How to Perform Miracles for the Maasai
- Category: The Comrade
- Date 08-11-2009
- 322 views
President Jakaya Kikwete wants to perform a miracle. He recently mused that he could send a strong Maasai delegation to Uganda to learn modern ways of cattle keeping from their nomadic counterparts in that country (see: JK to send Maasai mission to Uganda, The Guardian 26th October 2009). By the exposure visit, JK hopes to transform the itinerant community into stationary but concentrative citizens, capable of consolidating their development undertakings in one place.
The Ankole region of Uganda, which JK visited recently, is inhabited by two ethnic groups: Bairu cultivators and Bahima herders. The latter are descendants of the Chwezi dynasty, who migrated to this area during pre-historic times in search of pasture and water for their animals. They were traditional wanderers but have since abandoned their nomadic ways; and can now call their final settlement ‘home’.
They did not, at any rate, alter their lifestyle through conscious effort. Prevailing conditions forced them to stay in one place as land tenure systems continually changed. All other communities had settled and claimed ownership of surrounding lands while at the same time colonial and postcolonial governments gazetted forests and parklands and thus denied the pastoralists any more free land to roam into.
It is a waste of resources to take the Maasai for an exposure tour of this planet. They are inherently nomadic and will end up somewhere at their own inspiration. They have always led this lifestyle, might ever have come across settled communities, and may never have learnt useful lessons.
They know, for example, that the Haya, Zaramo, Chagga or Sukuma are settled communities and able to secure their development initiatives in a long time. They have sons and daughters who are educated and exposed to the ways of progressive communities locally and globally and can exert greater influence on the customs of their motherland. Scripture says that what comes from within has greater force than what comes from outside (read Mark 7:18-23).
Uganda’s former pastoralists, the Bahima, have been inspired to adopt a more settled lifestyle by their association with the ruling class. The country’s president is apparently one of them and would surely be embarrassed to be viewed as of a vagabond extraction.
Barely a year ago, another nomadic group known as ‘Balaalo’ emerged in some parts of Uganda but suffered injuries and deaths as they drove their cattle through people’s fields. Government immediately de-gazetted part of a national park to provide the pastoralists a safe and permanent habitation. While migration became increasingly risky in Uganda, the pastoralists also heeded the president’s counsel to settle, seeing him as one of them.
Change that comes from within is more sustainable. When most of Africa remains undeveloped, it is not because Africans and their leaders have never travelled to China, America or Europe. No. They know and desire development and have seen what it entails. When they allow corruption to flourish, it is not because they regard it as precursor for progress nor have witnessed it in developed countries. It is the gullibility of the African citizenry that fuels such tendencies.
Many other previously nomadic communities have either turned into semi-nomads or totally abandoned the nomadic lifestyles. The Oromo in North Shoa region of Ethiopia are a living testimony of changed semi-nomads, and as day follows night, they will have nothing nomadic about them at all. The arid northern part of Kenya is inhabited by the Borana. They have ably weathered the desert conditions in their homeland and embraced trade as a new way of life, to produce very successful businesspeople. As time goes by, the value of the cow declines as more modern standards are adopted.
If The Comrade were the president, he would address the Maasai problem by providing what they migrate looking for. An exposure tour will not pump water into Maasailand to sustain pasture and drinking water for the people and their animals. A water dam will, as will an irrigation scheme. An education too can do miracles.
By Venansio Ahabwe
Source: The Comrade, The Guardian on Sunday