I still remember the late Professor Jethro Opolot. How wouldn’t I? He taught us psychology at Makerere University. He was such a funny guy with cheering, sexy, no-gloves examples. Students loved him so much that his lectures were always full, with about 50% of students not taking the course, but just coming to listen.

One time, he told us that nuns in our group had cornered and asked him to tone down because he was embarrassing them with his naked words. He said his answer to them was simple: “Who is to blame?” He asked them. “Is it me who merely talks about them or you who carry them around?” We died!

This crushed back into my mind when the Bizontos were arrested. Bizonto is a good innovation at comedy that was a great addition to our motley collection of fun.

We need to laugh in order to stay afloat amidst these problems. And their jokes about society don’t have to please everybody! Is that even possible?
But they were arrested!

Apparently, like Prof. Opolot said, they were guilty of talking about sexual parts, which the accusers were carrying around. The one who speaks the truth becomes guiltier than the one who is the truth. So was Kiwewa. So was Basajja Mivule.

So are you who is reading this. You may also get arrested by the turn to the last full stop!
In the human society we live in, there is ‘truth’ and there is also ‘speaking about the truth’.

Truth is noble, defines integrity and, when spot on, makes way forward simpler. But, unfortunately, it also matters what chaos your truth can bring. What motivation you have and what context you are using to speak the truth. Many people, from Jesus to journalists and martyrs, lost their lives for what they called truth.

I will use love to explain this. Truth belongs to the axiology branch of philosophy and it is absolute and not debatable. But the perceptions, interpretations and intentions to that truth are debatable and, in many cases, as varied as the pair of ears that will take it in.

So, what left your mouth as truth may not settle in many brains with the same clothes on. It may become betrayal, sabotage, blackmail, subversion, malice and 
arrogance, to mention, but a few.

Love and marriage and probably the best contexts to show how truth is not necessarily good for consumption. If you have ever told your wife that she was fattening out of proportion, or your husband that his instrument of power is small, you know what I mean. Where love is concerned, sensitivities are so high that what you say may be understood so wildly that a cat will become a lion and destroy all the sheep.

So, if you have any truth to communicate to a loved one, first visualise the likely implications of saying it and also of not saying it. When you know your partner well, this won’t be so difficult.

That notwithstanding, the packaging of information and the context of timing matter a lot because, ultimately, the usefulness of the revelation is in creating change for the better. If this fails, then the truth will have been in vain.

Fortunately, nature gives us more tools of communication than the mouth. And, again in love, what the mouth says, must first be corroborated with what the entire body does before truth is deciphered out of the maze. A partner who says: “I hate you!
You are evil!” but still stays to sleep with you, or serve you food, is communicating a different message.

Take the sex scene, for instance, and I didn’t want to go there; it is you who forced me! How many of you would stop or call a doctor after being told that you are killing me? When we were growing up, the common sex anthem in Ankore was sang using one word; STOP!

Stopping was risky; the partner could kill you! If we had stopped, we wouldn’t be alive to tell these stories. We continued because the body language was delivering a  different message.

In love, therefore, words should be allowed just a 30% attention and body language 70%. There is much more communication from our other senses, like eyes (what you see), nose (what you smell), body (what you feel) and mouth (what you taste). When I was being a kojja in Mbarara, I told the audience to make sure that they are appealing to all the five senses simultaneously during sex. That is maximum sexual communication.

Then my colleague, Senga Nantume, killed it all. She asked the audience what they want with the truth? “How does truth help your marriage? What would you do with it?”
She was referring to the questions wives ask their husbands (and it is usually both ways) after they have come late: What have you been doing? Tell me the truth! I want to know! She warned that only the insane can answer truthfully. What if there was cheating? She asked: Would you want to know and hurt?

That may be an extreme, but generally, in love, truth that does more harm than good should not be addressed by word of mouth alone.

A cheat, who brags to the partner how great it was at an offshore fishing day, even if it was the truth, is insensitive and stupid, but also risking. One who rolls herself in dust professing innocence may be lying, but will earn the marriage another day.
My best advice has been: Ignore the words; mind the reactions. That also goes for security, who arrested the Bizontos.

And don’t frown please! If you claim to worship truth, the aforesaid is the bitter truth! Go on your knees and pay reverence!