Welcome to the first issue of the Ibua Journal, 2021.
I acknowledge it has been difficult to arrive at this moment, personally and as a team. As we first approached possible contributors to the Issue ─one designed to celebrate the people of Uganda regaining their Independence─ we could already hear them baulking at the idea of ‘Independence’. The subject a contradiction not just for us but for this Nation.
In looking at post-independence Africa ─Modern Africa─ the cost of nation-building has been dear, dearer in some places. For nearly six decades, we have been witnesses to conflicts ─local and continental─ triggered by ethnic, religious, political or other motivations. As groups of people, forced to co-exist in a construct bequeathed by the aggressors, vie for amalgamated resources with a zero-sum mindset.
While we might bear witness to and participate in activities to celebrate our people regaining their independence, we question the reality of this. Our continued experiences at odds with the idea of all men being free and them the masters of their destinies in the lands they call home. October 9th, therefore, the historical mark of the actions of an aggressor and their disruption of the agency of our ancestral worlds ─in seeming perpetuity.
As we worked to release the issue as previously scheduled, we found ourselves witness to a country embroiled in a tumultuous election process. In pursuit of their civic right, presidential hopefuls arrived at the Nomination centre ruffled or barefoot or sweaty from having to run down the streets to get there in time. The campaign trail would prove precarious. Some would find themselves repeatedly bundled into the back of police cars. Having to don protective gear, and no this wasn’t play-acting, or employing defensive driving tactics. In an attempt to protect themselves and their teams from the assaults of those charged with their safety. Our security.
What was the emotion we felt? Despair? Despondence? Dread? I still struggle to articulate the sense of darkness careening towards us. Shaking the despair hasn’t been easy. But we are slowly restarting to find life again. We laugh, we hope again, and ready for the next round. We keep yearning for leaders that aspire to consolidate the country’s global positioning for the benefit of all, not for personal empires. Democracy, we call for. Freedom, we sing. We write.
We the People is a two-part issue with the fore section, Uganda at 58 years, a collection of personal essays on the state of the nation. While the second half, Celebrating Ibua Labs, focuses on the Ibua Short Fiction Lab space, through a collection of epistolary essays, from the 2019 Short Fiction Lab.
The authors, in this collection, provide a look at our condition as a Country and their aspirations for the future.
In A tale of Nation Building and My Older Sister, the authors Icaka O’Ongom and Jackie Asiimwe respectively draw attention to the origins of our Nation Building. Icaka makes a case for a future for the Nation, one hinged on us paying attention to the lessons learned from the foundations of the State while Asiimwe makes an impassioned plea for a change in how we as a Nation address constitutional matters. Like both authors, we have watched as violence ─the military as its agent─ has been used repeatedly as the King Maker, in detriment to the growth of our constitutional processes, and at the expense of the sanctity of the lives of the inhabitants of this land. Is change even possible for us?
In A Short Story on the Making of Uganda, Wobusobozi Kangere looks at the pivotal role Apollo Kaggwa played in shaping the future of the protectorate that we now call Uganda. Uganda’s naming and historical narrative are attributed to a clerical error for the former and a Lake Nnalubale (Victoria) bias for the latter. Key to this was the man, famous across the regions of the protectorate, for he would take its designs far beyond the boundaries of Buganda.
In Glass Houses and Yellow Sweaters, drawing from my memories and those of the collective, I look at the promises of the yesteryears vis-à-vis the reality we are witnesses to. And how what once promised protection now threatens.
Writers have always had a knack for articulating the human experience. Often, they are voices capturing and curating what might feel fleeting. Despite their gravitation to solitary living, writers need a nurturing community as neither they nor their works thrive in isolation. For this reason, the Ibua Labs exist. As a space to equip participants with the basics of creative writing and to provide them with much needed editorial support as they develop select projects. The essays below, taken from the 2019 Lab, describe the writers’ creative motivations and processes.
In Nanjobe and others, Achelam speaks of the lives ─snuffed out or bursting forth─ that inhabit the writer’s being till they take form on paper. Some characters come to the writer in the most unlikely of ways yet transform the way the writer thinks of the mundane. In A Quill Evolution, Marilyn speaks of adaptation. The human species a master at this process, continually changing to make the most of an ever-changing environment. Taking from this, through her writing, she finds the grace to do so herself.
In Green Apples in a Tropical Climate, Charles speaks of the magic of writing, one akin to planting and growing green apples in an unlikely place. In defiance of the limitations set by those that only see the impossibility of growing green apples in a tropical climate, the writer strives to attain the dreams they aspire to through their writing. And in Hey, How Are You? Loretta speaks of yearning for meaningful connection. A connection that lies at the end of genuine responses to the question, how are you? She aspires to make and encourage meaningful human connection through her writing.
Finally, in Unfurling, I speak of a re-discovery of self, one brought on by the act of writing. In picking up what had seemed unimportant, I have found new life and shedding off the ghost-like state of my dreams.
Enjoy the read, and thank you for joining us once again.