BY GEORGE KAGAME
A Korean proverb goes: “When two sharks fight; the shrimp suffers,” if that does not make sense as you may not be familiar with sharks and shrimps.
The local version of the proverb drives the point quite straight into your head and it goes: “When two Basopes fight; the Mtwa suffers” and he suffers for an extended period even after the two giants have stopped their fight.
You see the Basopes are not even giants after all but over the years they have built stereotypes against my people and me that it is cliché that a Mtwa is a pygmy; that rare thing that you only read about in storybooks. But my neighbour in the forest was a tall man, so tall he was always requested by the women in our forest community to pick fruit that was way up on the apex of fruit trees. Yet he was a Mtwa, his father Gudulia was well known too.
We lived in the forest; we loved the forest and knew how to take care of trees and bushes such that they would never dry or be cut down. We also existed peacefully with the animals too since mostly the animals acted as our defense shields against unwanted visitors; the animals were also too big for us to kill for pleasure.
Basope arrive
But our peace was disturbed when the Basope started arriving in our ancestral areas and started creating barriers. Barriers for crops, for their homesteads, barriers against other latecomers as well as barriers to keep us away from ever getting nearer these barriers.
The Basope subjugated us; we became the banter of their jokes.
even more Basope
But a short while later another group of people also came in the area and they also wanted a piece of our land for settlement. The new people who were similar in many ways to the earlier Basope negotiated their way to settling in. And settling in they did.
But soon afterwards the two were at each other’s neck and feet. Cue in violence, hatred, intrigue and downright madness. Apparently the First Basope were upset with the new Basope for cutting a share of the land to themselves, thereby reducing the portion of the first Basope. The second Basope did not stop on land; they also came with cows and even established a system of control and order. Placing themselves on top, lording it over the second Basope and they in turn lording it over us.
Baby bonanza and extermination
The population of the two visitors grew sporadically; with the first Basope reproducing at a rate that even spiders envied. My people and I were forced to move further into the forests ever vacating space for newly minted Basopes.
But even in the forests we were invaded as agriculture and further population growth found us. The first Basope were determined to win the battle of mothers and babies, their wives were particularly fertile in large parts thanks to the fertility of lands.
Perhaps that is the reason that the first Basope; having won the babies contest by far, even attempted to exterminate the second Basopes.
When the first Basope had issues with the later Basope the two were separated after widespread violence and death. The aftermath of this skirmish left the second Basope homeless and cultureless and in later years the First Basope attempted to wipe out their rivals completely that in JUST 100 days one million second Basopes were cut into pieces and thrown in rivers.
Who is watching who? the Mtwa and the gorilla
As a result of the contest between the two, we the Mtwas were reduced to nothings, we were not considered as equal human beings but little creatures upon which the Basopes poured their scorn and ridicule.
Somewhere along the way of their ‘development,’ the Basope stopped their violence and ventured deeper into the forests where we had been pushed. Inside the impenetrable forests they found that we were living amicably with a blessing of creatures that were not even heard of in other places on earth.
Oozing With arrogance and contempt, the Basopes now wanted us to vacate the forests for these animals and trees, how absurd?
That’s when we became what we are today. A bunch of incognitos, reduced to numbers sighted for sheer academic interest. We have been rendered landless, and are now living as squatters, surviving as potters and beggars, some of my childhood friends have resorted to crime, while even more have found a prosperous career in rebellion.
It does not matter what rebel groups we join, as long as we also have a right to the violence that for so long we have been subjected to. As a result I normally chat with my friends who are affiliated to several rebel groups-some of these groups in fact fighting against each other- but we don’t care. We have been reduced and forced into mercenaries.
Once we lived peacefully with the gorillas and the chimpanzees but unfortunately somebody came and took the pictures of the gorillas and chimps. These pictures attracted strange coloured people who came with even more cameras. The next we saw gorillas posing for pictures. People were paying in foreign currencies to watch the gorillas. Our comrade gorillas in the forest!
They were now very important.
Their pictures were beamed across the world, the animals acquired spin around them that even the most powerful Public relations firm could not achieve. Yet in all this nobody took our pictures and our stories, how we took care of the gorillas all those years in the forest before even the Basope arrived.
Our story has now become so blurry it resembles a puzzle.
That is because we are nowhere to be seen. The authorities have created game reserves and forest conservation areas where we once lived. Our land now belongs to the prestigious gorillas. Uhm, I wonder since when did animal rights become more important than human rights!
We are like a sore thumb and the authorities are eager to keep us far away from the visitors and their cameras.
My friend Mugabanya Mkolofi who was once very popular with the community belles is now a guide for these visitors that come to see the gorilla. But deep in his heart he is hurting. Reminiscing of the past times, he knows that if the Basope and others had not interfered with his abode he would be a powerful lord.
We could persevere through the foolishness of the Basopes; what we fear most however is the Mai Mai. These are cannibals; not only do they stop at displacing us from our environs as they search for gold and whatever else, they eat us. Like roast meat. According to the Mai Mai a serving of a Mtwa heart is a magic portion for bravery, a sort of Viagra for war!
donuwagiwabo@gmail.com
Saturday 17 July 2010
Wednesday 14 July 2010
vox popping
"Now Sancho tell me what everyone in the village is saying about me. Don't make anything up-I promise not to shout at you.”
“Well,” said Sancho, “the common people say you are mad and stupid. The posher people don’t approve of you calling yourself a nobleman, and the noblemen think you are getting ideas above your station. As for the rest of it, some people call you, ‘brave but unlucky,’ others, ‘polite but interfering,’ and others ‘bonkers but entertaining.”
Don Quixote
Miguel De Cervantes
“Well,” said Sancho, “the common people say you are mad and stupid. The posher people don’t approve of you calling yourself a nobleman, and the noblemen think you are getting ideas above your station. As for the rest of it, some people call you, ‘brave but unlucky,’ others, ‘polite but interfering,’ and others ‘bonkers but entertaining.”
Don Quixote
Miguel De Cervantes
Tuesday 13 July 2010
In memory of William Muwanga victim of suicide bomb
A Letter to a friend in Tanzania
BY GEORGE KAGAME
OMAR, as a Tanzanian and resident of Dar Salaam you understand very well the pain of terrorism.
Were it not in your city and Nairobi that US embassies were bombed in 1998, killing 214 and wounding 4100?
The bombings happening simultaneously in the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar Salaam had effectively brought terrorism on the frontiers where East Africa meets with the new world order.
“Hi; Osama Bin Laden here!”
In fact they did more than that. They brought you Osama Bin Laden and his colleague Ayman Al Zawahiri in 1998. The two were talking about the Rwandan Genocide of 1994, the possible break up of Sudan and the invasion of Somalia. Dustbin Laden was upset about all those things and so he decided to bomb the US embassies in protest.
WHERE suicide bombings and bombings in general were expected to blow up London, Moscow, Madrid, New York, Kabul, Baghdad and add yours cities; they were really not an African concern.
When we were growing up the closest terrorism came to us was the Algerian Ninjas in the mid 90s. The ninjas were reputed to disappear "just like that," other than those crazy ninjas we never had bombings. And terrorism was a thing like fashion. Happening in New York, Paris and London!
And somehow it was a problem for those crazy Arabs with their beards, oh yes we also watched 24.
And yet East Africa beat New York, Moscow, Madrid, London, Kabul and Baghdad in the bombing championships.
Terrorism gets personal
I would expect that you might have known some individuals that died in the Dar Salaam US Embassy bombings or even the horrendous one in Nairobi. They were regular people, who never cared for politics even.
For you it is not just a talk of numbers and figures whenever terrorism is mentioned in the news. You have a personal experience with terrorism and like death, the things becomes entirely different when it starts happening in your neighbourhood.
Awkward conversations
Yes, twice it happened in Nairobi and Dar Salaam but for me that was far away in the city. Then I moved to the city too.
And that is when talking about terrorism became like a conversation about racism. Mysterious and awkward.
The people that took much interest in it were crazy.
Starting with the active participants-the suicide bombers -to others that make a living off it talking, and even fine people, they were all crazy. I never wanted to have a conversation with such people.
Because there would be a lot of misunderstandings, so much sensitivities and awkwardness!
It gets closer to home
Alright; this is when your sympathy.
Keziron was a good kid. He was a close friend to my best friend at the time Edongu Ronald.
Ronald or Edro as he called himself was one of the brightest boys in the school; he was competing with Frank Mugisha another genius in economics by our standards. That outstanding class of 2001 in Katikamu Secondary School also included Muwanga William aka Keziron.
Keziron was interesting in that he never spoke English. He protested the speaking of English as the lingua franca of the school and spoke exclusively Luganda as a sign of loyalty to his King Ronald Muwenda Mutebi of Buganda.
It was always a paradox, if he did not speak English, how did he manage to write and think well in it?
Keziron for all his protest against English was a fanatic of European football and his favourite club was Manchester United.
That was one of the first and major things for which he was famous. He loved his king and Manchester United period.
The World Cup Final and 70 virgins in heaven
Keziron was at Kyadondo Rugby Grounds on Sunday 11 July 2010 to watch the World Cup Final between Spain and Netherlands and was killed in the bomb blasts at halftime. Even the suicide bombers had to watch some football first before they blew up! As if the 70 virgins in heaven are not enough for him/her? Damn it!
The bombs killed Keziron along with 73 people.
One of the things the news highlighted as the story evolved was that Al Shabab; a Somali religious and militant group of bearded men were happy with the efficiency and motive of the bombs and later admitted to carrying out the bombs.
Omar, the suicide bombers are nowadays killing people you know. No longer a story you read about in the newspaper. It is a reality in your life.
And suddenly George Bush was a not crazy afterall.
Terrorism is the one thing whose conversation about I would rather pass. I just don’t understand what it is that is the crap with terrorism. And I don’t want to. What is it that is so hard to figure out really to stop this thing? How come we are talking advancement in technology and solving other problems.
Even for poverty we have the MDGs. That sounds like a hardware application for an awesome video game but it is an important solution to poverty. Just think about it. What is the difference between PS3, Ibox360 and MDG?
That’s evidence enough that we are working on poverty. That conversation we can have. It is also very easy to talk about charity, development aid, and millennium goals, NGO, HIV/Aids and more donor aid please!!!!
But with terrorism people start talking of Israel, Jews, Arabs, Islam, oil, and; you can add your issue too! It becomes a conversation of extremes and passions.
And then I ask myself; “What’s up with the Somalis really?” It is not just the Al Shabab that is fucked up with them Somalis. They have not had much going on their way really.
It is said that they, along with the Ethiopians were the only Africans that were ever colonized. And look what they got?
From Siad Barre they got Mohammed Farrah Aideed. You remember him? The one who brought you the famous BLACK HAWK DOWN series? The movie about 18 US soldiers who died when their chopper was brought down in Mogadishu in 1993, they had their bodies pulled throughout Mogadishu to the global shame of the US and Bill Clinton.
Do you remember them choppers that also did the job in the Afghan and Iraq war where uncle Saddam Hussein was deposed? Yes we saw his statue fall, didn’t we?
But did you watch the Black Hawk Down?
But yet I miss uncle George Bush. He was on the other side of the coin in the conversation about terrorism. HE tried to tackle it practically other than be mouthing on it with declarations and what do they have there in Iran? Sanctions?
Bush for all his weaknesses, I cannot blame him for setting the globe rolling in terrorism. The thing was there way before he became president and hell; he went for it.
Omar; the big picture of Somalia was designed by President Bush and Ethiopia when they chased away the bearded zombies in 2008. Ethiopia at the time overrun Somalia, Installing a government appropriately named as Transitional Somalia Government or something awkward as TSG, LIKE an application for a video game itself.
The TSG like all applications was short-lived and was chased away by the Al Shabab, It as not clear what happened to them Islamic Court Union, the predecessors of TSG.
And when Mr. Mouth ON Him Barrack Obama replaced Uncle George look what happened? Oh how I remember seeing Uncle Bush in Kigali in 2008!!!!!!
I miss him!
donuwagiwabo@gmail.com
BY GEORGE KAGAME
OMAR, as a Tanzanian and resident of Dar Salaam you understand very well the pain of terrorism.
Were it not in your city and Nairobi that US embassies were bombed in 1998, killing 214 and wounding 4100?
The bombings happening simultaneously in the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar Salaam had effectively brought terrorism on the frontiers where East Africa meets with the new world order.
“Hi; Osama Bin Laden here!”
In fact they did more than that. They brought you Osama Bin Laden and his colleague Ayman Al Zawahiri in 1998. The two were talking about the Rwandan Genocide of 1994, the possible break up of Sudan and the invasion of Somalia. Dustbin Laden was upset about all those things and so he decided to bomb the US embassies in protest.
WHERE suicide bombings and bombings in general were expected to blow up London, Moscow, Madrid, New York, Kabul, Baghdad and add yours cities; they were really not an African concern.
When we were growing up the closest terrorism came to us was the Algerian Ninjas in the mid 90s. The ninjas were reputed to disappear "just like that," other than those crazy ninjas we never had bombings. And terrorism was a thing like fashion. Happening in New York, Paris and London!
And somehow it was a problem for those crazy Arabs with their beards, oh yes we also watched 24.
And yet East Africa beat New York, Moscow, Madrid, London, Kabul and Baghdad in the bombing championships.
Terrorism gets personal
I would expect that you might have known some individuals that died in the Dar Salaam US Embassy bombings or even the horrendous one in Nairobi. They were regular people, who never cared for politics even.
For you it is not just a talk of numbers and figures whenever terrorism is mentioned in the news. You have a personal experience with terrorism and like death, the things becomes entirely different when it starts happening in your neighbourhood.
Awkward conversations
Yes, twice it happened in Nairobi and Dar Salaam but for me that was far away in the city. Then I moved to the city too.
And that is when talking about terrorism became like a conversation about racism. Mysterious and awkward.
The people that took much interest in it were crazy.
Starting with the active participants-the suicide bombers -to others that make a living off it talking, and even fine people, they were all crazy. I never wanted to have a conversation with such people.
Because there would be a lot of misunderstandings, so much sensitivities and awkwardness!
It gets closer to home
Alright; this is when your sympathy.
Keziron was a good kid. He was a close friend to my best friend at the time Edongu Ronald.
Ronald or Edro as he called himself was one of the brightest boys in the school; he was competing with Frank Mugisha another genius in economics by our standards. That outstanding class of 2001 in Katikamu Secondary School also included Muwanga William aka Keziron.
Keziron was interesting in that he never spoke English. He protested the speaking of English as the lingua franca of the school and spoke exclusively Luganda as a sign of loyalty to his King Ronald Muwenda Mutebi of Buganda.
It was always a paradox, if he did not speak English, how did he manage to write and think well in it?
Keziron for all his protest against English was a fanatic of European football and his favourite club was Manchester United.
That was one of the first and major things for which he was famous. He loved his king and Manchester United period.
The World Cup Final and 70 virgins in heaven
Keziron was at Kyadondo Rugby Grounds on Sunday 11 July 2010 to watch the World Cup Final between Spain and Netherlands and was killed in the bomb blasts at halftime. Even the suicide bombers had to watch some football first before they blew up! As if the 70 virgins in heaven are not enough for him/her? Damn it!
The bombs killed Keziron along with 73 people.
One of the things the news highlighted as the story evolved was that Al Shabab; a Somali religious and militant group of bearded men were happy with the efficiency and motive of the bombs and later admitted to carrying out the bombs.
Omar, the suicide bombers are nowadays killing people you know. No longer a story you read about in the newspaper. It is a reality in your life.
And suddenly George Bush was a not crazy afterall.
Terrorism is the one thing whose conversation about I would rather pass. I just don’t understand what it is that is the crap with terrorism. And I don’t want to. What is it that is so hard to figure out really to stop this thing? How come we are talking advancement in technology and solving other problems.
Even for poverty we have the MDGs. That sounds like a hardware application for an awesome video game but it is an important solution to poverty. Just think about it. What is the difference between PS3, Ibox360 and MDG?
That’s evidence enough that we are working on poverty. That conversation we can have. It is also very easy to talk about charity, development aid, and millennium goals, NGO, HIV/Aids and more donor aid please!!!!
But with terrorism people start talking of Israel, Jews, Arabs, Islam, oil, and; you can add your issue too! It becomes a conversation of extremes and passions.
And then I ask myself; “What’s up with the Somalis really?” It is not just the Al Shabab that is fucked up with them Somalis. They have not had much going on their way really.
It is said that they, along with the Ethiopians were the only Africans that were ever colonized. And look what they got?
From Siad Barre they got Mohammed Farrah Aideed. You remember him? The one who brought you the famous BLACK HAWK DOWN series? The movie about 18 US soldiers who died when their chopper was brought down in Mogadishu in 1993, they had their bodies pulled throughout Mogadishu to the global shame of the US and Bill Clinton.
Do you remember them choppers that also did the job in the Afghan and Iraq war where uncle Saddam Hussein was deposed? Yes we saw his statue fall, didn’t we?
But did you watch the Black Hawk Down?
But yet I miss uncle George Bush. He was on the other side of the coin in the conversation about terrorism. HE tried to tackle it practically other than be mouthing on it with declarations and what do they have there in Iran? Sanctions?
Bush for all his weaknesses, I cannot blame him for setting the globe rolling in terrorism. The thing was there way before he became president and hell; he went for it.
Omar; the big picture of Somalia was designed by President Bush and Ethiopia when they chased away the bearded zombies in 2008. Ethiopia at the time overrun Somalia, Installing a government appropriately named as Transitional Somalia Government or something awkward as TSG, LIKE an application for a video game itself.
The TSG like all applications was short-lived and was chased away by the Al Shabab, It as not clear what happened to them Islamic Court Union, the predecessors of TSG.
And when Mr. Mouth ON Him Barrack Obama replaced Uncle George look what happened? Oh how I remember seeing Uncle Bush in Kigali in 2008!!!!!!
I miss him!
donuwagiwabo@gmail.com
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