By JOACHIM BUWEMBO

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Though Catholicism, which is Uganda’s single largest religious community, was brought by French-speaking missionaries, the mastery of their language has never been our strong point. The British, who were the colonial power, didn’t give French a fighting chance.

Maybe in retrospect Ugandans should thank the Brits for limiting French acculturalisation which, evidence seems to suggest, had more debilitating political and economic effects than English.

But now with the Paris 2024 Olympics around the corner, we are taking voluntary baby steps to gain some mastery of Moliere’s language. For we need to send as many spectators as we can afford to cheer as our boys and girls make short work of the athletics powerhouses like Kenya and Ethiopia that we are progressively knocking off the long distances and marathon medals podium.

Read: BUWEMBO: Uganda roads bring to mind something PW Botha said

Of course, almost everybody can say “Bonjour”. But after greeting, the next decent thing to know in a language is expressing gratitude. So, despite the spoil sport who started the hugely exaggerated outbreak of bedbugs in France ahead of the Olympics, we are determined to be polite to our hosts. And, thanks to social media, tips are being shared to say “Thank you” like Moliere.

“Merci biku!” posted a voluntary “teacher” on social media, and the expression spread like wildfire. “Biku” in Luganda is bedbugs — the fattened ones. A better “teacher” posted a more “correct” pronunciation thus: “Merci buku!” which means smaller (but possibly more numerous) bedbugs. This seems more acceptable, since it’s even closer to how a local Parisian sounds to a foreign ear saying “Merci beaucoup,” as if there’s no vowel between the “b” and “c”.

Such is the extent social media has gone to uncover the hidden humour our people have, but was hidden before the digital media “democratised” communication. Humour is now serving as a free painkiller in these times of economic hardship. What with our traditional donors turning against the country! You’ve probably heard about the East African Crude Oil Pipeline whose funding they’re heavily campaigning against using contestable environmental data. Then funding for infrastructure and health is threatened over the other matter called AHA (Anti Homosexuality Act) that strengthened our British-made law by extending the same punishment for aggravated defilement of little girls to protect little boys as well.

Did Karl Marx call religion the opium of the people? Then he didn’t know about humour. If the AHA-inspired blockade affects road-building and maintenance, our humour will help us to cope; we won’t use religion or even vodka – Soviet style.

The other day, when it was reported that a minister’s car had hit a pothole on the Kampala–Jinja road, there was an immediate outpouring of sympathy on social media. Many commiserated with the pothole, asking if its condition was deteriorating or improving. Humour can be that deep and brief on social media.

Read: BUWEMBO: ‘Marehemu George’ is not welcome

Still on roads, an eminent journalist tweeted seriously wondering how Kampala’s 22km Northern Bypass in very recent years took us about the same time (seven years) to construct as the Uganda Railway, which runs over 55 times longer from Mombasa, took the British to complete over 100 years back. To his question, rib-cracking answers came. A less seditious one explained that the long railway was only affected by man-eating lions while the short road was affected by money-eating men.

When the current escalation in the Middle East crisis broke out, our people marvelled at images of the tunnels Hamas have been digging to enter Israel, wondering why our government doesn’t hire them to build infrastructure for Uganda, especially an underground transport network to decongest Kampala. (Indeed if this happened, our sportsmen and tourists heading to France next year wouldn’t find the Paris Metro so confusing – my addition.)

The flipside is that social media is killing interest in serious news. Some weeks back, two senior women ministers were at each other’s necks, using below-the-belt insults. But the public just yawned, since they hear quarreling women daily on social media, moreover using more creative insults.

A week back, the opposition MPs walked out of parliament, but the public wasn’t bothered. Maybe if they had undressed people would have taken note, or if they had walked into the nearby lake and drowned.

It is that bad, and worse that even the mainstream media is also responding to the people’s growing disinterest, by underreporting serious things if they aren’t dramatised. Damned if they do, damned if they don’t.