It is because of many reasons, of course. Every one has their motivations. For me, it is the more difficult if I have to part with a friend.

Not death, necessarily. Thank God, my friend is not dead, or dying. My friend is leaving for Better Pay and working conditions. The papers have been signed and the bosses, past and present have given their two cents on the matter. It is a done deal.

But this parting is the more significant because it represents something I have been worried about for long: stagnation for me. I do not know whether this is confirmation but there has been a friend too many leaving for better conditions, I am starting to think I have no motivation.

Not that I have not looked to the other side; of course I have. In this country, most everyone I know, who works in the formal sector and so depends on a salary, has looked. It is what we do, the bane of Ugandan employers.

Because the organisation cannot really grow when everyone is inside looking out. We are always bag-packed, knuckles-cracking, sinews-straining jumpy. Many times, people have moved even before they got to know how much they were being offered on the other side.

We are that empty. Maybe many of our number are young and all we have in our heads are the latest scores in the Premiership or who has been chosen to rep Uganda in the Big Brother house. Maybe we are hunting info on what Bad Black did the other night.

But, as I said, this whole moving thing is getting to me, perhaps because this latest one was becoming a confidante. Lesson to self, do not have confidantes.

So here we are. The beginning of the year and many new plans boiling in my head. Rearing to go, believing this will be the year that my descendants will talk about incessantly, as the year the Dynasty really took off. This, according to my plans, is supposed to be the year when I finally find my diamond field and I am going to crawl over those landmines deftly.

A colleague’s departure is a blow in the stomach. I am asking myself if I am staying in the same place for too long.

There are those who are regretting the absence of Kizza Besigye and his ‘great unwashed.’ See, now that this factor is absent from the equation, there is no one to blame for the troubles. Since the traders simply decided to stay away from work, no one will be on the street shouting, “Agende” and getting shot in the head in the process. The President, however, still found it opportune to throw a barb at the “political class” for fomenting the chaos.

According to report, the President planned to meet all Kampala traders on Saturday after a meeting they had today failed to resolve the impasse. The Governor of the Bank of Uganda, Emmanuel Tumusiime Mutebile tried to make the ‘great unwashed’ understand that it wasn’t up to him to force commercial banks to reduce lending rates.

So the pundits have given us their thoughts. According to Daniel Kalinaki (Google him, or go to the Daily Monitor website), this is futile since these traders are still going to import the stuff they are crying about. True, we are a sorry society of consumers who cannot even be bothered to make our economy better by sacrificing.

But that is not the real tooth ache; there is money being lost and it has been proved by the bankers that somethings have gone grossly wrong. I am not an economist; maybe that’s why I cannot understand how it is okay to make me pay more or longer because I borrowed money from my bank four years ago.

The banking sector had better come up with something to redeem its image among the traders before its too late. Talk is already going around that people are planning to keep the money in their rooms, in their mattresses. Of course if this is to happen, a whole new spate of robberies and home break-ins can be expected. No one wants to go down that route.

But what is the solution? We know that these are the effects of capitalism. We copied a system we did not fully understand and look what’s happening.

The painful thing is there is said to be a solution, a simple one at that. Islamic banking. Or simply establishing a traders’ bank. Unfortunately, those who are gaining from the status quo are not ready to move to another model just yet.

Societal norms call for rigid adherence or one can be sure they’ll hear the tribal drums in the distance, a harbinger of their impending doom. Forget what you know to be true; in these parts, it would serve you well to know your rules and to stick to them.

Even when it seems like it is the only way out, one cannot afford to play with convention. Our people demand that internationally unpopular legislation is pushed through even when among them there are many ‘educated’ ones.

So if you are a sophisticated prelate with a cool name (maybe, Michael), you have to know that your coolness stops at the borders.

The laws are unwritten but they are well known. Society does not know why they act the way they do. But like a creation in a lab somewhere by a mad scientist, the hate machine is unleashed on those who try to ask the questions that need to be asked.

Many think they are ‘modern’ and that they are not swayed by faulty logic. Many do not realise that their decisions have already been made for them long before they even got that sophistication.

We are a society that abhors same sex relations. We are a nation of Christians who believe in the Bible and that is that. Even those who have been ‘exposed’ to global thinking cannot find the stomach for these things.

So, we shall not be discussing what happens at work. It’s always going to be “thank you for the free internet. I can facebook and tweet all day long.”

But the itch wont go away; where is the line? Many current bloggers might not realise it but they are like those frontier Americans in the Westerns. We are the sacrificial lambs, the Guinea pigs who will have to test out the drinks for poison.

I hope it won’t happen but before true blogging freedom is found, there may be many to shed blood.

The government hinted that there will soon be rules against writing critical posts about them. Back then, they used harmless people to say what was in the pipeline but the threat is clear. Facebook and blogs are two of the avenues one can write about the excesses of the system.

Just because they hushed up when you all rose up to write indignant Letters to the Editor, doesn’t mean they gave up on that pursuit.

But as you worry about some government hack going all over your business, how do you handle your employer? What happens when you step over the line, forget that there is no official one?

Those who work in the media might have an idea. It is easy to spill the scoop in a 140-character tweet. By the time the story comes out the next morning, it is not that big anymore. There you are with egg on your face and the record of having cost the company millions in shillings.

Robert McCrum’s viral list, Fifty things I’ve learned about the literary life, got quite the response. It had all these wise tips and coming from a guy writing in the Guardian, must be oh so smart.

For someone who’s been chasing the muse for ages around dusty, badly lit rooms and in poorly maintained parks, such lists add yet another burden to shoulder. It means starting from scratch and maybe, just maybe, there will be a change.

I started out writing for fun. That was the best time of my writing life. Back then, I was insulted to be asked how much I would want for my work. All I wanted was to see my name on top of a block-buster article in a respectable publication.

Growing up does things to you. From this side of 25, it is not about trying out this and that anymore. It becomes much more important; a matter of how and when the next pay cheque will come in so that the girls can have milk a.k.a, amata ga Angela.

I don’t know about you but many times, when this October fete comes around, I feel like I am being dragged around like a rag doll; I don’t know the half of it.

So the colonialists went away and people born here took the reins, big deal. Did that make the life of natives better?

My parents got married just before Independence. I guess they are part of the set that makes much of this day. Then again, I do not remember them popping Champagne when the 9th came around every year.

Independence is important for those who got something out of it. These are a few. The majority, who were mostly those who were ruled, waited for the good times to start and their eyes misted over.

I think those who understood the importance of Independence have long gone into retirement. They must be beating themselves on the forehead for making this out to be more than it really was. 50 years after Independence and the majority of Ugandans still live like slaves.

So why should we celebrate? What’s so good about this year?

But seriously, where do you turn when the bets you’d lined up are all falling like a line of books?

We made resolutions at the start. We lined up the chances and there was no way we were going to lose all of them. Even if we lost 99% of them, there was a pretty good chance that the remaining 1% was going to more than cover up for it all.

They said the young people were going to have a great new year. In fact, the good times should have started six months ago.

44 billion shillings was set aside for the youths, announced to the nation in crisp English by the new technocrat minister who was touted as untouched by scandal. The outsider lady said after this money was disbursed, everyone would be happy thereafter.

So here we are. The rumblings have started; it seems the money has gone the way of all such money that leaves the treasury in Uganda. Boohoo, cry me a river.

I have said it before and I shall say it now, we know the root of the problem. It is inherent in us to steal. The politicians are a reflection of who we are, heck, that’s why we elect them.

What does a young person who has lined up his bets, targeting that money do? I say, force fate to realign itself. It is time for creative thinking on a different scale.

It is time for civil disobedience.

We start with ourselves; we disobey the inner thug. We refuse to give the fat-belly cop on the road the 5k he’s expecting. We out the deals cut by the gatekeepers who let boys into the girls’ hostel in the wee ohurs of the morning at a fee.

We sacrifice our interests and desires for the sake of change.

We got talking about years gone by. By strange design, we were all vets from a great blogging era. We looked back on a history of five years and saw the hitherto unappreciated fruits that have come out of it.

Through our blogging fraternity, there are those who have hooked up on a permanent basis. There are those who’ve got babies to boot. Last week, a couple jumped the broom in a quaint little eastern town.

So this is not useless. This is not about young people with no serious agenda and only focused on boobs and beer.

We are all many years older and wiser. The blogosphere has grown by leaps and bounds, to use a bad cliche. What Uganda is blogging about today is definitely different from what we used write about back when we were giddy with the discovery of this medium.

Back then, we wanted to use pseudonyms, probably because we did not know how this thing would react to how we used it. We hid behind nebulous comments so as not to offend the strangers. We did not have an opinion on the politics of the land or did not care anyway. We waited for prompts from Rev and the Insomniac.

Today, many shall probably come back with the new insight of how blogging is changing the world. Today, we shall come into the arena with a secret weapon stashed in the sand where it will be easily accessible to thrash the lion on the head.

Welcome back Aduk

In a year when everything that was on the books failed to materialize due to a number of factors, one is not keen to be heard making daring promises. One does not tell it on the mountain when everyone knows one’s a non-starter.

But there’s no time to waste anymore.

You can wait for the tide to turn forever. As you wait, events will pass you by. It is true time and tide wait for no one.

It is time, therefore, to get a new code to live by. It is time to realize even though there are more resources on earth than anyone can ever need, as it is so simply put in The Master Key, there are always going to be those who cannot see those resources.

Sometimes we cannot see the resources with which to make our lives better through the design of others. We cannot change the nature of evil but we cannot allow evil to control the way we live our lives.
So what do you have in your hand? A staff?

Throw that staff down and see the world of things you can do. Yes, puny little you!

The sages have all given their predictions for the New Year. If 2011 was bad, prepare for the mother of bad. Clearly, how we have been operating is not helping matters. This system is broke.

New options are needed. New dimensions must be added to the search for a solution.

There is always a solution, see. There is always another way round the mountain. The politicos will scream themselves hoarse then at the eleventh hour, they’ll say, “however…”

There is always a solution.

If what you stand for is disintegrating fast, if the core of your belief is shaken something fierce, you must look to the other side.

And what better time than when the New Year, already announced as worse than anything you have ever seen, is just beginning?