Nkosi sikelele Africa
I woke up this morning proud to be an African. They said it could never happen. They predicted: open your eyes to your past, history is against you. They provoked: surely, you know that order cannot come from disorder, look at your past.
Andrew Rugasira
I woke up this morning proud to be an African. They said it could never happen. They predicted: open your eyes to your past, history is against you. They provoked: surely, you know that order cannot come from disorder, look at your past.
They taunted: why welcome the world when you cannot welcome your own, look at your past. They dehumanized us with: can’t you see that as efficiency is to the German, disorganisation is to the African, look at your past. We held our collective breath, we prayed for you South Africa.
You didn’t blink. You remained steadfast and focused. You looked to the future and ignored the past. You said: enough is enough, and showed us how. For so long, the world has captured one dimension of Africa.
That her soils have not yielded its strength to its people; that we continually harvest droughts and famines. That for so long, the blood of our brethren has been spilled by our leaders.
It is true that our hearts have become calloused by shattered dreams and broken promises. For so long, our people have been consigned to the death chambers of poverty, disease and ignorance.
But this is not the full picture. Surely there are seasons for mourning and seasons for celebration, seasons for tears and seasons for joy, seasons for war and seasons for peace, seasons for sowing and seasons for harvesting.
This is Africa’s season, a season for celebration. This is the moment for the irrepressible vuvuzela. This is the time for a million reinvigorated voices of a people that have been burdened by the weight of their history. This is a season where we say: we are proud to be Africans.
From Green Point Stadium in Cape Town to Soccer City in Johannesburg to the Rustenburg Stadium of the indomitable Bafokeng people, I marvelled at the spectacle. What organisational skills, what excellence in execution, what profit levels for FIFA!
On the world’s greatest stage, on your home turf, you had the last laugh. You looked the world in the face and without a quiver in your voice, loudly announced your arrival.
We chuckled like youngsters up to mischief. We felt like shouting from rooftops; to even kick over a few tables and walk around with a swagger. We have waited for this moment for so long.
Freedom, it’s good to know you again.
And yet still, on this noon of our celebration the purveyors of death have visited our night with destruction. I hear the agony and screams of the grief stricken.
The images of the perished are difficult to extinguish from my mind, they are as subtle as a gunshot. You merchants of death!
Don’t you know that it takes much more than your works to break the spirit of a people? Is it you that created the human spirit to know its elasticity?
In celebration of your diabolical acts, your throats have become open graves but still it will take much more to break the spirit of this people.
And what of this nation do you know? Do you know who formed this land and brought it into being? Where were you when Lake Victoria was formed? Is it you that ordered the Nile to flow north?
Did you ever command the Rwenzori’s to stretch up to the clouds or the Muhabura to belch its fiery volcanic ash? Do you know who put the rift in the valley? And yet you speak without caution and conspire in vain.
This is a proud people. They have had confrontations with adversity before and won the encounter. They have risen from the ashes of death and destruction to walk with dignity and smile again.
When did you last hear the first stanza of our national anthem: “Oh Uganda, the land of freedom, we lay our future in thy hands.†Is it you that gave this land its freedom? Do you know in whose hands we lay our future?
How then do you suppose you can take what was never given to you? You surely will be brought to account for the lives you snatched by the one through whose power and sovereignty life was birthed.
Let’s gather our collective courage, friends, let’s claim back our way of life in this season of uncertainty and fear. We honour the memory of those who perished on the 11th July 2010 with our stubborn refusal to be subdued.
The murderer might have cut short our moment of celebration and invoked his blood soaked manifesto. Our moment of joy may have been turned to grief and pain.
But still, I will resist and refuse to have my pride robbed. Not this time. Not again. Never! Even today, I remain proud to be an African.
Send a topical opinion with your picture to guestwriter@newvision.co.ug. We take 600 words only
I woke up this morning proud to be an African. They said it could never happen. They predicted: open your eyes to your past, history is against you. They provoked: surely, you know that order cannot come from disorder, look at your past.
They taunted: why welcome the world when you cannot welcome your own, look at your past. They dehumanized us with: can’t you see that as efficiency is to the German, disorganisation is to the African, look at your past. We held our collective breath, we prayed for you South Africa.
You didn’t blink. You remained steadfast and focused. You looked to the future and ignored the past. You said: enough is enough, and showed us how. For so long, the world has captured one dimension of Africa.
That her soils have not yielded its strength to its people; that we continually harvest droughts and famines. That for so long, the blood of our brethren has been spilled by our leaders.
It is true that our hearts have become calloused by shattered dreams and broken promises. For so long, our people have been consigned to the death chambers of poverty, disease and ignorance.
But this is not the full picture. Surely there are seasons for mourning and seasons for celebration, seasons for tears and seasons for joy, seasons for war and seasons for peace, seasons for sowing and seasons for harvesting.
This is Africa’s season, a season for celebration. This is the moment for the irrepressible vuvuzela. This is the time for a million reinvigorated voices of a people that have been burdened by the weight of their history. This is a season where we say: we are proud to be Africans.
From Green Point Stadium in Cape Town to Soccer City in Johannesburg to the Rustenburg Stadium of the indomitable Bafokeng people, I marvelled at the spectacle. What organisational skills, what excellence in execution, what profit levels for FIFA!
On the world’s greatest stage, on your home turf, you had the last laugh. You looked the world in the face and without a quiver in your voice, loudly announced your arrival.
We chuckled like youngsters up to mischief. We felt like shouting from rooftops; to even kick over a few tables and walk around with a swagger. We have waited for this moment for so long.
Freedom, it’s good to know you again.
And yet still, on this noon of our celebration the purveyors of death have visited our night with destruction. I hear the agony and screams of the grief stricken.
The images of the perished are difficult to extinguish from my mind, they are as subtle as a gunshot. You merchants of death!
Don’t you know that it takes much more than your works to break the spirit of a people? Is it you that created the human spirit to know its elasticity?
In celebration of your diabolical acts, your throats have become open graves but still it will take much more to break the spirit of this people.
And what of this nation do you know? Do you know who formed this land and brought it into being? Where were you when Lake Victoria was formed? Is it you that ordered the Nile to flow north?
Did you ever command the Rwenzori’s to stretch up to the clouds or the Muhabura to belch its fiery volcanic ash? Do you know who put the rift in the valley? And yet you speak without caution and conspire in vain.
This is a proud people. They have had confrontations with adversity before and won the encounter. They have risen from the ashes of death and destruction to walk with dignity and smile again.
When did you last hear the first stanza of our national anthem: “Oh Uganda, the land of freedom, we lay our future in thy hands.†Is it you that gave this land its freedom? Do you know in whose hands we lay our future?
How then do you suppose you can take what was never given to you? You surely will be brought to account for the lives you snatched by the one through whose power and sovereignty life was birthed.
Let’s gather our collective courage, friends, let’s claim back our way of life in this season of uncertainty and fear. We honour the memory of those who perished on the 11th July 2010 with our stubborn refusal to be subdued.
The murderer might have cut short our moment of celebration and invoked his blood soaked manifesto. Our moment of joy may have been turned to grief and pain.
But still, I will resist and refuse to have my pride robbed. Not this time. Not again. Never! Even today, I remain proud to be an African.
Send a topical opinion with your picture to guestwriter@newvision.co.ug. We take 600 words only