In 2010, when I traveled to Uganda for the first time, I made sure my expectations were minimal so that when I arrived in Gulu I could take it for what it was and not for what others had told me or for what I had read about. I wanted most to let those who I came into contact with construct and create this world I would soon make my second home What I experienced was the lived realties of people’s daily struggle to return to a sense of normalcy four years after the ceasefire. I observed as the northern Ugandan community made efforts to transition their fragmented past to suit a much more certain and “peaceful” future. For over four months I conducted research on the emergence of peace education initiatives in the districts of Amuru, Kitgum and Gulu. One of the major themes of my work was the real and false militarism in Acholi society. Real militarism refers to the very evident hostilities that exist in post-conflict northern Uganda and false militarism refers to the portrayal of the north as a budding bed of violence with a military-prone population that is largely inaccurate or exaggerated.
Looking at the history of Uganda will reveal that stereotypes were constructed by colonists portraying the Acholi population of northern Uganda as primitive and inferior to the Baganda of central and southern Uganda. To the British the Acholi had little to contribute to the development of the colony besides their service in the military. In the shared memory of the Ugandan people, this has had lasting psychosocial trauma. It has manifested itself along social and political lines with each new government, following independence, deepening not only the stereotypes about the Acholi, but about other ethnic groups as well. The Acholi maintained heavy numbers in the military throughout the 70s and 80s and for the Ugandan collective memory it was the Acholi who perpetrated the atrocities in the Luwero triangle during the early 1980s. It is this un-reconciled event, coupled with colonial stereotypes that have perpetuated the myth that the Achoil are militaristic and violent.
When conflict erupted between the Lord’s Resistance Army and the Ugandan government, it came as no surprise to the country because the Acholi were always seen as violent. However, this is the sort of false militarism that has unfortunately been forced upon the Acholi identity. Looking at the pre-colonial era, though, will reveal that the Acholi are not historically violent. Even before 1986, there have been no notable rebellions in Acholiland. The only such rebellion that took place was against British colonial rule with a few clan conflicts between the Langi and Teso. Otherwise, they were generally known to be hardworking and hospitable people.
There does exist, however, a level of “real” militarism in Acholiland, but not as a result of some innate primitiveness, but the 21 years of violent insurgency and insecurity in the region. Acholi culture, just like any culture, is ever-changing and fluid; and the conflict has left a distinct impression on Acholi cultural values and norms. Honorable Jacob Oulanya, the Deputy Speaker of Ugandan Parliament, spoke of the war creating a generation that is morally disengaged, saying that nowadays when youth have disagreements they will say “I’ll kill you” rather than “I’ll box you.” This statement is just a small example of how militarization through the LRA insurgency has led to a culture of militarism in Acholiland that was not known before. Children playing with toy army tanks and reenacting battle scenes has been injected into the collective psyche of people in this region. For many who were born in the late 1980’s, war and uncertainty is the most familiar and normal existence they know.
Much is being done to reverse this trend, such as cultural restoration and revival that promotes and reinforces traditional ideas of peace and reconciliation. Peace education, on the other hand, serves as the medium between restoring cultural values and bringing in new strategies to deal with the massive trauma and violence that took place during the war. Instead of in the homestead this type of education will be taught in the schools in hopes that it will emanate throughout the community with the youth acting as change agents. It cannot be effective, however, if themes of positive peace are not incorporated into the lessons making the chances of relapsing into conflict that much more unlikely. There is only so much notions of negative peace can bring to a young person that cannot find work or enroll in school, especially when the next best option is to join a rebel movement against the system that is oppressing and marginalizing them presently.
(originally written: July 21, 2011)
Saturday, January 14, 2012
“A Blessing and a Frustration” NGO Presence in Northern Uganda
Many speakers and lecturers for our Anthropology course on peacebuilding and conflict in northern Uganda have made remarks on the massive non-governmental presence in Gulu, Uganda. They tell a similar story of how the war in northern Uganda waged for over 15 years without much international attention and to a great extent without much national coverage. It was only after the United Nations’ head of humanitarian affairs, Jan Egeland, declared Uganda “the most neglected humanitarian crisis in the world” in 2003 that the international community began to take notice (BCC). By 2005, Gulu district had 264 NGOs in what some would say was the highest concentration of NGOs in Africa. However, even with so much support you will find many local and national officials echo the sentiments of Mr. James Latigo, member of the Grassroots Reconciliation Project, that, “NGOs are a blessing and a frustration.”
Although active fighting ended in the region with the 2006 cease fire between the Lord’s Resistance Army and the Uganda People’s Defense Force, conflict still exists. Suffering is lived and relived through the lack of accessible healthcare, inadequate welfare services, and the psychosocial trauma remaining from 21 years of war. Conflict now is made manifest through land wrangles and economic insecurity due to a decade of displacement in internally displaced persons camps. These are all challenges faced presently and in the presence of hundreds of nongovernmental organizations (NGO) and agencies. Some northern Ugandans who have been shuffled through these organizations find that they speak a “different language” from that of the community. Others however, especially the youth, feel more positively about the NGOs because they offer temporary employment and volunteering opportunities. Civic leaders and elders, though, would warn you of the “fish syndrome” or the dependency of the northern community on aid and assistance from these NGOs.
Today, the number of NGOs and projects has declined as the community moves from that of emergency relief to that of development and recovery. From an outsider’s perspective, I question the very logic behind allowing so many NGOs to operate in the region without consolidating their efforts. There have been documented cases of exploitation by major aid groups and extralegal activities carried out by aid workers. No one captures this more precisely than Swedish anthropologist Sverker Finnstrom: “The muno especially is a rather depersonalized agent, who visits the camps only briefly and seldom engages in any dialogical communication or intersubjective endeavor with the displaced people, nor takes the time to listen to their stories and frustrations” (Living with Bad Surroundings, 2008: 171). He continues by saying that to the Acholi community, visiting foreigners are rarely seen as individuals, but rather as a category of people.
NGOs filled and continue to fill a gap between the government and the community by providing technical, intellectual, financial and material aid. Their resources and access to resources are greatly needed and wanted, but there relationship with the community is one of varying reciprocity and agreement. Because of competition for donor support and funding, NGOs tend to resist working with each other. However, efforts like the Working Group in Gulu which brought together the INGO (international nongovernmental organization) community to compare notes do exist, but this type of system should be extended and required of all civil society and humanitarian agencies. The culture of aid or rather the politics of aid has to be transformed to a more community-friendly model in order for the population to become self-sustaining. Northern Uganda unfortunately is only just one example of a very convoluted system world-wide, but it is my hope that this can be remedied through support for forums like the Working Group, system reformation, and context-specific and accessible services.
(originally written: July 21, 2011)
Although active fighting ended in the region with the 2006 cease fire between the Lord’s Resistance Army and the Uganda People’s Defense Force, conflict still exists. Suffering is lived and relived through the lack of accessible healthcare, inadequate welfare services, and the psychosocial trauma remaining from 21 years of war. Conflict now is made manifest through land wrangles and economic insecurity due to a decade of displacement in internally displaced persons camps. These are all challenges faced presently and in the presence of hundreds of nongovernmental organizations (NGO) and agencies. Some northern Ugandans who have been shuffled through these organizations find that they speak a “different language” from that of the community. Others however, especially the youth, feel more positively about the NGOs because they offer temporary employment and volunteering opportunities. Civic leaders and elders, though, would warn you of the “fish syndrome” or the dependency of the northern community on aid and assistance from these NGOs.
Today, the number of NGOs and projects has declined as the community moves from that of emergency relief to that of development and recovery. From an outsider’s perspective, I question the very logic behind allowing so many NGOs to operate in the region without consolidating their efforts. There have been documented cases of exploitation by major aid groups and extralegal activities carried out by aid workers. No one captures this more precisely than Swedish anthropologist Sverker Finnstrom: “The muno especially is a rather depersonalized agent, who visits the camps only briefly and seldom engages in any dialogical communication or intersubjective endeavor with the displaced people, nor takes the time to listen to their stories and frustrations” (Living with Bad Surroundings, 2008: 171). He continues by saying that to the Acholi community, visiting foreigners are rarely seen as individuals, but rather as a category of people.
NGOs filled and continue to fill a gap between the government and the community by providing technical, intellectual, financial and material aid. Their resources and access to resources are greatly needed and wanted, but there relationship with the community is one of varying reciprocity and agreement. Because of competition for donor support and funding, NGOs tend to resist working with each other. However, efforts like the Working Group in Gulu which brought together the INGO (international nongovernmental organization) community to compare notes do exist, but this type of system should be extended and required of all civil society and humanitarian agencies. The culture of aid or rather the politics of aid has to be transformed to a more community-friendly model in order for the population to become self-sustaining. Northern Uganda unfortunately is only just one example of a very convoluted system world-wide, but it is my hope that this can be remedied through support for forums like the Working Group, system reformation, and context-specific and accessible services.
(originally written: July 21, 2011)
Colonial Legacies: Understanding Modern Day Conflict and Oppression
The Great Lakes Region of Africa, which includes the countries of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi, is said to be an area that not only has an interconnected and shared history, but interlocking and ongoing conflict. A lecturer for our course on conflict and peacebuilding in northern Uganda recognized this when he remarked that all of these countries gained their independence in the late 1950s and 60s. They all experienced massive population movements and were subjected to the redrawing of ethnic boundaries by colonial powers. Rwanda and Burundi were first under German rule but soon were taken over by the French. Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania share a history of British colonization, while the DRC endured through harsh Belgian subjugation. Moses Okello, our lecturer, made certain that we understood that systems of oppression and domination that were established under colonialism gave birth to modern-day conflicts.
The Great Lakes Region has endured through decades of dirty, full scale war and low intensity conflicts. Tensions in Uganda manifested around 1958 as they did in Rwanda with the Hutu Revolution. During that time, the Tutsi were expelled from Rwanda leading them to flee to neighboring Uganda, DRC and Burundi, adding to existing tensions in those countries. Tanzania and Kenya, although direct conflict in those countries did not erupt in 1958, are now facing budding tensions. For national and international actors it is convenient to define and reduce these conflicts as ethnic in origin. It is the most common reason, Moses pointed out, that gets overused in the “native population + settlers + colonialism = ethnic conflict” formula. Although it is true that the redrawing of boundaries by colonial powers led to different ethnic and linguistic communities being resettled and shifted, it is only one dimension to the conflict and oppression taking place today.
Looking more closely at the country of Uganda will show how the colonial policy of “divide and conquer” is a legacy that has held together a system of oppression kept functional by the very people who fought to end foreign control. Lecturer Stella Laloyo, was able to show this through her presentation on Ugandan history. Because the colonizers were able to better identify with the Baganda’s hierarchal system, they saw the group as more civilized and sophisticated than their neighbors to the north such as the Acholi, Langi, Karamajong and Iteso. The Acholi, more specifically, did not have such a defined and centralized monarchy system, but instead had a series of chiefdoms headed by rwodi or kings. The Acholi were viewed as inferior to the Baganda, having little to contribute to the development of the colony. To the British, the Acholi were backwards and their cultural practices primitive making them best suited for military service. The area, thus surrounding the Baganda, in central Uganda, was developed and invested in and still to this day contains the highest concentration of universities and businesses. In contrast, the northern region received its first public university in 2002 with the establishment of Gulu University.
The categorization of the Acholi as militant and violent and the Buganda as educated and civilized merely serves as a backdrop to what is fueling the conflict. The war that took place in northern Uganda from 1986 to 2006 is very much an extension of the five year conflict that was waged in the central region of Luwero. Anthropologist Sverker Finnstrom, after conducting extensive research in the north, concluded that the causes of the war are also political and economic. In addition, colonial rule left Christianity as one of its legacies making the old saying “the gun followed the Bible” that much more true as you begin to uncover the factors contributing to the conflict. The main point from the lectures, is that to understand any conflict in Africa today, one must abandon the rhetoric of ethnic strife and invest in a deeper understanding of the ordering and reordering of power during colonialism. Even further, one must also look at the interrelated histories of these conflicts across international borders like with the countries in the Great Lakes Region. It is here, that those invested can more effectively deconstruct the causes of these conflicts and create solutions for an end.
(originally written: July 21, 2011)
The Great Lakes Region has endured through decades of dirty, full scale war and low intensity conflicts. Tensions in Uganda manifested around 1958 as they did in Rwanda with the Hutu Revolution. During that time, the Tutsi were expelled from Rwanda leading them to flee to neighboring Uganda, DRC and Burundi, adding to existing tensions in those countries. Tanzania and Kenya, although direct conflict in those countries did not erupt in 1958, are now facing budding tensions. For national and international actors it is convenient to define and reduce these conflicts as ethnic in origin. It is the most common reason, Moses pointed out, that gets overused in the “native population + settlers + colonialism = ethnic conflict” formula. Although it is true that the redrawing of boundaries by colonial powers led to different ethnic and linguistic communities being resettled and shifted, it is only one dimension to the conflict and oppression taking place today.
Looking more closely at the country of Uganda will show how the colonial policy of “divide and conquer” is a legacy that has held together a system of oppression kept functional by the very people who fought to end foreign control. Lecturer Stella Laloyo, was able to show this through her presentation on Ugandan history. Because the colonizers were able to better identify with the Baganda’s hierarchal system, they saw the group as more civilized and sophisticated than their neighbors to the north such as the Acholi, Langi, Karamajong and Iteso. The Acholi, more specifically, did not have such a defined and centralized monarchy system, but instead had a series of chiefdoms headed by rwodi or kings. The Acholi were viewed as inferior to the Baganda, having little to contribute to the development of the colony. To the British, the Acholi were backwards and their cultural practices primitive making them best suited for military service. The area, thus surrounding the Baganda, in central Uganda, was developed and invested in and still to this day contains the highest concentration of universities and businesses. In contrast, the northern region received its first public university in 2002 with the establishment of Gulu University.
The categorization of the Acholi as militant and violent and the Buganda as educated and civilized merely serves as a backdrop to what is fueling the conflict. The war that took place in northern Uganda from 1986 to 2006 is very much an extension of the five year conflict that was waged in the central region of Luwero. Anthropologist Sverker Finnstrom, after conducting extensive research in the north, concluded that the causes of the war are also political and economic. In addition, colonial rule left Christianity as one of its legacies making the old saying “the gun followed the Bible” that much more true as you begin to uncover the factors contributing to the conflict. The main point from the lectures, is that to understand any conflict in Africa today, one must abandon the rhetoric of ethnic strife and invest in a deeper understanding of the ordering and reordering of power during colonialism. Even further, one must also look at the interrelated histories of these conflicts across international borders like with the countries in the Great Lakes Region. It is here, that those invested can more effectively deconstruct the causes of these conflicts and create solutions for an end.
(originally written: July 21, 2011)
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