Tabitha Naisiko, Uganda

I attended the summer school with the hope of learning more about epistemological and methodological approaches to human development from an international perspective. I did this with the aim of integrating this outlook into my research. Having completed the school, I was looking forward to sitting and continue writing my thesis as soon as possible. However, it all turned out to be complicated. It is a month ago that I left Yogya, yet I have not done any serious writing since.

The summer school was a reflective process on the kind of development and pluralism work we do in our own countries. One of the exercises was to write up a project proposal as a means of integrating theory into practice. This to me was a re-introduction to reality and the departure from academic utopia. It made me recall the situation in the community I am studying for my PhD. Being the only community in Uganda that practices female genital mutilation (FGM), many researchers have written about the Sabiny in Bukwo, Eastern Uganda. Literature about the Sabiny is as old as 1967. Strikingly, the community is still the same!

Bukwo has for a long time missed out on several development programmes that have improved the quality of life of other Ugandans. Until July 2008, when the Sironko-Bukwo Road opened up, Bukwo district could be accessed from Uganda by only one seasonal murrum road from Kapchorwa. There is no Ugandan radio that reaches Bukwo because of its geographical location on the slope of Mt. Elgon. People hear briefly about Uganda from Kenyan Radios in Kitare. There is no newspaper either.

The district began hitting national notice when the media started to report on Female Genital Cutting (FGM) as one of the rites of initiation to adulthood of the Sabiny. Most of the external focus since has been to stop FGM. However, having interviewed the Sabiny for my research, I tend to conclude that FGM is not the contentious issue. My respondents support the view that FGM is outdated and say they already modified it. They even propose more ways of modifying it further but are not given a chance because outsiders want to abolish the whole ritual. The desire of the people to keep some elements of the ritual is not taken note of. On the other hand, respondents from the community do point at the poor quality of life and lack of access to development programmes in health, education, economy and agriculture which could peacefully enlighten people and compromise the ritual practice to a natural close down. We outsiders need to listen to these voices! Give the Sabiny more exposure to what is happening elsewhere in Uganda!

In contrast to other parts of Uganda, the inaccessibility of Bukwo subjects it to all dimensions of Robert Chamber’s (1983) cluster of disadvantages of isolation, poverty, powerlessness, vulnerability and illiteracy. Smaller communities like this one may end up being marginalized or excluded in the international discourse on pluralism, human rights and development because their voices cannot be heard yet their lives are influenced by the agreements of the bigger communities. Concepts of globalization, global citizens and cosmopolitanism apply to urban areas where people can assert themselves socially, politically and economically. Have scholars ever attempted to include the voices of the marginalized by supporting those communities in improving their livelihood, their ability to make themselves heard? I cannot tell, but I want to try because trying has never been a problem for me.

After the summer school, I returned to visit the Sabiny. Here is what had happened since my earlier stay. First of all, there was the extreme famine in the community. This was caused by the long drought which kept the maize from growing well. The rain only became regular after people’s crops had dried up. Some crops that were left were destroyed by the same rain because it became too much. Could this be the impact of global warming? How could it affect such an innocent community to this extent! I painfully saw very big gardens, all green but no maize on the plants. Nature was not in their favour. They might only get a quarter of the expected yields.

Secondly, the community had been hit by a typhoid fever epidemic. People say that in the month of July around 27 people died. Due to their very limited resources medical workers could not reach all people to sensitise them about what was going on. Radio announcements or printed media would have made this easy. Yet none of these exist in the community.

The third story was about a family wrangle where an angry man killed two children using a hoe. He did so in revenge for his wife leaving him and refusing to come back. The children were relatives of his wife and were staying with the couple. As traditionally done, the clan of the deceased children waged war on the clan of the culprit. In the community’s perception, ‘human rights’ require a collective responsibility whereby each clan is responsible for its members and teaches them to respect human life. First, the man’s property was destroyed. The police tried to intervene in vain. It only managed to smuggle away the culprit and kept him in safe custody. Police then requested the community elders to solve the problem. The clan elders of the culprit showed signs of remorse and sought reconciliation. The clan leaders later went to the community’s court and agreed that the culprit’s clan would pay the expenses for the funeral plus 5 million shillings and 25 cows for each child.

The incident did not reach national media because the community is so isolated. At the same time, national laws are not easily implemented here. People may not even be aware of the fact that the national laws would target the individual, not the whole clan and that destruction of property would be trespass and malicious damage. How I wish the community radio was there!

In other parts of Uganda, through radios, the communities are informed about the programmes to meet such challenges. People are empowered to know what is put in place and ask for accountability or report any inconsistencies. The people of Bukwo cannot demand accountability or transparency for they do not know what is going on. The public debate forum (Ebimeeza) that President Museveni proposed at village level (Gombolola) won’t work in Bukwo. The illiteracy rate is 46%. Most of the public programmes and campaigns are done in English. Most Sabiny do not speak English or other Ugandan languages because the Sabiny’s language, unlike other Ugandan languages, is quite unique.

An FM radio that can air in the local language KupSabiny could inform and empower people. I do not want to get a PhD title using this community and leave them still marginalized because of its remoteness.