Fare thee well Tom Rush and Sulaiman Kiggundu
Jun 23, 2008
Last week was a really a dark one for Uganda because we lost two prominent sons—Dr. Sulaiman Kiggundu and Dr. Tom Tumusiime Rushedge, two men who had made significant contributions to their society in different ways.
KAROORO OKURUT
A literary and socio-political analyst
Last week was a really a dark one for Uganda because we lost two prominent sons—Dr. Sulaiman Kiggundu and Dr. Tom Tumusiime Rushedge, two men who had made significant contributions to their society in different ways.
Dr. Rushedge, popularly known as Old Fox, was a man who could contribute to almost any conversation, for the simple reason that the Lord had gifted him extravagantly. Unless you were told, it was difficult to guess that he was a medical doctor and a surgeon at that. Unlike the quintessential doctors, Old Fox had this habit of dressing casually like he was just walking up the street to pick a cigarette and would be right back.
Scientists take life seriously and most of them are wont to paint life with pictures of gloom about the dangers of cholesterol, smoking, global warming, nuclear apocalypse, epidemic outbreak and this or that plague just waiting to ravish the earth and its inhabitants. Well, not this Old Fox of a scientist; because for him life was there for the taking, to be enjoyed in all its fullness in a happy-go-lucky kind of way.
He was humourous and always seemed to carry a huge wink on his face, with a mischievous twinkle in his eye. His perennial cheerfulness was contagious —you just could not be dull and gloomy around the Old Fox. That is why many people always got shocked to learn that the author of the Ekanya comic strip which has humoured the public for decades, was actually a medical doctor. This was a doctor who liked the old adage that laughter is the best medicine. He not only said it; he lived it and practised it.
As one of the many folks who read The Old Fox’s column in the Sunday Vision magazine I would laugh my head off and it would melt some of my stress, not only because of his many weird escapades, but also the excellent way in which he crafted it. This was a man, who like Chinua Achebe would have put it, was the ‘owner of words’.
While some of his fellow scientists were devoted to painting pictures of gloom about this and that, Old Fox was devoted to entirely the opposite, painting life as enjoyable. And what a life it was!
Away from operating theatre, and when he wasn’t writing a novel or short story, he would be found on the stage or in a nightclub playing the keyboards or guitar! Or flying a plane. There was no end to this man’s giftings — from the theatre, to the study, to the stage and into the skies, Old Fox was to be found. And whatever he did, he did it very well —the man was a perfectionist who had no time or space for incompetence.
One time he told me an editor had ‘murdered’ his article – by removing some of his commas and exclamation marks. Old Fox was mad, because for him each little mark served a huge purpose. He shared with me the story of a Japanese university student who wrote an essay and handed it to his lecturer then boarded a train to his residence, some 200km away from campus.
Arriving home, he recalled something and promptly told his surprised parents, saying he had forgotten something very important and had to go back to campus. He immediately travelled back to the university and arrived panting, to his lecturer’s office and asked for his script. The professor was surprised but the young man emphasised he had forgotten something crucial. What was it? A comma in one of the sentences! That is how precise we should be, Old Fox concluded.
You remember many things about a person, but this one stuck in my mind: Old Fox was a perfectionist. “Unless we re-orient these young people where are we going in this education system?†he asked bitterly, arguing that if there is one thing the younger generation lacked, it was being perfect at what they did. He was always enraged at the practice of students hiring mercenaries to do coursework for them.
On a political note, the Old Fox, who hailed from my home district and constituency of Bushenyi was an ardent supporter of the Movement and President Museveni.
He supported the Movement in the bush war days and in 1985 when the then National Resistance Army, NRA, had cut off a huge chunk of the country, Old Fox actively supported its cause in his home area of Kabwohe in Bushenyi.
We mourn the passing of a very rare species.
********************
In Dr. Sulaiman Kiggundu, Uganda has lost an excellent academic, economist and politician. When I was doing my post-graduate studies at Makerere University, Dr. Kiggundu was a lecturer there and one of those widely respected as a brilliant academician, focused and committed to his work.
He was later to become Governor of the Central Bank, before opening the Greenland Bank, which for quite sometime did impress as an example of what local Ugandans could achieve in a liberalised economy. And when he delved into politics, as a key member of the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), we in the Movement respected him as a worthy opponent.
And for those of us who believe that you tell a person’s worth not only by the strength of his friends but by the excellence of his opponents, knowing we had opponents like Dr. Kiggundu brought the best out of us. Dr. Rushedge and Dr. Kiggundu may you rest in eternal peace.
A literary and socio-political analyst
Last week was a really a dark one for Uganda because we lost two prominent sons—Dr. Sulaiman Kiggundu and Dr. Tom Tumusiime Rushedge, two men who had made significant contributions to their society in different ways.
Dr. Rushedge, popularly known as Old Fox, was a man who could contribute to almost any conversation, for the simple reason that the Lord had gifted him extravagantly. Unless you were told, it was difficult to guess that he was a medical doctor and a surgeon at that. Unlike the quintessential doctors, Old Fox had this habit of dressing casually like he was just walking up the street to pick a cigarette and would be right back.
Scientists take life seriously and most of them are wont to paint life with pictures of gloom about the dangers of cholesterol, smoking, global warming, nuclear apocalypse, epidemic outbreak and this or that plague just waiting to ravish the earth and its inhabitants. Well, not this Old Fox of a scientist; because for him life was there for the taking, to be enjoyed in all its fullness in a happy-go-lucky kind of way.
He was humourous and always seemed to carry a huge wink on his face, with a mischievous twinkle in his eye. His perennial cheerfulness was contagious —you just could not be dull and gloomy around the Old Fox. That is why many people always got shocked to learn that the author of the Ekanya comic strip which has humoured the public for decades, was actually a medical doctor. This was a doctor who liked the old adage that laughter is the best medicine. He not only said it; he lived it and practised it.
As one of the many folks who read The Old Fox’s column in the Sunday Vision magazine I would laugh my head off and it would melt some of my stress, not only because of his many weird escapades, but also the excellent way in which he crafted it. This was a man, who like Chinua Achebe would have put it, was the ‘owner of words’.
While some of his fellow scientists were devoted to painting pictures of gloom about this and that, Old Fox was devoted to entirely the opposite, painting life as enjoyable. And what a life it was!
Away from operating theatre, and when he wasn’t writing a novel or short story, he would be found on the stage or in a nightclub playing the keyboards or guitar! Or flying a plane. There was no end to this man’s giftings — from the theatre, to the study, to the stage and into the skies, Old Fox was to be found. And whatever he did, he did it very well —the man was a perfectionist who had no time or space for incompetence.
One time he told me an editor had ‘murdered’ his article – by removing some of his commas and exclamation marks. Old Fox was mad, because for him each little mark served a huge purpose. He shared with me the story of a Japanese university student who wrote an essay and handed it to his lecturer then boarded a train to his residence, some 200km away from campus.
Arriving home, he recalled something and promptly told his surprised parents, saying he had forgotten something very important and had to go back to campus. He immediately travelled back to the university and arrived panting, to his lecturer’s office and asked for his script. The professor was surprised but the young man emphasised he had forgotten something crucial. What was it? A comma in one of the sentences! That is how precise we should be, Old Fox concluded.
You remember many things about a person, but this one stuck in my mind: Old Fox was a perfectionist. “Unless we re-orient these young people where are we going in this education system?†he asked bitterly, arguing that if there is one thing the younger generation lacked, it was being perfect at what they did. He was always enraged at the practice of students hiring mercenaries to do coursework for them.
On a political note, the Old Fox, who hailed from my home district and constituency of Bushenyi was an ardent supporter of the Movement and President Museveni.
He supported the Movement in the bush war days and in 1985 when the then National Resistance Army, NRA, had cut off a huge chunk of the country, Old Fox actively supported its cause in his home area of Kabwohe in Bushenyi.
We mourn the passing of a very rare species.
********************
In Dr. Sulaiman Kiggundu, Uganda has lost an excellent academic, economist and politician. When I was doing my post-graduate studies at Makerere University, Dr. Kiggundu was a lecturer there and one of those widely respected as a brilliant academician, focused and committed to his work.
He was later to become Governor of the Central Bank, before opening the Greenland Bank, which for quite sometime did impress as an example of what local Ugandans could achieve in a liberalised economy. And when he delved into politics, as a key member of the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), we in the Movement respected him as a worthy opponent.
And for those of us who believe that you tell a person’s worth not only by the strength of his friends but by the excellence of his opponents, knowing we had opponents like Dr. Kiggundu brought the best out of us. Dr. Rushedge and Dr. Kiggundu may you rest in eternal peace.