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Live by the pen and perish by the sword
Author: Phillip Matogo. PHOTO/FILE
What you need to know:
- Taking exception to what they term as Ssemakadde’s character assassination of government employees, police sought to interrogate him on his choice of words when choosing to vent his outrage.
As there is no Kakwenza Rukirabashaija around, government has had to create one. So, it seems, Isaac Ssemakadde is the nominated candidate to fill this vacancy.
Police has already warned Ssemakadde that they shall not tolerate the use of “abusive language” on social media by him or any other member of the public.
Accordingly, Crime Investigations Division (CID) spokesperson Charles Twine said they summoned Ssemakadde with respect to his alleged offensive communication and cyber stalking of Justice Musa Ssekaana of the High Court and other high-ranking government officials.
Taking exception to what they term as Ssemakadde’s character assassination of government employees, police sought to interrogate him on his choice of words when choosing to vent his outrage.
“(These) Acts of criminality that target people who are diligently doing their work shall be given priority to ensure this vice is decisively fought,” Twine said.
The CID spokesperson said police will spare no effort in ensuring that nobody speaks their mind.
“You can’t just wake up in the morning and abuse the Speaker, then you abuse the judge and then the head of State. That can’t be tolerated. And they do it with impunity. We have heard some people even arrogantly say it is their right to abuse. They call you foolish or dimwit and they call it their right,” he added.
Predictably, Twine said police will start examining the mental status of those who choose the path of candour over capitulation before any charges are brought against them.
What is happening in Uganda is not only dictatorship, it is atavism--- the reversion to ancient practices.
It is akin to Socrates being sentenced to drink poison in 399 BC for supposedly violating the political code of his time.
So wrongheaded is the state of Uganda’s politics that those who live by the pen shall perish by the sword.
As this conflict between freedom and oppression mounts, the authorities will introduce sterner controls on what Ugandans can say or think under the pretext of national security, while clamping down ever harder on freedom of expression organisations such as the media, civil society and others bastions of Uganda’s otherwise comatose democracy.
When criticised, government, to confuse those who often miss the forest for the trees, will point to farcical institutions such as elections and Parliament to claim Ugandans have rights.
The sting in the tail here is that the worst crimes continue to repeat themselves under the rather thin veneer of these institutions.
Beyond this, government will start classifying its critics as “mad” after they have been examined by the shrinks at CID headquarters.
This is not new.
In the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (written in 1949 by George Orwell) this thought police was predicted.
Thinkpol, or the thought police, are the Orwellian secret police of the government who discover and punish thought crimes or personal and political thoughts unapproved by the state.
Already, as in Orwell’s 1984, informers are everywhere monitoring Ugandans and arresting those who have committed the thought crime of challenging the status quo wrought by the NRM government.
Thus, there are sure to be more Kakwenzas and Ssemakaddes as the State takes off its velvet gloves to expose its iron fists.
The beauty of this scenario, however, is that as Ugandans are reduced to desperation, they will have nothing to lose but their chains and then we shall see.
Writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn said it better, “You only have power over people as long as you don’t take everything away from them. But when you’ve robbed a man of everything, he’s no longer in your power—he’s free again.”
Mr Matogo is a professional copywriter
