A Letter to the Dictators

They say that a scholar’s name will be remembered for a few years after his passing, but a warrior shall forever be remembered. If you look at it from all sides, it can only seem to be seen as praise because the warrior took it upon himself to free and defend the weak and oppressed. The scholar chose to tell all the people in the world something that they did not know. But in all honesty it is a curse.

Why?

Because the warrior was once a significant nobody. The ones who ruled saw no reason to get rid of this warrior. But that is the false confidence of the rulers. They dim those insignificant at the moment little more than cockroaches. But experience turns a cockroach into an animal. This animal can become something else and in turn it too become an overzealous and confident being worth killing, and that is when the ruler decides to strike…but alas it is too late, because the ruler created the very monster that will destroy him in the name of freedom and justice.

You see once seated at the top, the warrior fails to see that true skill is in fact not a blazing flame. A predictable attack has the most predictable outcome. That is how he views the cockroach until the insect becomes one that can oppose him and make him quiver in his breeches.

In the start of his or her journey, the warrior fights for code, duty, honour and freedom before the stupor of power removes all sense of right from the warrior. That is when the warrior will fall from the top to the very bottom until another warrior takes up the sword against him to free the weak and defenceless.

The way that the world was, men and women were forced to fight as children for all their ideals, until eventually they could live as nothing else. Even with a desire to seek peace and understanding with every soul, those that are warriors always use force to eliminate the evil that is in the world. Warriors are burdened with sin, covered in scars and yet they continue to fight for their ideals removing those that are oppressing the weak.

Their way is extremely sad and it eventually leads them down a dark path often filled with blood and tears. In this world full of contradictions the sins of taking life never changes, but to change all that a meaning must be found.

Just look at our history. It is full of these warriors. If I start to mention them, I might end up in trouble, but the mist obvious examples are Milton Obote and Idi Amin. They were warriors on a righteous path, men with a vision, their sword was the will of the weak and their shield was their sense of duty, code, honour, freedom and justice. They all start out loved and adored before the seat of power corrupts them.

They start out with good intentions; intentions that kindness is extended to everyone. But those intentions turn into decrees. The warriors force those intentions down the throats of those who would aid them in governing, which is no different from an evil act. They abandon all that they love giving self-serving excuses to make themselves feel a lot better about themselves.

They lose sight of what they really wanted. The desire to see a beautiful tomorrow is what matters in the beginning but in the end, they desire to keep the world in today, refusing to face reality and abandoning the rest of the world to its dirty fate. They do not choose reality and the forward march of time thinking that they have the only truth. You see the line between good and evil is almost as thin as the line between love and hate if not thinner. That is why good intentions of a warrior can so easily turn into evil intentions.

And that is why warriors must give way to the scholars. You see my friend, with warriors at the heart and top of power, mankind cannot move forward into the future. Warriors are afraid of change because they believe that the world is in an endless cycle and in truth it is, because men gather to exchange shows of force instead of ideas. Mankind is yearning for that future that the warriors so boldly sit on.

Men everywhere want to see a bright new dawn. They want to see the world change. We will always be grateful to the warriors because they had the energy to destroy an old system that kept bringing out the worst in themselves. They destroy the world and create a falsehood that is the new world only for it to turn back into the same old world they fought against.

In turn they are demonized and all sorts of hateful and evil things are blamed on the warriors, and that is simply because men prefer to blame their sadness on a person instead of the world created by that person.

But until the warriors understand that they should lay down their arms and embrace the future, the world will never be free of the past, never able to move forward into the uncharted waters of the future full of possibility. True those of world who cannot pick up the warrior’s sword, will never understand the true problems of the world. But we will have to figure out those problems by ourselves in a changed world with fewer warriors in power.

Even so we will find a way to make the world a place where no one has to pick the warrior’s way. I believe that the true way of a warrior is fighting your fight and letting. The warrior’s final battle is one with one’s self, one in which the warrior has to find a way of sharing their happiness however small it might be with others, and expanding those particular feelings is what will lead us to true freedom and justice.

As a true person desiring peace you have to know that you must think of the rest of the world. No one knows what is going to happen to the world. Not the warrior, not the scholar, not the weak or strong…no one, but each and every one in the world must be able to make their own choices

A Letter to the Disheartened

Someone is attacked and they respond which prompts another attack. We all want have a happy life…to be happy, and we all fight because we think it is the only way we can achieve that. Perhaps the solution is a world without the threat of war. What would this kind of world look like? This is a world where if conflict was eliminated, all people on the earth would simply conform to a set plan and follow it. Your role will be predetermined and if you do not conform then you would be weeded out.

Such a world would have people who are not restrained by worry and people who are free from uncertainty about their role in life and the future. People would live untroubled by doubt.

But such a world is a fantasy, a world where people live according to the destinies decided for them, manipulating the very essence of what we are, our humanity and the one gift the creator granted us, choice. Yes, no war and every one would see that fighting is pointless in the world since our plans would be pre-planned.

But I ask you, don’t we create our own destiny and plans.

We all have dreams, wishes and hopes and to put it more bluntly, desires. We want to do this, we want to become that. We all feel that way and that is why such a world is fantasy and a delusion of the mad minds that wish that. I tell you, you cannot stay in the same position for too long.

Let me ask you, would you like a world where nothing happens and you’re told what you are supposed to do. I can tell you that for a long time, as people we have lived our lives in a selfish equilibrium. We share a dream in our selfishness but never realise it. You see world peace comes with freedom and independence of the minds. We cannot choose submission to what someone serves us on a golden plate full of jewels.

And, although some will say that it is better to know nothing and that what you do not know will not kill you, but in this world where such a fantasy as no war is the shared vision of many, I personally am not satisfied with that and neither should you be. I say we have one life that we can only live in this moment, in this hour the only time we have. Your dreams are yours and yours alone. Do not let others use them for their own benefit.

Your dreams just like your words make a difference. They matter. Sure, some will listen basing on who you are to them, but your words do mean something. When you believe in what you are saying in the moment, they are your words. If you have no choice but to fight, fight for your dreams and hope for the future. That is the very life force of all human beings and if I am to be honest all living things out there.

When you are denied your dreams and hopes for the future, you become nothing more than an empty husk of muscle and organs. We will be ruined capable of nothing more than mere existence. All our lives are a struggle for the future. It is right to fight for it and that is why you must fight. As living beings that is why we must fight to destroy that which would destroy us and plunge us into a world of living death.

And when you feel that something is a bad idea. If you feel it in your bones, stand up for your rights. Someone should not label you and what you stand for. You might not know until the fact has passed, but that is just the way things are. In this world of arrogance it is hard to know what is truth and what is fiction.

In this life we all do things so that they might be found and find ways to know that we might live again. We say goodbye but we know that we will soon say hello, and in that way all that we lose as we live our dreams will not matter because if it is truly ours it will come back to us. Something beautiful is happening and it is always happening in the present, not in the past and not in the future.

All you can do is raise your voice, sing and hope that it may happen tomorrow too because unlike the past the future is yet to come and it can be changed with our actions today, actions that we must determine with our own minds and hearts.

But you see we are all prototypes of our own faith and beliefs. Each of us has their own path to take in this world and as such should not let it be overtaken by unwanted attentions. The ideals of tomorrow’s world are our own and we must follow them. I can tell you that it will not be a pretty story worth being retold over and over again, but it is your story worth living and enjoying without being told what to do by those that do not understand a thing or two about living to chase your dreams.

The sad thing is that you might get into a sad situation that requires you to lose your body, mind and soul to your ideals and hopes. Interestingly such a situation for you will not be all that bad. It suits us as human beings so well that it might make us sad not to chase the situation that requires sacrifice.

That is why to the children of today I will tell them that when purity and innocence turns into actual power, they might bring a cloud of darkness over the world with that power. It might be a good darkness or the kind of darkness that frightens you, but as long as you are not conforming to what someone else is telling you to do without proper consent from your heart, then, it is alright, just alright.

That goes back to what war really is. It is many ideals fighting for prominence, when in actual truth these ideals are all chasing one dream. That is why you will find that there is one party crouched down as though they want to collapse. The hand they would have raised not being able to come down and strike the enemy in a fell swoop. And when the soldiers of the different ideals march off on their wars, their loved ones always ask, “tell me why you have to go?” And they always do not wait to hear the answer to the question. They simply tell the soldier, “all we want is you to come home.”

After all isn’t love for what you are fighting for why you are fighting?

In the end war is brought about because various forms of love reject each other. Love rejects love as a heavy burden and before you know it, it turns into a burning hatred that burns brighter than the yellow sun in our skies. The two hatreds then turn a blind eye to the inconvenient truths as long as they can fight to the death of the other. That is the world we live in today, a world of dilemas where we destroy each other and leave behind the fact that we once held love close to our bosoms and once tried to understand each other.

But there is another way. We all have a different option. Instead of plunging into war and violence why don’t we seek the warmth that is in each of us? Why don’t we look for more love that brings us to understanding each others’ pasts, troubles, dreams and desires? I think we resort to war because we are weak and because love hurts almost as much as it provides a great feeling.

Do not be afraid though. Face your fears and become stronger in your conviction. Then that is when we will learn to what it means to truly have desires, dreams and our own destinies.

So to create the future we have to change from what we are used to…We want people to understand us but do not want to understand them in return. So maybe we have our future and hope…

A Letter to The Fighters For Liberty

Does being older make you right? Does being more experienced make you a better person? Yes, respect the elders, but does being an elder mean that you deserve the respect of all and sundry?

It sounds complicated, or simple depending on how you look at it, doesn’t it. My job as a young man has always been simple, respect those older than I am and the rest will fall into place. All I have had to worry about is that things would always end up as they should. Even when there was corruption, the belief has always been that the elders would do the right thing in the end. I have lived my life believing that the elders should be responsible for their actions. Even under the protection of my family I always believed that particular statement.

But oh well, we must come to terms with the fact that corruption is part of this world. From before our forefathers this stupid thing that we call corruption has been in the very veins of this earth.

But, I believe that he existence of the smallest things, such as knowledge have the power to change the future of the whole world in an instance. Even if the world looks stable, the world does change little by little under our feet. If an idea comes at the right time, it has the capability to change the world in a significant way.

The agreed thought train in most of the world is the need for change. Not all in the world adhere to a single doctrine, which they would wish to see become the dominant factor in the way things are done, but there is a single common sentiment in the wishes of the billions world over.

In order to break from the oppressive rule of those with corrupt fingers and minds, we must break from the tried and tested system that feeds the few and ignores the many. We must let go of all that was and try to find our own path…even if it is our own form of corruption because as the case is here in Uganda, the old have had their turn and now is the time for the young to take the bull by the horns.

That might be seen as a call to arms, but it is not. Just because you want something it does not give you the right to resort to terrorism. Regardless, of how righteous you think you are, you cannot just go around killing people. It is never right to take another life. You see there are those who are crying that there should be a War on Corruption, but I war ever justified? Is it ever right to take up arms and go against another full well knowing that the facts will never change regardless of the outcome of the war?

Some wars are best left unfought. They are best left in the minds of the people. Why? Because if a war like the one proposed on corruption does happen, then tell me won’t both sides turn it into a personal fight. The uncorrupt will hate the corrupt whereas the corrupt will hate the uncorrupt. In the end it will just be one full circle that ends up back in the same place.

Take it this way, what happens to those who are at the side, those who know almost nothing about what is going, and those whose every day war is to find something to eat? It is never fair when it comes to war.

War always begins out of good intentions motivated by the hope that they can save a country, a people and a future. Both sides have always wanted to give their families a better life. Although that is self-interest and self-idealism, what kind of world would it be if people were not allowed to live in such a way?

Yes there are people who can work for the greater good even at their own expense but those are the ones we should be most suspicious of. They might claim that they are fighting for every one and all of us who are affected by the horrors of this world including corruption, but they will still ensure that the families of the corrupt get dragged into the mud. The truth is whether they fool us or fool themselves they do not fight for us. They fight for their own selfish and corrupt ideals.

However to save humanity and the truth, we cannot always be righteous.

But if we are to go back to corruption. The answer in fighting this vice lies in finding a light for all of us to follow and nothing can live without light. It will give us hope where there is despair. It will make it possible to live in this cruel world ensuring that we do not turn into the corrupt monsters that are sitting in the large offices with smug smiles all over their faces. It can give people a shining promise that we can become better.

That light is found in each of us. Humanity alone is a reflection of God; the power to transcend the now. The god of Possibility. That is a romantic idea in most people’s eyes. Many would call that the sentiment of a nice person. Without a strong faith in humanity and the world one cannot think in such a way.

Some might find it foolish to put faith into something so intangible…a mere light. Furthermore, there are those who will say that ideas like this are not essential to life. To me who is a dreamer, those people are one of two things…either lucky or deluded.

However, in the end war is as inevitable as the summer rains. So when you go into battle, whatever battle that it might be, there is no room for regret. Do not worry about the lives that fall to the wayside. As long as it is for the common good then fight on because the masses will hold on for you.

If you question what it is you are doing, if you wonder what life holds for you in the fight against many things, always remember that there are people that you are responsible for and must be careful. If you seek corruption think about them and maybe you will find your strength and light to fight against the madness of corruption. You see the one thing that matters is the fact the way things are is just that.

No one is aspiring to change the fact that we are a corrupt population. No one is thinking about it. In the end you cannot blame the cogs in the machine that keep it running. No one can blame those in the system working to keep the status quo as is. But don’t we have pride?

We might be cogs in this machine called life, cogs that simply accept corruption as is and let it happen even on our very own door steps, but cogs have pride. This pride is in our hearts and you will always know what your duty is. Your heart has the answers and because of your heart it is easy for you to know what you must do. Do not let the world as it is make you forget your heart because it is the one place that fully belongs to you and it is your responsibility.

A Letter to The Differing Views

The future looks bleak for some of us. I am only twenty four years and I see nothing new coming out of Uganda, but still…I can have my hope.

It is true that people are weak and flawed. It is true that we all have dreams. We need one another to keep walking forward no matter how painful the path might be. Regardless of anything, people pass on their dreams to others who share the same beliefs to find a way to move forward. That is how it has always been. Having someone besides you all the time and this person challenges you can make all the difference.

You see the way that the world is right now, leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. There is indiscriminate development with little regard of how that development impacts the whole world. Sky scrapers shoot up, water bodies reclaimed even when that might not be the development that is needed by this world. All the poison in this world is caused by humanity itself and therein lies the issue.

You see as humans we have gotten so used to ignoring the fact that Mother Nature does not have an ounce of mercy. Our ancestors, however, understood that. They were products of nature and they understood it instinctively that Mother Nature was a heartless woman. So in order to survive they created the foundations of this world. They created civilization, cities, societies and countries.

But then it all went wrong because it grew too big and complicated. A society that was meant to serve the people slowly made the people serve it the way it is this very instance as you read this simple writing. As time winds on, one thing is obvious, this society that humanity calls the world today has made life too difficult for ordinary people. What was made to give the lives of human beings hope, purpose and direction instead gave birth to different systems, and the law of Mother Nature did not allow the systems to co-exist. This is because two systems from opposing spectrums will always try to prove themselves more superior than the other.

But I say that it is possible for humanity to succeed. That desire that drove our ancestors to form civilizations is still lying dormant in all of us. The opposing ideologies might someday, perhaps, be merged into one.

Even if the current world seeks to reject such notions; even if the world and humans as we are today say no to this particular notion; even if all the hatred of the down trodden continues to runner deeper than the earth’s core, there might be a day when humanity seeks to form one idea, one goal and one future that consists of every man doing what they believe is right for their future and the future of the world.

Yes, it is a child’s duty to take on the wishes of your parent. Sometimes their wishes consume the child to the point that the child loses their future. Yes, parents give children life and the bond of blood makes it the duty of a child to fulfil those wishes. It can become a curse and not a wish, but that is the way the world is and most people stick to this ethos out of duty, but is it really the future the child will want.

Sticking to the way things are is something that is norm, and breaking it is terrible, but it is needed. The future is always a conflict and some seek to use that conflict and take over the future for themselves. They ignore what I would call, God’s greatest gifts to mankind. They pay a blind eye to human possibility, human choice and humanity as a whole. They take the decision away from us by thinking of a future that envisions them and not us as a whole.

But honestly, isn’t the choice to one’s future a choice of self.

The world is full of many contradictions, but my thoughts lie in the fact that the choices of tomorrow must not be made by us, they must be made by the children, the youth who are alive today and their children who are yet to be born. It is not the place of those that are living their futures to decide the future of those who are yet to fully understand the ways of the world. 

Some will say that we are fighting, what more do you want us to do?

All I can say is there is always more you can do. Why? That is because you will always be a scape goat for someone that seeks to take away the choice from you and those who will follow you. Will you die in vain while you curse the world after realizing that you have done little in this world? I will cry for you until you realise that there is more that you can do for this world to hold onto your future and the future of those around you.

Some of you might be asking why is he willing to cry for others? A few others might be thinking that a man should never cry in front of others, but honestly there is nothing wrong with crying because crying because you care is a different matter from the normal crying.

Even though we are sad in this world of ours, we must try to escape this sadness. We must live hoping for our personal futures. Even if you are going through hell with loads of pain, do not close your heart because of it. Acknowledge that sadness and fight against those that seek to dampen the future we all dream of by taking us along into their personal hells. You see sadness ends up taking us through to anger, but never give in to that anger and close your heart. It does no good.

You will lose your chance at being a human…the link to your humanity. Anger can become a slave master and once that happens you realise that you are a slave without anything to live for. With the sadness of living for hatred and anger one realises that humanity’s true gem is the power of the human heart. That is where my hope for the future of humanity comes from.