#UGBlogWeek By Ugandan Standards: An Expert Talk Gone Horribly Wrong

So I was fortunate enough, or unfortunate depending on how you look at it, to be asked to speak at a long running event called Expert Talks where people making waves in their fields are invited to share ideas.

At first I didn’t really want to do it but my wife and a friend who happened to be one of the organizers colluded and convinced me that it would be a good thing for me to do.  I saw the sense in that and so I agreed.

I wrote down a script I was going to follow, practiced reading from it, put it on my Kindle and without even a shadow of nerves went for the talk. I can honestly say that I was pretty confident that I would ace this shit. I’m not a stranger to the stage. I’ve been acting since forever (although not recently), I’ve given several talks before (although also not recently), I’ve read out my work at various conferences, festivals and fairs to not bad effect (although again, not so recently), I’ve MC’d events, graduation parties and service hosted at my former church numerous times- I had this. Only I didn’t. My Kindle went defunct at the last moment and although I managed to get my script onto a friend’s tablet it still wasn’t my tablet and so I wasn’t used to how it functioned.

The tablet started giving me trouble almost as soon as I stepped on stage. I tried to ditch it but found that as soon as I did, even though I knew exactly what I wanted to say and knew all the facts, figures and information like the back of my hand without my script in front of me everything went *poof!* and was gone. I limped through my talk which was jumbled, incoherent and laced with a series of heart felt apologies. An excruciating experience to the people in the audience I’m sure. I recovered a little during the Q&A but the fact is by that point I just wanted to get off the stage.

Everyone was really nice about it afterwards but on the level, I wasn’t as bothered by it as I thought I would be. That being said, I do feel like I misrepresented myself and what I wanted to talk about and so I’ve decided to publish my script and give guys a look at what I was trying and so epically failed to say and so here.


The Talk

I attended a writer-director friend’s movie premiere a few weeks ago.

It was twenty K for a regular ticket and fifty if you wanted to go home with the DVD, though I doubt very many people paid for one of those. As for myself, I set aside a twenty thou with the intention of showing my solidarity and support but somehow, on the day before the premiere, I scored two free tickets and so decided that my presence was solidarity enough and calling up a friend said, "We go."

The invite said 'Red Carpet' and so I dusted off my one black suit, polished my shoes and got ready to party. I liked the idea of dressing up and celebrating a friend's achievement. Because make no mistake, even if the movie wound up being the worst movie ever made, it was still an achievement.

I guess it shouldn't really have surprised me that I was one of only 10% who actually adhered to the dress code. Even the director just threw on a coat and was done with it.  As much as I was probably being paranoid, the whole night I had this insurmountable feeling that everyone was side eyeing me because I actually took the time to dress up.

In any case, people posed for pictures, walked the red carpet that was more brown than red and made their way into the auditorium.

Two minutes into the movie and my silent knit picking began and didn't let up until the credits rolled and the lights came up.

Turning to the friend I had come with I asked him, "So, what would you give it out of ten?" He gave it a moment's thought and then answered, "3 out of 10." The low score surprised me. Not because I thought it was undeserved but because I assumed that my friend, let's call him Charlie, would show the film a little leniency. A little good will. A comfortable 5/10 to be nice. And so I asked my de facto follow up question, prefacing it with, "As much as I hate using the term, what about by Ugandan Standards?" Charlie looked at me with a wry smile, "That is by Ugandan standards." What? Really? How? And so I followed up again, "And what about by real standards?" There was no pause before Charlie  answered, "Probably like 1.3."

OUCH.

The thing is, he was absolutely right. It was a horrible movie. I know some people who actually walked out of the auditorium half way through because they were so bored. Ask me why I roughed it out, with a hell of a migraine too and I'm not quite sure what I would tell you.

Two things caught my attention about that exchange with Charlie though.

The first was;  the automatic, almost unconscious lowering of my internal barometer as I sat there in that darkened auditorium. Or maybe it happened earlier, maybe it happened the moment I decided to go and show my solidarity. I mean, I knew this guy, he’d never made anything that I had ever liked but he was a friend and a colleague...I couldn't very well tell him that the movie sucked huge, hairy king-kong sized balls, could I? That would be mean. Plus, the guy had tried. This was a huge step for Ugandan film, is what I told myself...but was it really?

The second was; by my own admission I knew that this "Ugandan Standard" I was talking about was a sham. It was nothing more than an illusion to blind myself and everyone else who subscribed to it to the irrefutable fact that by real standards, by the world's standards, we were off in some corner of the play ground playing duel.

Now, I've come across this notion of "Ugandan Standards" quite a few times, across several different fields, for quite some time now. For me, it's almost become synonymous with settling for less. I try my best to combat this type of thinking but I don’t exactly live in a vacuum and so it gets hard sometimes.

I guess my question to you guys is; are we OK with this? Are we OK with the idea that outside of our very small borders we're not really better than anyone else at anything? Are we OK with the fact that if a Ugandan and a Kenyan apply for the same job, barring any nepotism, tribalism or any other kind of -ism, the Kenyan will almost certainly get the job? Are we really OK with expecting less and therefore receiving less and inversely giving less because less is expected of us; creating this vicious cycle of tepid expectations that solidifies into a culture of mediocrity that starts with our Head of State and ends with the rolex guy I sometimes go to just down the road from my place who rolls his chappatis with the nonchalance of a dog lifting its hind leg.

I know I'm not. It bothers me, a lot, and although I know I'm probably not going to bring everyone along with me on this, I want to look at this thing called the "Ugandan Standard" a little more. Maybe find out what it looks like, where it came from, even maybe what we can do about it and if my search comes out inconclusive I do apologize; if there's one thing I've realized, it's that I know nothing. I'm just trying to shine a little light on something that pierces like a splinter in my mind.

And so like me in that darkened auditorium please lower your expectations.


But What About Us?

I guess I’ll just say come right out and say it, I think many of us have this strange third world apathy-small town mentality kind of thing going on.

As we all know, Uganda's a small country. A poor one too. Our population is about 38 million and of those 38 only about 1.7 live in Kampala. According to The World Bank the average Ugandan earns about 170,000 a month. We're a third world country that has lived through one dictatorship after another, through bush wars and war lords, through power cuts, water cuts, bad roads, horrible health care and a whole long list of things. Politicians can still buy votes with sacks of sugar and bars of soap. Sitting here, it can be easy to forget just how bad most of our country has it. How little it takes to make the average Ugandan, if not happy, then at least relatively comfortable. I mention this because living in such an environment most Ugandans can not really afford the luxury of setting high expectations for themselves, for their lives or the people and institutions around them. Most people live and die fighting to rise just a little higher below the poverty line.

It's disheartening to think that our bar for success is set so low that convincing people to make the effort to raise it is a task that many would say is not worth undertaking. But what’s even more disheartening is that I wouldn't blame them.

But what about us? I mean, I'm pretty sure most of us here are pretty well educated, are in a substantially higher income bracket than a ghastly 170,000 a month; as well as rather exposed too; that’s to say that you've watched the latest episode of Game of Thrones (or maybe you're like me and waiting for all ten), you Snapchat more than you instagram, you use  VPN's whenever the government decides to go loco and you're probably live tweeting this right now on a phone that costs more than some Ugandans' annual income...what's your excuse?

Why aren't you demanding more from the status quo? Why aren't you demanding more from yourself as well as from the establishment? Why aren't you demanding for more on behalf of the people that can't because they've been so brutally beaten into apathy...?

But the more pertinent question is one I have to ask is of myself and that is; why aren't I...?

Because even though I have a little more money, a few more opportunities, a sliver of influence for some reason I keep getting dragged back under by this horrible sense of lethargy that tells me that even though I posses more than most of my compatriots, it's not enough. I'm not American, I'm not British, I'm not even Nigerian- I'm Ugandan. I'm the son of Kony, the son of Obote, the son of Amin and the only thing I can do is to use what I have to either get out or get mine- period.


"This isn't Hollywood, this is Uganda."

A few years ago, long before I knew even the little I know about my field now, I found myself amongst a group of people intent on shooting a pilot for a TV series. They had the will and they had the way and they asked me for my help and so I thought, "why not?" I was brought on as a consultant but quickly found myself in the thick of things, taking on the role of Alpha without even trying or being asked. I over saw the development of the pilot through the locking down of a script (which I co-wrote), casting of the principle characters, scouting for locations, recruiting of the crew and even brought a lawyer friend on board to serve as a consultant (it was supposed to be a legal drama).
Doing as much research as I could on the process of  pre-production I knew that professionally, a certain process was to be followed and demanded for such, my fellow team mates, however, thought differently. After pleading my case I was issued a curt "Relax, this isn't Hollywood." The guy who said it gave me an almost apologetic smile. It was like he felt sorry for me for setting my standards so high. Only I wasn't. I was asking if we could push shooting by one week so that instead of the actor's getting the script on a Friday evening and having to shoot the following day, they would have at least a week with it. Maybe we could even fit in a rehearsal or two but no such luck, I was asking for too much, "This isn't Hollywood."

I walked away from the project without looking back and left them to their own devices.

I feel like that phrase, "This isn't Hollywood.", could be translated into another one I hear quite a lot: "This is UG."

But I have to ask, what exactly does that mean: "This is UG."? Does it mean, "That's just how things are so get used to it."? Or maybe, "Those things are for those people those ends so you leave it to them."? Or maybe even, "You just make your few shillings and be happy, OK?"

I think it’s probably all three, and others as well.

But here's the thing, I believe that we're not supposed to get used to it. That we shouldn't leave it to them and that we should want more than just Shillings;  we should want Dollars, we should want Pounds and we should want Yen- you name it.

And even though not everyone would succeed in their pursuit for something better I still believe that a collective pursuit for something more than just, "OK" would be the beginning of something to behold.

Monkey See, Monkey Do

I say all of this, of course, with the full knowledge that not everyone in this country is completely zombified by the apathy thrust upon them by a poverty stricken existence. That there are people out there who do want more than the hand life has dealt them. What of these people? How do they start? Where do they begin?

Well, by studying the people who already have the "more" that they want like they would a formula to an equation or a blueprint to a building. And then what will they do? They will mimic, of course; they will copy and they will paste. They will borrow, they will steal and they will assimilate.

That kind of sounds like a bad thing, doesn't it? I know it does to me. Well...is it? Yes...and no. Let me explain.

I watched a trailer for a Ugandan made horror film the other day. According to its synopsis it's about a group of university students who go on a "camp fire trip" with their lecturer. Their vehicle breaks down and the group has to trek through a forest where they encounter a group of cannibals. Sound familiar? Maybe like half the horror movies made and released in the past fifty years? Now, the production value didn't look half bad but the story looked so half cooked and half-assed that I couldn't wrap my head around a single reason to watch it besides the need to know what people are making out there.

I witness this kind of whole sale rip off almost everywhere I turn. A logo and graphics for a local award that look way too similar to the graphics that BET uses for their own awards to just be a coincidence. Or maybe it's a music video of a popular local artist, shot by one of the premiere music and video production studios in the country that is nothing but a cheap imitation of an Alicia Keys and Maxwell video; without the context, without the sexy and without the cool.

Some supposedly smart white guy once said,
"You need to make a decision - are you an imitator or an innovator?"

And for a very long time my own thoughts mirrored that sentiment. And then, in trying to improve my own craft, I realized something, that imitation is actually one of the very first steps towards innovation.

As Pramoedya Ananta Toer said,
"At the beginning of all growth, everyone imitates. All of us, when we were children, also imitated. But children grow up and begin their own development."

Or as Jane Yolen so poetically put it,
"I have pulled threads from magical tapestries already woven and used them to weave my own cloth."

And so there's nothing inherently wrong with imitation. I do think, however, that there's a right way and a wrong way to imitate.

"Do not repeat after me words that you do not understand. Do not merely put on a mask of my ideas, for it will be an illusion and you will thereby deceive yourself." were the words of Jiddu Krishnamurti, the late great thinker and public speaker.

I believe that the form of imitation he's warning against is something that many of us fall victim to. Copying without understanding. Like getting the answer of a particularly hard question on a math test from the kid sitting next to you but not being able to show the work and so still getting the answer wrong.

Or the copy and pasting of a staple horror movie narrative without having a clue about the history of horror in cinema. Or its relation to horror in literature and even before that in folklore.

In other words, if something is imitated without an understanding of the 'why' of that thing, or even the desire to find out, chances are the outcome will be brittle and empty. A mindlessly performed ritual, a god prayed to but not believed in, a serpent intent on wiggling its way into the shed skin of another.

Circling back to what Pramoedya Ananta Toer said, as children we all imitate. "...But children grow up and begin their own development."

I think that even for the few of us who are reaching for more, we've played at being children long enough and that it's time to grow up.

Lets weave our own tapestries, and let's make them magical.


Conclusion

I honestly wish I had some more time to talk about this because I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface. There’s still so much to unpack but whether you agree with what I've said or not, I do hope that I've left you with something to think about; that you’ll keep on digging. If I've managed to at least do that then my job is done. Thank you.

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I did have something to say though, right?