The Devil is the Elephant in the Room

My friend and I often wondered why a mutual friend was at times erratic and unpredictable. Just when you thought you were having a good time and that your friendship was the best thing in this journey, then, kaboom!, you have to look behind you in dealing with him.

Similarly each of us imagines we have some form of relationship with those in authority over us. But what puzzles many is: Why do some of these people sometimes behave in bizarre ways that send us scratching our heads?

I think I have discovered the keys to this phenomenon, and I hope that I might be a candidate for the next Nobel Prize. Imagine a prize named after a guy who invented something to blow up things! Don’t even get me on this line of thinking. Look at the white supremacist Cecil Rhodes who coined his name to Rhodesia. While both Rhodesia are no more the Rhodes scholarship, largesse from Black exploitation, still benefits mainly the young white scholars of which Bill Clinton was a beneficiary. Enough of that—I had to vent my spleen.

Anyway, my discovery—Love and Fear are the chief behavior determinants for the low and the mighty. While love is ennobling in many ways, fear is debilitating in many ways. We seek and give love from the beginning of our short stay in this space. For some reason, if we missed getting that nurturing love early on, it messes us up. Some people sleep around with any creature to get it. For some people the quest to get it is fraught with fear—the elephant in their living room. Sometimes the fear shows up as possessiveness and jealousy.

So, while we see outward manifestations of power and bravery, the bizarre behaviors might be a function of fear. In the political realm, two dudes come to mind—Museveni and Mugabe. These are tough, seemingly fearless guys who run ram shod over their opponents.

We see Museveni dishing out brown envelops full of cash and four-wheeled vehicles left and right. This is the act of a needy person—desperate to be loved. Having done all these, he thinks the peasants just must love him, and don’t you dare attempt to take that away from him. And so, when Besigye, after a triumphant tour up country, marches on Kampala like Jesus coming to Nazareth, fear engulfs Museveni and he goes rogue and ballistics. He saw a threat of somebody taking away the affection of the Ugandans he perceived he has given so much. Word is that he was right there in the chaos directing the arrest of Besigye.
One could also say that the bizarre arrest of some loony tribal kingdom ministers was motivated by similar fear. Here is a guy, armed to the teeth and regularly insults whoever he hates, suddenly can’t handle innocuous bad language from these so-called ministers. Many leaders I know would have just ignored and gone about doing their business—not our man.

And so we find ourselves in a Kafkaesque dilemma of sorts, where the fearful fears the fearful—the population is fearful of a leadership that is fearful. If only we knew! What if a bunch of NRM legislatures with balls had chosen to go for broke, stood up to the bully and made Mbabazi & Co to pay their dues in the NSSF saga. They might have surprised themselves with their power. But that was not to be and, as a nation, we sunk lower.