Almost 20 years ago a Kampala magazine published the picture
of a young female model on their cover.
That would not have been a big deal as models can be found
around every corner in our capital. What made this one so memorable was that
the picture showed a hint of her underwear peeking through.
Ugandans went ballistic. The uproar was such that the
promoters of the offending magazine had to make a public apology for fear of their
license suspension.
Far from bringing a close to any such repeat publication
this actually served as the opening of the door to even bolder pictures taken
from every imaginable angle, to the point now that it seems like the ethics
minister is the lone crusader against such salaciousness.
We are now desensitised to such images. Who would have
thought it in 1999.
Last weekend we were assaulted by images of the Mayor
Kamwenge, Godfrey Byamukama, lying comatose in his bed at Nakasero hospital,
the flesh of his knees and ankles exposed, apparently
evidence of torture he
had suffered at the hands of our security agents.
The police say Byamukama is a suspect in the March murder of
Assistant Inspector General of Police, Felix Kaweesi.
The revulsion was palpable everywhere you looked in social
media or the traditional press. It was bad enough that President Yoweri
Museveni came out to criticise torture as a tool of investigation and ordered
the security agencies to stop it, if it was found to be going on.
But the public reaction was interesting for very disturbing
reasons.
A few days prior other suspects in the same case were
brought to court bearing wounds and injuries from their time in police custody
and the public reaction was not as dramatic.
Maybe we need to define the public. The social media public.
"It can be argued that Byamukama’s wounds were more graphic than those of his fellow suspects. But most probably the reaction was more dramatic because the chattering masses of social media came to their senses that if Byamukama, educated, urbane and middle class could find himself in such circumstances….? Suddenly this was too close to home and we had to rise up in righteous indignation...
That is disturbing for the same reason that we are now
desensitised to the sight of naked people being paraded in publications on sale
on the streets and in broad daylight.
Blame it on our disturbed history. During the 1970s and
1980s it was not out of the very ordinary to be hop-stepping over dead victims
of extra-judicial killings. But the vast majority of Ugandans cannot relate to
that time as they were not yet born.
But maybe it is a throwback to that time when it was
everyone for themselves, God for us all and let the devil take the hindmost.
Despite our deeply Christian roots it seems the lesson
whatever happens to the least of our brothers happens to us, has gone begging.
It would be good for us to remember the poem “First they
came….” Written at the height of the holocaust in Nazi Germany by Lutheran
pastor Martin Niemollor.
“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there
was no one left to speak for me.”...
Granted. There are very bad men – and women, who walk among us
and the security agencies are trying their best to apprehend them or keep them
from doing their worst. Us the chattering masses have little to no clue about
what this involves. But surely there has to be a line where as a society we do
not cross (And please don’t compare us to the US and their Guantanamo Bay).
It has taken the plight of Byamukama to awaken our moral
sensibilities, but the thought has to arise that if they had the audacity to
mete such horrors on a “VIP”, how man lesser mortals have been brutalised to
get to this point?
And by logical extension you have to ask yourself how far
up the “VIP” ladder are you before they get to you?
