BEYOND the crossroads was my uncle's compound. A sprawling terrain of red soil in the lung of mango trees. The odour of fresh dung and smoke filled the horizons of pregnant maize stalks. In misty mornings the sky joined with the land. Normally we visited during the rains, when the maize was ripe for roasting. Before socialism. Nowadays the compound is a market of jumping shadows receding in elephant grass as you approach. Socialism took the compound. It is weird to think how life can conspire to shatter the most noble of intentions. We still go to the compound to visit graves of ancestors. These days my uncle, reticent and bitter, lives further down by the hills. In a ''collective'' village close to the Seminary. Any mention of the compound brings little or no response. "National building," is all he says. "We were building the nation," as if it were a mantra of some deity foisted upon his very existence. To him, as it is to many others in his collected village, the past is a faith: unquestionable and pulsating with memories of tremulous stalks unable to bear the burdens of a beauty. Ujamaa. In a sense, the present is embedded to that compound in an interface of faith and the need to move forward. Society, like my uncle, is still fumbling to find an identity. If, as my uncle believes, the untanglement of the fabric that held his society for centuries was an act of Providence, then much nation building is still happening now. But my uncle, an illiterate pastoral-peasant, is no savant. Nor is he a member of parliament. As such we should pay little attention to his silent sulks over a past destroyed by blind faith. Not everyone is underwhelmed by our legislators' capitalization of the past. Last Thursday 52 legislators issued a letter denouncing efforts to amend the constitution in the Isles. Like an ecumenical invocation, was the inevitable reminder: "It is a shame that a few months after the death of the Father of the Nation his legacy is just abandoned ..." Groovy, isn't it? Wait for the bass line. "...by leaders he nurtured and assisted to be in power." Move over Mingus, it is Beanie Man's time. The hyperbole, in other words, rests with the legislators' unrelented attacks of the Father's principles. Recall, in a moment of indulgence, that these are the same members who voted to be called "Honorable", antithesis of the Father's "Ndugu"; passed Bills to endow on them perks and benefits incongruous with the nation's gross domestic product; a House where tax cheats flee into; a House of deadbeats, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. The jury is out. But cool down, it is a little more than politics. Principles (and legacies) are like menus. The Father's view on union is foie gras. And here is the undoing of that otherwise courageous declaration. Faith. The grounding of the present in faith. Of course, the argumentation for amending the constitution, which brought to bear the declaration, is puerile. Cuckoo loony. One strand for the amendment has it that, to win the election the ruling party has to have the incumbent re-elected, or else the opposition wins. The other strand, hold your breath, has it that the incumbent must run as an act of declaring non-interference from the Mainland. The latter is more interesting but, for the sake of consistency, it is imperative to shake both in this potent mix of raw ambition, shortsightedness and deceit. In arguing that the incumbent is indispensable for the party to win, is admission that the party is finished and, that the ruling party without a certain personality is a bankrupt enterprise. A view intrinsically disrespectful to voters, and a blatant breach of trust because tucked solidly in the amendment is the idea that a [mis]leader is omnipotent. Stuff not fit for kindergarten. A humbug that, apart from creating faith in those lines of "national building", veers dangerously toward pre-1964 determinism. The times, gentlemen, they are a changin'. We get here to the second dimension: structural arrangement and Fathers of the Nation. With the last three decades of a political space called the Union Republic, there have always been clamours against the existence of the entity. Measures, sometimes deadly, have been applied at different times to quell these stirrings: threats, detention, ridicule and even death. As instruments of "union-building'', these measures have failed to smother the flames of the opposing views. Work of insidious Boers? Hard to know. But more corrosive to the union space is illusion. The idea that all is hale-and-hearty. No problem. Clearly there is a problem. People cannot risk the ruination of their lives just for the love of being defiant to a popular regime. Society has to accept this opposition-to-union as a fact, as much as we dislike the fact of disunion, through a re-examination of the entire arrangement: against the background of the 60s, when the marriage of the two nations was consummated. Are the conditions propagating for union then still valid today? Is time mature for a different arrangement? These are delicate questions and, it goes without saying, require equally delicate handling. In short, there are no simple answers as much as there is no one in possession of the truth, past or present. The last point is significant precisely because it includes even those who made the arrangement. Now, when our legislators talk of "legacy" they are missing the point. There is no such thing as unchallengeable legacy. Societies are dynamic and it is in the living's interests to question whether the current arrangement is in tune with the time. Pause, examine if it works, move forward if it does work. If it doesn't, it doesn't, find another formula. There is no inherent sin. The Fathers of the Nation might as well have got it wrong. (The Fathers of the Nation might as well have got it right.) One should avoid ascribing the dead only positive aspects however admirable their characters. Union was not, and should not, be faith. The union was a covenant between peoples, not gods. If people bear grudges to the arrangement, it is necessary to sit down as decently as those who brought us here and make a secular assessment, without the frills of faith. To cultivate the idea of "legacy" without any questioning leaves societies at the mercy of "indispensable" leaders; qualities are attributed in those leaders absent even in the sciences. There is no such thing as absolute truth. A legacy such as this, encumbered in faith, is as perilous as indispensable leadership. Legacy is the ability to confront today's challenges through thought. The Fathers, in their dynamism, t-h-o-u-g-h-t: about unity - to lift all boats; selflessness - in dying for the country; sacrifice - in liberating others. Idealism. They thought, they didn't pray. But a question lingers: what has the national leadership done to stem the political aimlessness? Perceptive observers have gone as far as to question the role of the union president: "weak," "administrator," "out-witted" and other characterizations. It is opportune to take a look at the options. Given the current arrangement, there hasn't been much that could have been done differently. Think about it this way: when a whole nation is bent in supplication at the altars of "union" then, naturally, all decision-making has to draw from this posture. No decision can be made that seemingly destabilizes the faith. This scheme has gone to the extent that any criticism of doings, in the isles especially, is construed as a blasphemy. While the reverse is true, namely, it is possible for sybarite sports-advisors to question criticism originating from the Mainland. A folly that undermines not only the union entity, it reduces the authority of the person holding its highest office. I will explain. The president of the union runs the risk of issuing impotent directives because buoys are floated to test his resolve, "Non-interference in Zanzibar internal affairs." (Meaning: don't dare.) A contradiction in terms: what are Zanzibar's internal affairs? CUF is as Zanzibari as they get. In political terms, the union is in a pious posture, knees bent, hands folded: Te Deum laudamus. Those familiar, bitter-sweet hymns. Nation -Tanganyika-Zanzibar. Unity - Pan-Africanism. Legacy - help your sister, pass it on. The union presidency can do nothing short of calling the bluff. The worst thing a leader can do is to give a command that she is not prepared to follow through. The danger is real. This has been the option facing the "weak" president. The issue here is not whether we have a weak presidency, nor whether the Islanders can amend the constitution (they can so absolutely tweak the constitution if it so pleases them). The problem is that we have a sacred institution in a secular time. Time is propitious for a wide-ranging debate. All in all, let's not allow for conditions where a businessman-cum-aide embarrasses the highest institution in the land while we remain in attitudes of prayers. Good is to know when to stop. No need to wait for a showdown. The moment is uniquely important because the stirrings emanates from one of the union's custodians. Whereas in the past similar urges incubated from political opposition, rendered treasonous at birth, this comes right where it matters: the Revolutionary(sic) presidency and its appendage, the House of Representatives. More manna from the gods no mortal can pray for. This, contrary to frenzy, is a window of opportunity unprecedented in the history of the union. It allows for a re-examination of the union: what works and what doesn't, and then the realignment of these mechanisms (i.e., elections, constitutions, whatever), to reflect the times. In the end then, such constitutional amendments as the Zanzibari might deem necessary, should benefit not those currently in power. Why this caveat? Because those benefiting from the current order are there because of the arrangement of the union. The ground in the Isles must be levelled and that will be non-interference. The colourful rhetoric muddles the issues. Where do we go from here? What is the glue holding us together? Do we have to endure the constant bickering only so that children grow in a two-parent-family? It is a nasty, painful process, (some still would call it treason), but it is necessary. Fathers of the Nation, wherever they are, will have to understand that we have to live our lives. In the ruins of my uncle's compound, I still believe that misty mornings join the sky with our dead folks. They were giants in those days. It is mere faith, but such is the power of the Fathers' honesty.