JJACKMAN: January 2008

What began as an election dispute in Kenya has rapidly turned in to a crisis with up to 1,000 dead and on the fast track to if not already a humanitarian catastrophe. Was it really ever an election dispute or was the election rig just the smoking gun to the already mounting pressure of tribal and ethnic clashes reaching hundreds of years back? Just recently there was an article in the leading newspaper in Uganda about the attempts to poison Kenyan refugees whom fled the violence of the riots to Uganda. The refugees were staying in a camp on the Ugandan side of the border. Two people from the opposing side (tribe) snuck in and put poison in the food. Luckily it was caught before the food was distributed to hundreds of people. Before this, a bus was burned of people again trying to flee the violence. The bus was burned by the opposing tribe as a retaliation tactic for people in another tribe having been injured and killed.

Kenyan tribal clashes are not the only clashes however. What about Darfur, Rwanda, Israel, Palestine, Hitler, Stalin, the war on terror? Any of these ring a bell? All of these have something to do with different tribes, ethnicities, and beliefs. What is it about people’s differences that create such havoc in the world? I suppose that it is not the first time this question has been asked nor will it be the last. Nor is there any one answer, otherwise the Middle East would not be such the hot bed it always has been. Everywhere in sight there is visible intolerance, hatred, and ignorance sparking the eruption of violence and planting the seeds to sprout future generations of fighting until we do the inevitable and exterminate ourselves.

One might ask what has sparked such animosity in my thinking. I am a generally overly optimistic person. I still am and believe that the world and people’s hearts can change, however the seemingly approach of the “end of the world” can not be ignored. Maybe it won’t even be the “end of the world” in a literal sense but one of a decreased quality of life. A while back a read a book titled “Stupid White Man” by the infamous Michael Moore.

One of the chapters focused on a future of the world running out of resources and a place once known as the “super power i.e. America” in where people are forced to use candles because there is no electricity left. A world in which vehicles are one of the past because there is no oil left. The chapter was trying to make a point that the world is on a path of decreased quality of living if something does not change.

The aforementioned clashes between people are not just based across the globe apart from the United States however, there is a war engulfing America as well. Democrats vs. Republicans, Atheists vs. Evangelicals, Creationists vs. Evolutionists, Black vs. White, Oil Companies vs. Environmentalists, Pro-Choice vs. Pro-Life, and so on. We talk as if we are united as Nationalists of America but there is an inflaming war between Americans that have always existed. United as one is of the past and a divided nation is looming nearer especially here in Uganda.

The thought of Ugandan civil war erupting was a recent contemplation. In a conversation involving Kenya between me and a friend of mine, he brought up the realities of a looming war in Uganda. He told me that he foresaw civil war breaking out in Uganda within the next couple of years. Uganda has 56 different tribes and of those tribes one primarily owns and runs the country. Currently there is a battle between one tribe and another over land. Everywhere I go people ask each other what tribe they are. The Africans and the Indians don’t get along. All in all it seems inevitable that eventually there will be a “smoking gun” like the Kenyan election to incite Uganda in to a catastrophe as well. Having been recovering from the catastrophe of Indi Amin’s rule only twenty years ago it is soon to delve into another one. Whether the smoking Gun is Museveni's attempt at rigging his re-election or land being taken away it is an inevitable truth. Over all however I invite anyone to show me a place that is not at war somehow. I am unable to think of one.