The Red Bricked House

For generations, the revolutionists had travelled this path,

Around the red brick house, which sat as a lonely sentinel on a green hill.

For years, it was a learning centre, used by the British missionaries.

Its Gothic colonial-style reflected the vision of its founders,

Who opted to shine a light on Africa's kindred spirits.

And to train these backward Africans how to write, and read,

The British had no idea of what they had awakened,

The nationalist tendencies of the African people.

A young farmer named Musaazi had come to grips with the political stakes.

As he journeyed on his iron horse, preaching the word of God,

He covertly mobilised his people to rise,

And to unite against the yoke of imperialism.

The colonialists had taken possession of all productive lands.

They had emigrated thousands of colonising communities to cultivate cotton, sugar, rubber, tea and coffee.

The indigenous people were forcely evicted and pushed to the fringes of desolate land,

A land is devoid of fruit and food.

A land inhabited by wild animals and mosquitoes.

The majority of displaced Africans worked in the mills to fan the Lancaster Industrial Revolution.

Every midnight, the African nationalists rallied in the dark.

Beneath the red brick house and conspired against the British colonialists.

They planned to disrupt the colonial economy.

Unknown among nationalists, Sserukande,

A tall, well-built speaker was a British undercover informant.

On that cold, starry night, the British imperial forces ambushed and shot some nationalists and captured hundreds.

A couple of months later, Sserukande was promoted to regional chief.

He was tasked with reorganizing a political sanitation programme,

To clean up the indigenous enclaves, and the remains of the rebellion.

Most of the revolutionaries were put on trial,

And many were hanged or shot.

The remnants were banished to Seychelles.

In 1939, the world was at war against Adolf Hitler and his Nazis.

German Panzer divisions drove the British to the beaches of Dunkirk and captured a beachhead.

For the most part, the British were vulnerable and outnumbered.

Had Hitler completed the destruction of the British forces, he would have won the war.

His most serious mistake was allowing the British to escape back to their Isles.

In 1942, warfare intensified on the Asian continent.

After a series of defeats, the British recruited the Ugandans into their ranks.

In 1943, a British expeditionary force defeated the Japanese in the Myanmar jungles.

After the capitulation of the Japanese empire, the African heroes returned home to slavery.

These brave men came together again at the red brick house and plotted to gain their freedom and independence.

Sserukande, the British informant, was caught and burned as an example for all informants.

Another British operative was shot while climbing Namirembe Hill for Sunday prayers.

This nationalistic shift accentuated the British declaration of Ugandan independence in 1962.

Today, the red brick house remains intact, reminding us that colonialism can be defeated with the same tactics as the British used.