False Praise
Focusing on the theme of false praise, different interpreters dive into the lyrics of “The Handsome Catch a Slight Squint,” commenting on how leaders may respond to the hypnotic adulations of people who try to appeal to them or to please their ears. In Jessy Ssendawula’s discussion of the various principles of successful leadership, he hints at the intrinsically cooperative nature of King Ssuuna II’s role. He explains how the cooperation was bimodal, as its success resulted from satisfying both the king and his musicians. It also allowed for various strategies to evade violence (creative manipulation of the king’s insecurity, in this case). According to Ssendawula, lying is a legitimate political possibility, especially if it happens out of empathy for the greater populace:
The song reassured and restored the lost pride of King Ssuuna II. In return, it saved the musicians from facing death at the hands of Kkunsa, the draconian captain of the guard. Thus, it achieved a multileveled victory: saving the lives of the musicians while soothing the king’s insecurity and frustration. The song also cautions leaders against making decisions in anger. Leaders should focus on why their subjects behave the way they do and why they might put themselves at the mercy of their leaders. More generally, the song expresses a need for greater empathy and sympathy among the masses in that one of Ssuuna II’s musicians lied to him to save the others. The song teaches us that a lie with good intentions is better than a truth that brings disaster. Soothsayers can praise authoritarian leaders, as long as the praises soothe those leaders and therefore help protect the masses.
1Ssendawula interview, December 28, 2019.The king’s extreme responses to the musicians’ performances that Ssendawula highlights imply that a song can have a profound impact on every part of life in the Kingdom of Buganda. Ssuuna II never deemed the singers’ words meaningless or ignored them entirely, but that he would execute his musicians for such an infraction demonstrates the immense power that the musicians held in political relationships. Court musicians were dangerous enough to be worth executing, especially if those in power believed that they were using their skill with ill intentions. This degree of musical importance extends into the present day, as Imani Sanga shows, with some leaders recognizing that developing a coherent national identity depends on those who create music and the arts.
2Sanga 2008, 55. In this way musicians are more than entertainers, for their songs and performances also shape the laws, politics, culture, and social life of Buganda. Steven Mukasa Kabugo elaborates:
Singers can make anybody feel beautiful, regardless of how flawed their appearance may be. Indeed, listening to their songs may make others feel as if it is impossible for ugliness to exist in the world. They can make any listener feel accepted and loved by other people. It is an unspoken rule that musicians rarely criticize a person’s appearance during their songs. A more official rule is that performers who sing about taboo topics receive punishment. In fact, sometimes those singers are putting their lives at risk because the leaders consider certain subjects treasonous. Seeing their colleague in trouble, the court performers of Ssuuna II once sang,
Omusango gw’abalere gwegaludde, bantwale e Bbira gye banzaala (The flutists’ legal case has resurfaced, they should take me to Bbira, my birthplace).
3See chapter 13 for additional details about this lyric and its themes. Again, if a performer sang something against the king and the latter found out, the court soldiers would execute him for disrespecting the king.
4Kabugo interview, December 19, 2019.Here, Kabugo underscores that there are some subtler rules that court musicians and singers must follow. For example, their music must highlight the beauty of their leaders.
As John Magandaazi Kityo further highlights, musicians’ voices can shape the self-perception of listeners and empower them. They have the capacity to reverse values, to make the ugly beautiful for the duration of the song “The Handsome Catch a Slight Squint,” just as in other songs they bring dead characters back to life or make old practices new. In this way musicians can break down calcified binaries and restructure the way we think about the world.
“The Handsome Catch a Slight Squint” encourages us to never lose sight of our self-worth. It allows people who are struggling to rebuild their self-esteem and be happy with their looks in the same way it made Ssuuna II’s deformity appear handsome.
5Kityo interview, December 14, 2019.In this sense, the court performers exaggerated Ssuuna II’s beauty not with ill intent but with a desire to appease his lack of self-confidence, which was the emotional complex that drove him to make a rash decision in the first place. In this case, Ssuuna II was able to reclaim control over his almightiness, thus his role as superordinate, which allowed the cooperative fabric of the kingdom to continue.
Whereas some earlier views have focused on the way music mediates between court musicians and the king, Jimmy Ssenfuka Kibirige interrogates how the king could have responded to the musicians’ performance differently. This variation suggests that when leaders accept their shortcomings, they might gain public support rather than come off as weak or unauthoritative. This way of thinking would acknowledge that imperfection is ubiquitous and that a social contract between king and subject that allows for mistakes and misunderstandings could build a deeper sense of trust between political institutions and its participants. Although King Ssuuna II had a background in music and presumably appreciated and respected his musicians, his ego still caused him to act rashly. This personal limitation demonstrates that good leaders should not necessarily avoid complications but respond to them appropriately. Ssuuna II’s court musicians successfully avoided the death sentence because they could respond quickly and suitably when a lapse in trust occurred. Kibirige stresses that leaders must emulate this ability:
It can be difficult for leaders to accept satire, particularly when their subjects direct it at them. In recent times, a Russian government official visited Uganda. During his stay, he attended a theater production of
The Government Inspector. The plot of the production revolved around the ineptitude and immorality of a small Russian village, which the Inspector General was due to inspect. The village devolved into a panicked mess as its inhabitants tried to cover up what they had done wrong. The Russian official, the chief guest at this performance, surprisingly enjoyed himself immensely, laughing loudly from the audience, despite the play’s subject matter. Like this official, leaders should be tolerant or even enjoy satire directed at them in good faith. Ssuuna II, after receiving gifts from the Arab traders, looking into the mirror, and realizing that he was cross-eyed, could have laughed and accepted that the songs his musicians had composed earlier were jokes.
6Kibirige interview, December 18, 2019.When a leader has humility, it means that their ego is flexible—that it can bend without breaking. This is what leaders expect of their societies, that they will not crumble in the face of adversity. In turn, they ought to commit themselves to this very principle.
Extending his interpretation of “The Handsome Catch a Slight Squint” to a more contemporary setting, Kibirige relates to the ways in which today’s leaders tend to pursue compliments and other forms of ego support. This dynamic speaks to the importance of thinking critically about the actions of one’s peers before accepting them as genuine. In this way, “The Handsome Catch a Slight Squint” not only calls for manipulating language as a tactical strategy to assuage leadership but also speaks to the importance of mediating these relationships. In the same way that subjects (musicians) should avoid blindly following a leader, a leader should avoid blindly trusting them. A leader and subjects should challenge each other in a reciprocal way, allowing for their network of competing interests to create an informed perspective on a given situation:
Most of today’s leaders only want to hear praise such as, “Long live our man!” Their efforts to gain cheap popularity are in no way beneficial. By lowering the cost, they will have to pay it back somewhere else. In other words, it will cause them to suffer in another area. To successfully direct the country socially, politically, and economically, they need to be wise and avoid being easily swayed by others. However, this does not mean they should not listen to their subjects. On the contrary, listening to the people is one of the most valuable skills that leaders should have. Knowing when to pardon someone for what they have done, as Ssuuna II pardoned his musicians for writing songs about his faults, is critical for good leadership.
7Ibid.Listening, as Kibirige states, is the key component missing in contemporary leadership. When leaders seek compliments that satisfy only themselves, they ignore the dynamics happening to their subjects. For instance, those who fill their courts, or cabinets, with yes-men will have no idea that people are plotting overthrows underneath their noses. If they do not listen, which Ssuuna II fortunately did, then they will be lied to not by their caring servants but by the deceitful subjects who pretend to be.
As Kibirige further suggests, leadership should be a mutual pursuit between leaders and their people. Leaders who think only for themselves miss an important principle of effective leadership, which is to wield themselves and their subjects as extensions of each other. They should recognize that as leaders they are no more than extensions of the will of the people they lead. The leaders are the groups they lead—they succeed as those groups succeed and feel joy as they feel joy:
Contemporary leaders lack the insight to determine other’s intentions and significance. They focus on their own gains and are willing to treat their subjects poorly, even though these subjects brought the leader to power. You brought him to glory, but in return he pushes you to the grass; he does not recognize your value. Most leaders believe themselves to be good, competent public figures, when in reality they are selling off the societies they serve. They have yet to realize that the value of a leader is not embedded in the quality of their appearance but in the quality of their service. Through good service, they themselves can also benefit because the people will reciprocate with effort and praise. If they deliver on their promises and lead uprightly, then all the praise they receive will be genuine.
8Kibirige interview, December 15, 2019.Kibirige’s interpretation highlights several qualities useful to modern leaders that Ssuuna II appears never to have possessed—namely, the humility to accept criticism, personal faults, and the limitation of one’s own knowledge.
Whereas other interpreters have spoken about the importance of mutual assistance in the success of a leader, Kibirige’s interpretation also speaks to the ways in which such assistance could result in manipulation and failure. This is a valuable addition to creating a nuanced understanding of the lyrics of “The Handsome Catch a Slight Squint”:
Even though some leaders might be competent at what they do, there will always be people who work for them solely for the purpose of gaining personal benefits. They try to manipulate the leaders’ decisions to garner the best for themselves. They convince them that policies that benefit them personally are also the best for everyone else, using praise and a variety of other psychological tactics to achieve this goal. Among contemporary politicians, Bobi Wine seems to be suffering from this same problem. His supporters give him undue praise and overstate his caliber. It is unlikely that he will win the 2021 election. His bid for presidency has come up too early in his political career, which those around him unduly manipulate. He should have remained in his position in parliament instead. The likelihood of him winning is incredibly small because he is going up against President Museveni, who has spent thirty years figuring out how to stay in power. The odds are stacked against Bobi Wine as he is a political newcomer, raised in the ghetto, with a musical career that some use to discredit his competence as a “serious” politician. Furthermore, the incumbent regime will do anything to maintain its power. Those who oppose Museveni as an absolute ruler for life will die. There are many forces working against Bobi Wine, and it is unwise for him to think he can enact instantaneous change just because the public tells him he can.
9Kibirige interview, December 19, 2019.Kibirige is certain that “The Handsome Catch a Slight Squint” revolves around manipulation and ulterior motives, highlighting its connections to the situation of opposition leader, Bobi Wine, President Museveni’s main political competitor. As the interpreter points out, we ought to be reasonable in estimating how much power the president holds, especially over his own aides and the masses, who dare not dissent against him.