When I watched that video of the police officer harassing a supermarket attendant at a fuel station in Kyanja, I immediately wished I had not watched it. And yet I went on to watch it five more times. It was depressing, annoying, outrageous, but also scary. It reminded me of the sad reality of how unsafe we can be in what seems like a very safe space.
Perhaps we should have sections in our public entities for common people and then for the rest who occasionally lose their marbles and forget to regulate their emotions.
For instance, a smaller pothole filled lane on the road for us ordinary people and then another lane for the VIPS and Nsiimas of this world because imagine interfacing with that man on a narrow road, he would probably Fuga you off the road with or without street cameras. Anyway me as me, I was scared.
These days, I tiptoe in most public places because you just never know when the gods will go crazy.
The only comfort is that in all of this, God still reigns supreme, and he is able and willing to protect us from the realities of life. I was never really beaten as a child, not because my parents were permissive, but because I was and still am quite the coward of the country. I followed the rules to the dot just to avoid the rod.
So I cannot imagine now as a grown human, being smacked! Eh! These are some of the things that scared me about that video. So now, as ‘people of down’ in Kampala, we have to watch out for Sino trucks, cement mixers, floods, lying politicians, and Nsiima and his 30k.
I heard people blame the security guard and the other people who walked in and did nothing or said nothing to help. Of course, that is the wrong response, and yet if we are being honest, many of us would be those people.
They were too scared to speak up, which is what, unfortunately, many of us are. Too scared to stand up for our rights and the rights of others. Why, well, because most times than not, the price of boldness and heroism is too high compared to the rewards.
Or is it because we are not yet angry enough, or we think we have too much to lose? We all know that the scene that played out in that supermarket in Kyanja will not be the last of its kind. It is just going to be a different cast and props, but the same script.
In prehistoric times, man had to go out hunting, prepared to deal with wild animals that might come at him from any direction, hoping to make a fresh dinner of him.
Eons later, we now must leave our homes armed emotionally, mentally, and for some people, physically, just in case we meet things that are out to get us. I think this might be part of the big, bad world that our mamas warned us about.
And yet even with all this, aren’t you grateful for technology and the things it helps to expose? It might look like postmortem justice, but it still is a plus, and I am pretty sure knowing that they could be caught on camera and exposed for their nasty actions could keep other wild ones at bay if only for a while at least until the full moon.
So, get that camera for your business and home, and whatever other premises you lord over, if you can afford it. It is no longer a luxury or for the banking hall alone. You just never know when it could come in handy.
If you cannot afford them right now, visit the toy section in the supermarket, get a strange-looking toy, and then invite your tallest friends to pose as a camera installation team. Have them install the toys in various vantage points where they can clearly be seen.
Let everyone on the premises know that these are state-of-the-art ‘cameras’ from outside countries that can capture even the sound of heartbeats.
Thinking they are being watched will keep some people acting sane. Please note, make sure to replace the toys with real cameras as soon as you can, before something serious happens or before one sly person discovers your folly.