Reflections on sunday : Frailty, thy name is life!

No, I’m not waxing poetic. I was forced to distort the legendary quote from the great “Bard of Avon”, William Shakespeare, in his play, ‘Hamlet’, when I saw another distinguished personage on TV last Monday. I saw The Right Honourable Baroness Margaret Hilda Thatcher, LG, OM, PC, FRS. Now, if you’ve lived in Uganda as I have, I’m sure you instinctively jump up at the mention of titles, in reaction to flashes of a flamboyant Ugandan killer president who was possessed of a similarly long string of titles to his name.Remember Al Haji Idi Amin Dada, QC, CBE, CFCOO (Current Former Chairman Of OAU), etc.? Well, I cannot vouch for the authenticity of Amin’s titles, they being self-awarded. In the case of Thatcher, however, you can take that authenticity to the bank. For having been knighted, Lady Thatcher received the Order of the Garter (LG), the “L” of which, don’t ask me! She received the Order of Merit (OM) for having been of singular service to her country. She is a member of the Privy Council (PC) that advises the queen. And she is a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) of London, which is a kind of Think Tank, which, I am sure, rings a bell to denizens of a certain watering hole of Rugunga! My point, however, is not to sing praises of individuals’ titles but to lament the weakness of life. For the life of me, I could not imagine Margaret Thatcher being supported to walk. The Iron Lady, who was “not for bending”, now to be directed to wave to the small, sympathetic crowd in front of her residence, unable to have distinguished the group from the buildings and trees around her house? Indeed, life, thy name is zee! Sometimes, it makes you think that life is not worth living. Only that, the alternative is not necessarily rosy, either. Consider the ramifications of there having been no growing old and no dying off. It would have meant all living creatures filling the earth and scrambling over the little land and other resources available. In fact, it would have meant not only creatures but also man-made objects competing for those resources, and the resultant genocides would have been a million-fold worse than simple expiry. Thank God, then, that there is life and existence, and then there is expiry. That should serve as a wake-up call to all creatures to live for the service of others, especially of future generations. The wake-up call is even more poignant to us in Rwanda, considering that only the other day a section of our society thought it could wipe out part of its people. Pathetic how individuals can be inward-looking and totally blind to reason. But even more pathetic is that there are those whom we took to be in the ranks of the gallant men and women who fought this myopic view. Alas, how wrong we were! Give them a shove off their comfort throne and their self-seeking shark fangs are laid bare. What you see are quislings Nyamwasa and Karegyeya, a bank-fraudster Gahima and a ‘redcom’ conning Rudasingwa ready to jump in bed with any blood-thirsty Draculan genocide-promoting revisionist. That apart, I was talking about the frailty of life. Maybe you remember the star voyeur of the ‘vuvuzela-cacophonied’ world cup of South Africa last June/July. In case you don’t, that savant was Paul the Octopus, alias Paul Oktopus, Paul die Krake or Pulpo Paul. Unfortunately, ‘he’ is no more, having passed away last 26th October, at the age of 2. May ‘his’ soul rest in peace! Sad that he could not have foreseen his death, and avoided anything that was likely to hasten his demise. Yet again, the soothsayer that he was, he might have foreseen it but didn’t want to interfere with fate. Even then, I’m informed that die Krake was beside himself with laughter when he suddenly kicked the bucket. The reason for the uncontrollable mirth was that he had been asked if “Rooney really wanted to leave Manchester United.” Comfortable in his retirement after an illustrious career of 100%-correct predictions, Oktopus could have done without any disturbance. Still, that did not stop him from performing his after-retirement duty admirably, like the good soldier that he was. And good soldier that he was, England had put all her money on him, to clinch the bid for hosting the 2018 world cup. In this week’s bidding, England have been dealt a deadly blow with the death of Krake, whom they had picked as their official bid ambassador. Most probably, England had also hoped to influence him in predicting wins for them, when time for kick-off came. So, laments an English paper: “As omens go, the death of an official bid ambassador is not the most auspicious start to a crucial week of lobbying.” Well, Ambassador die Krake is gone. Shakespeare again: “All the world’s a stage/And all the men and women merely players/They have their exits and their entrances…” In short, live for honour. All else is naught. ingina2@yahoo.co.uk