The Giant Tido Tree

"The thing they don't tell you about fatherhood is that, for like an hour a day, you have to get onto the floor and pretend to be a horse."

Jimmy Kimmel

Greetings. Father's day is upon us, and as is the culture of this blog, I'll provide a passage on fatherhood. In line with mother's day earlier this month, this one is from Okot p'Bitek's Song of Lawino. In the lamentations of Lawino, she cautions her husband Ocol to respect his parents, comparing the father to the giant tido tree.

J.R. Isabirye

The tree, Ekebergia capensis, known as "tido" in Luo, is common in Uganda, South Africa and Congo, and can grow up to 15 metres in height. It's wood can be used to make furniture. For medicinal purposes, the bark is used as an emetic and for the treatment of dysentry, the roots can be used to treat headaches, heartburn and coughs, whereas the leaves provide a remedy to intestinal worms. In the days of old, some parts of the tree were used to protect the ruling chief from witchcraft. In so many ways the tido is a metaphor befitting fatherhood.

No one wrestles with his father,

No one looks down 

On his mother,

And even if your father is totally

blind,

Even if his ears are dead,

Even if the world has boxed him,

Even if his legs are dry like

firewood,

If he is rude to you

You say, 'Thank You'

And never answer back

Because he stands before you

Like the giant tido tree

You are but a climber plant.

There is no medicine in the

hospital

For a mother's curse,

None for an uncle's curse!

And when your father's anger 

has boiled over

The white man's medicines 

Are irrelevant and useless

Like the freak rains

In the middle of the dry season.

Happy Father's Day!

Ceteris. Paribus.

Sources

p'Bitek, Okot, (1971). Song of Lawino. Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers. pp. 102-103.

Coates, K., (2002). Palgrave Trees of Southern Africa, edn 3. Cape Town: Struik.

van Wyk, B.E., van Oudtshoorn, B., Gericke, N., (1997). Medicinal Plants of South Africa. Pretoria: Briza Publications.

The Politics of Martyrdom

"When I die it will be the end of the kingdom of Buganda. Europeans will take over (eat) this country of mine."

Mwanga II, 1898, prior to joining forces with Kabalega II

[LONG POST ALERT]

Greetings. A Song of Ice and Fire provided a revival in interest in medieval history, as George R.R. Martin borrowed heavily from real life events in medieval Europe, particularly the War of the Roses. In the book series, readers eventually learn that Robert's Rebellion the fulcrum of the narration was "based on a lie". 

The same can be said about the period 1884-1899 in the history of Buganda. The history passed down in the canons from this period has been powered by propaganda, imperial interests and self-aggrandizement on ghe part of the collaborators and their colonial masters. Prof. Semakula Kiwanuka and Dr. Samwiri Lwanga Lunyiigo have made great strides in trying to address the factors that led to the civil wars at the end of the nineteenth century. I have shared an excerpt, abridged, from Lunyiigo's Mwanga II: Resistance to Imposition of British Colonial Rule in Buganda. He asserts the correlation between imperial ambitions of European countries and the martyrdom in Buganda.

Mwanga was suspicious of the intentions and activities of missionaries. First and foremost, Mwanga and the missionaries were competitors for the attention and service of the same people, the pages, who absented themselves from services at the Kabaka's palace to 'read' and serve at the Catholic mission at Lubaga and the Protestant mission at Nateete. Indeed Mwanga asked the few pages that were taking liberties to serve the missionaries and absent themselves from the palace:

"Who is your King or are the Europeans the masters of Buganda."

Secondly, the most trusted  and closest servants of  Mwanga were now acting  as stool pigeons for the missionaries including his own Chief of Intelligence, Joseph Mukasa Balikuddembe. State secrets were immediately passed over to the  missionaries.

Thirdly, Mwanga did not know exactly what the 'Readers' were being taught. Was it the usual alphabet and the gospels or was there more to this ‘reading’ than met the eye? It is possible that Mwanga had his own spies spying on the missionaries and relaying information to him. Missionaries had arms and ammunition. Was it not possible for them to train and arm the 'Readers' to forment trouble in the country and take it over? After all Mwanga was very well aware that Europeans were closing in on the country. The arabs faithfully informed him of what was happening outside Buganda. Therefore, at some point Mwanga had to throw down the gauntlet, those for him and the country on one side, and those for the Europeans on the other side.

Mukasa [Nsimbe], the Katikkiro, played a major role in the Readers' fate. All the missionaries were agreed that Mukasa hated them and he was a very powerful man in Buganda up to the end of 1888 when Kalema took power.

Kabaka Mwanga

 

Joseph Mukasa Balikuddembe, whom Katikkiro Mukasa regarded as Mwanga's favourite and a possible replacement for him as Katikkiro, was executed at Nakivubo on the 15th November 1885 at the behest of Katikkiro Mukasa and by the time Mwanga learnt of what the Katikkiro had done to his rising star, Joseph, the sentence had already been carried out.

Mwanga had had Nyonyintono castrated for absenteing himself from the palace and for not properly performing his duties; he had himself beaten up and stabbed Apollo Kaggwa for entrusting hisgun to an inexperienced gun bearer Ntanda who lost it in the water when they went hippo hunting in Lake Nalubale. If both Nyonyintono and Kaggwa had died, since they were 'Readers', they would have qualified for martyrdom!

When Mwanga on that fateful day at Munyonyo asked his people to form two lines, that of 'Readers' and others, thirty 'Readers' stepped forward. ... So before the 25th of May 1866, the red flag was up and anybody who cared to hide or run away had ample time in which to do it and many run or hid and survived.

Indeed there is biblical justification for this course of action. In Matthew 10:23 Jesus told his disciples:

"When they persecute you in this city flee to another ..."

Many who knew the scriptures hid or fled; they included Zakariya Kizito Kisingiri (who became a regent of Buganda during the minority of Kabaka Daudi Chwa), Paul Bakunga, Battulumayo Musoke Zimbe (later a priest), James Miti and Joseph Kaddu. All these became important chiefs and pillars of the Anglican church.

Inadvertently, the missionaries courted martyrdom for their charges. Rev. Ashe and Alexander Mackay wrote a letter to Christians in May1886 which encouraged them to become martyrs.

"Our beloved brethren do not deny our Lord Jesus and He will not deny you on that great day when He shall come with glory. Remember the words of our Saviour, how He told His disciples not to fear men who are only able to kill the body, but He bid them to fear God who is able to destroy the body together with the soul in the fire of Gehenna."

After the Namugongo inferno (3rd June 1886), the surviving converts asked their priests whether they should go into hiding or not but the priests did not answer. All these men of God knew the scriptures very well. Disciples of Jesus Christ denied him, the main example being Simon Peter ... Peter denied Jesus and was elevated to sainthood!

Between 25th May and 2nd June 1886 Namugongo execution centre was being prepared to receive the 'Readers', and it was a slow movement of the condemned from Munyonyo to Namugongo. There was, therefore, ample time for men with the Christian zeal of Lourdel and Mackay to join those they had taught to Namugongo and to the pyres. Why did these zealous missionaries not offer themselves for martyrdom along with the 'Readers' whom they urded to be steadfast? Why did they not make the ultimate sacrifice? First, they understood the teachings of Christ very well, but even more important, there was a definite link between the martyrdom of the 'Readers' and imperialism.

One way to establish a sphere of influence was to have one's nationals, missionaries, traders, etc., in an area and by dint of the presence of missionaries, Buganda was clearly a sphere of British influence. France to which the WHite Fathers belonged was never a major player in the region. So if the missionaries could show that their converts were in danger of persecution and annihilation then in the goodness of time the government where the missionaries came from would rush in and establish control and end the 'persecution' or annihilation. The White Fathers whose country, France, did not have a great stake in East Africa should have saved their followers from the Namugongo inferno.

On the depth of the faith of the 'Readers' Mackay makes an interesting comment:

"Reading a book is by no means adopting the religion of the book. Everyone who reads the New Testament is not necessarily a Christian nor is everyone who reads the Koran a Mohammedan.  Many a life has been lost in this country [Buganda]for learning no more than the alphabet."

We are also told that many of the best converts lay hidden and were not caught, like Dutta, Sembera and others. Why? Because they understood the gospel better than those who gave themselves up. And there were those who were consumed by the fires of Namugongo who were caught in the dragnet including non Christians.

One hundred and thirty one years (at the time of writing this book) after the introduction of Christianity in Buganda there are many Christians with one leg in Christianity and the other in Traditional Religion.How much did Christians understand Christianity in Buganda only seven and nine years after it was introduced? Martyrdom at Namugongo thus represented the lowest point in Christian leadership of the time. The Christian leaders should have prevented the glorious thirty from forming that tragic line at Munyonyo.

If Mwanga persecuted Christians per se it is difficult to explain why Christians became pillars of his administration after the Namugongo inferno. Mwanga had the capacity to kill and disperse all of them; why did he not? He was either naive or too trusting. He could not believe that these Abaana of whatever faith they were (whom he had granted freedom of religion) could betray him and give the country to Europeans. He was to pay heavily for this trust.

Writing over sixty years after these events, Mwanga's grandson, Mutesa II, commented;

"Mwanga fought to free himself and his country of the intruders for all his reign. He did not like or want them; he was impressed by their power, but not interested in their ideas. He could not recover the old way of life nor adapt himself to the new, and in his perplexed and unhappy groping in the gap between he seems to me to deserve some sympathy."

Perhaps we should rename it Mwanga II Day!

Ceteris. Paribus.

Further Reading

Cardinal Nsubuga, Obulamu bwa Mapera Omutume wa Uganda, 1853-1890

Gray, J. M. (1950). "The Year of the Three Kings of Buganda". Uganda Journal, 14, 15-52. 

Joire. (1952). Abajulizi Abakatoliki Abe Buganda.

Katende, J.L. (2004). Bakabaka Ba Buganda Okuva Ku Kyabaggu Okutuka Ku Mutesa II. Kampala

Lwanga-Lunyiigo, S. (2011). Mwanga II: Resistance to Imposition of British Colonial Rule in Buganda, 1884-1899. Kampala: Wavah Books. Chapter 2: Mwanga - Prelude to Betrayal, p.54 

Mackay, A. M. (1890). Pioneer Missionary of the Church Missionary Society to Uganda. By his Sister.

Mutesa II. (1967). Desecration of my Kingdom. Constable.

Kiwanuka, M. S. (1969). Background to the Martyrs: A Reprint of Kabaka Mwanga and His Political Parties. Uganda Society. 

Thoonen, J. P. (1941). Black Martyrs. Sheed & Ward. 

Waliggo, J. M. (1976). The Catholic Church in the Buddu Province of Uganda 1879-1925, unpublished Ph. D (Doctoral dissertation, thesis, Cambridge).

Zimbe, B. M. (1939). Buganda ne Kabaka. Typescript translation, Buganda and the King.

The Woman Who Hewed You Out Of The Rock

Greetings. Mother's Day is upon us and to me it is an opportunity to indulge my writer's block. There's a plethora of quotations available on how amazing mothers can be. As is tradition I will share an African excerpt with several quotable nuggets.

"Mama Michael"

Okot p'Bitek is perhaps the greatest poet this country has ever produced (and the greatest Luo writer before Obama). Born in Gulu in 1939, he had his education at Gulu High School and King's College Budo, before proceeding to the universities of Bristol, Wales and Oxford. In the epic Song of Lawino, an African woman expresses her displeasure at her husband, Ocol's rejection of his culture in favour of western mores. Lawino defends the traditions of her forbearers, often making comparisons between Acholi and Western cultures. 

The excerpt is from Chapter 10, where Lawino mentions Ocol's intolerance towards both their relatives, denying them entry into his house as they might muddy it. Lawino rebuts, forewarning Ocol not to forget the role of one's parents.

No one wrestles with his father,

No one looks down

On his mother,

You cannot abuse your mother!

Because it was that woman

Who hewed you out of the rock

And moulded your head and

body.

Think of the excreta and piss

The vomit and mucus

With which you wetted your

mother!

Think of the fire

That burnt her finger many times, 

When she cooked for you.

Think of the jealousies of 

others,

The sorcerers and shadow

trappers, 

Poisoners and the Evil Eyes,

Think of the fights

They put up for you!

You sucked those wrinkled 

breasts,

And that's what made you

The big man you are!

A mother's anger is bitter,

It is fierce like lightning

And boils like thunder.

If you make her angry

She will strike below her belly

button,

If you annoy the girl

She will strike the ash

Then you will get 

Exactly what you ask for!

There is no medicine in the 

hospital

For a mother's curse,

Happy Mother's Day!

Ceteris. Paribus.

Source

p'Bitek, Okot, (1972). Song of Lawino. Nairobi: East African Education Publishers. pp. 102-103

The Opposition in Africa Is A Lonely Place

Greetings. In the two months since the last post on this blog, a foreign entertainer promised to launch a city on this land of Kintu, just a week before the foremost descendant of Kintu was sighted in public with an illness that got the other descendants of Kintu worried for his health. However, other matters affecting the descendants of Kintu will take precedent today.

Ugandans once again rued their chances as God “answered their prayers in another country.” The president of Chad, Idris Deby, passed away this week, and coincidentally the ensuing struggle mirrors a situation Ugandans have so desperately prayed against. Deby’s son, Mahamat Deby Itno was immediately sworn in and the young Major General spent his first days trying to consolidate power. 

During power transitions in Africa, the opposition is usually ignored with calls of unity behind a solitary leader to “unite” the country. The Mahamt Deby government dissolved parliament and replaced the constitution with a charter. This abandonment of multiparty democracy is detrimental to the principle of checks and balances. Writing thirty-six years ago, Prof. Samwiri Lwanga-Lunyigo’s examination of The History of the Democratic Party provides insights into the actions of one-party movements in the likes of Chad and Uganda, as well as an understanding as to why Akon would make an insipid comment along the lines of “Africa not needing democracy.”

A multiparty system can be kept alive if all the parties are agreed that it is the best system, and most important, if the party in power for the time being allows the other parties to operate freely. For a vigorous plural political system there must be elections at reasonable intervals to enable the governments to find out whether or not they have the mandates to continue in power and to keep the populace involved and politically alert. And in a nascent democracy, such as Uganda was in 1962, it is important that there is tolerance on the part of the party or parties in government for their counterparts in the opposition. The opposition, it must be appreciated, just like the government is capable of making mistakes. There must be a set of rules that all the parties must agree and stick to or the plural system cannot work.

Our leaders at independence had had very little parliamentary experience and with the exception of some DP MPs most of this experience had been in the opposition. And where the colonial regime was being opposed no quarter was given and none expected. The stakes were very high – no less than self-determination. So our leaders who were in opposition in the colonial Legislative Council considered themselves subversive. After all, how could they have qualified as liberators and freedom fighters if they had not been subversive and brought down the colonial regime? Very few of our leaders at independence had had the experience of democratic executive authority or of any other kind of authority for that matter. And most unfortunate for democracy, many of our political leaders wanted security of tenure in their political positions and the opposition was a threat to permanence of tenure. How could we operate a Westminster model while ensuring permanent tenure of political office? This was not possible.

From 1964, hardly two years after independence the UPC began preparing the public for the one-party system using the usual arguments of the advocates of the one-party system. They explained that the multiparty system was a luxury our young poor nation could not afford; it was subversive, divisive and against African traditional political practice. The opposition was alright against the colonial government but what was there to oppose after independence? Unity, through the one-party system, was the only course available. All this sounds fine, but in many one-party states, the leader becomes the party and the father of the nation.

When this happens the citizens of the nation become children and obviously children are in no position to participate in important matters such as the choice of their leaders. The father makes such decisions.

The one-party system, or the movement, has got the advantage of making the top men permanent in power which suggests continuity and stability, but the problem with permanent political leaders is that there is so much preoccupation with preservation of their positions that considerable resources are diverted towards the achievement of permanence. Another problem is the mental fossilization of the leadership. They formulate policies and these must work at any cost; they become dogma and sacred for all time. When those policies cause economic, social and political ruin, it is not the ideas or policies that are wrong, it is the implementation that is wrong and those in charge of implementation are accused of sabotage and treachery and purges follow. And so it goes on and on. It becomes a vicious cycle and many an African nation wallow in them.

In the zero-sum, winner-take-all game of African politics the opposition is a very lonely place. The winners control patronage and dispense it both in the private and public sectors and members of the opposing party or parties are deliberately left out in the cold, however qualified they may be for certain positions. Now men attracted to politics during the colonial period were in the main not men of substance. They hoped to gain substance through politics and the winners succeeded in attaining substance. After all power and property cannot be separated for very long. Many of them were teachers who saw politics as an escape hatch from the poorly remunerated profession. They were also somehow privileged because they were the only highly educated people allowed by the colonial government to pursue politics while remaining in their pay. The highly educated Africans in the Civil Service had to resign their jobs in order to participate actively in politics and many could not afford this. These were the men of substance during the colonial period and if they had actively joined politics, maybe the structuring of our political institutions after independence would have taken a very different turn. So the atrophy of the opposition during the independence era can be explained in terms of the hostile attitude of the winner towards it and the winner’s ability to withhold and starve the opposition. In Uganda the opposition was physically assaulted as well. Opposition leaders were imprisoned indefinitely without trial and the clincher was the declaration of the one-party state in 1969, which legally stopped the opposition and the plural political system established at the inception of the independence era.

Ceteris. Paribus.

References

Lwanga-Lunyiigo, Samwiri, 1984. A History of the Democratic Party of Uganda. Kampala; Fountain Publishers. Chapter 4: Atrophy, 1962-1969; pp.83-85.

Kasujja, Allan (Host). (2021, 22nd April). What's next for Chad? [Audio podcast episode] In Africa Daily. BBC https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p09fcw5t 

Dinner With Mwavuwalaba and Nabukeera

Greetings. Last Valentine's day I shared stories; non-economic (Kiwanuka's journey courting Zalwango) and economic (the borrowing patterns of rural women). To continue with the custom I intend to share an excerpt from Peregrine Kibuuka's novel, Habakkuk the Catechist. 

The novel is a coming of age story of Timothy Mwavuwalaba, son of the titular Habakkuk, beginning with his childhood in Loko village. Dr. Kibuuka started his schooling at Namilyango Junior Boys' School. Like the protagonist of his novel, he continued on to Nyenga and Gaba Seminaries. Both Kibuuka and Mwavuwalaba abandoned their priestly vocation, with Kibuuka proceeding to Namilyango College whereas Mwavuwalaba continued his further studies at St. Pius Secondary Schools (whose head, Fr. Ben, is no less inspired by Kibuuka's former head teacher Fr. Bernard Kuipers). Upon completing their university education both men pursued teaching careers at their respective former schools.

The excerpt I have elected to share covers a honest conversation about domestic finances and work ethic between Mwavuwalaba and his wife, Goretti Nabukeera.

I was in no mood to listen to preaching when I had no money in my pocket. I did not think buying a fashionable constituted any obligation in the midst of a financial squeeze. So I remained mum. We ate our lunch in silence. And now she has called me for supper. Because of the retreat, she simply declares to the whole house: "Dinner!"

I uncover the supper. Angels above! Clean white pieces of cassava neatly laid out on the plate. I ask why the cassava. Nabukeera says the matooke got finished.

"Why did you not tell me?" I shoot back.

"I forgot."

"You seem to be forgetting everything. You better jot down your name. It looks like I must employ a quarter-master general in this house."

"Go ahead and employ one, provided you pay. But I suspect that he might need more than the cost of the shoe I am asking you to buy." Then Nabukeera breaks into a loud, dry sarcastic laugh.

"If I had a car, I would walk on you, Nabukeera. You are perfect nuisance," I declare.

"I may be a perfect nuisance, but pray, why do you indulge in wishful thinking? At this rate, do you ever hope to steer a car in you life. You are going to end up as an elegant pedestrian, a John Walker! Walking the streets with your oversized hand bag full of useless files and marking schemes! Only a miracle can save you. But miracles do not happen so often nowadays. Mwavuwalaba, it is high time you pursued wealth while you are still young. I do not like to spend my energetic life poor and only get rich in my older years when I am too old to enjoy it."

"What do you expect me to do, steal?" I ask. 

"Do something to improve your lot. Your teacher's salary will never take you anywhere. You are so dull. You lack initiative. I must accuse Dr. Fr. Gawanye of telling lies about you right on the altar. He described you in such glowing terms and tried to convince the congregation that I was walking down with some sort of stormy petrel, with a romantic touch and perfection. You do not know how to organise yourself. I could run this home for you with your money." I give Nabukeera the look that reminds her who wears the trousers in the home. 

"Women have never managed to run anything in their lives," I shoot back.

"Do not be so chauvinistic, Timothy. Have you ever delivered a baby?" Nabukeera asks challengingly, looking me straight in the eyes.

"The ladies are recognising you cannot run your affairs, that is why they must dismantle your systems, if need be through a war."

"Do you realise any common denominator in your heroines?" I ask.

"No."

I must get Nabukeera off my back, so I hit below the belt.

"Either they cannot stay with their husbands or they cannot keep them alive. I have pictures of Mrs. Golda Meir. I still have to see Mr. Meir. She fought two wars in less than ten years which are responsible for the world inflation we are in. You see the Arabs were not amused and clamped an oil embargo. Look at Indira Gandhi; she dismembered Pakistan. Maria Peron, a widow, excelled herself in mismanaging Argentina."

"Why did you marry me if you are such a cynical misogynist?"

"I am not a misogynist, but a simple observer of threats. I am amazed that you think you can run a home better than a man. Report me to the women's court the next time male chauvinism gives you another Women's year. By that time I will be just history and of course gone to heaven, rubbing shoulders with St. Peter."

"It seems the Landlord in heaven can accommodate all sorts of impossible characters there. I shall not debate your ability to go to heaven on your steam. But that is what you are, talking and talking and doing nothing to improve your lot here on earth. Why do you discuss heaven you know nothing about, when you cannot plan anything on the earth you know? Mwavuwalaba, you are no longer in the seminary to discuss heavenly things. You chose the world. Discuss how to successfully live in this world; when you do that, God may think of taking you to heaven after death. But as of now, better do something. Get a side business to supplement your income."

"Nabukeera, you seem to have bright ideas tonight. What do you, for example, suggest I do?" I ask pensively.

"You see, now, everybody is swindling neighbour by the thousands. Buy something, hoard it and sell it at black-market prices," Nabukeera advises.

"Nabukeera are you suggesting that I become a magendo agent? Remember I am a son of a catechist, and I come from a good Christian family," I warn her.

"If your morals are still carved in stone, you will die a pauper. If you are a man of great scruples and high principles, you will not be able to do anything without feeling that you have offended a principle, a code of ethics, a gentlemans code and what have you. What you need, Mwavuwalaba, is to be broadminded. I am not prepared to be a pauper's wife."

"Nabukeera, are you threatening? Remember you marriage vows: 'Rich or poor, till death do us part'," I remind her.

"I do not remember promising to stay with a man with no initiative. Mwavuwalaba, did I promise that?" she adds rhetorically.

"Nabukeera," I warn her again, "there are remarks which one never forgets or forgives; watch your tongue!"

"Stop verbal threats and try out something. Try soap. Hoard it. It sells like hot cakes. Get a carton and see," Nabukeera advises.

"That needs capital and patience both of which we do not have. You have to buy and hoard. You wait until people are badly off then you produce the commodity. We are already in the category of the badly off, Nabukeera."

"Then let us try something that does not need hoarding but sells like hot cakes. Something that does not need much capital."

We have declared a unilateral war on poverty in the home. I have to beat the inflation by declaring an economic war on it. 

Ceteris. Paribus.

Source

Kibuuka, P. (2010) Habakkuk the Catechist. Marianum Publishing Company Limited, Kampala. Chapter 15: Side Business

The Great Books Program of Africa

Greetings. In recognition of Black History month, I'll put forward a program of intellectual study based solely on African texts. 

Harvard Universal Classics originally known as Dr. Eliot's Five Foot Shelf, is a 51-volume anthology of classic works from world literature compiled and edited by former Harvard University President Charles W. Eliot and first published in 1909. Eliot proposed that 15-minutes a day spent reading part of the texts in his five-foot shelf would enable one gain a liberal education.

A well known rival is the Great Books program proposed by Adler J. Motimer.

Could we create a great books program that is centred on African learning and renaissance?

This idea has plagued my mind since the wave of revisiting the global culture vis a vis education in the wake of black lives matter. Certain schools in the western world have been pushed to revise their curriculum and adopt a more diverse range of topics and reading material. My thoughts immediately jumped to the Harvard Classics as a basis. The 51 volumes include texts from Homer, Darwin, Adam Smith, Benjamin Franklin. Coincidentally there's no writing from Africa.

What volumes should be constituted? 

As the first volume is solely dedicated to Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography, I thought of no less a character than Nelson Mandela. Where Franklin proved himself industrious as an innovator, politician and orator, Mandela is the father of the peaceful demonstration in Africa; and a skilled orator as well. The first Volume is dedicated solely to him.

Volume II should cover the ancient texts from Egypt (Ptah Hotep, Kagmeni) what is commonly known as the Wisdom texts. The Epic of Sundiata would also fall in this category, along with Book II of Herodotus' Histories, which covers ancient Egypt.

Volume III-V and VII will mainly entertain fictional literature in the shapes of poetry, plays, and novels - both classics and modern. In here one should be well versed with the works of wa Thiong'o, Achebe, Soyinka, Rotimi, Ruganda, and Abrahams. There are works from female writers including Adichie, Ogot, Nansubuga Makumbi and Mengiste.

Volume VI covers the epic poems of Okot p'Bitek, Song of Lawino and Song of Ocol. In homeric style, he compares the cultures of Africa and Europe, advocating for Africans not to abandon the ways of their forebearers.

Volumes VIII-X will cover famous biographies, speeches and essays. There's a mix of the revolutionary fervour of Cabral, Soyinka, the left-wing rhetoric of Lumumba and the thoughts of the aristocrat Selassie. Biographies include the lives of Kenyatta, Nkrumah and Lumumba.

Volume XI is dedicated to selected lectures made by some famous African intellectuals. The Reith Lectures of Mazrui and Soyinka are instant classics available on the BBC website. All Nobel Prize speeches by African laureates are included in this collection.

It wouldn't be a text on African thought without a section dedicated to anti-colonial thought. Volume XII is dedicated to that purpose, incorporating the works of wa Thiong'o, Nkrumah and p'Bitek.

Volume XIII is dedicated to history. The texts chosen are those of Mazrui, Ogot, Kiwanuka and Karugire. Kaggwa's Empisa chronicles the customs of the Baganda from the earliest times. Studies of ancient Ethiopia and the Kingdom of Asante are also included here.

Afrocentrism forms the basis of Volume XIV. These texts include the writings of Molefi K Asante, Ivan Van Sertima, Cheik Anta Diop, and the one of the few Caucasian authors in these volumes, Martin Bernal. Given the controversy surrounding Afrocentrism, I've seen it fit to include two texts provide a counterargument; the books are by Berlinablau and Mary Lefkowitz.

In the modern world Africans have spread across several continents. On the American continent Africans have been inhabitants, and mostly treated as second class citizens, for the better part of four centuries. Therefore, Volume XV is dedicated to works of some African Americans of note. The texts here are from Frederick Douglass, WEB Du Bois, Booker T Washington, Thurgood Marshall, Barack & Michelle Obama, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.

The final Volume is purely in recognition of this blog's origins in the realm of Economics. As such Volume XVI covers some texts of Black Economists, including William A Lewis (the only black recipient of a Nobel Prize in Economics), Thomas Sowell, Loury, Harris and Wallace.

Below I propose Isabirye's 16-volumes of the Great Books of Africa, and in Eliot's tradition I believe spending 15 minutes a day immersed in one of these texts can drive one towards an Afrocentric awakening.

Volume I - Nelson Mandela; Long Walk to Freedom, 1993 Nobel Prize Lecture, Prison Letters, Ten Years of Democracy (2004 Steve Biko Memorial Lecture)

Volume II - Ancient Texts: The Instructions of Ptah Hotep, The Instructions of Kagemni, The Instruction of Amenemope, The Book of Coming Forth By Day, Kebra Nagast, Fetha Nagast, The Epic of Sundiata, Herodotus Histories Book II: Egypt  

Volume III - Poetry: Kunene's Emperor Shaka the Great, Senghor's Ethiopiques, Okigbo's Labyrinths, Bakare Gbadamosi. Yoruba Poetry, Romanus N. Egudu's Igbo Traditional Verse, Mazisi Kunene's Zulu Poems

Volume IV - Plays: Soyinka's Trials of Brother Jero, The Lion and the Jewel, Kongi's Harvest; Ruganda's The Burdens, Austin Bukenya's The Bride, Rotimi's The Gods Are Not To Blame

Volume V -  Novels: Achebe's Things Fall Apart, Arrow of God; wa Thiongo's Weep Not Child; Abraham's Mine Boy, Emecheta's Bride Price; Grace Ogot's The Other Woman, Land Without Thunder, Amadi's The Concubine, Kwei Armah's The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born, Tamia Moore's Murder in the Cassava Patch, RRR Dhlomo's An African Tragedy: A Novel in English by a Zulu Writer, Thomas Mofolo's Chaka: An Historical Romance.

Volume VI - Okot p'Bitek's epic poetry: Song of Lawino and Song of Ocol

Volume VII - Modern Novels: Adichie's Purple Hibiscus, Obioma's An Orchestra of Minorities, Dangarembga's This Mournable Body, Mengiste's The Shadow King, Nansubuga Makumbi's Kintu

Volume VIII -  Biographies: Nkrumah's The Autobiography, Luthuli's Let My People Go, Maathai's Unbowed, Soyinka's Ake, Oginga Odinga's Not Yet Uhuru: The Autobiography of Oginga Odinga, Tom Mboya's Freedom and After

Volume IX - Speeches: Thomas Sankara Speaks, Lumumba's May Our People Triumph, Oliver Tambo Speaks, Selassie's Selected Speeches, Cabral's Unity and Struggle, Tutu's Hope and Suffering

Volume X - Essays and Letters: Nyerere's Ujaama, Biko's I Write What I Like, p'Bitek's Artist the Ruler, Archbishop Kiwanuka's Pastoral Letter (November 1961)

Volume XI - Lectures: Luthuli's Africa and Freedom (1960 Nobel Prize Lecture), Mazrui's The African Condition (1979 Reith Lectures), Tutu's 1984 Nobel Prize Lecture, Soyinka's This Past Must Address its Present (1986 Nobel Lecture), Semakula Kiwanuka's Central Banking in Africa and the Challenge of Development (1992 JM Mubiru Memorial Lecture), Annan's 2001 Nobel Prize Lecture, wa Thiongo's Consciousness and African Renaissance (2003 Steve Biko Memorial Lecture), Soyinka's Climate of Fear (2004 Reith Lectures), Maathai's 2004 Nobel Prize Lecture, Kaberuka's The African Economy: 50 Years After Independence (2007 JM Mubiru Memorial Lecture), Gbowee's 2011 Nobel Prize Lecture, Johnson Sirleaf's A Voice for Freedom (2011 Nobel Prize Lecture), Mukwege's 2018 Nobel Prize Lecture, Abiy Ahmed's Forging a Durable Peace in the Horn of Africa (2019 Nobel Prize Lecture)

Volume XII - Anti-colonial literature: wa Thiongo's Decolonising the Mind, Nkrumah's Neo-Colonialism, p'Bitek's African Religions in Western Scholarship

Volume XIII - History: Mazrui's The Africans, BA Ogot's History of the Southern Luo, Kenyatta's Facing Mount Kenya, Kiwanuka's A History of Buganda, Karugire's Political History of Uganda, Kaggwa's Empisa, Sergew Selassie's Ancient and Medieval Ethiopian History, John Kofi Fynn's Asante and Its Neighbours, 1700-1807

Volume XIV - Afrocentrism: Molefi Asante's Afrocentric Ideas, Anta Diop's The African Origin of Civilisation, Van Sertima's They Came Before Columbus, Van Sertima's Egypt Revisited, Bernal's Black Athena, Berlinablau's Heresy in the University, Lefkowitz' Black Athena Revisited, Not Out of Africa

Volume XV - African Americans: Frederick Douglass' The Narrative, Washington's Up From Slavery, Washington's Building Character, Du Bois' The Souls of Black Folk, Du Bois' The Negro, King's Strength To Love, King's Why We Can't Wait, Malcolm X' Autobiography, Obama's Dreams from My Father, Michelle Obama's Becoming, Toni Morrison Beloved, Condolezza Rice's A Memoir, Thurgood Marshall's Supreme Justice: Speeches and Writings, Gates Jr.'s The Signifying Monkey, Baldwin's Go Tell It On the Mountain

Volume XVI - Black Economists: WA Lewis' The Theory of Economic Growth, WA Lewis' Development Planning, Sowell's Basic Economics, Sowell's Race and Economics, Glenn Loury's The Anatomy of Racial Inequality, Lincoln Harris' The Negro as a Capitalist, Wallace's Black Women in the Labour Force.

Ceteris. Paribus.

Sources

Kirsch, A., (2001). "The 'Five-foot Shelf' Reconsidered," Harvard Magazine, Volume 103, No.2. Nov-Dec 2001.

Dr. Eliot, C.W. An Ongoing Review and Discussion of the Harvard Classics.

Adler, M. J. (Ed.). (1952). The Great Ideas: A Syntopicon of Great Books of the Western World (Vol. 2). Encyclopaedia Britannica.

The Market For "Demons"

"Experts depend on the fact that you don’t have the information they do. Or that you are so befuddled by the complexity of their operation that you wouldn’t know what to do with the information if you had it. Or that you are so in awe of their expertise that you wouldn’t dare challenge them."

- S Levitt & S Dubner, Freakonomics, 

Greetings. We have smoothly welcomed back the idea of going to our respective places of worship after a six month shutdown. Still, one ponders upon certain matters that pertain to the state of the churches. Long before the lockdown, there were always concerns about the direction certain leaders and their organisations were taking. Some leaders of faith were wont to gain publicity by deeds other than those considered exemplary; verbal abuse, financial fraud, exploitation, etc. Showmanship, whereas not a negative virtue, is however a key aspect of attracting a congregation. With this background, I draw parallels with the current trend of religious affairs and economic wisdom of Akerlof.

The Market for Lemons

George Akerlof's most seminal work, The Market for Lemons, examines how information asymmetry influences the quality of goods traded in a market. Akerlof studied the market for used cars in the US, and tried to explain why only bad cars ("lemons") are left on the market. The sellers know more about their cars than the buyers, given the price offering from buyers the sellers will only be willing to part with the lemons. Overtime, the buyers' willingness to purchase cars will decrease, leading to sellers of high quality cars to leave the market. The result is an end to the existence of markets all together as Akerlof summarises

"For it is quite possible to have the bad driving out the not-so-bad driving out the medium driving out the not-so-good driving out the good in such a sequence of events that no market exists at all."

The key tenet here is information, or lack of it. When applied to churches, the modern preacher can be categorised into two;  the traditional preacher who attends to his flock on Sunday and is free to delegate some aspects to lay leaders and will not promise to drive out demons or deliver a ticket to Dubai or a husband for that matter! The second category, call him the new school preacher, won't spare any promise; ticket to Dubai, a wife,/husband, a job, prophesies, casting out demons, etc. The new school preacher is well versed in marketing his services. For purposes of theological debate beyond my grasp, I shall eliminate healing from both categories.

The traditional preacher, given he makes no promises (mostly because such preachers have a superior they answer to in the shape of bishop, mufti, and the like, i.e. think organised religion), the congregants are well informed about what they are getting from him. The gospel is preached on Sunday, children are baptised, couples are wed, etc. Basically he/she is "tending to the flock", as the Latin origin for the word pastor means shepherd.

The Market for Demons

On the other hand, the new school preacher knows quite a lot more about his "capabilities" than the congregants. One who pronounces oneself banisher of demons is the sole authority on ones capability, given there is no licensing board on said subject. The congregants are lured in with hopes of getting these promises and prophesies delivered, and in return they are willing to pay to have their hopes fulfilled.  

In the end, we find the congregation growing at the places of worship where miracles can be guaranteed compared to their counterparts that solely preach. It is a common phenomenon where people have resorted to only visiting the old school churches for wedding vows, while spending every waking hour at the new school places of worship. 

In terms of traffic and attendance figures, the new school preachers are driving out the old school preachers. And so in the market for demons, he who can guarantee immediate banishment stands a great chance of growing his/her congregations (and with that the collection basket is certain to grow). And as the Akerlof sequence of the bad driving out the good holds, if a religious market ceases to exist, this can only mean the triumph of atheism!

But are demons the preserve of urban centres? There's a disproportionate distribution of new school preachers in urban centres compared to rural centres. Streets in Kampala are littered with pastors proclaiming the second coming, there's all sorts of commercial advertising of pastors promising to deliver people from "ancestral bondage". In the rural areas, these new school churches and the commercial advertising of churches are almost absent. Even the witch doctors are not paying for commercial airtime to promote their abilities to banish demons. The answer could lie in the income distribution. 

The urban GDP per capita is considerably greater than that of rural areas. Case in point: at $3,250 per head, Wakiso (which is home to urban dwellings of Namugongo, Kira, Kireka, Najjera) has a higher GDP per capita than Kenya, the richest state in East Africa! The people in Wakiso will give more in offertory (not mentioning Thanksgiving, consultation fees with pastor, development contribution to the extension of the sitting area, etc) than their counterparts in Kabong (Kabong and the rest of Karamoja combined contribute less than 1% of GDP). The new school preacher will thrive more in the urban centres than he would if he ventured out in the rural areas.

The rural people get to keep their demons, for now! 

Ceteris. Paribus.

P.S.

Happy New Year. I hope this will be a fruitful year for us all.

Further Reading

Akerlof, G.A., (1970). "The Market for 'Lemons': Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism". Quarterly Journal of Economics. The MIT Press. 84 (3): 488–500

Cassidy, J., (2009). How Markets Fail: The Logic of Economic Calamities. New York: Farrar, Strauss & Giraux. Chapter 12: Hidden Information and the Market for Lemons, pp.151-165

Editor, (April 2020). "COVID-19 pandemic exposes church fraudsters- Pastor Male," The Independent. 

Levitt, S. D., & Dubner, S. J., (2005). Freakonomics. New York: William Morrow. Chapter 2: How Is the Ku Klux Klan Like a Group of Real-Estate Agents? pp.55-88

Rafa, M., Moyer, J. D., Wang, X., & Sutton, P. (2017). Estimating district GDP in Uganda.

Wang, X., Rafa, M., Moyer, J. D., Li, J., Scheer, J., & Sutton, P. (2019). Estimation and mapping of sub-national GDP in Uganda Using NPP-VIIRS imagery. Remote Sensing, 11(2), 163.