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By:
Annet Kasiima
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Aug,08-2016 15:03:36
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Whatever happened to cultural expression? Only heaven knows, but modern Ugandans are a great let--down. In the past, you could speak your language in couched jargon and young children would not get the deeper meaning, so you put your point across without scandalising them.
You could also speak in front of a foreigner who has learnt your language, but only your people would get the meaning, and nobody would be offended. But today, things have changed for the worse.
Only last week, this beautiful woman member of parliament was being grilled by her colleagues over the origin of three million dollars that she spent to purchase a piece of land in Kampala city. She had bought the land at an auction after the original purchaser was forced to lose it since it belonged to a public agency.
Three million dollars (ten billion Uganda shillings) is a lot of money by any standards and MPs wanted to know how the youngish lady had come across such a fortune.
The lady in a soft, barely audible voice, from the video footage that everybody has now viewed a hundred times, answered that she sold her goats.
Speaking in proverbs
That should have been enough for mature Ugandans not to pursue their questioning any further. For in several of our languages, when a young lady talks of her 'goat', it means that precious, priceless possession that she can only surrender once to the most special person of her choice, or, ehh, of her parents' choice. And once the 'goat' is taken, it is taken.
There was an important ceremony in the olden days, though some conservative families also delight in performing it if possible, where after a marriage is consummated and the 'goat' is found to still have been there, the groom surrenders the blood stained bedsheets to the bride's parents accompanied with many expensive gifts.
It is even alleged that even Europeans so valued the "eating of the goat" that the honeymoon was invented to hide the bride's shame in case no 'goat' was found on the bridal night.
Now our supposedly mature members of parliament are so unschooled in the cultures which are dying out first that when one of their own tells them about her 'goat', which could have enabled her to acquire a few million dollars, the message did not register.
They grilled her further and she told them quietly that she had secured the money from close relatives.Still they did not get it and demanded to see the agreement under which such a a hefty transfer of wealth had taken place. She had to tell them that deals with close relatives do not require written agreements but the dot com legislators missed the point. She has stuck to speaking in proverbs, so the harassment of the lady continues!
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