Keep the flame but never romanticize with the English Language

The Entertainment Industry in Uganda yesterday lost one of the best playwrights and talent managers Kato Lubwama who succumbed to Heart-related complications. Kato was a maestro when it came to writing and direction of plays. The Vigil has been shown on TV and what stood out to me is that life was going on,people were chit- chatting because when your tour of life ends,people have to move on. My mind quickly ran to a song that I love, the lyrics are in Lingala but I will break them down today.

One of my best all time songs is Ya Jean by Jean Dieu Makiese(Madilu System) When I love a song, I decipher it, find out about the writer of the lyrics, the producer, beats per minute and the instruments used in the production. Iam a stickler for detail.the 7:03 song has some great lines…Liwa ya kala ezalaki eloko ya mawa( Death used to make people sad) Lelo ekoma liseki(Today its a joke) Esika ya ba rendez-vous(A place for gathering) Esika mabala esalamaka( A place where future spouses meet) Esika ya matongi(A place for chit chat). Ofcourse with a hearty laugh and a tribute to the master Franco. Madilu was mentored by Franco so that explains the tribute. The reason I brought the song up is because the artiste was saying what today’s funerals have become and to perhaps prepare for the events after the death of someone. Kato was a former Member of Parliament but he rarely spoke the English Language and some folks perceived him as being local and uneducated. In an interview with a local TV station he said,”oluzungu si lwe lulyaawo nti lwa kitalo, emizaanyo yange eli mu luganda bwebaba bagala,batekeko subtitles’ ( The English language is not all that fancy, all my plays are in luganda, if another wants to understand them they can put subtitles) That may sound arrogant from a content creator but knowing Kato,that was a classic Kato answer.The largest African problem is our worship of the English language.

In Africa, there exists a fascinating èlite society that thinks it has arrived, I call it arrivalism .I use the word “èlite” deliberately,for its French etymology defines it as “a group of people given privileges which are not given to others”.These individuals fit very well into this definition.They are intellectuals,at-least according to the system’s definition of that as being erudite (a privilege that millions don’t have).They(èlite society) have an excellent command of the Queen’s native language,affording them the privilege of being supercilious through the overt-usage of grandiloquent from their endless literature,to an ideologically comatose constituency that can barely make ends meet. They have the privilege of having no intellectual superiors and thus,unlike the masses on the ground who are still in a state of defeatism,do not experience the deleterious magnitude of Capitalism. They are a “better” fraction of the society.

Now, have you understood anything from the above paragraph, apart from the word dropping, have I communicated ? There is one thing about the spark in writing, I  think you don’t get into writing, writing gets into you. At that age you are very deliberate with what you want to do. Circumstances happen and you just carry on with what you want to do .I wrote that paragraph to drive a point home that in your communication or Keeping the flame burning, keep it simple, you are not writing to the English Professors at Oxford but you are writing that a person understands you rather than getting confused.Keep the flame burning but don’t be consumed by the English language to the point of not communicating. Yes as a poet/columnist, you can introduce to your writers a new word for readers to munch on. There is no beauty in being verbiage. You will leave the entire readership confused and perplexed.English is a foreign language and we keep learning, it evolves. That however does not mean that you make grammatical errors and typography errors. . In 1631, a version of the Bible was produced but in the 7^th commandment, there was a word missing. The word ‘not’ so it was saying that, Though shall commit adultery. It is up to date called the wicked Bible. One word missing messed up the entire text, so be keen on what you write and the message that is put across. Otherwise, keep torching and raising the flame.