I fell In Love With My Oppressor

Growing up in the village, it was kind of normal sharing a home, a meal and clothes with a certain species of rodents, rats. No place was ever too far for them to reach, so we came to peace with having them in our spaces; dining rooms, bedrooms, kitchens and even gardens. They were such self-imposed pets. One traumatizing experience I remember, was waking up in the morning to a bitten foot heel. I never witnessed a thing that caused that but I remember my grandmother telling me what had happened. "A rat has a very extraordinary way of biting a sole; it blows you subtly, sweetly, softly and slowly as it bites to the extent that you are not sure if what you feel is a pain or rather a piece of pleasure," she narrated.

There is a certain pain that can be twisted and intermixed with scanty pleasurable bites that will weaken your knees as it does to your feelings in oppression. Many years later, this experience is still engraved on my emotional memory that my body twitches at the sight of rats.

Crushed and ripped of all my rectitude, I fell in love with what oppressed me and anything that caused me pain because I was caught up licking the sugar-coat off of every painful pinch with a glimmer of hope. I knew I was slightly drifting into my own creation of a mess, giving in to the laziness, anger, anxiety, perfectionism, chaos and competition but I was often torn between the gravity of the signs and symptoms pain brought along. Trying to defend my weaknesses consciously, made me realize that I subconsciously had an strange addiction to pain, not that I loved it but because I thought couldn't live without it. It's easy to think of addictions such as alcohol, social media, sex and drugs, but rarely see pain as one. This pain started to feel like home that it consumed and oppressed me to bits, the lack of which stirred a whirling desire in me. And as they say, oppressed people oppress others which sometimes is not even in the spirit of vengeance for their corrupted selves but because out of the abundance of the heart pours our emotions. It is even more painful to be our own oppressor.

For a while, I never understood why most planned markets in Kampala such as Wandegeya take ages to fill-up and function as intended yet so many vendors circumvent them. Sometimes resettling the slum-dwellers to opulent areas even if they were free of charge or shifting a street vendor to an affordable, well furnished place may not be their best choice. Some of them are used to the rush hours that enable them to sell more to the street passersby and in such spaces, they can easily exercise their bargaining power (freedom). These might seem like bad conditions that the market construction seeks to heal but maybe not because the reverse may come with responsibilities that some people may not be willing to take on. There are instances where some children have been rescued from the streets but still they try to find their ways back to where they have grown to find a feeling of home. These could be rare occasions, but none the less, they happen. Some bad situations can make you emotionally numb that all you desires is just more of the same. One of my favorite Luganda sayings is, "amazzi gakulukutira gyegaali gakulukutidde" which directly translates into "water will always flow in its familiar course."

I believe that it would be better to enlighten these people well enough that themselves choose the lifestyle they desire and deserve because God has blessed us all with free will to the good and bad things. We are destroyed for lack of knowledge about the things of God. Looking at John chapter 5, Jesus asked a thirty eight year old impotent man that had been lying next to the pool called Bethesda where others found healing but he was unable to help himself into it, if he willed to be made whole. Basically anyone would have thought that as obvious, but Jesus demanded a will from this diseased man and so it was done. This shows that sometimes freedom and the will of the people however important does not guarantee us the best nor the life we deserve if misused.

One uncommon aspect however is that sometimes the devil may hand us roses (as opposed to thorns) so beautiful like that scotching sun before it rains; the kind that will blind us from the perfect gifts that God may have in stock for us; the kind that will make us hesitate to seek that justice that deep in our hearts we know we deserve; the kind that will keep us comfortable in that mediocre seat even when we know we are destined for greatness; the kind that will cushion our beds perfectly that we'll literally sleep our way through our dreams; the kind that will caress us gently enough that we'll forget the symptoms of our pain because the signs are gone.

We have all experienced and reacted to oppression in different forms that our outlook may differ. But as we grow into advocates for social transformation, may God break our hearts for what breaks his that our compassion to those we attempt to help see the light never fades simply because they don't will for what we find worthy and may we will for what God wills for our lives always.