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Letter to a Kampala Friend
By Muniini K. Mulera |
Let Okurut wash the president's mouth first
June 9, 2003
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Dear Tingasiga: I agree with Presidential Press Secretary Mary Karooro Okurut that insults have no place in civilised dialogue, especially among leaders in our society. In her column last Saturday, Ms Okurut made three entirely valid observations. First, that Mzee F.D.R. Gureme's public apology to President Yoweri Museveni and his family for using an apparently offensive _expression_ in his column in reference to the president is a sign of the Old Man's civility. Second, that Mzee Gureme's action bodes very well for the country. Third, that while it is healthy to criticise the President, it is wrong to insult him. Few would disagree with Ms Okurut. There is absolutely no circumstance under which personal insults can be supported as a valid mode of discourse. However, Ms Okurut has her work cut out for her in her zealous attempt to educate the rest of us about proper etiquette. The very gentleman whose honour she valiantly sets out to defend is a master at the art of hurling insults. I cannot recall any other Ugandan president who was as prolific as President Museveni in the use of blatantly abusive language to describe, rebuke, humiliate and threaten opponents and critics. Ugandans have been so insulted by the Ssabagabe, who determined long ago that everyone else was an idiot, that they have become totally habituated to His Excellency's gutter language. Words like `buffoons', `idiots' and `fools' have issued from the presidential tongue so often that they are now part of the country's political lexicon. My editors will not allow me enough space to do justice to my long compendium of President Museveni's insults, which have done greater dishonour to the presidency than Mzee Gureme's well-intended _expression_. Consder the following: Addressing a gathering during the official opening of the Hotel Africana in Kampala a few years ago, the President took off time to engage in his favourite sport of abusing former President Dr Apolo Milton Obote. "Obote who has now grown hair like a bush, looking like a ghost can continue talking from Lusaka but let him step here ...," The Monitor quoted President Museveni telling an audience that apparently found it funny. That was the speech in which Mr Museveni informed his countrymen that he would murder his predecessor should the latter be foolish enough to return to his own country. Though he has always excelled at insulting Ugandans from the North and North East, Mr Museveni has so far been fairly non-sectarian in his choice of targets for abuse. A few weeks ago, he hurled one at Mr Jaberi Bidandi Ssali, his then Minister of Local Government, whom he described as a mere spoke in the wheel and a "nothing." Had he been speaking in Runyankore, the president would have told Mr Bidandii: "Ori busha (You are nothing)." Although Mr Museveni has now made the unsurprising attempt to backtrack by claiming that he had been misinterpreted, his description of a person of Mr Bidandi's stature as a mere spoke in the wheel and a nothing was one of the lowest moments in the history of this president's public utterances. But when one thought the Ssabagabe had exhausted his fund of insults, he came out with another one this past Friday. According to the government-owned New Vision, Mr Museveni returned to the gutter during a speech to celebrate vice-president Prof. Gilbert Bukenya's swearing-in ceremony. "We must talk and agree among ourselves," Mr Museveni advised his good Movement cadres who gathered for the happy occasion. "Don't go out and throw up. Who are you? You are nothing." Here he was referring to respectable comrades like former First Deputy Prime Minister Eriya Kategaya and former Minister of Ethics and Integrity Minister Miria Matembe, who had made "controversial statements" about the president's suspicious motives in his current game of political manipulation. What worse insult to others and to the dignity of the presidency could Mr Museveni have conjured up? One hopes that people were not eating or drinking when the president talked about "throwing up." In fairness to Mr Museveni, he shares this love for the gutter with a number of other good Movement cadres. In a contest for "worst user of gutter language," Mr Museveni would be bested by folks like Lands, Water and Environment Minister Kahinda Otafiire. Brother Otafiire, who once described political opponents as chicken droppings [Maavi ya kuku], is not a man you want to cross if you have a delicate constitution. He can pull out a zinger without losing his train of thought about heavy matters of state. My choice for author of the worst insult remains the late Minister of State for Finance Kafumbe Mukasa who made highly derogatory remarks about his political opponent Capt. Francis Babu's mother a few years ago. I cannot reproduce them in a family newspaper. Not far behind these honourable gentlemen of the gutter, is a group of politicians who use subtle insults in an effort to silence the masses. This group is exemplified by Minister of State for Agriculture, Kibirige Sebunya, who recently advised Ugandan citizens to leave the debate about Mr Museveni's `sad term' project to him (Kibirige) and his social peers "who wear suits and not slippers." Using the art of subtle abuse, Mr Sebunya equated the people's poverty with intellectual disability. The poor folks should focus on nursing their jiggers and malnourished bodies, and not meddle in weighty matters that do not concern them, though they affect them. The greater insult in Dr Sebunya's remarks will be manifest when the same Dr Sebunya and his colleagues in suits, including the most corrupt souls this side of hell, will meekly go to the same suitless masses to beg them for a vote for Mr Museveni [and for themselves] in 2006. Why, they will even sing themselves hoarse about how much they respect the people's right and ability to choose their leaders in the next fraudulently free and unfair election. But then again Dr Sebunya is not the first to advise the masses to leave the business of thinking to those endowed with better grey cells, or better thieving skills. Many politicians, led by President Museveni and First Lady Janet Museveni, never pass an opportunity to advise Ugandans to "avoid politics and concentrate on development." Coming from politicians who spend their entire waking moments engaged in Machiavellian political scheming, such exhortations are an insult to the people's intellect, a subtle way of telling the voters that their work of legitimising the regime is done for now. Their services will be needed at the next fictional exercise in free and fair elections. Truth to tell, I always find these statements highly amusing, my way of maintaining sanity in the face of an otherwise depressing situation. What I do not find funny, however, is the gutter language to which many leaders resort when they are unable to sustain an argument with the force of their intellect or track record. It is here that I completely agree with Ms Okurut. The use of personal insults directed at the president must be rejected. If only Ms Okurut would seek an early appointment with her boss, the man who should be the great exemplar of good manners, and give him a much needed lecture on civil discourse! |
© 2003 The Monitor Publications
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