It”s okay to beg for survival. It’s okay to beg for help in times of dire stress when the difference is a matter of life or death. For such a one, you are not a beggar, you are someone who needs help.
But when you beg for a lifestyle, when you beg so that you appear to have yet you don’t, when you beg to make an impression, when you beg for the sake of begging simply because you are begging from someone who has what you wish to have – you are the beggar. This is the meaning of true beggar.
This beggar I have described is increasingly becoming visible in our country. What’s more, they are proud. The shock is that they first want the public to see them as celebrities, having sold themselves as such for a period of time. But beggar and celebrity can’t appear in the same sentence.
I feel sorry for them. Beggars who still want to be called ‘celebrities.’ What is there left to inspire others? What is left to be a model except inspire followers to join the begging culture? The culture that teaches people not to live within their means or not to work in order to afford the life of their dreams.
Imagine begging for millions, hundreds of millions, lavish vehicles, fancy houses etc NOT begging for 100/=, a glass of water, a shirt, a trouser or a day’s meal? If that’s not stupidity what is it?
Even worse is for a beggar – after receiving from their donor – to go out and ‘launch’ their donation. When you see them, run. Shun them. Isolate them. They are teaching children; including their own, that being clever is learning how to live off others and pride oneself in what you haven’t earned or worked for. They have twisted values and morals. Enemies of society.
Sadly, their fans don’t see them as beggars. Those who idolise them see celebrity nothing else. Not the stupidity, not the degradation, not the danger they pose to society and certainly not the empty tins that these society beggars are. It’s okay for these beggars to choose their lifetyle but is too much to ask their fans to distinguish between right and wrong?
This is not about fan following. Its about sanity in society. Can we at least uphold the only thing that no one else can enforce on us – human values? To be a beggar is deplorable.
Remember a beggar to me, is that one who begs for a lifestyle they cant afford not the one who begs to barely survive and stay alive.
Oh Uganda!
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