Empathy is difficult. Especially, toward he whom we despise. He with whom we are disgruntled. Often, we are challenged to go beyond ourselves to try to understand another’s perspective, trying to fit into their shoes. But often, we are biased in some way by our perception of life. It’s one thing to say we understand, a whole other to truly experience the circumstances and emotions others go through in their quest to realize their life purpose. Honestly, we cannot fully experience what another has gone through to form who they are at any stage of their life but we can try to understand. It’s unique to them in perception and experience though it may not be unique in external occurrences.
Disgruntlement is a common consistent emotion in Uganda. Many of us have grown up under one President who honestly, as a young child I adored. To this day, there is still an inkling of excitement when I see the convoy of our president although coupled with the scepticism that comes with adulthood. As a child, I was amazed by the number of vehicles, the security detail, the speed at which the vehicles moved and the aura of the importance of the man that sat within that convoy. Our president to this day has always had a charm about him. Many people complain about where the country has reached yet should he appear in their presence, many of us would be smiling like our first visit to Didi’s amusement park. He carries power but not just that, charm and admiration which comes with the fact that he sacrificed for his ideal to liberate this nation.
My thoughts usually float away into many things. Often, to trying to understand occurrences and people around me. One of the people that have featured on my mind several times is our president and his comrades. More recently, given the raucous around a vibrant but shallow new serious contestant, I have been pushed to try to understand His Excellency. I know many of us often easily criticize him and his colleagues but how many of us understand where they are coming from? The minute, to whatever extent, you try to put yourself in their shoes with HONESTY, in consideration of our human nature, the faster you dismiss much long-held resentment. I will give my closest empathetic understanding. All this is from my understanding of the course.
I see myself as a young politician in a country seemingly marred with politicians that have consistently failed to leave power when their time was due. Not only have they failed to leave but they have failed in their promises and plagued the nation with fear of death for any against their tyranny. Being a student of Pan-Africanism, I look to my continent for inspiration from other revolutionary leaders who have sought to create independent African nations with limited western influence. Where Africans can thrive off of the many resources and beneficial cultures we have. My goal is to create patriotic Africans with a love for their nation and continent who not only talk the talk but walk it.
Due to disgruntlement with the status quo, I choose to leave my comforts, send my family away into exile and head to the bush with a couple of faithful friends willing to sacrifice their daily comfortable lives for the sake of their country. This is somewhat comparable to the story of David’s rise to power in the way he gathered his army along with how he conducted warfare. I continue to inspire more people who leave their homes to join in this liberation movement.
In the bush, we toil through rain, the uncomfortable ground as a bed, sickness, struggle and constant eluding of the enemy. Our names are up to be hunted and killed for a couple of years. Our families are continuously under threat of death at the cost of the liberation we seek not just for ourselves but our country.
After surviving, losing comrades, tactical failures, mobilizing, re-mobilizing and garnering support both internal and external, we eventually achieve our goal. We manage to topple a government we believed was contrary to the ideals of the people and start a journey to form the one we believe will serve the people. We start with true goals but unprepared for a new enemy, unplanned for or at least underestimated, creeping in under the radar, unnoticed, unattended to yet deadly.
At the outset, we are full of dreams and ideals. We run an election that we win convincingly and set out to put into work what we envisioned with enthusiasm. A little down the road, we notice our struggles have been exchanged for enjoyment, our tears for joys, our pain for dopamine, our rags for riches, our losses for lavishness and our fear for power. We tussle on with our vision and come across many challenges, not only from those that resist us but from our internal struggles from loss, suffering and realization of our ideals. We discover that achieving these ideals will be more difficult than we hoped or planned. Little did we know the internal temptations that awaited us when we were no longer the tail and rather, have become the head.
Time passes, and we give in to some of the temptations, one after the other, thinking it will be okay. It’s not so bad we assume. There is still plenty to go around. Until, over time, our crown becomes our curse. The losses become too many to cover up and the wound is exposed publicly. We look in the mirror and see a blurry picture of what we sought to achieve. We look at the blurry image and accept it as a realization of our ideals, content on the outside yet discontent on the inside. We try to bury the disappointment. We seem to have it under check but those we fought for are hurting. They are in pain. They are exhausted… with their heroes. They are disappointed and cannot hide it. They continue to remind us of our promises. Some of those we begin with abandon us believing we have lost the vision. A few with the genuineness of sheer disappointment and embarrassment, disturbed by how far we strayed from our ideals. While others were selfishly disappointed that they did not get their fair share of power; a chance at running the country.
We look at them and wonder, is this the gratefulness you show us? Is this how you repay us for liberating you? Is this our thanksgiving? While you hid in your homes, we bore rains, deaths, disease, isolation, were hunted and separated from our families. We faced what you would not. Is this is our thanksgiving? We look to our former colleagues unimpressed that they would make a public disgrace of us showing us out as disunited and untrustworthy. We are embittered toward our subjects and former comrades. They have no idea what we went through. They do not understand.
From the outside, it’s easy for us to point fingers at our leaders. Rightly so in many cases, especially where they made promises they failed to keep. On the other hand, do we ever consider if we would be any different having similar experiences to the leaders we regularly and easily condemn? Would we be any humbler, considerate and trustworthy? Are we objectively considerate of the dynamics they faced and are facing? Are we any better?
On close observation of the disgruntled muntu-wa-wansi, middle-class and upper-class, you notice many of the same evils on a lesser and sometimes similar scale. You see people who ask for bribes in public and private offices, stealing from each other, slandering neighbours, dishonest, inconsiderate on the roads whether walking/on bodas/in cars, unjust toward each other, etc, yet still with the audacity to condemn our leaders. I have asked myself several times whether we deserve our leaders? Whether our leaders are a true reflection of the majority in the country? Disappointingly, my answer has been in the affirmative. Sadly so.
I think until we see ourselves for what we are at whatever level and deal with our evils, there is no reason to point fingers at our leaders. We have a responsibility to hold them accountable for sure but an even greater responsibility toward ourselves and our neighbours. Make right where you are and possibly, our leaders will follow suit. But even if they do not follow suit, should it matter? If it does, you are probably part of the problem.
Are we he/she whom we condemn? Do we ignore that the finger we point at them, has four others pointing back at us? Could it be we deserve our leaders? Ponder. Later.
