Kisanja mchezo or hakuna mchezo?

HUMANITY

By Deo Tumusiime

Right across the Ggaba parish church, in the middle of the tarmac road, lies a deep pothole. The pothole has remained unfixed since 2017. Not the biggest of potholes, but it is big enough to compromise traffic. This Ggaba road is used by many, and I presume including the head of state. If such a pothole cannot be covered for several months yet we all know the dangers it poses, what does this tell of the seriousness of the institutions responsible? Sometimes I feel like carrying murrum in my private car and pouring in the pothole-but the rules for fixing public roads are quite rigid-someone will say that is not your duty. "Not my duty, not her duty, not his duty"- and several months later, the pothole remains our midst. This to me is absolutely Mchezo and not Hakuna mchezo.

At the start of the current term of office of the ruling government, a slogan was crafted to underscore the seriousness with which Uganda would be led this time round. "Kisanja Hakuna mchezo", they said. While these words are in a language popular in the East African Community, Kiswahili is not a language majority of Ugandans speak. Could this explain the reason why it may not have been taken serious? To simplify the slogan, "Hakuna mchezo" ideally means…..NO NONSENSE. That in terms of handling matters of human and national importance, no stone shall be left unturned, and that this is to be the responsibility of not just the leaders, but every Ugandan citizen is expected to be seen to be working diligently towards ensuring that we live in a sane country.

Now, without necessarily apportioning blame, I am worried about the events prevailing in the country, particularly in view of the ongoing kidnaps and murders, only point to mchezo and not hakuna mchezo. When some heartless individuals took to murdering women in Entebbe, it rained cats and dogs. Soon the murders became so normal, but we are talking of 20+ human lives killed in cold blood. On another occasion a certain Kanyamunyu was said to have shot an innocent Akena and the latter was laid to rest days later. A staff of Case Clinic was abducted and discovered burnt to death.

Radio was hit in a bar and never recovered. And now Susan Magara, even if not known to many of us, was killed in a manner that definitely sent chills down the spines of many of us. This, to me, is absolutely heinous, deplorable, unjustifiable, inhuman and completely unacceptable. Yes, death is part and parcel of human life, but we people who do not want to lose our own lives cheaply, should never perpetuate or condone the loss of others' lives. Death should only and only occur because it was unavoidable, but pre-conceived death must be condemned and resisted in all ways thinkable.

This is what would appreciably amount to a kisanja hakuna mchezo. Something tells me that if the leadership sounded the strongest warning of their lives that this kind of nonsense shall not occur again, I believe everyone would be forced to watch themselves and tread very cautiously.

I refuse to believe that human beings are inherently devilish. No, people are cultured into being devils and so being, people can be cultured out of it.

At childbirth, we are all beautiful; innocent; cheerful; loved and angelic to say the least. Each of us has at one time been a baby. They called us baby Dee, baby Judith, baby Francis, baby Sheila, baby Rachealle, baby Maureen... name them. But with the cruelty happening in the country currently, new babies are likely to cry louder than ever before, because Uganda is scary to say the least. Yes, a worried mother will definitely worry her children.

For all the madness we see in our society, none of us was born like that. Definitely, we have been nurtured, cultured, politicised, monetised and religionised into what we are. Ugandans must be helped to un-learn all the known bad manners, for I believe that well nurtured along our childhood paths, everyone is capable of growing into a Dee-cent person, for Dee-cent is how God created us.

We must all get back to the drawing board individually and collectively, and ask ourselves.....where have we gotten it wrong? How can a person grab a fellow human being, cut off her fingers and call the father to fetch them and later claim her life? Just how do such people's hearts get hardened to that level? I asked the other day just how a normal human being pulls the trigger to shoot by the gun and kill a fellow human being irrespective of which side one belongs to. Where did our sense of remorse we were born with as children go? Who took away our childhood smiles? Think of your mother carrying you in her womb for nine months and the labour pains she went through to produce you. Each of us definitely emanated from that same process. Can we, therefore, be respectful of this our human identity?

Let us not care about which political party anyone belongs to....we were not born in parties.

Let us not care about which religion anyone subscribes to....we were introduced to religion after birth

Let us not care about which tribe anyone belongs to....Tribe is not by blood

Let us not care about how much money anyone has....none of us was born with money and none is buried with it

Let us not are about social status or clout....all this is comes with time

Let us care about what others have that we do not... Perhaps we do not even need it to live our life

Let us not care about who is prettier than we are....there is not much anyone can do to change the you in you.

All we should care about in life is that no matter what you are, all of us are human beings breathing the same air, and born of a woman under the same blue sky. Those who do not believe that God exists...that is ok, but at least we all can marvel at and appreciate the orderliness of the life we found in this world. Some things have been here over centuries and indeed since the world begun and they appeal to all humanity generation after generation.... Sunshine, day and night, rain, clouds above, stars, water bodies and of course humanity. Even with all the killings in the world, human beings have never been finished. No matter what religion you belong to, at least we should be able to see God through this and much more. That God does NOT even require of us to spend nights in church before giving us air to breathe. It is plentiful and even beggars can afford. And when it is cut off, we all die. For me this is the identity of God wherever God is. The things we created as human beings are the things that create classes among us, giving us false importance and ultimately making us devilish....above them all - money. Well, some people kill each other for sex, but you and I know sex was created by God, it is through it that we all came to be, and sex is abundantly available and like all things God created, it's for free.

So people of God, yes we can choose to live life humanely. None of us was born evil.

You do not need to be religious to appreciate that if you pinch someone, they feel the same pain as you would. But also if you do something sweet unto someone, it will likely bless them as much as it would bless you.

This is my humble understanding of hakuna mchezo and every Ugandan ought to be guided and prompted towards moving in the right direction right from childhood. We must reclaim our sense of humanity create an environment where everyone feels safe in this Pearl of Africa, safe in their homes. Achieving this is and must be the responsibility of every individual citizen.

The writer is a communications consultant