Slowly the morning mist of Kabaare begins to lift, leaving bare the naked truth of the barren hills and valleys of the once gloriously beautiful land of the Bakiga.
Isheduraaka Bakeihamwenki, a learned Mukiga man who has made a fortune tilling the land of his ancestors for the last fifteen years, takes a closer look. The beauty is gone, replaced by a baldness that is as cruel to the eye as it is impoverishing to the inhabitants.
The great River Kiruruma, which once provided water to the residents of these mountains for many centuries, is now a stream, no larger than the pee of a healthy elephant.
But before he begins to pound the barren ground to vent his anger at mother earth for letting her people down, Bakeihamwenki hears a soft voice of a child coming out of the valley. “It was your fault old man! This barren land is your work, you and your kind who would not listen. Accept your fate, for that was your choice.”
“What, pray tell, was our choice?” the startled man asks. “You should have seen it coming, but you closed your eyes to the truth,” the voice replies. “You were told to change your ways, but you shouted, ‘no change!’ You were told to reform your methods, but you shouted, ‘no change.’ You knew the consequences of your actions, but you chose the easy route. Do not be angry with mother earth. She is giving you what you want.”
Bakeihamwenki collapses in pain and tears, unable to comprehend what is happening. “Why, oh! why?” His voice tapers to a whisper, as tears role down his cheeks. Deeply distressed and emotionally exhausted, he falls asleep on the dry patch of land that was once home to a verdant bush of wildflowers. But soon he wakes up, the scorching sun too unforgiving to let him sleep. He staggers home, dazed and dehydrated, wondering what has become of his beloved land. “How could this have happened?”, he asks his older brother Baturumayo Tibahurira. “How could we have allowed our land to go to the dogs?”
“Well, is there anything that you were not told?” Tibahurira replies, with undisguised impatience. “Aren’t you the very person who thought me a fool when I warned you against what you were doing? You see my friend, the Baganda have a great saying about one of their stubborn kings, Kabaka Kayemba. “The saying goes something like: ‘Kayemba nantabuulirirwa yasaabala bwa bbumba.’
Kabaka Kayemba, who ruled Buganda sometime between 1644 and 1674, enjoyed an unfair reputation for stubbornness. Sir Apolo Kaggwa tells us in his book, “Basekabaka Be Buganda (The Kings of Buganda), that Prince Kayemba, brother of Kabaka Juuko, defied some of his brother’s directives. When his biological brother, with whom he shared a mother, sent a directive prohibiting him from marrying a woman called Nakku, Kayemba ignored the royal order and yielded to his heart’s desire. (Kayemba and Nakku produced a limbless child whom they named Kawumpuli.)
When Juuko learned of his brother’s defiance, he arranged to kill the stubborn prince. Juuko got Masaakaate, his chief boat builder, to work with naval engineers to build an ornate, well decorated canoe made of greenware clay. This would be Kayemba’s transport on a military expedition to Buvuma Island. (One assumes that the engineers were instructed to skip the stage of firing the clay - bisqueware stage - to harden it.)
Soon after pledging his pre-expedition allegiance to Kabaka Juuko, an oracle warned Kayemba about the Kabaka’s plot. “Do not board the ornately decorated canoe,” the oracle warned him. “That boat will kill you.” Kayemba, who was contemptuous of the oracle, ignored the warning and embarked on his mission to the lake. On arrival in Kisubi, Kayemba heard a herd boy singing, accompanied by a flautist.
“Kayemba nantabuulirirwa yasabala bwa bbumba,
Abantu ab'amubuulira yabakuba buzingonyo,
Kayemba ye wuuyo alina n'ekigenge ku nkoto”
(Kayemba, who does not listen to advice, boarded a canoe made of clay,
He ignored those who warned hm,
He has a leprotic lesion on the back of his neck.)
As Kayemba approached the naval port on Lake Nnalubaale, not far from Kisubi, he received word from another man that Kabaka Juuko wanted to kill him through a “tragically molten clay canoe.” This time he took the warning seriously and refused to board the beautiful canoe. Instead, Kayemba forced Masaakaate onto the clay canoe, and ordered him to set sail. Masaakaate and his crew perished moments later.
Kayemba boarded a wooden canoe and proceeded to Buvuma, where his army overwhelmed the Bavuma fighters. He survived the war, returned to Buganda, reconciled with his brother, and succeeded him on the throne upon the latter’s death.
“No, my brother Bakeiha, save your tears. You are no different from all these people who are now crying foul because President Yoweri Museveni has handed them a ‘no change’ cabinet. After shouting ‘no change’ and even joining in the frenzied condemnation of those who wanted change, these people should be happy that the president has listened to their wishes and given them no change.”
Tibahurira has said his piece. He pours himself another cup of Omuramba (beer) and reclines in his seat, to resume his thoughts about the poverty that has reduced the once proud people of the mountains to a state of perpetual begging. The silence is deafening. Bakeihamwenki, a dyed in the wool supporter of no change, can barely contain his tears. But then there is that voice again.
“Accept your fate, for that was your choice.” He looks behind and there she is. Young, barely out of her teens, but wise beyond her years. She is Tibahurira’ s daughter. “Uncle Bakeihamwenki,’ the young woman begins, “were you not a cheer leader in the no-change choir?” She is shoed away by her mother. It is not good manners to speak the truth to your elders.
Hoping to relieve her husband from his misery, Mrs. Bakeihamwenki plays some music, choosing Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony Number 3, also known as the Eroica symphony. That delicious symphony by the great German composer should uplift her husband’s dejected spirits. Indeed, it does and Bakeihamwenki, a connoisseur of great music, has not heard a more magnificent rendition of this symphony than this one. When the music stops, he asks his wife to remind him of the story behind the Eroica symphony.
“Beethoven lived from 1770 to 1827,” Mrs. Bakeihamwenki reveals. “He was not only the greatest composer in Europe, but also a politically conscious individual who had little patience for the regal pomp and attitudes of the aristocratic establishment. He detested the exploitation of the masses by the blue bloods of Europe. “Needless to say, he was a supporter of the French Revolution and a great admirer of Napoleon Bonaparte, the Corsican military genius who had seized power in post-revolution France. To Beethoven, Napoleon was the embodiment of the aspirations of the hitherto oppressed people of Europe. And so, as a tribute to his hero, Beethoven had dedicated his glorious Symphony Number 3 to him.
“But even as Beethoven was creating this musical masterpiece in honour of his hero, Napoleon was busy subordinating his principles to personal ambition. Re-creating the very conditions, he had fought against, Napoleon declared himself emperor of France. When news reached Beethoven in May 1804, that his hero had crowned himself emperor of France, he (Beethoven) flew into a rage and famously cried out: ‘Is he then too, nothing more than an ordinary human being? Now he too will trample on all the rights of men and indulge his ambition. He will exalt himself above all others, become a tyrant.’ So, Beethoven tore the title page of his third symphony, on which he had written the dedication to Napoleon.”
As an afterthought, Mrs. Bakeihamwenki adds: “Napoleon was to Beethoven what Yoweri Museveni has been to people like Dr. Kiiza Besigye and all these Movementists who are deeply disappointed with what has happened in this country.” Bakeihamwenki rises from his seat and, slowly as if in great pain, walks out towards the banana plantation. He is heard muttering to himself: “Kayemba nantabulirirwa ………”, before being interrupted by that voice once again: “Accept your fate, for that was your choice.”
© Muniini K. Mulera