Lifting the Lid-Mobile Devil
By Yaak Jurkuch
There is a device you carry daily; you think you carry it actually. No, let me tell you this, most of the times it carries you. Everyone has it these days. Even our maid has one. You can’t feel comfortable without it just like a soldier without a gun feels. They look empty, intimidated. It keeps you connected with the world in very many ways and yes it is not heavy any more. Your world revolves around it. Oh yes. You know what I am talking about, the mobile phone. So before you go bragging about that I-phone you possess, guess what? Our house help carries one. So keep it low, braggart. Here is my story for you.
In the 1870’s, two inventors, Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell both independently designed devices that could transmit speech electrically (the telephone). Both men rushed their respective designs to the patent office within hours of each other; Alexander Graham Bell patented his telephone first. Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell entered into a famous legal battle over the invention of the telephone, which Bell won. He beamed about in pride for the rest of his life.
But what Alexander Graham Bell did not fathom is the world of change he will cause with his invention; necessity was its driving factor though. Not in his wildest dreams did he know that his madness will enhance communication to the unprecedented level it is today. Modifications were made until the ones with deep pockets could afford some in their houses. Colonization swept this precious gadget to Africa. So, before you condemn colonialists, remember we were depending on runners and that idea is not good, just ask Konyi now how hard it has become to run LRA without communication satellite phones. So this is how it happened in post-independence African states. The few telephones that existed in an estate kept its residents close. They lived in harmony for you did not want to annoy the owner of a telephone. Their little ones were revered by the children they played with. Their teenage boys would have enough girlfriends. For a neighbour to use the phone, he or she had to be a regular church-goer and tithe was a common word in their church vocabulary. They were kings.
For the have-nots who chose not to kiss ass, there was an alternative; a long queue at the phone booth at their local shopping centre. A daunting task for the elderly. Coins were well kept and reverse calls were, well, needless to say, ours. Bell’s innovation nevertheless made relatives keep in touch, lovers kept their thing burning too; distance notwithstanding .Your coins dictated that bit. Seeing bosses in their offices changed, that is right; you had to call the secretary to book an appointment for you. The boss on the other hand can feign absence or presence depending on who you are.
Hospital referrals also became easy, bringing mortality rates to a palatable level for the medics on the other end of the line were always ready to receive the patient with good information. Knowledge is king I tell you. It is power and life, all in one package.
Business transactions were handled with ease and stakeholders only met to pay homage and honour to the dotted line in some business deals. And then came war time and the rest is, as the cliché goes, history.
Some more modifications were done and mobile phones were the results of a serious knack for invention, and all hell broke loose. Before I demonise it, let’s give it some credit. Kiswahili says that ‘Mgema mmue lakini haki mpe’ in other words give the devil his due. Long queues have since been forgotten and old men and women with weak legs and frail hearts have lived longer. They own mobile phones.
Call rates, depending on your economic inclination became reasonable. All you had to do was to forgo lunch and call your girlfriend in the evening. Puppy love is what it is called. Monopoly was banished to the past. Call booths too became ancient. Government’s telecoms ran broke and we became wild. We did not have to be Mister John’s friends for we didn’t need him anymore. We stopped going to church and tithe was forgotten, the prerequisites for using the telephone if you have forgotten. John’s boys now started having one girlfriend and the estates’ unity was redefined. At first, the mobile phones were heavy. Most were long and thin like the Sudanese multi-purpose bread. The keys were also hard to press. But the owners still found joy in sticking the gadgets on their belts for all and sundry to see, a practise that bordered on utter folly and sheer backwardness. Technology has now transformed modern mobile phones to be wide and light like the sliced bread. Some don’t even have keys; it is now touch screen.
Mobile phones have crossed all the boundaries of privacy and peaceful coexistence. One can never hold a sensible conversation these days without the rude interruption of a ringing phone. Meetings too have not been spared. Some chairmen and chairladies even demand that you put it off before anything is said. For one to sleep peacefully, the phone has to go off. Others are annoying not just because they look like a mini coffin but for the fact that they have loud and annoying ring tones. Ladies and gentlemen, if your phone is still ringing in this day and age then you belong in the past.
Long ago in the Dinka culture, a man would dress smartly, go to the girl’s home, stand at the entrance, a lady would then come and invite him in. He will be seen by the relatives of the girl. Those who will like him will give their recommendation and those who do not will also talk. The fathers-in-law knew their would-be son-in-laws in advance. Shock on them, the mobile phone has taken that luxury away. Now everything is a surprise. You only see a V8 picking and dropping your sister or daughter like mail. Courtship is now done in hotels. They fornicate there and when she is now worthless to them, she is released at your door like a non performing footballer is jettisoned from a club .Yes you didn’t see it coming there was no mobile phones at least you would have had some idea. If Gardiner Green Hubbard, Alexander Graham Bell’s father-in-law knew this was going to happen, he would never have supported him financially and logistically in his telephone making project. He won’t even have given him his daughter.
The mobile phone has slowly crept into our lives to either destroy or modernize it, the choice is yours. Mobile devil or saviour, well, the phone is in and the jury is still out there with the verdict. If I forgot to say it, then know that am just lifting the lid.
The author is a South Sudanese based in Juba, reachable at peteryaak@rocketmail.com
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