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Is engule only God given?

Last Friday, 13 September, 2019 was one of my days out. This time round I did not inject in my own finances though. The session about personal finance management was one of the items on the agenda; this is one of the most sensitive topics around the globe. The presenter, Paul, whose other name I would rather I reserve, was a hot potato of that morning until he made a phrase; the reason for writing this piece actually, that;

“… some people have begun promising people engule (the crown). For us we know engule will only be given to us when we go to Heaven. It is only given by God.”

Yes, he may not have been critical and made the risk assessment of his ambiguous statement, but it affected his audience; there are individuals who felt totally at sea, and I was one of them; was the man to talk about politics, defend the church or speak about personal finance?

However, there was a raising urge for me to have this expressed. I did not want to elaborate to Paul what exactly engule means, meant and will mean although I had that opportunity. This is because I thought he very well knows as well. So, I thought he had something to put forward to his audience. Not all of us were brain washed, and so some of us felt attacked.

The word engule has been used in the catholic and protestant church song to represent the joy and happiness that Christian believers will experience when they reach heaven. Its origin is however not clear; though it is a Luganda word, even Baganda cannot claim word’s ownership apart from just being a word in their language.

In Paul’s statement, I knew he actually referred to Honourable Kyagulanyi’s song, “Tuliyambala engule”. In this song, just like in the Christian song, the word engule is symbolic. It is a representation of happiness and joy that is gained after a bad condition. Who does not know that Christians think this earth is a place of suffering and their only joy is after death and at their God’s place? Who does not know that some Ugandans too feel the current government is a suffering imposer and that when it goes off, then there will be joy? It does not matter the validity of their expectations and judgement. What matters is that the word engule is simply a symbol.

In Kyagulanyi’s song, he expresses the different unfairness and injustices, poor medical services, nepotism, corruption, land grabbing, and many others. All these things, the listeners of the song and followers of Kyagulanyi think are vivid in the country, and so one may not have to judge against some Ugandans who follow their perceptions. As expressed in song’s opening statement and also a quotation from Nelson Mandela, “Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful nation will again experience the oppression of one by another and dare the indignity of being the skunk of the world”, the musician thinks time is coming when people will be free from the “suffering”.

I however, did not blame the presenter. I simply felt a number of Ugandans need help form brainwashers. If Paul was critiquing Kyagulanyi for using the word in his song, he was wrong because no group can claim its ownership. Two, music is art or literature, and according to William Wordsworth, no piece of writing stands independently; there will always be sameness in all artistic and literary pieces. Literary scholars will always copy some pieces from other scholars; there will be lines, words, tones, colours and other ideas either wholly or partially included in the new literature or art. That is normal.

If his intention was to claim some supporters for his party, which we did not really know from him directly, but otherwise, he also used a wrong forum, time and audience- these were people who had gone for fun and some knowledge on personal finance management. His political will affected some of his audience for some minutes of his presentation.

All the Pauls of today may need to understand that Ugandans have grown. They do not need one to tell them how bad the other person’s political material is, but how much you are willing to change what the material talks about you. It is vital also to explain to people how bad the idea is by presenting the good you have about the wrong the material critiques. All art and politics is never independent, there will always be sameness. Lastly, politics and religion are sensitive matters and people must always make a risk assessment before commenting about them lest they lose the participatory benefit of their audiences.

19th September, 2019.

12:30 pm