Mist transforms familiar landscapes into alien territories. The terraced hills and verdant valleys of Kigyezi that have provided visual pleasure for decades become disorienting, even fearsome when shrouded in fog. Trees in this compound emerge as shadowy figures, bird sounds become distorted and directionless, and distance becomes impossible to judge. 

 

However, the mist this morning appears to have a more mysterious dimension. The unease about the unknown seems stronger than usual. Methinks that this week in which Ugandans go to the polls to cast their ballots may have something to do with it. 

 

I have already enjoyed three lovely weeks in Uganda, a therapeutic experience that has been enhanced by social interaction with family and friends, and a rather irresponsible mission to eat of this country’s abundant food. I have watched, with alarmed interest, some reckless driving on the highways, but this has not stopped me from taking the wheel in the unavoidable madness. 

 

I have also watched and listened to politicians doing their thing, all competing for the hearts and votes of citizens, complete with empty promises dispensed with mischief masquerading as sincere interest in the welfare of “the people.” Cash is king. Politicians are buying voters. The latter know that their lot will hardly change once the new honourables have taken their oaths of office.

 

I have been amused by the sight of political candidates guarded by armed policemen, presumably to protect them from the voters. Wonders never cease. A playwright should craft a script about this paradox for the theatre. 

 

Here in Kigyezi, the competition for parliamentary and district offices has become an overt interreligious contest between Anglican Protestants and Roman Catholics, a throwback to the vicious fights that I witnessed at the dawn of our political independence, over sixty years ago.   

 

While my old self would have pleaded with my kinsmen to abandon the foolishness of this sectarian narrowmindedness, I have found myself smiling in resigned acceptance of my people’s choice to engage in this pointless self-flagellation. 

 

It is all about ego, not development. It is futile mass suicide of which my generation can speak with authority. We saw the fruits of our parents’ regrettable foray into the foolishness of religious and other factional conflict.

 

I have kept in touch with friends in and outside Uganda. A friend in Nairobi is hosting “election refugees”, Ugandan folks who have repaired to that city because they are afraid that “something” will happen after the elections.  Friends in Kampala have kept me supplied with updates that hint at “something nasty” lurking behind the façade of a tranquil capital of the Republic. 

 

 Reports of massive police and army deployment in the city, meant to enhance security, have upped the proverbial mist that shrouds the land because most Ugandans do not have a memory of fair and violence-free elections. A dear friend wrote to me from Southern Africa to express her concern for her family members in Uganda. Fear is king.

 

Which brings me back to the mist that engulfs Kabaare as I write. We are visual creatures that rely on sight to navigate and assess threats. Mist strips away our early warning visual system, and we cannot see what is coming. 

 

The connection between mist and fear runs deeper than simple fireside stories that we heard from our elders. It speaks to fundamental truths about human perception, vulnerability, and the unknown. The fear that mist inspires is the fear of that uncertain space between the known and unknown. 

 

We see with clarity that which is immediately around us. Our vision encounters graduated zones of obscurity, with hazy objects quickly giving way to the impenetrable wall of white where anything might lurk.  We are simultaneously grounded in reality and suspended in possibility. The ground beneath our feet is real, but what lies ten paces ahead exists in a realm of imagination until we reach it. 

 

It is always what lies behind that wall that inflicts fear that forces the faint of heart to seek refuge in predictable, fogless climes until the mist lifts. That mist externalizes people’s internal states of confusion and dread. It perfectly mirrors the state in which many Ugandans find themselves – gibberish chatter by politicians and military men, obscured truth, and inability to see what threatens them.

 

Of course, much of what frightens people is not what they see but what they cannot see. The imagination, given incomplete information, fills the gaps with nightmares. A figure glimpsed through fog becomes more menacing than one seen clearly, precisely because our minds project onto that uncertainty. Our imagination triggers a cascade of increasingly fearsome images. We become unhinged from reality.

 

But perhaps what makes mist truly frightening is its reminder of how thin the veneer of our mastery over the world really is. We live in an age of technologies designed to penetrate obscurity and render everything visible. Yet a simple thunderstorm or other meteorological phenomenon can reduce all this to nothing. In mist, we retreat to a more primitive state, forced to rely on basic senses and instincts like fear and impulsive decisions. 

 

Likewise, the jolly world of magnificent weddings and funerals, economic growth and relentless social intercourse at which Ugandans excel, becomes disrupted by what, in most countries, is a routine democratic exercise of choosing who governs the land. 

 

Elections in countries like Australia, Botswana, Canada, Germany, Ghana, Japan, Mauritius, Namibia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, and the United Kingdom occur in sunny clarity that renders them almost boring. Not so in Uganda, where our struggle for democracy remains mired in the fear of a misty uncertainty, of reduced control, of being reminded that clarity is not our natural state. 

 

The political world of countries like Botswana, Mauritius and Namibia is legible, predictable, and well-lit. Uganda’s is misty, dark, uncertain, and understandably fearful for many. 

 

However, I hang onto the hope that sanity will strike one day, and this country’s politicians and military folk will discover the truth of their inescapable mortality. Then the fog will finally lift, the familiar landmarks of civilized co-existence of the colonial days will reemerge, and predictable human rights for all will become as clear as the terraced hills of Kigyezi at mid-afternoon.

 

Perhaps – just perhaps – this week’s electoral effort will defy predictions, and the morning after will witness relative peace and calm. It is doable, for it is within the human will to accomplish. Starting with the rulers and their main opponents. We live with hope.

 

END