{UAH} When Ugandans laugh and clap to nonsensical speeches

Baboons, I got a stori fi y'all.

I have often  wondered why Ugandans laugh/cheer/applaud when a prominent person makes a bogus statement during a speech. Discomfort or wanting to be noticed aka seeking attention?

I first noticed this years after the Buffoon was sent a'fleeing for dear life at an incident when he embellished the biggest lie in front of Japanese investors saying he witnessed Japanese Kamikaze pilots doing their suicidal thingi in WW2 - a war he never fought. All but the Japanese investors applauded and cheered their lungs out. By then my late oldman - one of his instructors after the war - had told us dude was minding kitchen duties for Afendes and Bwanas in Kenya and was never at the Eastern Front where he was.

Amin's speeches were riddled with bogus mundane and suitably useless lines of statements but each time he made them - accompanied by fake smiles or chuckles - his listeners would laugh and applaud louder even if they knew/understood them to be ridiculously and lousy bogus. All for the purpose of attempting to be user-friendly whereas not.

But over the years I found out why Ugandans applaud bogus statements during mostly a president's speech ending with a harrowing loud finale'.

At the end of them all, no one remembers what they applauded or laughed at except that they did bcos a president gave the signal that it was funny or serious enough to either laugh at or cheer to, respectively.

Reasons have all been because of fear. A fear that appears contagious during a gathering. It's the president who evokes the laughter by chuckling or by pretentiously being funny or serious - over the bogus statement forcing the audience to like and approve what he said whether they heard or not.

Once a person - mostly one in the front row laughs or cheers, every one else joins in including those who were not even paying attention or even heard the statements.

Fear. 

Fear inadvertently triggers participation when the individual feels he must also laugh or applaud otherwise other bystanders will point him out as a nonsupporter - these days, an opponent's spy - and most probably suffer the consequences 

It happens a lot more these days in Uganda. Fear.

There are many examples I could give but they abound on YouTube.

All are nonsensical but we laugh, applaud and cheer making the speaker appear more knowledgeable subject matter expert and smarter than us.  And for that reason you stand a chance of being lynched if you don't participate.

I have also observed that most of the time, out of the thousands in attendance there is only person who will listen to the president's speech word to word up to the end and it is that single person who regularly jostles the audience to "Piga Makofi" (clap or cheer) to what they didn't hear or pay attention to.

That person is the MC. It's only the Master of Ceremony who knows when the president has lost the audience's attention then he wakes the audience up calling out "Tu pige makofi" - let's clap or give round of applause - to what they didn't hear or didn't understand.

Majority Ugandans go for rallys or gatherings not to listen but for "extra curricular" motives, principally food and monetary gifts. Some of us attend for the sole purpose of setting our horny eyes prying for juicy Nyash aka Madiaba aka matako.

There is yet another type in the audience whose motives are far sinister. Thieves and pickpockets 

My Malawi girlfriend once told me of a different class of pickpockets in Malawi called "Two Fingers".

Two Fingers rob you in broad daylight and moreover in your face - literally. Said it's not uncommon in Malawi to be hugged by certain strange individuals. If and and when you realize you have been hugged by a stranger also consider you've been robbed.

Two Fingers observe potential victims from a distance. All they zoom at are outlines to their chest/breast pockets and for that reason it's advised not to ever keep money in your chest or breast pockets 

As they hug you, quick two middle fingers will have withdrawn the stash of cash from your chest pocket. All happens at the speed of lightning before they hurriedly disappear real fast into the street crowds giving you time to discover later that the strange person who hugged you kumbe smoothly robbed you clean.

Any attempts at being excited about getting a free hug will sadly set you back to zero Kwacha or whatever the currency. 

Applauding a nonsensical speech will also sadly motivate and incite our intellectually pretentious and academically challenged presidents into fabricating more and more embellished nonsense believing we (the fools) will always be receptive to them.

Just the Baboon thinking weird.

Amen.

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