Forgotten soldier who was mentally liberated by World War II

Dear Tingasiga:
A 105-year-old gentleman, who was one of my most beloved teachers and last link to my paternal ancestry, died yesterday at his home in Kahondo ka Byamarembo in Southern Kigyezi. He is now free from the ravages of very old age, the toughest battle in his long and heroic life that saw him fight in inter-clan wars, and in Europe’s Second World War. He was one of a handful of the last surviving veterans of a foreign war he neither understood, nor benefitted from, except a broadened perspective and a liberated mind and attitude towards Europeans. 
 The gentleman, whose name was Katara ka Kajumba ka Bitama bya Mataze ga Nyakashaija ka Ruhuuma rwa Kahurubuka ka Mugasha wa Byamarembo, was my biological cousin. He was the oldest member of our clan of Abakonjo ba Kahondo ka Byamarembo. 

Katara, a tall, handsome, witty, and confident gentleman, was officially born in Nyanga, Kahondo in 1918. He was my father’s agemate, the latter’s estimated year of birth being 1917, though my father was Katara’s uncle. It is possible that Katara was born earlier than 1918, for he told me in 2011 that he was already more than 100 years old. 
 His father, Kajumba, was nicknamed “Njangu” (the cat). Katara’s mother was the daughter of Rutabuurwa rwa Nyakaruuba ka Mubari wa Rwihura. She was a Muzigaaba of the Ba-Mungwe clan. As a young man, he learned the skills of independent living, including farming, hunting, okunyuuka (winemaking), and house construction. He was highly skilled in warfare, and unfailingly answered the call to war against rival clans and sub-clans. He often recalled his exploits with great relish, chuckling as he described his precise hits with spears and arrows aimed at adversaries. 

 The society in which Katara grew up had been recently incorporated into the British Protectorate and was still a challenge for our people whose rugged individualism and independent spirit clashed with the expected subservience of colonial subjects. However, an earlier armed rebellion had been quelled by colonial troops, and by the time Katara entered adolescence, he was a submissive subject of King George V of the United Kingdom.
 When he paid his first tax in 1937 to the British Protectorate Government of the newly crowned King George VI, the nineteen-year-old Katara formally became a participant in the newly imposed colonial dispensation that would soon take him to a world his fathers could never have imagined. On April 1, 1942, Katara, dressed in oruhu (tanned goatskin), was forcibly recruited into the King’s African Rifles (KAR), and was transported to Kenya where he trained in modern warfare at Langata, Nairobi. He was one of 77,131 Ugandans, out of 325,000 East Africans, who were recruited for the war that lasted from September 1, 1939, to September 2, 1945. (More than one million Africans fought in that war.) 

 During his war service, Katara’s salary was just one third of what European recruits were paid. Whereas he did not understand what WWII was about, his two years in the KAR had a profound impact on him. This impact was beautifully summarised by Ousmane Sembene, the great Senegalese writer, filmmaker, and veteran of World War II, who told Maya Jaggi of The Guardian newspaper in 2005. “In the army we saw those who considered themselves our masters naked, in tears, some cowardly or ignorant. When a white soldier asked me to write a letter for him, it was a revelation - I thought all Europeans knew how to write. The war demystified the coloniser; the veil fell.”

 My father and other elders described the post-war Katara as supremely confident, fluent in Kiswahili, never too shy to express his opinions, yet humble, friendly, and unfailingly courteous. My conversations with him over the last twelve years confirmed that description. He was a man to whom skin colour, titles and material wealth ceased to have meaning. World War II liberated him. 
 His exploits in the army and the war are worthy of full treatment in a separate account. He was honourably discharged from the army on May 24,1944 and returned to his beloved Kahondo ka Byamarembo. Among the World War II soldiers from Uganda were two other men from Kahondo ka Byamarembo – Pankarasio Gaboosya, and Mariserina Mugarura - who also enjoyed honour among their kinsmen following their discharge. Unfortunately, like most other African veterans, they did not enjoy much honour, recognition, or support from the British Government on whose behalf they had risked their lives. 

 Gaboosya became a driver. Mugarura became a carpenter. Katara returned to peasant farming. Besides a very small discharge gratuity, he did not receive any pay or other support until the Government of Uganda gave him a small gratuity in the early 2000s. The last time I spoke with him, he had neither received nor was he aware of money that was offered by the British government in 2018, to “support pre-independence war veterans.”  The £11.8 million package, announced on November 8, 2018, by Penny Mordaunt, then International Development Secretary in the government of Prime Minister Teresa May, was meant to provide “two meals a day” to the brave men who fought for Britain’s freedom and the survival of the Empire’s prosperity. 
 It is just as well that Katara did not partake of such token morsels, for he was a positively proud, self-made man who enjoyed a long life in Kahondo ka Byamarembo, founded on hard work, modest living, and unapologetic protection of his dignity. He was a secure man who was proud of his African heritage and was aware of his equality with other people, regardless of race, education, or socio-economic status.

 Katara settled into rural life again, and married Kyamubiriga, with whom they had seven children. When Kyamubiriga died, he married Mukagasinze, a very delightful woman of grace and easy laughter, with whom they had five children. Mukagasinze, died in February 2020. 
 With my father’s death in 2019, Katara became the de facto leader of our clan. His encyclopaedic knowledge of our family’s history and the great exploits of our elders was a priceless source of joy and education that enriched me more than I gained from formal history class and reading. His sense of humour, a characteristic trait of Abanyakahondo, made us relish our visits to our ancestral home. 
 I was privileged to share DNA with him.  Whereas the governments of Uganda and the United Kingdom forgot Katara ka Kajumba, we honour him for his bravery in the fight against Adolf Hitler’s fascism.  In the late evening of his long journey, he enjoyed peace and comfort, in the knowledge that he was loved by many and was held in very high esteem by those who knew him well. A great man now sleeps with our ancestors.

Muniini K. Mulera is Ugandan-Canadian social and political observer.     [email protected]