Bunguswa Writes.

  The Boy at Their Feet I was born third in a family of five children, in a house where love was never measured in the number of coins in my father's pocket, but in the warmth of my mother's hands and the dreams my father carried like a sacred burden. My father, Hassan Abdalla, was a clerk in a government office. He wore neatly pressed shirts, polished shoes, and the same brown belt until its leather began to surrender to age. His salary was enough to keep food on the table, pay school fees, and occasionally bring home a bag of oranges on Fridays. We were neither rich nor poor. We were a mid-income family, the kind that could afford a modest holiday once a year but still counted the remaining days before payday. My mother, Amina, was a seamstress. She stitched clothes for our neighbours and sometimes sat beneath the yellow bulb in our sitting room, working long after we had gone to sleep. Her sewing machine sang a metallic lullaby that accompanied my childhood. My e...

There are moments when silence becomes cowardice, When neutrality becomes betrayal, And when the human conscience must rise And say plainly: This is wrong. Wrong is wrong Even when it is announced by authority. Wrong is wrong Even when it is dressed in the language of law, Security, Politics, Or national interest. A people who have already fled fear Should not be made to live in fear again. A refugee should not wake each morning Wondering whether the next knock at the door Will take away the little safety They struggled to find. A trader should not be treated as a criminal Simply because of where they were born. A child should not inherit humiliation Because adults have chosen To turn identity into a weapon. And let us speak honestly: No political order gives ordinary citizens The moral right to persecute, threaten, humiliate, Or victimise innocent people. No speech from power Should become permission for cruelty. No presidential order, No political slogan, No wave of publi...