Politicians? Bah, Humbug!

____________________

WHAT’S UP!

I first came across the phrase ‘bah humbug’ when I read an abridged version of Charles Dicken’s novel, A Christmas Carol, in my Primary Six at Budo Junior School. It read and sounded like something really important, but I couldn’t make out what it meant.

So I asked our teacher of English whether he could help explain it to me. Poor fellow went around in circles trying to explain it, and he confused me even more. It was not until much later when I read the unabridged version, that I understood both the phrase and what caused the teacher to get his underclothes in all kinds of knots.

In the book, Scrooge is a mean kind of fellow who does not like good things happening to anyone. So he thinks Christmas, with all the good feelings and tidings to all men (and women), is a particularly bad idea. To him it is all a fraud, a pretence; and that after the day is over, people will go back to being their nasty selves. So, bah, humbug!

How could the teacher explain to that eager eight year-old that the person the book was about did not like Christmas? Bless his heart, he was not ready to burst that kid’s bubble. That would happen, eventually, of course. But thank you Mr Ssenvewo, for letting me enjoy Christmas for a few more years.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary describes a humbug as ‘something designed to deceive and mislead’. Or a ‘wilfully false, deceptive, or insincere person’. You can see where I’m going when I bring politicians into this, right? Especially Ugandan politicians.

We have had regular elections in Uganda for the last 18 years, and we’ve watched politicians change in every one of them. When we had just emerged from the Movement ‘all-inclusive’ system, politicians seemed a novel breed. The last time Ugandans had voted in a multi-party system was in 1980, and the country was technically still at war, anyway.

So the 2006 elections were interesting stuff, especially to new voters who had not seen anything like this for more than a quarter of a century. A whole new generation had never seen a general election in their lives, so they all listened attentively to whatever the politicians had to say. And many were the politicians who really meant every word they said, and genuinely wanted to make the lives of ordinary Uganda better.

Twenty years and three general elections later, it is a very different ball game. Maybe it was the late MP Kato Lubwama who demystified the whole thing when, while campaigning for a second term, told the electorate that he wanted one more term to ‘eat’, then it would be their turn. They didn’t believe him, though, or maybe they thought he had eaten enough, for he lost that election.

But the blinds were off, it was obvious to everyone that this politician thing is all about eating. And the politicians took the idiom ‘man eateth where he worketh’ to new heights. So much so that when an MP was charged with corruption, a fellow politician told a political rally that it was okay for her to steal money, as long as she shared it with her constituents.

I’m not sure if that will work this time, though. Lubwama tried it and failed; why share the loot when you can steal for yourself?

Elections are nigh (they’ll take place in February of next year, 2026), and unofficial campaigns have started. But since all blinds are off, we all know that what we are going to see is a new set of thieves vying for the chance to steal from the country.

It is amazing, but since 2006, a whole new set of values has set in. The new politician of the times is not the one who is fighting to stop girls from wearing mini-skirts, or stop guys from going to bars whatever time they feel like. Those are bad enough, and are still stuck in some quasi-religious mindset (And who wants to bet that they will all be rearing ducks after February next year? I’m not a betting man, but I’ll take you on).

Heck, when bishops can publicly beg for cars and ‘facilitation’, you think they would care about the ‘kingdom in heaven’? They want their kingdom right here on earth, and if a few curvy damsels are flashing some skin, that is going to make it all the more enjoyable. You don’t think so? See your life, even.

So, the new political hero is not the one who slays dragons of poverty, or delivers souls to some deity. Not, it is the one who publicly defends thieves, and tells more lies than every other politician.

The new hero is the one whose wife welcomes him home with open arms and boasts to the neighbours that her man is the ‘thief of thieves’, and that there will never be anyone like him. The one whose daughter goes to school and proudly declares, “My Dad is the best liar in the whole world! And I want to be like him when I grow up.’

What, politicians? Bah, humbug!!!