Yes, Gaetano's a Hero:
Like You and Me
Last Wednesday, tens of thousands of Ugandans lined the 43-km road from Entebbe to Kampala in one of the biggest welcomes the country has ever accorded to a new hero.
The 40-minute trip from the airport to the city turned into a four-hour procession. In the city, shops closed early as traders streamed out to join the celebration. It was the return of Gaetano Kaggwa, the 30-year-old Ugandan housemate in the Big Brother Africa reality show. Gaetano is so big, when he missed the $100,000 jackpot, hundreds in Uganda broke into tears.
The climax came when President Yoweri Museveni, in what was interpreted as a fit of jealous pique, went off his script during a highly charged briefing to parliament about the 17-year-old rebellion that has spread eastward, and wondered who is "this Gaetano?"
Indeed, outside Uganda, other East Africans were asking more or else the same question. In Nairobi, colleagues had me for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and wondered whether Uganda was so desperate for heroes, it had to worship a young man whose claim to fame was that he had a live steamy affair with a South African housemate onscreen.
However, there is a connection between the war in the north about which the president was addressing parliament, and the fame of Gaetano.
Gaetano is only the second Ugandan to shoot to stardom in 31 years who wasn't a politician, a soldier, or a criminal - or who wasn't exercising some kind of power.
The last Ugandan who catapulted to international fame was the late John Akii-Bua, when he won the country's first and last gold medal in the 400m hurdles in the Munich Olympics in 1972.
But even Akii-Bua was a policeman.
Since then, we have had a range of people from the late Field Marshall Idi Amin, to former guerrilla leader Lt-Gen Museveni, who have dominated the international and local limelight.
In between there has been a handful of academics and writers - most of them in the area of politics; anti-Aids activists who overcame the pain and horror of losing a husband or wife to the disease or succumbed in the struggle; and bandits and rebels who have come into the spotlight through sowing terror and fear.
The country has been in silent revolt against this order, and hankering for images of 'normalcy.' The ordinary things of life.
There is thus a sense in which Ugandans desperately need a figure who will not abuse their affection by stealing their votes, or taxes, and doesn't disgust them by trying to explain why someone has to be killed, or justifying why some civilians were murdered. For Uganda, Gaetano is a backlash against 30 years of unrelenting grimness.
It's something that Kenyans will, understandably, not comprehend.
After all, they have many sports stars still winning gold medals, their country frequently manages to be a regular backdrop for Hollywood films, and their compatriots like CNN West Africa correspondent Jeff Koinange and presenter Zain Verjee appear on the international media daily.
To top it all, they pulled off an internationally praised transition election, and their cricket team surprised everyone with its sterling performance in the World Cup - Small wonder then that Kenya's Big Brother Africa housemate didn't make a splash and was barely noticed until he was evicted and returned home.
Ugandans embraced Gaetano because he offered escape from the failure, the cynicism of the powerful, and the bleakness of daily life in a country where nearly one million internally displaced persons live in squalid camps in the war-torn north.
And so when Big Brother Africa came on, when they took a close look at Gaetano and the House he was in, they saw what they desperately want their lives to be after so many years of struggle: A full fridge, food, wine and beer in plenty, lots of fun, a beautiful woman (or man) at your side, lots of conversation and laughter. No guns, no famished figures.
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Charles Onyango-Obbo is managing editor in charge of media convergence at the Nation Media Group.
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