Contextualising Joseph Kony: Anarchy in the northern Uganda peace process as “tragedy of the commons" Part II
Intersubjective Communication Gaps and political and moral leadership failures in Uganda: Is Joseph Kony an “unredeemable villain” or an “existentialist hero” of Uganda’s violent political order and imprisonment of individual freedom and conscience? An existentialist response to Opiyo Oloya’s “Kony has come to the end of his tether.”
Part II
Anarchy in the northern Uganda peace process as “tragedy of the commons.”
Garrett Hardin is famous for originating the theory of the “tragedy of the commons.” It is the view that, where there is no clear control, authority, management, demarcation and ownership of a resource and access and user rights are not defined or even privatised, anarchy reigns and there is a tendency for people to over exploit, misuse and be indifferent to the sustainability of the resource. Good examples of such commons are community grazing grounds, fish in lakes and rivers, where people can own and graze as many livestock and as often as they like; or catch as much fish as they can and perhaps even more than they need without regard to control and other people’s rights, entitlements, and needs. According to Harding, this leads to the degradation of such resources, to the detriment of all. The notion of indifference to the wellbeing of commons by its typical users and stakeholders, has however, been spiritedly contested and disputed and some –like Vandana Shiva-believe debunked.
I have recently been thinking of the disarray and flux in the northern Uganda peace process in limited terms and sense of a “tragedy of the commons”. The process has been chaotic and achieved limited progress and lacked clarity and consistency in the positions and message of the principal stakeholders; re Acholi civil society, the Uganda government and state, and the LRM/A. The insurgency, the forcible displacement of population, their plight, the human security and humanitarian needs there, and third party interventions in various forms and manner to aid victims or end the conflict by peaceful or military means, have all been anarchic to the point of exemplifying Gareth Harding’s “tragedy of the commons.” Everyone; international NGOs, multilateral aid agencies, local CBOs, National NGOs, conflict experts and academics, commentators, pundits and columnists, have all flocked to- and some cut their teeth on-the peace, conflict, humanitarian, human security and child rights “commons” of northern Uganda.
Although Harding may seem both vindicated and debunked at some micro instances in northern Uganda-through the success of some and failures of other grazers-he is fundamentally vindicated in the limited macro sense that we adopt- that peace has not come sooner and may not come sooner, because of the internal logic of the operations of the tragedy of the commons. Each and everyone and entity entered the peace and conflict commons in self-interest, and have largely acted in self-interested and conflicting ways, that have made cooperation, coalescence around a central, unifying message and achievable primary objective or action for a peaceful end to the conflict and the establishment of a just and equitable peace in northern Uganda difficult. Difficult because interventions have not been informed by the pertinent questions: Whose rights? Whose peace? And what peace? to define objectives and demarcate parameters of actions by relevant and particular actors. Without clarity and ownership and authority on message and objectives, the humanitarian situation and the peace process in northern Uganda will continue to be dealt with as if it were commons and free-for-all, where actors come and go as they please without any challenges from any identifiable gatekeepers. This is exactly what we got with the fiasco of the Juba process-no one to take responsibilities for setbacks and no one to jumpstart and push the process forward.
Commentators and pundits, including John Prendergast of the International Crisis Group (ICG) and Resolve Uganda, scavenged on who to blame for the collapse of the Juba process. This is a man who has consistently advocated for the “one bullet solution” for the LRM/A in the past. It is not surprising that he should be quick to wave the terrorist red flag in front of the international community bulls, so they should stampede for “Uganda (read Acholi) Diaspora” allegedly for dissuading Kony from signing the final documents of the Juba negotiations.
It is groups of international lobbyists, populated by powerful and expensive powerbrokers, horse traders and snake oil salesmen such as Prendergast- who can only be retained by oil, gold and diamonds companies and billion dollar multinational corporations, dictators and heads of banana republics who need their images burnished-who are the unscrupulous grazers in the northern Uganda and other peace and conflict commons around the world. Had this not been the case; and had they been honestly seeking peace and equitable justice for northern Uganda, they should have not been surprised that Juba should have stalled. More so, they should have been able to see the ditch, in which Juba has fallen, as a providential second chance to reframe the whole process-design and make it more just and credible and acceptable to all the parties. Instead, it seems stakeholders must be forced to operate from a notion that all the evidence have been examined and witnesses cross-examined; and only one side, the LRM/A have been found guilty, condemned and must be gaoled. This could not be farther from the truth; but surprisingly, it is the operating logic at the Juba process. You should be damned if you should raise objections to such ludicrous, self-serving simplification of a very complex matter that defies easy black and white dichotomisation.
While we do not wish to stray away from our theme of the tragedy of the commons, we would like to leave international grazers of the Prendergast kind, who we know is merely trying to earn a living, and is paid good money to say what he says. We would, however, like to look at another type of grazer: the home-grown, native, Ugandan, and even Acholi commentators; who affect more or less moralistic and at times political judgements, and are stakeholders who express interest in some degree of fairness, justice and sanctions against violations of rights in northern Uganda. It is the moral and political leadership failure of and among these group of people-columnists, community leaders, political leaders, traditional leaders, and religious leaders-whom I loosely term as moral and political leaders, whose ambiguous and inconsistent messages –like in the Nabanga Communiqué- give self-interested and opportunistic parties munitions to detract from the primary goals and needs in northern Uganda.
See Part III
Part II
Anarchy in the northern Uganda peace process as “tragedy of the commons.”
Garrett Hardin is famous for originating the theory of the “tragedy of the commons.” It is the view that, where there is no clear control, authority, management, demarcation and ownership of a resource and access and user rights are not defined or even privatised, anarchy reigns and there is a tendency for people to over exploit, misuse and be indifferent to the sustainability of the resource. Good examples of such commons are community grazing grounds, fish in lakes and rivers, where people can own and graze as many livestock and as often as they like; or catch as much fish as they can and perhaps even more than they need without regard to control and other people’s rights, entitlements, and needs. According to Harding, this leads to the degradation of such resources, to the detriment of all. The notion of indifference to the wellbeing of commons by its typical users and stakeholders, has however, been spiritedly contested and disputed and some –like Vandana Shiva-believe debunked.
I have recently been thinking of the disarray and flux in the northern Uganda peace process in limited terms and sense of a “tragedy of the commons”. The process has been chaotic and achieved limited progress and lacked clarity and consistency in the positions and message of the principal stakeholders; re Acholi civil society, the Uganda government and state, and the LRM/A. The insurgency, the forcible displacement of population, their plight, the human security and humanitarian needs there, and third party interventions in various forms and manner to aid victims or end the conflict by peaceful or military means, have all been anarchic to the point of exemplifying Gareth Harding’s “tragedy of the commons.” Everyone; international NGOs, multilateral aid agencies, local CBOs, National NGOs, conflict experts and academics, commentators, pundits and columnists, have all flocked to- and some cut their teeth on-the peace, conflict, humanitarian, human security and child rights “commons” of northern Uganda.
Although Harding may seem both vindicated and debunked at some micro instances in northern Uganda-through the success of some and failures of other grazers-he is fundamentally vindicated in the limited macro sense that we adopt- that peace has not come sooner and may not come sooner, because of the internal logic of the operations of the tragedy of the commons. Each and everyone and entity entered the peace and conflict commons in self-interest, and have largely acted in self-interested and conflicting ways, that have made cooperation, coalescence around a central, unifying message and achievable primary objective or action for a peaceful end to the conflict and the establishment of a just and equitable peace in northern Uganda difficult. Difficult because interventions have not been informed by the pertinent questions: Whose rights? Whose peace? And what peace? to define objectives and demarcate parameters of actions by relevant and particular actors. Without clarity and ownership and authority on message and objectives, the humanitarian situation and the peace process in northern Uganda will continue to be dealt with as if it were commons and free-for-all, where actors come and go as they please without any challenges from any identifiable gatekeepers. This is exactly what we got with the fiasco of the Juba process-no one to take responsibilities for setbacks and no one to jumpstart and push the process forward.
Commentators and pundits, including John Prendergast of the International Crisis Group (ICG) and Resolve Uganda, scavenged on who to blame for the collapse of the Juba process. This is a man who has consistently advocated for the “one bullet solution” for the LRM/A in the past. It is not surprising that he should be quick to wave the terrorist red flag in front of the international community bulls, so they should stampede for “Uganda (read Acholi) Diaspora” allegedly for dissuading Kony from signing the final documents of the Juba negotiations.
It is groups of international lobbyists, populated by powerful and expensive powerbrokers, horse traders and snake oil salesmen such as Prendergast- who can only be retained by oil, gold and diamonds companies and billion dollar multinational corporations, dictators and heads of banana republics who need their images burnished-who are the unscrupulous grazers in the northern Uganda and other peace and conflict commons around the world. Had this not been the case; and had they been honestly seeking peace and equitable justice for northern Uganda, they should have not been surprised that Juba should have stalled. More so, they should have been able to see the ditch, in which Juba has fallen, as a providential second chance to reframe the whole process-design and make it more just and credible and acceptable to all the parties. Instead, it seems stakeholders must be forced to operate from a notion that all the evidence have been examined and witnesses cross-examined; and only one side, the LRM/A have been found guilty, condemned and must be gaoled. This could not be farther from the truth; but surprisingly, it is the operating logic at the Juba process. You should be damned if you should raise objections to such ludicrous, self-serving simplification of a very complex matter that defies easy black and white dichotomisation.
While we do not wish to stray away from our theme of the tragedy of the commons, we would like to leave international grazers of the Prendergast kind, who we know is merely trying to earn a living, and is paid good money to say what he says. We would, however, like to look at another type of grazer: the home-grown, native, Ugandan, and even Acholi commentators; who affect more or less moralistic and at times political judgements, and are stakeholders who express interest in some degree of fairness, justice and sanctions against violations of rights in northern Uganda. It is the moral and political leadership failure of and among these group of people-columnists, community leaders, political leaders, traditional leaders, and religious leaders-whom I loosely term as moral and political leaders, whose ambiguous and inconsistent messages –like in the Nabanga Communiqué- give self-interested and opportunistic parties munitions to detract from the primary goals and needs in northern Uganda.
See Part III
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