Our revolution is still waiting for our artistes, poets, comics

It was Karl Marx who famously told us that every revolution has to have its poet.

The idea of a poet being the mover of revolutions, among other things, was reference to the intellectual (the columnists if you like; the peasant intellectuals). Marx was referring to a rhetorician, but more precisely, the artiste. You cannot sustain a revolution without someone trained and experienced in rhetoric and art.

A revolution thrives on an opinion or a series of opinions meticulously and aesthetically captured in language. The best job is one by the artiste. The message has to involuntarily implant itself onto the minds of the foot-soldiers –– even the dullest among them –– who have to return to the streets for several days.

Taking this analysis further, Ugandan poet, artiste and cultural theorist, Okot p’ Bitek would tell us that “the artiste is the ruler.” Through the artiste’s masterly of language, wit and humour –– often delivered to entertain–– abstract notions such as our pains, and troubles are vividly captured in language, made memorable through precise coinages and slogans, and made understandable to ordinary folk.

Through the drums, the figures of speech, the rhymes and beats, the artiste visualizes pain, trauma and misery and throws it in the face of the fighter. The foot-soldiers then smoke these images like weed, and are ready to fight to the death for their liberation.

If there are any lessons to take from Kenya’s Gen-Z movement––there is a whole lot of them––it is that entertainers, jokers, musicians, clowns, are a core part of struggles. It is not just comedian Eric Omondi or the very famous Churchill Live show (which among others, featured outgoing Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta).

But that Kenya’s popular cultural industry is much more advanced and political than Uganda’s. Recall that young comic who joked about “Uganda” being the verb or the synonym for “no change!” That if someone said to you that “you are too Ugandan” they would be meaning, “you do not change.”

Yes, the audience enjoyed that joke because for a long time, they have matured to appreciate political humour. No wonder, while praise is being given to the apps, specifically Twitter and TikTok, we need not to miss the content generated through these applications.

It is not just that ass shaking has been politicized. Yes, even the ass is political, and young folks are ass-shaking their struggles and ass shaking their way to a promised land. But the poetry in which messages are being captured on placards on the streets or designed messages. the craft is powerful, easy to memorize, and sometimes, repulsive. Just one example: “I do not need sex, because the IMF/Ruto f**ks me every day.”

It is not surprising that presently, it had to be comic and cartoonist Jimmy Spire Ssentongo to enter the fray, and inspire this generation of activism. Not that there were no activists before (Agarther Atuhaire has brawled with parliament for some time). But that there needed an artiste to inspire a wave.

Ssentongo coined #Exhibitions! But the absolute genius of Spire Ssentongo, in addition to his witticism and satire, is his ability to package our pain in a single image: a cartoon. These caricatures of our abusers, capture the ironies, lies and contradictions of our politicians who tend to abuse and steal from us while claiming to be working for us. While we laugh at these ironies in caricature, the seriousness of the message is not lost on us.

Before Spire Ssentongo, Bobi Wine thrived on the same page. Arts. And before Bobi Wine, there was Christopher Ssebadduka, Alex Mukulu, Robert Serumaga Snr. Ankore tradition has a critical, mythical clown character, Ishe- Katabazi and much more. But I do not want to focus on these names, but to say, there is an artiste in all of us, and this artiste has to emerge, thriving on the inspiration offered by the legends.

My intention is not simply to heap praise on the work of my friend, Jimmy Spire Ssentongo, but also call on colleagues in the trade to see the calling. The already-established artiste sits in an enviable position that doing nothing should make them feel more guilty than their less established colleagues.

Because the established artiste owes his followers a debt for their support, and is in a good position to bring their celebrity clout onto the political scene. It is not true that comics including especially Salvado Idringi, Pablo Kimuli, Anne Kansiime do not feel our pains as their followers and fans: the potholes, the lack of medicines in hospitals, the theft of public money, the selling of the country for foreigners, etc.

It is not just in moments of extortionist taxation, but an entire array of things emboldens thieves in government to come and loot from artistes. Standing up ought to be all the time –– and the artiste can stand up artistically, creatively.

I convinced my friends at the Fun Factory, legends of the trade, Richard Tuwangye, Kuddzu, Zizinga and co. to feel the pain their Thursday customers. We come to the shows to pass our pains, yet we ought to be coming for entertainment. No wonder we laugh less.

National theatre would be selling out every Thursday if commercial banks were not racially looting from small businesses (through taxation and extortionist interest rates). It is not true that artistes, A-Pass Bagonza (he was on the streets a couple of times); my sister Veronica Nakiyingi, Winifred Nakanwagi are not interested in our other struggles.

Spyda MC recently gave us 30 seconds of brilliant lyrics and dance moves as he sought to remind us about cooperatives and hard work. We need more from more established folks.

yusufkajura@gmail.com

The author is a political theorist based at Makerere University