marcus garvey pan african university - Blackherbals.com

Continued from page 31 – Applied Afrikology, Restorative
Practices and Community Resilience in the Mt. Elgon Area
Nabudere has urged very strongly that African scholars
must re-assert it as they strive to rejuvenate African
knowledge sources.
This has been an aspect, he has pointed out, which
Western epistemology has tried to undermine and
sideline in advancing their patrilineal cultural values in
Africa. Vicky’s answer then came from Akello Laiyeng:
“Kony’s mother was an Alima (slave), who came into
Kony’s dad’s homestead whilst pregnant- therefore Kony
is not an Acholi! I read this in a reliable local journal”,
she said.
The discussions continued into women’s participation in
decision-making about war and peace, it was agreed by
most participants that Acholi women were part and parcel
to the initiatives that led to the end of the war and that
their role has been pivotal in post conflict reconstruction
of their community.
Calls to involve women in matters of war and peace have
begun being taken seriously in other societies around the
world as well; this follows the 1995 United Nations
Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, which
returned women’s role to the forefront of peace activities.
The conference suggested that governments should be
encouraged to increase the participation of women in the
peace process at the decision-making level, including
them as part of delegations to negotiate international
agreements relating to peace and disarmament.
Lucy Lapot came in the conversation and likened Kony
to Hitler:
“Well, I think Kony’s LRA plan was like Hitler’s Aryan
race project; he (like Hitler) also wanted to reproduce a
new breed of Acholi people that is why he engaged in a
vicious campaign of abductions of young girls and boys
in our community. There are many similarities that link
Nazi Germany with what we went through here in
northern Uganda, but they have their differences also.
The most tragic similarity between the two genocides is
the lack of intervention. Victims of both genocides were
deprived of the basic living conditions along with
necessary means of survival. Whilst for the Jews in
Germany, upon their arrival in the concentration camps,
they were stripped of all worldly possessions that they
still had, including their own clothes, which were
replaced with prisoner uniforms. For us here, we
similarly lacked possessions of our own for the most part.
Even though we were still in street clothes rather than
prison uniforms, we received many of our possessions
through charities because we were poor. Whilst starvation
killed vast amounts of people during the Jew holocaust,
-32- Traditional African Clinic August 2013
we here in Uganda, were dying of malnutrition. We
were victims in all sense. We were deprived of the most
basic necessities of life, not to mention how treacherous
the psycho-social problems we’ve had and still
endure”.
Violence as such produces enormous insecurity and
requires one to tread carefully when asking questions
concerning those affected such as those in the Gulu
forum. People living in contexts of open violence as
have community members in this dialogue; tend to
watch constantly for their personal and collective
security. They search for ways to feel and be safe, and
to find protection. For a moment or so, I found myself
wondering what and how does the challenge of
sustained violence feel like from within this community
faced with such overwhelming odds? Have psychosocial
problems pointed out above by Ms Lapot in the
now post-conflict Acholi community affected women’s
rights especially in relation to inheritance? How does it
feel like to face the level of violence that some of these
communities members have gone through? More so, as
insecurity has the capacity to create the permanency of
feeling uncertain.
My response in part came from Mrs Achelang:
Uncertainty goes hand in hand with the experience of
unpredictability. In seeking safety, we have tended to
suspend trust in what was happening around us. To be
insecure has meant that I no longer have a clear sense
of myself and must for my own safety suspend trust in
others. Deeply suspicious for my own good, it means
that I can no longer take at face value even the most
common things around me. This is the plight facing our
children today, especially those born at the apex of the
conflict, as well as those who grew up in the camps.
There are many problems that the current generation of
our youth is facing. Ms Debbora Oyella (OHCHR)
agreed and added, “our youths especially males are
very bitter”.
It is widely recognised that periods of war or disaster
can produce ruptures or crises within societies from
which new orders can emerge. The Acholi community
has clearly not been an exception. The dialogue then
pondered for while on issues surrounding the civil war
and its impact on their community. Through the
dialogue, it was agreed that War, urban displacement,
inter-tribal and international presence, NGO
interventions, government development projects,
women’s and children’s rights promotion – were all
identified as having had a dramatic impact on the
Acholi community in particular kwo town – the Acholi
community living in and around Gulu town, and how
they perceive issues of rights.
Continued on page 33