It’s Absurd That Simon Kaheru Remains Ignorant about the Strategic Advantages of Negative Energy

It’s Absurd That Simon Kaheru Remains Ignorant about the Strategic Advantages of Negative Energy

Major Barigye Bahoku used to be my friend (before he deeply got involved in AMISOM duties) and he once told me that ‘I was very negative for life’. 

At that time I had not internalized the practical repercussions of being negative so I decided to read widely about the subject and discovered that all the motivation speakers preached the same things about negative people; that we should distance ourselves away from cynical people. 

Well it so happened that major Barigye was right that I had a negative attitude to so many things and my cynicism was always reflected in my writings in one of the dailies.

I for instance wrote about Fidel Castro being a liability to Cuba because of his intransigence that led to the hard-hitting sanctions by the US on Cuba.

 I also wrote that most pan Africanists were good for nothing because they were propagating hate against the western powers other than embracing cooperation with them.

Major Bahoku was kind enough to solicit an invite for me to the Cuban embassy where I had a confrontation with a lady called Fatuma Taa, ( I was told she is daughter of former Guinean president  Sekou Toure who led it to independence from France in 1958. 

But Sekou Toure ruled with an iron hand, taking power as a radical who pursued Marxist revolutionary policies. He was also known for his pan African view which is why his daughter Fatuma Taa was deeply involved in the pan African movement in Uganda.

so at the Cuban embassy I had a spat with this Sekou Toure lady when I told the Cuban ambassador (during the question and answer session between him and the journalists) that it was Fidel Castro who was to blame for retarding the prosperity of that seemingly beautiful country, Cuba.

Although the ambassador was understandably cool with my views, Fatuma Taa and Prof Tarsis Kabwegyere were furious that i had the audacity to talk ill about the revolutionary leader.

Fatuma Taa curtly blamed major Bahoku for ‘’bringing bad people at the Cuban embassy’’
And that was when Major Bahoku came to me and accused me of being negative.
At that time I was too arrogant to care about what people thought about me.

Raison de'etre

So today that word negative surfaced to me again when I read The Newvision and saw a headline titled ‘How To Deal With Negative People’ written by longtime columnist Mr. Simon Kaheru.
I obviously read the article with the passion of a child who has been starved of a breast for days because of the contrasting views about negativity and positive thinking.  
from the onset i thought it was very informative because Mr. Kaheru brought in an educative perspective about a certain Glum character that featured in an old cartoon series.
Mr. Kaheru decried Glum’s tendency to always see things from a negative perspective.
Glum would say things like;
 ‘It cannot work’
‘We are doomed’
‘I wonder whether we shall make it’

And Kaheru wrote that he never appreciated the negative stance that Glum had for any undertakings of that time.
 However Kaheru contradicted himself when he wrote that in each instance where Glum was negative, things turned out to have a positive end!.

And that is the exact issue that has forced me to respond to Mr. Kaheru in this blog to educate him to him about the value of negative energy.

The Power Of Negativity
so many books have been written to show that negative energy is not good at all.
yet much as positive thinking is good when you are about to engage into a challenging venture , it’s the negativity that guides you to success.

Am actually of the view that you need negative people around you because they inadvertently warn you of the exigent risks involved in a given undertaking.

While most motivation speakers encourage us to avoid negative people because of the negative energy they bring to issues, am of the view that we can pick very important warning messages from negative people than we get from positive people.
For instance , if you are to undertake a journey, a positive perosn will encourage you without mentioning  any reservations. but a negative perosn will warn you about the likelihood of a inuring a flat tyre!

Let me use another dynamic example. In the 80s ,President Museveni was hugely motivated that he launched the bush war with just 27 guns. he needed optimists around him to push the cause. But he also used cynicism on so many occasions to avoid mistakes. for instance he abandoned an attack on Masindi barracks.

On the other hand, however positive energy can have drastic consequ3nces. For instance, we should consider Alice Lakwena to be the most optimistic person you could ever find in this world because she used to attack government garrisons with stones!.

Lakwena was so positive that she told her fighters that they had a natural immunity to bullets and bombs from the NRA troops. And her fighters were easily decimated because of that positive energy that Mr. Kaheru is preaching for us to embrace.

Now, it’s Obvious, that the advice to discard pessimistic people is hugely off the mark because its pessimism that warns you of the consequences of a given venture.
Negative people are like breaks in the car system that stops the car from advancing into an oncoming trailer. While positive people are like the accelerators that drive you forward.
You cannot operate without any of the two. You need both to both survive and thrive.
Kaheru's intolerant statements
 
Mr. Kaheru also made suggestions which I found rather selfish and intolerant when he advised that (1) negative people must be isolated as much as possible. (2) Negative people must be denied positions of influence and (3) denied chance from accessing the front page and confined to the back stage.
Oh dear me!

Mr. Kaheru forgets that when you want a seed to die don’t bury it in the ground!
But now Kaheru is proposing that negative people must be buried completely. I would like to inform Mr. Kaheru that when you bury the pessimistic person, he will germinate one day and you will find it very difficult to deal with that tree that comes out.
Remember, the mustard seed takes a very long time to grow, but when it does, it’s practically unstoppable.
mr kaheru should know that president Obote tried to bury one mustard seed deeply in the ground but it took five years for that seed to grow into a very strong tree that has lived around for the last thirty years and is still going strong.

Mr. Kaheru’s practical intention was that government should not tolerate people who criticize it! Oh dear ,oh dear!he was of the view that only sycophants must be tolerated. yet the reality is that government needs critics more than it does the sycophants.
In conclusion therefore , Mr. Kaheru should know that positive people are like brakes in the car that propel car forward while negative people are the brakes that stop the car from crushing.
I request Mr. Kaheru to stop copying and pasting what he reads from these books written by motivation speakers. These books will mislead you my dear.

The author Fred Daka Kamwada writes columns in Ugandan dailies and is also a blogger. Contact him at kamwadafreed@gmail.com