The Effects of Civil War in Uganda - Essay Example

? The Effects of Civil War may have on Tourism and the Economy in Uganda number The Effects of Civil War may have on Tourism and the Economy in Uganda In countries where civil wars are a chronic feature, infrastructure cannot remain undamaged. In this scenario, the industries of such a country, which depend heavily on infrastructure, stand to suffer. In first world countries, where the state of the infrastructure and industries is in a fairly advanced stage, this problem does not arise, since the damage that is caused by an insurrection may soon be set right through the efficiency of the political infrastructure that is already in place. However, this is not the case in third-world countries that go through great social and political upheavals during periods of domestic crises that are often caused due to ethnic tensions within the country. The violence that is a part of such disturbances within the country are not restricted to the period during which the crises happens as relapses are often found to happen, incidents that tarnish the reputation of the nation amongst the members of the international community. Investment of money in the industries of the country, thus, suffers and it undergoes a period where its economy has to struggle to make ends meet. This has been the case with Uganda, a country that has some of the most exciting wildlife parks and tourist destinations in the whole of the African continent. Despite this wealth of natural beauty and the enormous range of opportunities for adventurous tourism, Uganda has not been a favored tourist destination for a very long time and one of the primary reasons for this has been the civil wars that have rocked this country. Tourism as an industry relies heavily on the presence of infrastructure that serves to provide maximum comfort to the visitors. The safety of the tourists who visit is also of paramount importance to the sustenance of any tourism industry. This paper shall seek to explore the reasons as to why Uganda as a nation has not been able to channelize the potential that it has and the role that the domestic crises over a period of time has played in the decline f the tourism industry in Uganda. One may think that long years of violence since the times of Idi Amin may have caused the people of Uganda to sink into a state of apathy and not participate in any political process that might happen in the country. This, however, is not true. Christopher Blattman, in his essay, From Violence to Voting: War and Political Participation in Uganda, talks of how an increase in violence has actually led to a rise in the percentages of voting in Uganda during elections. Areas where abductions of men had taken place witnessed a high percentage of voting. Blattman’s interactions with members of the community proved that violence in these areas, especially instances of political violence, led to an increased political awareness among the people of these areas. This was partially due to an urge in the members of the community to see change in the manner in which governance was carried out. The basic element that is needed in any society for positive change and for the success of democracy is the will of the people. In Uganda, this seems to be in place. Blattman exudes an optimistic confidence in his essay regarding the will of the people to change the political situation of their nation, something that would enable the establishment of a cordial atmosphere for the revival of the tourism industry (Blattman). The extreme anxiety of the people is also revealed through this hope for a government that is democratically elected; an anxiety that reveals the slump that industries undergo during a period of civil war. It is probably the fear of such a loss to their means of livelihood (tourism generated revenues constitute a major chunk of the revenue that the Ugandan economy generates) that impels them to seek refuge in the process of democracy. However, the government of Uganda does not seem as keen as the local population, in preserving the tourism industry and generating revenues from this industry. This is evident from the lack of transparency that it exhibits while dealing out land that has oil reserves to foreign companies. It fails to take the local population into confidence. Will Connors and Nicholas Bariyo, in their article, Uganda Seeks to Reconcile Oil, Nature, talk about the clash that the government has gotten onto with the local communities and with environmentalist groups over the allocation of land in protected areas to London-based Tullow Oil PLC. The land under discussion covers part of the Murchison Falls National Park, which is a major attraction to tourists. Apart from the environmental aspect of the problem that shall lead to the displacement of many species of animals and birds, there is also the condition of the local workers that has to be taken into account. Many of them live from the earnings that they get from the tourism industry that flourishes in this region (Connors). This high-handedness of the government can be seen as a remnant of the approaches that dictatorial governments used to take while taking decisions. It also implies a post civil-war government’s anxiety regarding the opinion of the people. This, however, only compounds the problem for a country that is prone to a lapse into the war-torn state that it was in, during the last few decades. This would further hamper the growth of the tourism industry, which thrives on the confidence that is generated by the local population among the foreigners who come to visit. The lack of confidence that the government of Uganda is able to generate also draws the attention of Mark Robinson who talks about the sluggish pace that reforms progress at after an initial spurt, owing to the inadequate steps taken by the government in the middle stages of any reform scheme. He elaborates on these issues in his essay, The Political Economy of Governance Reforms in Uganda, where he focuses on the failure of the measures that the government had taken in order to curb the menace of corruption (Robinson). Other writers like Lucy Beresford have also referred to the problem of money received as aid being lost while even in the process of reaching the people who need it the most. She details the problem of corruption among people of power in Uganda in her article, The gateway to African economic revival in a place once famous only for a hijacking (Beresford). This once again brings us to the problem of the lack of transparency that needs to be solved as much as possible for the tourism industry of Uganda to be alive and kicking; if not the country shall remain in a perpetual state of threat from its own citizens. According to Greg Ringer, however, the building of confidence is not possible in an environment where the tourists are not assured of their safety. Incidents such as the murder of foreign tourists in 1998, he observes, reduced the number of tourists who arrived to visit Uganda. This was a blow to the already faltering tourist industry of Uganda and was another indicator of the fact that a civil war in any region ensures a crippling blow to the tourism industry f the region. The incident, though not as serious as the ones that were inflicted by the Idi Amin regime which posed threats to the residents of Uganda and the foreigners alike, was enough to ensure a very significant reduction in the revenues that Uganda received from tourism. Ringer points to measures like the one that he calls “gorilla tourism” to increase tourism in an area that has been proven to be prone to violence. This has to however, be implemented in those areas that are not affected by violence and hence serves only to distract potential tourists and thus reduce the losses and not to eliminate them. This measure, Ringer says, does point to the losses that violence of any kind and especially the variety that is produced during a civil war causes to the tourism industry of Uganda (Ringer). The presence of rebel groups that do not have any local support but are run by self-styled rebels who are a legacy of the civil wars and also an indirect effect of the wars that rage on in other parts of East Africa. Donatella Lorch talks about this in her essay, Rebels Without a Cause Terrorize Uganda's Poor, in which she describes the brutalities that these groups commit on the poorest regions of Uganda. The most important of the effects that these groups produce, is the furtherance of poverty and the spread of fear among people. Lorch also hints at the possibility of the rise of these groups being a reaction to the strict policing that happens during the day in the streets of Uganda. The tight control that the state imposes on its people, possibly as a means to check any possibility of a future civil war, results in certain groups venting their anger in anti-social ways that benefit nobody but cause untold misery to the peasants and other poor groups in Uganda (Lorch). All of these point to an inability on the part of the successive regimes in Uganda to break free of a mindset that is perennially in fear of a possible civil war-like situation that may crop up. The fear of military coups also looms large. While this may be a problem that is faced by many countries across the African continent and especially countries on the eastern part of Africa, Uganda's problem is unique, since it depends on revenue generated from tourism to keep its economy on its feet. A nation that is unable to ensure that no human rights are violated within its boundaries is unlikely to attract a lot of tourist, despite the tremendous natural beauty that it owns. Tourism provides yet another safeguard against civil war-like situations in Uganda. Much of the tendencies to enter into violent activities, on the part of poor peasants, stems from poverty. While according to researchers like Lisa Naughton, proximity to the forests may not ensure financial security, it does ensure a certain kind of a well-being that provides “protection against desperation sales and farm loss among those most vulnerable”. Naughton’s essay also links the growth of the ecology to the growth of the economy and this hypothesis has mostly been affirmed as true by the events that have transpired in Uganda (Naughton). The fact that forests provide protection against measures that would be taken by people who would be driven to extreme actions, for instance, like turning to violence for a solution, tends to indicate that the presence of forests and violent tendencies together, is unlikely. As a corollary to this hypothesis, one may add that the flourishing of the tourism industry leads to the flourishing of the forests; as a result, it reduces the chances of violent tendencies amongst the local population, thus helping to attract more tourists. In this analysis, we may see that the linking of the economy to the fortunes of the environment is complete. One also needs to look at the basic fact that without adequate money to fund one’s daily needs, tensions are likely to arise in any society. When one finds that members of another community enjoy a better standard of living than one’s own, it is likely that resentment would be on the rise against that community. Thus, we may say that one of the major reasons for ethnic tensions and tribalism is the economic disparity between members of different ethnic groups. By promoting the tourism industry, it is possible to ensure that the daily needs of members of most communities are met and the economic inequalities may also be lessened in this case. In the case of an industry like the tourism industry, most of the arguments that have been given in this paper tend to point to each other, indicating that all of them are related. This means that the problem needs to be solved from the grassroots and from above, that is, a comprehensive solution needs to be found out in order for the problem to be completely solved and to not recur. To live in the modern world is to embrace conflict, according to Franco Moretti. He, however also proposed compromise as the next step to achieving coexistence in a world that is fractured by many divides (Moretti 36). Race, class and tribes divide the world in many different ways. While the nation state yokes together many of these into one single collective, the only way forward for most of its members is co-existence. This can be effected only through the fostering of the spirit of brotherhood and developing respect for each other’s cultures. This is necessary not only for ethical reasons but also for economic ones. The final survival of a person depends heavily upon the economic conditions of the nation state that one is a part of. One looks to the nation state to provide him or her with opportunities to earn a decent living. When these aspirations of the individual fail to get satisfied, the individual begins to feel the urge to rebel against the state. In a globalized economy, for a third world country, this is a disastrous situation since most of its revenue is derived from foreign investments, as is the case with Uganda, which heavily relies on the visits of foreign tourists. The link between peaceful conditions in such a country and the success of its industries has been adequately established in this paper and the role of the government too, as has been seen in this paper, is an extremely important one. Works Cited Blattman, Christopher. “From Violence to Voting: War and Political Participation in Uganda”. American Political Science Review. Created on May 2009. Accessed on 30th October, 2011. Naughton, Lisa. “Lessons about parks and poverty from a decade of forest loss and economic growth around Kibale National Park, Uganda”. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. < http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/08/15/1013332108> Accessed on 30th October, 2011. Ringer, Greg. “Gorilla Tourism: Uganda uses tourism to recover from decades of violent conflict”. Canadian Environmental Ideas and Actions. < https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/2067/Ringer- Uganda%20ecotourism.pdf?sequence=1> Accessed on 30th October, 2011. Moretti, Franco. “The Soul and the Harpy”. Signs Taken for Wonders. New Delhi: Verso, 2005. P 36. Lorch, Donatella. “Rebels Without a Cause Terrorize Uganda's Poor”. The New York Times. < http://www.nytimes.com/1995/06/21/world/rebels-without-a-cause-terrorize-uganda-s- poor.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm> Created on 21st June, 1995. Accessed on 30th October, 2011. Beresford, Lucy. The gateway to African economic revival in a place once famous only for a hijacking. Interactive Business Network Resource Library. Created on 21st October, 2006. Accessed on 30th October, 2011. Connors, Will; Bariyo, Nicholas. “Uganda Seeks to Reconcile Oil, Nature”. The Wall Street Journal. Created on 29th April, 2010. Accessed on 30th October, 2011. Robinson, Mark. The Political Economy of Governance Reforms in Uganda. Accessed on 30th October, 2011. Read More