Jenkins Kiwanuka
1 December 2009
opinion
When Drake Ssekeba asked Godfrey Binaisa about his 'big head' during a WBS television programme, the former President of Uganda put on his typically captivating smile and replied: "It is beauty, it is all beauty my friend and besides, it contains a lot of wisdom".
I had also written about Binaisa when he was in exile, describing him as 'a comedian without a future'. Yet when we met in Kampala on his return home, he greeted me happily and asked whether I was still writing. I greatly admired that sense of humour in Binaisa.
President Museveni also appeared to appreciate Binaisa's sense of humour when at a party he gave to congratulate Binaisa upon his marriage to a Korean woman, Binaisa gave his bride two kisses first before adding a third one to consolidate their love.
I was therefore surprised when President Museveni listed 'long nose' among the abuses he alleged had been uttered by CBS FM against his ruling party, the National Resistance Movement (NRM).
Speaking during the riots that erupted in Kampala and other areas in September after the Kabaka had been barred from visiting Kayunga to officiate over a youth function, Mr Museveni said the radio had referred to people from southern Uganda as those with 'long noses'.
He asked whether they should go for plastic surgery to change the shape of their noses, but according to me, they need not because a long nose has always been associated with beauty in Uganda. In my youth, for example, there was a song about a beautiful girl the singer met at a school at Nsube in Mukono whose outstanding facial feature was her nose. The singer described it as "Enyindo Endaalo" because it resembled the noses of the Bahima (Banyankole), Museveni's tribe.
In times gone by, Ugandans used to identify one's tribe by the shape of one's nose. Saben's Commercial Directory and Handbook of Uganda 1960-6l carried photographs of some of the people of Uganda in which a Muhima features a prominent long nose and a smoking pipe. The Muganda has a big one, and the other tribes' are medium.
Funny enough, even the quarrelsome French were not bothered when I barked at them in a piece carried by the Sunday Vision to stop poking their 'long noses' in the affairs of the Democratic Republic of Congo. But the same paper omitted the following observation from an article I wrote about Idi Amin: "Idi Amin and Paul Muwanga had one thing in common. Whenever they were in rage, their noses would expand and start twittering'.
I would have sympathised with the President if the CBS had instead of 'long nose' talked about Roman nose, that curves out near the top at the bridge; a button nose that is flat like a button; an aquiline nose that is thin and curves gradually like the beak of an eagle or a Grecian nose that comes down almost straight from the forehead. But 'long nose'? That's not a big deal.
Kiwanuka is a journalist and retired Foreign Service Officer
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