#Ihavebeenattacked!

I can't recall the year this happened, it must have been around 2006.

Late one Friday night my phone rang. It was a few minutes to midnight.
“I’ve been attacked! I’ve been attacked!”
I didn't recognize the voice but it was a man’s. He sounded frantic.
“Who’s this?”
“It is me Professor …. I tell you, I have been attacked!”
I was wondering how he wanted me to help. Call the Police perhaps? Was it a wrong number?
“Where are you?”
“I am at my home here in Makerere. The New Vision has attacked me! How can they run an article criticizing my views?!”
Oh God!! A grown Prof making so much noise over a mere newspaper article? I groaned inwardly and rolled my eyes.
“Oh, okay” Calmly. “So how can I help you?”
“Come to my home tomorrow at 11am, I want to talk to the media. I have to issue a rebuttal! How dare this newspaper attack me like this?”

So I went to his house the next day. The dining table where we sat was piled high with books and old newspapers, journals, examination and research papers. There was a red flask, a China teacup on a saucer, and a bowl of sugar on a tray. The room was dingy and there were cobwebs on the ceiling. There were only two journalists there. One from a newspaper. And me. With my heavy hand-held tape recorder.

It turns out that the agriculture Prof, who, on occasion addressed a political party weekly press conference, had purchased the early bird copy of the New Vision. In there, someone had written a letter criticizing an article he had earlier submitted for publication. His article, I don’t remember what it was about, was nearly a month old. It had elicited some response in form of a letter on the Editor’s Page. A month later.

Armed with a copy of the newspaper in which his article ran, and the early edition with the letter, the Professor raved and ranted, waving his hands up and down, banging the table, raising his voice, removing and putting his specs back on, biting on the temple tips, and scrunching his face in anger and disbelief. He alleged that the "rebuttal" must have come from someone working for the government, someone who was bent on seeing him enter the grave before his (Prof’s) time, someone who clearly did not understand that he was a whole Prof who had read his books for years.

The other journalist wrote and wrote and wrote, and scribbled and scribbled and scribbled. I recorded and recorded and recorded and recorded. The first side of the tape ran out. I changed it. The other side also ran out and still, the good Prof continued his monologue. Railing and ranting against the unknown writer. The writer of three paragraphs, mind you. He questioned how the paper, "a big paper at that, could allow him to be challenged, and how it could publish such rubbish, eh?"
 “I am an expert in this subject, how can someone who is not even qualified question my views?? I always doubted this paper, and now they have proved my suspicions right!"

We could not get questions in edgewise because he would put his hand up to give us the Stop sign like a policeman at non-functioning traffic lights.

I pretended to change the tape again and switched off the recorder. I’d heard and had enough. He wasn't even noticing that we were shifting in our chairs and not listening any more. The other journalist had stopped attacking his notebook and was sitting quietly. Then the Prof stopped his tirade.

“Okay, I hope you have got everything, eh? If there is anything you have not understood, I can clarify it now.”

We both looked at him. No one uttered a word.

“Ah, okay. Thank you very much for coming! Make sure you run the story. When can I listen in? And you, you said you are from which paper? When will the story be published? These newspaper people also them. Make sure you don't attack me, you hear!”

He got up, removed the crotchet cover from the flask and poured himself a cup of tea, stirring loudly and carelessly. I wondered who had put it there, because it seemed he was alone in the house.

The story did not see the light of day.