Ben Matogo: Of Destiny Destiny is not about what happens but what we make happen. In the twilight of our darkest fears or the incense of a misty morn’s hopes, we determine who we become. True, sometimes the gods guide us along a blind script. For God cannot be led by the beard. But, for the most part, our destiny is what we make it. Yet destiny often conspires with its close relative Fate to change our lives before we can change ourselves. When Ben Matogo was but a boy, his father, Mzee Kanyonyozi, had a premonition. He didn’t witness the rising of the seas or the howling of night winds, what he saw was less evocative. Still, it was no less spectacular. In the unspeaking silence of a still afternoon; as the sapphire skies played host to the disc of blazing sun, Mzee Kanyonyozi was returning from herding his cows. It was a normal day with a slight breeze combing the leaves of grass alternately pressed by his sandaled feet. Like a bolt from the blue, a crow appeared and perched upon his shoulder. This was strange. Before he could shoo it away, a smoky vision appeared before his eyes. In it, he saw his son Ben as he was at the time: a six year old tot. Then he saw his son growing to the size of a colossus straddling the solemn hills of Kabale. Thereafter, this colossal mutant of his son levitated towards the celestial depths above. Then incandescence blinded his sight. And he saw no more. Clearly, he had seen the very trajectory of his son’s future: he was destined for a higher purpose. This was not new with Mzee Kanyonyozi, he was a trusted soothsayer whose visions had the finality of a verdict. Quite often, he would sit in the center of his drinking cronies and regale them of what would become of them and theirs. They would listen with rapt attention as this spare and diminutive man would rise to the crescendo of his prophesies. With a drink in hand, his flights of intuition would stun his open-mouthed listeners. Some thought him to be a magician or even a witchdoctor. Because his forecasts largely settled upon the Bull’s Eye. Now he saw his son growing into something more than a village bumpkin. Thereupon, Mzee Kanyonyozi made it his sacred mission to raise his son to the heights of this potential. So he did everything short of selling his soul to ensure that his son had a decent education and was taken care of. Visitors would be amazed to see the old man cooking and cleaning for his son as if he were his domestic servant. Ben was treated as a child prodigy that would uplift the family fortunes from the dust. Indeed, the boy performed well in school and received scholarships to institutions of higher learning. Meantime, Mzee Kanyonyozi would tell anyone who cared to listen that, “Matogo will protect me!” This alone shocked his listeners into silence. Because they thought it should be the other way around. Yet the old man knew that once one spawns a great offspring, that offspring becomes something of an ancestor to the family’s achievements thereafter. Ben would thus be the guide and guard of the family’s reputation. At university, Ben bubble dreamed of his greatness. His father’s unshakeable faith was wired into his subconscious. Once, Julius Nyerere, the former president of Tanzania, visited his almer mater and Ben’s university. He delivered his diagnosis on what, by his lights, ails Africa. Thereafter he prescribed Ujaama or self-reliance as a prognosis. It would be a third-way departure from capitalism and communism. Since both those ‘isms’ where inimical to what it meant to be an African, he believed. Communism was predicated upon class struggle yet Africa was classless, he said. So communism did violence to the very spirit of African communalism. Again, capitalism was un-African because it emphasized individual worth over the collective value. This was the 1960s. And everyone greeted such Afro-optimism with applause. But Ben was not convinced. He raised his hand after the president’s sermon and let him have it. Africa functioned as part of the human family, he said. Hence the instincts of the African were ultimately like any other peoples. He went on to add that these instincts were essentially of a selfish design. So any ideology or strategy for progress must harness this selfishness through innovative enterprise. Of course, he agreed, man could not live on GNP alone. But selfishness was the spur of competition. That competition would in turn bring out the best in goods and services. But, sadly, not people. Yet such a loss of innocence was a small price to pay. He then predicted that Ujaama would crumble under the deadweight of its own fallacies. Needless to say, Nyerere was not a smiling man after hearing this prophecy. Years later, Ben staged a hegira and wound up in exile. Thereafter, he became a steely-eyed revolutionary that never strayed from the unbeaten path of change in Uganda. A former Ugandan president, in exile with him, was duly impressed with his idealism. But he compared him to a man rowing a boat vigorously while still anchored to the shore. “You will die in exile, Uganda will reject you and your idealism,” he told him. This prophecy haunted Ben because, deep in his marrow, he knew it was true. He was too much of a lone-ranger to be regulated by the democratic centralism of political affiliation or disaffiliation. Again, his Jeffersonian belief that a revolution must refresh itself with the blood of a patriot sounded crass and medieval. So when the fresh breath of change gusted through Uganda, he was tossed to an embassy life. On such cushy sidelines, his voice would be muffled. His daily life would then become the typical fare of an ambassador’s: cocktails, expense accounts and pretentious glad-handing. The world had changed too. It went from a Cuban Missile Crisis to détente as it emerged from the ruins of The Berlin Wall. And beyond Kabale Hills, the horizon had already stretched to the full extent of a father’s prophecies for his son. By May 27, 1993 Ben told his family, “I will be dead in a year. But I lived a full life.” On May 27, 1994 his ultimate destiny was fulfilled.
Posted on: Wed, 30 Jul 2014 12:56:22 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015