I mourn not Kirunda but our sense of belonging

We should mourn the loss of Jimmy Kirunda not because he was the nations most accomplished footballer, but because as a nation we never returned the love he gave us. And it’s not so much that his 70-year-old body collapsed in the midday sun, a short distance from the country’s main hospital, but that help wasn’t forthcoming, neither then in his dying moments nor before in his post-football days.
Every life matters, but for a man who captained and managed our national team to die the way he did just doesn’t sit right. And remember, they don’t come like him anymore. The community fields that nurtured young people are as gone as those who guided careers - all replaced by boda-boda stages and sewer talk-show highbrows.
To that extent therefore, Jimmy Kirunda’s death represents more than just the passing of an individual but an entire philosophy. That then is our sad reality, another overwhelming development in what is spinning so fast and changing so rapidly around us: and just about all of it seems entirely negative.

And if this doesn’t solicit collective shame amongst us, nothing will. From the wretchedness of his death must flow consequences that we must seek to understand, as opposed to continuing to live somewhere between indifference and worry.
Some will say that this feeling of the rug being pulled away at any minute, is only us experiencing the fragility of all those ex-internationals for whom nothing ever feels that secure anyway.
But the life of an ex-international must not be a doomed one. A few, especially these days, have well feathered nests and will not really need the game to lean on in their retirement. But many must be absorbed back into football especially those who gave their service when football wasn’t as rewarding as it is today.
They must be welcomed back in as coaches, administrators, or both, as was the case with Jimmy Kirunda. And when that happens, we shouldn’t allow them to fall back below the line, like was still the case with Jimmy Kirunda.

I know the ultimate responsibility for individual welfare falls on the player himself but neither Fufa nor the clubs should pat themselves on the back for how Jimmy Kirunda and many others end up – all stripped of their basic dignity.
And while it’s too late to save the departed, people like Obadiah Semakula and many others are still alive and headed in the same fated direction, unless we intervene.
In the meantime, Jimmy Kirunda can now rest in peace, far removed from the feelings of being locked out, not spoken for, not valued, like all the other ex-internationals. And in a way that is the real tragedy we should be mourning - the death of our sense of belonging.

It leaves us anxious. But I imagine Captain Jimmy Kirunda would not have approved of us sidestepping the challenge. Let us honour him by engaging with rather than withdrawing from these anxieties. Rest in peace, Kaiser.