat that keeps going and going," he once bragged, "I cannot be stopped, I just keep going."

It's amazing that Blatter's philosophy was learned from that stubbornly adventurous animal. It's a philosophy that we must all espouse. Like the old lady taking driving lessons, we must keep going and learning no matter what.