There
have been some developments in Loliondo that I need to blog about when I’ve got
enough information, but first I have a book to write about.
A book of great interest to this blog has been
published: Selling the Serengeti: The Cultural Politics of Safari Tourism by associate
professor in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at the
University of Washington Bothell, Benjamin Gardner. In spite of the title, the focus of this book is
exclusively on the Loliondo Maasai and the different “investors” that are
using, and in the worst case, claiming ownership to Maasai land.
Selling the Serengeti is not a report about what has
happened, but rather something like an analysis of how the different actors are
presented, or present themselves and their relation to the land, and how it
affects the Maasai’s struggle to control their land. The book situates this in
relation to earlier research, like that of Rod Neumann, Doreen Massey and
Stuart Hall (which makes the list of books I need to get hold of longer and
more expensive). Some important pieces of the story are left out, while others
are closely examined.
A main argument in the book is that the Maasai have
used “neoliberalism” to make their land rights more visible, forming joint
ventures with tour companies. This is what Gardner and Nelson have been writing
about for years. The joint-venture investor exemplified is the smaller Dorobo
Safaris that does not often come up in the discussion, except among
researchers. The land is registered to the – originally state-imposed –
villages, as so clearly spelled out in Village Land Act No. 5 of 1999, and
entering contracts with tour companies reaffirms this. This leads a pre-print
reviewer to claim that the Maasai – unlike the state – would be “cheerleaders”
for neoliberalism, when – as described by Gardner - both the state and the
Maasai are using “investors” for their own purposes. Imposing OBC (Otterlo Business Corporation is the spelling I find most likely to be correct) and Thomson
Safaris on the Maasai is state – or “government”, the word used in Loliondo –
ambitions of controlling the land with anti-pastoralist bias, need for funds
for development, and maybe also for the pockets of those making decisions (the
latter is not mentioned by Gardner). Gardner does of course describe the most
dangerous and violent government action in support of OBC – the 2009
evictions – but not the silly and farcically rabid harassment of visitors that
have asked questions about Thomson Safaris – several journalists, and this blogger even before being
a blogger. It does not seem like Gardner himself has encountered this kind of
problem, yet. The more serious – recently again repeated - media incitement
against the Maasai of Loliondo as "Kenyans" is only briefly mentioned.
Most interesting is Gardner’s over two decades long
relation to Loliondo and some Maasai there. I would have liked to see this
taking over a larger part of the book, even if the fact that Gardner first met
Parkipuny in 1992 makes me, who came too late, very jealous. And it’s sad to
read that in 1992 Parkipuny thought that the government, and TBL, had been
defeated and “Sukenya farm” was safe, when at the time of writing we still have
Thomson Safaris claiming ownership to this piece of Maasai land.
The book also gives me a somewhat clearer picture of
the usually sketchily described Operation Imparnati – misguided, but did not
radically alter Maasai life in Loliondo, according to Parkipuny - and the
Serengeti Regional Conservation Strategy, that helped with surveying Loliondo
village land in the late 1980s, but that had intentions for the land that were
quite opposed to those of the Maasai.
Gardner mentions a little known aspect of Thomson’s
early days in Loliondo: Peter Jones of Tanzania Film and Safari Outfitters -
who has his own Ndarakwai Ranch on Maasai land in West Kilimanjaro where the
tourist accommodation was burnt down by the Maasai in November 2014 - was their
first project manager at “Enashiva”. All I’ve known was that Jones’s company
prepared a plan for the land that’s found at the district headquarters and he
figured in the press in 2006 saying that the land belonged to Thomson (TCL),
after he had ordered the burning of all structures on it. Gardner says that
Jones already had a reputation for his ego and aggressive tactics. I’d say that
birds of feather flock together.
The use of pseudonyms in the book is somewhat
confusing and at points made me jump thinking I’d completely missed some key
person. Even some names of semi-public people who have featured in
international media have been changed, but this is probably not the writer’s
fault, and harassment on the ground is very real.
Curiously, regarding OBC, is that Gardner mentions
another group from the UAE, led by a man known as Malala, that would initially
had shown interest in the hunting block and worked more closely and openly with
local leaders. I have not been able to find anyone at all with information
about this, but the former UAE ambassador Maj. General Mallallah Mubarak is
sometimes mentioned as the person behind some projects that are attributed to
OBC. Could he have been interested in the hunting block?
Most frustrating is that the book isn’t any help at
all in putting stop to the belief in the fabricated British news about Loliondo
that appeared in November 2014. It could be due to that the book was sent off for
publishing around the same time as those “news” appeared that Gardner writes
that, “In 2013 the government backed down
from its plans to create the wildlife corridor only to put it back in place in
November 2014”. The Maasai first felt they had defeated the government in
February 2011 when they rejected the district land use plan proposing the
“wildlife corridor”, then when in 2013 Kagasheki lied in statements saying that
the Maasai were “landless”, as another attempt at taking the “corridor”, this
was finally revoked by the PM in a speech later the same year, and the
government was defeated again. After this, there hasn’t been any public
statement at all from the government about taking the “corridor”, and much less
an “eviction notice” as the one reported by British press in November 2014 (not
directly mentioned by Gardner, even if the article link is in a footnote), but
that absolutely nobody in Loliondo had heard about. What had happened was that
then Minister Nyalandu months earlier had allegedly, in closed meetings, said
that the “corridor” was inevitable, and tried to buy off local leaders.
Nyalandu, and also president Kikwete did vehemently deny the reports by the
British press, while adding their own lies about recent history.
Also confusing is the way the book claims that Thomson
would have “allowed” the Maasai grazing with minimal interference from the
beginning of 2013 (which could be a misprint). Activists have at several times,
like when the court case was filed, or the Stop Thomson Safaris website
launched, claimed some success when the tour operator would have become more
quiet – but harassment has always resumed. In 2014 – the book was apparently
finished late the same year – harassment was severe. Warriors twice wanted to
burn down Thomson’s camp – in January when several herders were beaten and cows
detained in a short space of time, and in July when Olunjai Timan was shot by a
policeman working for the Thomson. Only after that latest shooting were
Thomson asked, by the DC and district officials, to allow grazing – and have then
been quiet, ignoring herders, for a longer time.
Another problem is that the book does not make it
clear that not only Thomson, but also OBC, use ethnic
division, being close to certain groups, to gain legitimacy, and to a large
extent the same individuals are targeted by the “friendship” of the two companies. The
book hardly mentions anything about the different local leaders that have been
used, and have, for their own purposes whatever those are, used the investors that don’t respect
land rights. Politics, and getting leaders that won’t engage in this kind of
behaviour, seem to be a far bigger topic among Loliondo Maasai, than are the different
“investors”.
Back in 2008 I thought I’d have to wait a decade, or
so, to read about what exactly was going on, in some expensive academic book
that would have me as the only reader. Meanwhile, I’ve found many people from
Loliondo, asked them questions, and View from the Termite Mound has become the by far best – not least because nobody else even tries - online resource for correct information about OBC’s and Thomson Safaris’ threat to land rights in Loliondo. Now the book
about the “investors” in Loliondo is here, and I’m glad for that, even if this blog strangely isn't mentioned even in a footnote. I’ve got some
new information, and even if the book is not perfect, I hope that it will make some
“investors” very unhappy. It would be a proof of quality. Though the best hope
is that those that believe the “discourse is innocent” will become better
informed. The title could attract a variety of people.
Selling
the Serengeti: The Cultural
Politics of Safari Tourism
By Ben Gardner
The University of Georgia Press
Paperback:
ISBN: 978-0-8203-4508-6
Hardback:
ISBN: 978-0-8203-4507-9
E-book available.
Susanna
Nordlund
1 comment:
Post a Comment