To fight or not

On election day, I received a call from a friend of mine. He was stuck in the bus park after he found the fare to Mbarara had more than doubled up. So he called me to send him some money to top up. For over an hour, I tried to send my friend some mobile money unsuccessfully until I gave up, exasperated. In the end my friend didn't get to travel, and didn't get to cast his vote. Just like that, the government had disenfranchised him.

Voting in Uganda. Some people didn't get the chance to vote

Later that day, I tried to log in to my social media accounts. Again it was a total fiasco. When I learnt about the blockade from the government, I got angry. I called one of my brothers who is a lawyer to ask what it would cost me to sue the government for its disgusting stifling of its citizens.

My frustrations hit fever pitch when I saw how the electoral commission handled the polls affair and how the police shamelessly conducted itself from voting day to Saturday when the winner was announced and after, paticularly its mistreatment of Dr. Kizza Besigye. 

I know the world is unfair and often we don't get what we deserve. And it's true that blessed are the peacemakers. But should we do nothing as injustice prevails? When should we ignore unfairness for the greater public good? 

My answer is that we should never brook or idly sit by while an unjust thing goes on. Martin Luther King said, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We're caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly." 

More than ever is now the time to vocalise evil and act against it before the pent-up frustrations of the masses form a volcano from whose eruption it will be hard and long to recover.