Tanzanian police shooting Maasai is just the latest episode in a chronicle of evictions of local people in the name of conservation, a tragedy that for Africa began over a hundred years ago and has deprived thousands of their lands and their birthright. In this particular case, the government wants the Maasai pastoralists out of a “Protected Area”, Loliondo in Ngorongoro, to free it up for tourism and trophy hunting. Atrocities have been going on in the region for a long time, but there is now a new and important development: it is the first time they have been “condemned” by big conservation NGOs, including the one that developed the policy leading to the violence, the Frankfurt Zoological Society. No one should be taken in by this subterfuge from an organisation that one Maasai describes as “enemy number one”.

It is also the first time – and the two “firsts” are connected – that the violence inherent in a conservation land grab has been broadcast around the world in real time. Within a few minutes of Maasai uploading mobile phone footage it was in the public domain, with its unarguable drama: the thuds of the bullets; Maasai fleeing in their red robes, overtaking others who had not yet seen the danger; the shakiness of a cameraman close to the line of fire. This was cinéma-vérité on a level previously unimaginable in the history of conservation.

People like me, who have been campaigning against similar crimes for decades, were able to assess the footage, appreciate its genuineness and relay it on in just a couple of minutes. By the time the Tanzanian authorities realised the scale of the exposure, and were making a feeble effort to deny it had happened, the horse had bolted.

When news of similar atrocities was publicised in the past, there was never filmed proof. Twenty years ago, Survival International, the NGO I then worked with, gave Gana and Gwi “Bushmen” in Botswana a video camera to record events as they too were forcibly evicted from their ancestral lands in the world’s second biggest “game reserve”. In 2005, when they too were shot at, the camera was not in the right place and no footage was secured. Had it been, the footage would still have taken days to get out. It is easy to forget just how recent smartphone technology is and how widespread internet connections are.

It is true that we subsequently recorded and publicised many indigenous testimonies, not only by the Gana and Gwi, but also by Adivasis evicted from tiger reserves in India, and Baka, Bayaka and Batwa indigenous peoples in the Congo Basin. These were powerful and moving witness statements, but they were always after the event. In an engaging illustration of African resilience in the face of tragedy, some even spun in a thread of comedy!

The Baka, Bayaka, and Batwa live not far from the famous Virunga, established in the 1920s as Africa’s first formal “national park” and currently directed by a Belgian prince, Emmanuel de Mérode. It too was founded, as they all were and still are, by kicking out the local indigenous folk. Violating people for supposed “conservation” has continued ever since, but it has never been captured on film. In DR Congo, the Kahuzi-Biega Park threw out thousands of Batwa in the 1970s, and rangers and their army colleagues killed, mutilated, raped, and imprisoned dozens, including children, who tried to go back to their homeland in recent years. Similar narratives are rife in the Salonga Park in the same country, in the Lobéké Park in Cameroon, as well as in the Odzala-Kokoua Park and at Messok Dja in Congo-Brazzaville. The WWF is now pushing to have another park established in the latter while ensuring that the locals are mistreated and kept away, as usual.

The park rangers in all of them, the guys with the guns, are supported by western conservation NGOs, including African Parks (where Prince Harry is the president), the Wildlife Conservation Society (which once kept the Congolese Mbuti man, Ota Benga, in a zoo), and the WWF.

In the last few years, the formulaic NGO response to conservation atrocities has been to deny them, only reluctantly admitting that a few “bad apple” rangers might have overstepped the mark after pressure from publicity. The relevant NGO then usually pays for an investigation that takes months if not years while hoping that media attention will move on, as it does. Any resulting reports are whitewashed or simply buried if they stray towards the truth.

It may be opportune now for the FZS to condemn the violence that everyone can see, but it still fails to assign blame, and rejects all responsibility for its own role. It has wanted the Maasai out since it first became involved in the 1950s through its Nazi founder and director, the famous Bernhard Grzimek. By seemingly condemning incidents that cannot be plausibly denied, the FZS presumably hopes to divert attention not only away from its own complicity, but also from the criminal pattern of “fortress conservation” that it supports.

In the last few years, the formulaic NGO response to conservation atrocities has been to deny them, only reluctantly admitting that a few “bad apple” rangers might have overstepped the mark after pressure from publicity.

The wider conservation industry will doubtless lament this shooting and see it as a major strategic blunder, but that will be to try to mask the fact that it is neither new nor unusual.

The grabbing of local indigenous peoples’ lands is underpinned by a war on sustainable and self-sufficient ways of life that has been waged for generations. Conservationists and their government allies do not want herders or subsistence hunters on land that they seek to control and profit from, usually through tourism nowadays, selling phoney “carbon credits”, or simply by taking its resources. In the specific case of Tanzania, the land theft is to facilitate trophy hunting by the United Arab Emirates nobility as well as for tourism; in the end it always comes down to money and control, not conservation.

This war is also now playing out in Europe, albeit with money rather than guns. “Rewilding” – taking land from herders – is promoted as the supposed answer to climate change and biodiversity loss, and even as a means of avoiding pandemics. It is phoney, and it is easy to demonstrate that it will not help to mitigate any of these problems. The truth is that most conservationists just do not like herders, or subsistence hunters, and never have. In fact, they do not like anyone living directly off the land. They want their “Nature” empty of inhabitants except themselves and those who serve them.

The wider conservation industry will doubtless lament this shooting and see it as a major strategic blunder, but that will be to try to mask the fact that it is neither new nor unusual.

The “wild Africa” they strive to create has never existed outside their cinemas and sermons, but they remain as determined as ever to fabricate it, and they care little about who gets trodden upon through what they believe is their pietistic calling.

The problem is not just their self-righteous conviction: the conservation industry receives awe-inspiring sums of money from governments and foundations to manage national parks and similar areas that deprive people of lives and livelihoods. They are now pushing to double these areas to cover 30 per cent of the globe.

It is important to understand that the FZS’s declared “condemnation” of the Maasai shootings is not a first step towards acknowledging its crimes: it is a deflective feint in the generations-old battle for land control in Africa. It is just another facet of colonialism.

At the same time, the conservation faith now suddenly finds itself on the defensive as never before. The ground has shifted but, make no mistake, its proponents have immense resources and will fight to retain their power and their manifest belief in their destiny. This supposed “condemnation” should be seen for the ruse that it is, and the conservation NGOs must be pushed back. Let us hope that in doing so, the Maasai can continue to take a real stand, both for their own destiny, their environment, and for all of our futures. It is the conservation NGOs that are against the real “natural world”, not the Maasai.

Since the assassination of Haacaaluu Hundeesaa and the commencement of the Tigray genocide, the West, activists and, overall, a diversity of institutions and individuals concerned with the crisis in Ethiopia, have been calling for a national dialogue. To effectively bring an end to the cyclical violence, dialogue in Ethiopia must be grassroots-focused, trauma-informed, and have on the table a decision-making tool, such as a referendum, for all the nations that desire it. Moreover, if the people were to choose a state arrangement other than the continuation of the current Ethiopian polity, it would be unwise not to consider this to be an option in place of dialogue. Dialogue that is grassroots-centred and concerned with addressing generational trauma will be necessary for the health and peace of whatever state arrangement the people choose, including that of independence/s.

The 1991 process was a form of national dialogue. Taking place in the wake of a devastating civil war, its focus was on negotiations between a handful of people that were tasked with representing the lives and deciding the fate of millions. On its own, such a framework will not be adequate to address the plethora of issues that have surfaced since the transitional government was put in place in 2018. Leaders that execute the will of the people are necessary but for the people to truly experience dialogue in the wake of the violence that has consumed Ethiopia since 2018, Ethiopians must have a conversation with each other.

Moreover, it is not just the events of the last few years that need to be addressed, but events that go as far back as the 1800s. It is the social, military, and political violence that has been part of Ethiopia since the beginning of the state’s formation that has rendered traumatic the relationship between the state and the nations that it governs. For example, one of the Prosperity Party’s social ventures was the erection of the Menelik II statue in the presidential palace. Menelik II was the Emperor of the Abyssinian Empire from 1889 until 1913. With the help of European powers, he was leader of the conquest that created the foundations of modern-day Ethiopia. For a section of society, Menelik II is a symbol of genocide and destruction. For another section of society, he is a national hero.

In tandem with memorialising Menelik’s legacy, the party’s leader has also preached a philosophy he calls “Medemer” or “Synergy”. In its essence, Medemer is a people-focused and trauma-informed dialogue, where people can communicate their stories to each other as they relate to historical moments and figures. I believe it to be a form of abuse and state violence to expect people that have been traumatized by settler colonialism and are still subject to the state’s violence, to embrace symbols of this violence as a collective representation of cohesion and togetherness.

Recent attempts to create grounds for dialogue mean nothing because there has not been a cessation of hostilities by the state, but should we get to a point where the state ceases its hostility and grassroots resistance can lay down arms, the most important site of dialogue must be people-focused. It should address what it has meant for diverse people to live under a state with the identity of “Ethiopia” across generations. It should address the relationship people have had to different political eras and moments. It should address the culture of genocide, how people have been impacted by it, and whom they blame for it. It should address the impacts of hate speech and the internalized beliefs that people hold about each other, where these beliefs come from, and how they are perpetuated systemically. This dialogue should create space for processes and acts of transitional justice to emerge. I find it interesting that the word dialogue within the English lexicon suggests a sense of amicableness and non-confrontation. I believe that the depth to which we are called to listen to another person requires us to set aside our own filters and optics, but this cannot mean that truth does not arrive fully on the table, that tensions will not arise and that the outcomes intended in the pursuit of accountability and delivering justice must be sidelined.

For unity to flourish in a place where there has been systemic oppression, the truth must be given space. Only then does a context for new paradigms of relationships emerge. Within these new paradigms of relationships, triggers may be put to rest, families and communities can heal the fault-lines that elites use to pit people against each other, and real unity, which in its strongest form is solidarity, is formed.

Dialogue in the context of the political state implies conflict resolution and, sometimes, charting new administrative structures. Calls for dialogue in Ethiopia have become synonymous with an event that takes place with the understanding that Ethiopia is to continue as one polity, and as a result, people who aspire for a future beyond Ethiopia as a state are cast as anti-dialogue, and thus, anti-conflict resolution, and by extension, pro-war and pro-violence. Interestingly, this is the state’s narrative, despite the fact that no party or army, currently in opposition to the state, has denied the need for dialogue, the only pre-condition being a cessation of hostilities by the state. Considering their positions, those in military and political opposition to the Ethiopian state must make it clear that a dialogue that is trauma-informed and people-centred is what they champion.

For unity to flourish in a place where there has been systemic oppression, the truth must be given space.

This is important, especially In the event that people do not choose Ethiopia as the political and state arrangement of the future; this work of healing is vital not only for people at individual and community levels but also for security between neighbouring states. I believe that dialogue is a way to embed grassroots mechanisms for accountability and security. If in the future we as a people are triggered by the re-emergence of prejudice at the grassroots level, or by harmful political rhetoric that may be espoused at the institutional level, if a grassroots, trauma-informed dialogue has taken place, we will have created a collective memory that can reach forward and remind us of our decisions, our choice to forgive, the transitional justice we experienced, and the red lines that we set for our chosen leaders. This kind of dialogue is a must for any version of the future, including one where Oromia, Tigray, or any other nation achieves its independence.

All parties that are pursuing a national dialogue but have not made explicitly clear their intention to facilitate a decision-making process such as a referendum must be held to account. No true sense of community and comradeship can develop between the people who live within Ethiopia’s borders without the masses choosing: either to make Ethiopia a consensual nation-building project or to let it go. Any national dialogue that does not acknowledge and prioritize this reduces itself to a wrestle for power between political elites. What I find inspiring about the new world order that has emerged in Rojava, North-East Syria, where Abdullah Ocalan’s thinking on democratic confederalism has inspired much of the society’s formation, is that in the face of the state’s collapse, local communities did not assume their first and foremost priority to be the formation of a conglomerate political elite; their first and foremost priority was and is, people, and their needs. 

A dialogue that is grassroots-centred, trauma-informed, in search of transitional justice (a radically reparative process) and facilitative of a political decision-making process such as a referendum requires the adoption of a fiercely abolition politik whereby we re-imagine how adequate justice is facilitated through a grassroots process, instead of punitive state processes.  We must be willing to re-invest every resource into people and the relationships that they have with one another at the most localised level. The future is not with the state project if that project is not born out of consensus or real dialogue. 

Statistics on equal participation show that women remain underrepresented in political positions globally. According to UN Women, there are only 26 women serving as heads of state and/or government in 24 countries. Of these, 10 countries have a woman as a head of state, while the rest have a woman as head of government. Only 14 countries have 50 per cent or more women in the cabinet. Overall, just 21 per cent of government ministers are women. At the national parliament level, only 25 per cent of parliamentarians are women. Only four countries in the world have 50 per cent or more women in parliament in single or lower houses ((Rwanda – 61 per cent, Cuba – 53 per cent, Bolivia – 53 per cent and United Arab Emirates – 50 per cent). Achieving gender parity in political participation is a persistent problem for nearly all countries in the world.

In 1995, 189 countries unanimously adopted the Beijing Declaration and the Platform for Action, an agenda for women’s empowerment and a key global policy document on gender equality. The document prioritized twelve critical areas of concern that needed to be tackled to achieve gender equality. One of the areas was Women in Power and Decision-Making and countries agreed to take measures to ensure women’s equal access to and full participation in power structures and decision-making, and to increase women’s capacity in decision-making and leadership. The Platform for Action set a target of having women hold 50 per cent of managerial and decision-making positions by the year 2000.

Achieving gender parity in political participation is a persistent problem for nearly all countries in the world.

More than 20 years since the turn of the millennium, the ambitious 50-50 target is far from being attained, and the question of gender parity remains a persistent concern in democratic processes, particularly in Africa. The situation in Kenya is no different. The National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA Kenya) carried out a Gender Analysis of the 2017 elections and highlighted a number of gains and drawbacks. Following the inauguration of a new constitution that promised gender equality, 29 per cent of all candidates who ran for political office in 2017 were women, the highest number ever recorded in the country. The result: women won 172 of the 1,883 seats, up from 145 in the 2013 elections.

The analysis also highlighted that from 2017 to 2022, women accounted for 23 per cent of the National Assembly and Senate seats. However, this number is deceptive because it includes seats reserved exclusively for women representatives. The 2010 Constitution created the position of County Women Representative, a seat reserved for women in Kenya National Assembly.

The Constitution also envisaged a situation where no more than two-thirds of the members of the National Assembly or the Senate were of the same gender. While the courts have ruled that both houses have failed to achieve the constitutional threshold for gender representation, the country is yet to come up with a formula to resolve the question in electoral politics.

There is a debate between two positions. One proposal is to force political parties to nominate women to vie for certain political positions. However, with political plurality where different political parties can nominate candidates of different genders to vie for the same political position, there is no guarantee that if one party nominates a woman and another nominates a man, the woman candidate will prevail at the ballot box. The other proposal is to amend the constitution to make provisions such as for the County Women Representative, where certain representative positions are reserved for women.

However, women’s representation can only be sustainably achieved through increased participation in elective politics. In partnership with Womankind Worldwide, FIDA recently conducted a three-day training programme dubbed the “Woman Leadership Academy” to increase public discourse and participation of women in the August 2022 polls. The sessions were a forum for current women legislators to share their experiences with the 350 aspirants in attendance, including on political party processes, campaign strategies, mental wellness, and media training.

The initiative followed the Vote-A-Dada campaign launched by FIDA in August 2021 to encourage more women to get onto the ballot. Vote-A-Dada campaign “integrates the inter-sectional participation of women in the country to demand action from the State, the Legislature, and all other governance institutions in promoting women’s leadership”, said Kirinyaga Governor Ann Waiguru, who was the chief guest at the training event.

As the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) moves to gazette candidates for the August 2022 general election, anecdotal evidence suggests that this year’s elections will feature the highest number of women candidates in the history of the country’s electoral politics.

Women’s representation can only be sustainably achieved through increased participation in elective politics.

The nomination of women into powerful political positions has always faced criticism as tokenism and political correctness. Critics argue that the mere presence and visibility of women in political positions, without due regard for merit, is counterproductive and devalues the criticality of competence in public service delivery. However, the nomination of Martha Karua as the Deputy Presidential candidate for one of the two leading political coalitions has reinvigorated the debate on the value of gender equality and parity in political representation.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that every person has the right to take part in the government of their country. Initiatives that empower women, guarantee their autonomy, and improve their social, economic, and political status are essential for the achievement of a transparent and accountable government and the promotion of sustainable development in other areas of life. Equality in power relations enables women to lead fulfilling lives, while equality in political participation and representation provides a balance that accurately reflects the composition of the society. Gender equality and parity strengthens democratic processes. It remains to be seen whether the results of the August 2022 general elections will reinforce the gains made over the past two decades towards achieving women’s equal participation in leadership.