Why do acts of kindness often backfire?
By Phillip Matogo
What you need to know:
- Benard Mujuni probes the deep, often distressing, existential and philosophical question of why misfortune, suffering, and tragedy befall individuals who are kind, ethical and deserving of good fortune.
Folklore literature, or folk literature, is a big deal to author and poet Bernard Mujuni. Although he used his storied professional career to rise above his origins, it is to his origins he returns each time he writes. Not to walk down memory lane, the village is where he came of age, but to extract there from a fund of traditional stories, songs, proverbs, myths, and legends of a culture, passed down orally through generations, embodying collective beliefs, wisdom, and identity.
Inspired by his past and his family, he has been drawn to fairy tales, fables, epics (e.g., Abyssinian Chronicles by Moses Isegawa (2000), and even modern urban legends all his life. As a writer, he decided to animate his affinity for such Africanity by writing several books.
This is Mr. Mujuni’s third book. Only a few limited copies have been published thus far. He plans to launch the book in March this year. Mr. Mujuni is the author of two poetry collections. Namely, Rabbit on Pulpit and the Monologue Dairy of a Covid-19 Walker.
This offering is titled, The Trial of Rabbit on Pulpit. It could be called his hattrick. It’s fluid, changing with each anecdote to entertain, teach morals, and reinforce cultural values. It is interspersed with laughter, anger, pain, sorrow and the unimpeachable wisdom of the ancestors.
Traditionally told in the evenings, Mr. Mujuni’s stories cannot only be spoken or recounted; they can be performed with songs, dances, riddles, and proverbs. This makes the storytelling interactive, interdisciplinary and somewhat inventive.
It also captures the whole spectrum of emotions felt and experienced during the engulfing tragedies spawned or sparked by Covid-19 and its attendant regulations. So much happened, so many twisting and winding roads that seemed to create a broken road to the somewhat fractured musings of Mr. Mujuni’s chief protagonist, Kafiti the Village Wag.
His story is an enduring motif in both of Mujuni’s previous books. On the face of it all, Kafiti is a simple Ugandan herdsman, notably representative of the nomadic or semi-nomadic Banyankore tribe. He is a pastoralist whose life revolves around the rearing and movement of cattle, sheep, and goats. Mostly, his goats.
His growly dogs are part of nomadic wanderings, often moving across long distances to find water and pasture for his herds, which are considered his primary source of wealth, status, and sustenance. That’s the prima facie nature of his character.
However, if the reader peels back several layers to who he is, they are sure to find a highly complex man who embodies the ups and downs that rose and fell with our personal fortunes during the worst of Covid-19.
However, Kafiti is not the only character in this many-splendored story. There are witches and wizards in this loosely autobiographical tale, too.
“One night while asleep, our dog Runa, the dog with one eye, with puss oozing out of the other, started whimpering. It was believed that a night dancer was sending charms to stifle its voice and neck. Other dogs around it could not bark as effusively as they used to do. It was a frightening experience in the middle of the night. Was it KasimonI, the suspected witch?” writes Mr. Mujuni.
“She often struck in the deeps of the night, they said. Oftentimes, she was known to spread her bedraggled arms to encompass the night with a fresh tint of darkness. Thereupon, she would cast her spell. However, much of these tales about her were old wives’ tales. The village was alive, and dead, with so many similar fables. But sometimes, the fables would give way to realty. The stark reality of COVID-19, for instance. Then harrowing memory of Kasimoni reminded the world of death. That death would return the compliment by reminding the world of how cruel death could be. How it took no prisoners, especially amongst the ones we love and respect.”
In between his reflections, he offers anecdotes to explain the depredations of Covid-19. Indeed, the Covid-19 pandemic caused widespread social devastation by acting as a “total social fact,” affecting all facets of human life, including health, education, economic stability, and interpersonal relationships. The crisis exacerbated pre-existing inequalities, disproportionately impacting vulnerable groups, women, children, and low-income communities.
Mujuni articulates this period with near-excruciating detail. His telling rouses many sleeping dogs, attaching the winged menace of their fleas to our daily lives during the pandemic. This is sure to open old wounds, as you’re invited to revisit the recent ancient history of Covid-19.
As he tells this harrowing story, with poetic undertones, he reminds us (with a chapter) of the late Father Simon Lokodo, Uganda’s former Minister for Ethics and Integrity, who died on January 29, 2022, while on official duty in Geneva, Switzerland.
Medical tests confirmed that Lokodo succumbed to Covid-19. At the time of his death, he was 64 years old and serving as a commissioner for the Uganda Human Rights Commission (UHRC). He was in Geneva as part of a Ugandan delegation attending the 40th session of the UN Universal Periodic Review.
Mujuni laments his death with lyrical resonance. As he does, he gives us another subtext in this book. One that is a continuing thread throughout this readable book. That subtext is defined by the trope (and question) “why do bad things happen to good people?”
In this vein, Mujuni refers to the deep, often distressing, existential and philosophical question of why misfortune, suffering, and tragedy befall individuals who are kind, ethical, and deserving of good fortune, while seemingly undeserving people may thrive.
This concept challenges the “just-world fallacy”—the assumption that good deeds are always rewarded and bad deeds are always punished. After all, it was Victorian Irish poet and playwright Oscar Wilde who said “No good deed goes unpunished”. It is a cynical, ironic saying meaning that acts of kindness often backfire, leading to negative consequences, resentment, or trouble for the person who tried to help, rather than appreciation.
You will find plenty of such literary excursions, as it were, in Mujuni’s latest literary offering, and possibly discover that you might be the one on trial.