A broken Heart

I recently watched disturbing footage of the brutal mob murder of a one Sydney Gongodyo, an up and coming brilliant mind and athlete in the game of rugby here in Kampala Uganda. He seemed to be a rising star, a social media sensation and with infectious charisma. He is survived by a significant other, their son, parents and siblings that all loved him .

I didn’t know Sydney nor had I heard of him until this tragic incident that stormed the social media platforms like a hurricane.  I then went ahead to search about this Sydney character and after  a quick survey of what is out their about him, one can understand why it is hard for me and everybody else to see him as anything  but a victim of the highest form of human depravity.

First of all , he simply doesn’t fit the bill of a petty thief that snatches women’s handbags.  I mean, a well adjusted rugby player with a whole future ahead of him! Even if he were a petty thief, the punishment by a mob of men that clearly had the intent to exert the maximum amount of pain didn’t fit the crime they suspected he allegedly committed . 

What was done to this man was an injustice.  A mob injustice by blood thirsty men who either wanted to have him punished as an example to all the frustrating petty thieves and criminals that have increasingly pervaded society , or those who found loopholes  in the already existing justice systems and used them to their criminally cunning ends.  My guess is that it is both.  

A broken state

Mob [in]justice is a result of two major fundamental flaws in society among a myriad of others; Those who practice it have found and utilized the glaring ambiguity  in the justice systems.  The unclear  policing of criminals and innocents, where brutal force is used on dissenting activists and painstakingly slow action on the real menaces of society.  There was a case in 2021 of a one Timothy Semugenyi where , like Sydney , he was murdered by a Mob, arrests were made and later the suspects were suspiciously released.   The judiciary and the prisons too have been a let down for most Ugandans and so many have resorted to “taking  matters into their hands”. 

There is an even more insidious flaw in mob [in]justice . The horrifying self righteousness that culminates in fits and of rage, and murderous intent. The human error. The total depravity of human kind is seen in spaces where justice and vengeance are conflated.  Where anger and punishment are undifferentiated. Where killing and murder cant be told apart.  

Sounds familiar ?  This kind of injustice is not new to us.  For thousands of years , humanity has been riddled with this kind of societal corruption.  The most heinous crime in all of human history ( from where I stand) was by a mob of political and religious zealots that had the most innocent of men to ever walk the surface of the earth beaten, battered , brutalized, and gruesomely murdered. Their hateful demands of the executioners, their false witness about his guilt, their rage bating of the crowds is testament to a much much deeper reality of the state of humanity.

All this will not happen if first there isn’t a moral inventory of people.  This mob [in]justice craze raises an alarming call to all meaning making social structures .  Education, religion, and families.  

Sure, we have come a long way since two millennia ago, thanks to that innocent man that hung recognizably  lifeless  on a tree crafted for excruciating un-aliving. But stories like those of Sydney or Timothy or many innocents gone in like manner remind us of the need for the message of that man that hung on the cross.  We do need to recognize our moral depravity as a people, as a society and as a community.  We need to recognize how deeply broken and flawed we are.  We can psycho analyze our state all the live long day but in the end, we come to the same conclusion that man 2000 years ago presented as truth.  “NO ONE IS GOOD”.

The Hope we have

If it is true that mankind  in his heart is corrupted by the darkness, depraved at the core , then we need some very serious help.  There needs to be a serious moral inventory for the social justice systems of our nation.  The police need to tighten their reigns and protect the citizens they swore an oath to serve. The judiciary need to be diligent and prompt in prosecuting and executing.  The financial institutions need to ensure proper remuneration for those in service. Those who vowed to  protect and serve need not be put in positions where they have to chose “survival” over service. Power over protection. The national budget and all who champion the distribution of resources need to priorities and improve the prisons’ correctional facilities to ensure a semblance of proper rehabilitation and justice therein.  

I write this as a church leader and in that light, I sound an alarm to the church of Christ in Uganda:

This is a call to the church to rethink how we are going about the ministry of justice and reconciliation. Is the heartbeat of all that we do concerning justice for the innocent , the fatherless, the widows and the elders ( 1saiah1:17). This is a call for the church nationwide to repent of its misguided , misleading and misdirected attempts to promote what it was not created to do.  The church was put in place by its  founder, the man that hung on the cross and later defeated death, to reconcile mankind to God the creator who alone can restore the sick heart of man and make him new again. Born again. Only the message of the cross does that to a man.  It changes him from inside out (Eph.2:1-10) This is a call for the church to participate in the Reconcilation and restoration of relationships both with God and with one another.  ( 2:Cor.5:18)

The Church must rethink ministry  , repent of its incompetence and reconcile the lost, the least and the last to the savior.  If the church returns to these tenets we may save a Sydney or a Timothy from Mob [in]justice.