In his book, Cry, the Beloved Country, South African novelist Alan Paton gives testimony to the sanctity and divinity of the environment. In what would easily become something akin to a sermon he outlines the relationship between Man and Mother Nature. He writes of the interdependence between Man and Mother Nature in the South African veld (savannah grassland):

The grass is rich and matted, you cannot see the soil. It holds the rain and the mist, and they seep into the ground, feeding the streams in every kloof. It is well-tended, and not too many cattle feed upon

it; not too many fires burn it, laying bare the soil. Stand unshod upon it, for the ground is holy, being even as it came from the Creator.

Keep it, guard it, care for it, for it keeps men, guards men, cares for men. Destroy it and man is destroyed.

Where you stand the grass is rich and matted, you cannot see the soil. But the rich green hills break down. They fall to the valley below, and falling, change their nature. For they grow red and bare; they cannot hold the rain and mist, and the streams are dry in the kloofs.

Too many cattle feed upon the grass, and too many fires have burned it.

Stand shod upon it, for it is coarse and sharp, and the stones cut under the feet. It is not kept, or guarded, or cared for, it no longer keeps men, guards men, cares for men. The titihoya does not cry here

any more.

The wisdom of Aldo Leopold and the Nile

It is prudent at this juncture to introduce the wisdom of Aldo Leopold (1949). Leopold is not only considered the father of wildlife conservation in the USA but also the most significant conservationist of the 20th century. His long-life commitment to Mother Earth reflected a natural spirituality although he had no specific spiritual upbringing.

Leopold nonetheless believed that there was a mystical supreme power that guided the universe, but to him this power was not a personalised God but something that was akin to the laws of nature. His religion therefore flowed from nature (Kiwuka, 2005).

Leopold recognised that religion played a role in environmental deterioration. He spoke that conservation was incompatible with what he called Old Testament “Abrahamatic” concept of land, adding:

“We abuse land because we regard it as a community belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong we may begin to use it with love and respect”. He innovated his idea of “Land Ethic”, which he said commands us “to examine each question in terms of what is ethically and aesthetically right as well as is economically expedient.

He added: “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise” (Leopold, 1949). It is possible that Leopold would have used the term “sustainability” but it had not been coined. However, it is clear that he understood it long before it was coined (Grossman, 2002).

Clearly what is happening to the world’s big rivers and what is planned to happen to River Nile is anti-Leopold’s Land Ethic. He understood the impacts of engineering schemes on rivers when he stated:

“Mechanised man, having rebuilt the landscape, is now rebuilding the waters. The sober citizen who would never submit his watch or his motor to amateur tampering freely submits his lakes to draining, filling, dredging, pollutions, stabilisations, mosquito control, algae control, swimmers itch control and the planting of any fish able to swim. So it is with rivers, also. We constrict them with levees and dams and then flush them with dredging, channelisation, and the floods and silt of bad farming…Thus men too wise to tolerate hasty tinkering with our political constitution accept without a qualm the most radical amendments to our biotic constitution” (Leopold, 1949).

Expressing his dismay with the divergences of professions in their attitude to nature, Leopold wrote:

“The engineer has respect for mechanical wisdom because he created it. He has disrespect for ecological wisdom, not because he is contemptuous of it, but because he is unaware of it. We have in short two professions [the mechanical and ecological] whose responsibilities for land use overlap much, but whose respective zones of awareness overlap only a little”.

This then explains the gulf between engineers and ecological environmentalists and the conflicts thereof in every new dam project. In Bujagali project, for example, it may have been appearing as if the conflict over Bujagali falls is between NAPE or SBC and the politicians and bureaucrats in Kampala and those at the World Bank in Washington, but really it has been between the former and the engineers behind the latter.

So, then what would be the advice of Leopold to the proponents of Bujagali dam was he to be alive today?

Grossman (2002) has correctly read Leopold’s mind and detected that he (Leopold) wishes to intervene with timely guidance. Leopold urges caution and conservatism to ensure that the dam scheme will have no net negative impacts and that the traditional and indigenous users of the falls and the Nile are respected. He cautions that the feature – the full flow itself, an irregular flow pattern, a floodplain – should always be retained unless its loss can be proved [beyond reasonable doubt] to be immaterial or ultimately beneficial (unlikely in most cases).

He urges that all the costs (environmental, ecological, social, cultural, ethical, political, spiritual, moral, human rights, food security, health, et cetera) of the project be included and weighed against the benefits both of modification and also of retaining the undisturbed system. He explains that sustainability means that you can continue to indefinitely reap a benefit only if it is without deterioration of the resource. This according to him is what sustainable management and, by extension, sustainable development means.

Leopold adds thus:

“Forget about rushing to erect Bujagali dam or any other dams. Seriously consider alternative renewable energies. Establish ‘a level playing field’ and extend subsidies to these renewable technologies the same way you have been doing to hydropower. Invest urgently in restoring the natural systems that have been lost to damming (i.e. undam River Nile) such as Owen Falls, Rippon Falls and Lake Victoria whose water levels have in the last few months fallen drastically following the commissioning of Kiira dam in 2002. Reconnect the floodplains. Note that many of the modifications that have been made or are planned to be made to the River Nile serve sectional interests and you know it. Why should we in the 21st century continue to allow sectional interests to benefit at the expense of everyone else?

Above all, says Grossman (2002), Leopold is not taking any sides except the side of wise use of the Nile which preserves the cultural, spiritual, ecological, social, moral, psychological, ethical and intellectual integration of the Basoga with Bujagali Falls and hence their identity and integrity in the landscape as a distinct indigenous people. Otherwise Bujagali dam will be nothing but ethnocide against the Basoga ((Oweyegha-Afunaduula, et. al., 2005).

Basoga, ancestral wisdom and environmental racism

Environmental apartheid is a manifestation of the more general phenomenon of environmental racism, which we define as Bullard (2001) did: “Any policy, practice or directive that differentially affects or disadvantages (whether intended or unintended) individuals, groups or communities based on race or color.” Environmental racism, then, is a critical term that highlights environmental framings which disproportionally negatively affect people of colour (Dickinson, 2012) and advantage whites (Bullard, 2001). Environmental apartheid and environmental racism imply absence of environmental justice. People are pressed to the margins of nature where the ecology is unfriendly and hardly enjoy ecological health.

Isaac Afunaduula and Oweyegha-Afunaduula (2005), in their paper, “The Struggle for Environmental Justice in Uganda” advance the view that environment, culture and spirituality, at least in the case of the indigenous group called Basoga, is intricately interrelated, interdependent and interconnected and that the three tend to seek and nurture positive synergy where this status quo is respected. They argue that the struggle for environmental justice must seek to retain the unity between these aspects of nature.

They conclude that future development in the Nile Basin must respect the environmental, cultural and spiritual endowment of the Basoga, without which it is impossible to speak of true development. To the Basoga this is environmental justice or sustainable development indeed.

In his article published in The Kampala Post (2023) titled ‘Does Environmental Justice Matter Anymore in Uganda’, Oweyegha-Afunaduula writes:” Today in Uganda it is hard to submit that sustainable development is taking place. For many lifestyles and feeling of well-being have plummeted. Only a few can say they are enjoying better lifestyles and feel well-being. The majority cannot get quality healthcare and now depend on our diminishing nature to satisfy their health needs. On the other hand, as government pursues economic growth and the money economy, natural resources and ecosystems on which we and future generations depend for survival are being destroyed.

Ecological integrity and environmental integrity are being eroded. In the process the environmental security and environmental justice of people, communities and other beings are being mercilessly eroded. The future environmental survival of humans and other being is in jeopardy.

The Basoga do belong, have rights and desire to share their ancestral wisdom with other decision-makers They have for centuries had cultural interaction with the River Nile at close range and by remote-sensing and, therefore, serve as a ready traditional data base for international cooperation to ensure that it survives well into the future as a provider of multiple functions (of water).

Unfortunately, the Basoga were and still are a threatened and endangered people due to the human techno-arrogance and socio-cultural ignorance of the leaders, who were determined to implement the corporate and political interest to build Bujagali dam more as a potent symbol of both patriotic pride and the conquest of nature by human ingenuity, and a political and corporate choice to implement the amorphous concept of creating capitalist wealth in Uganda or as a monument of political] power, glory and domination of Basoga in particular and Uganda in general, by the personalised rule of General Yoweri Kaguta Museveni. This is erroneously baptised “popular democracy”. One growing school of thought in Busoga in particular and Uganda in general holds that Bujagali dam is graduating as a tool of ethnocide, a form of environmental racism and a perversion of constitutionalism rather than a strategy in real development or sustainable development.

Unless environmental justice is put on the national and global political agenda, proponents of dams will continue to float lies that the silent, environmentally, culturally and spiritually tortured and discriminated against poor will continue to be misrepresented in development and to be taken as objects to be “developed”.

What matters now is to integrate the principles of environmental justice in governance of any kind-political, environmental or development, to name but a few. The cultural and spiritual dimensions of such governance are critical to sustainable development.

The Basoga belong, have rights (ecological, cultural, environmental, spiritual) and desire to share their ancestral wisdom with other decision-makers (Oweyegha- Afunaduula, et. al., 2005). They have for centuries had cultural and spiritual interaction with the River Nile at close range and by remote-sensing. They are great friends of the Nile who unfortunately have been ignored in the Bujagali dam project in which the migrant populations occupying the areas around the proposed dam site and the institution of Kyabazinga have been raised to represent their (Basoga) cultural and spiritual rights while the clan cultural and spiritual leaders have been marginalised and completely ignored in the Bujagali dam decision-making equation. This human and techno-arrogance threatens the very existence and survival of both the Basoga and the Nile.

Basoga serve as a ready traditional database for international cooperation to ensure that the Nile and their (Basoga) culture and spirituality survive well into the future as a unity and provider of multiple functions (of water). This, however, is only possible if their psycho-social, cultural and spiritual values are recognised as critical aspects of the bio-cultural diversity in the Nile Basin and, therefore, essential resources in the sustainable management of the basin.

There can be no real environmental justice in the basin without deliberate recognition of the Basoga this way. The cultural and spiritual dimensions of environmental justice are, therefore, not impediments but parts of holistic development at the centre of which must be the people as the first critical resource in such development.

Excluding the Basoga from development by constructing Bujagali dam, thereby damming their human rights, culture, spirituality and future is nothing short of ethnocide (Oweyegha-Afunaduula, et. al, 2005). For wisdom we can only call forth Aldo Leopold from his grave. His guidance on the matter is timely.

Busoga like many other parts of Uganda tradition nations in Uganda, is suffering enormous environmental damage under renewed Chwezi-Cushite dynasty of the 21st century in Uganda. While indigenous Ugandans have been chased from lakes and swamps by the power and authority of the Chwezi-Cushites, Indians and Chinese have been allowed to establish pollution-rich factories in what are called industrial parks.

As if that is not enough, what is called National Environmental Management Authority(NEMA) is being used to remove ordinary Ugandans from the swamps while allowing foreigners and those connected to power to establish residences and factories in the swamps. Frequently those establishing factories and residences in swamps are removing soil and rocks from hills, thereby increasing the risk of floods and landslides in Uganda in general and Busoga in particular.

Others are reclaiming the shores of Lake Victori or mining sand and minerals such as platinum and the government and NEMA have chosen both silence and inaction. Some big hotels such as Munyonyo, have reclaimed the shores of Lake Victoria. Environmental injustice and, for that matter, environmental injustice, have never been so pronounced as during the Chwezi-Cushite dynasty of the 21st century.

Relevance of Gaia to long-term survival and the environmental justice of the Basoga

Lovelock’s (1992) idea of “gaia” (i.e, life preserving interconnections of Mother Earth, holistic science, planetary physiography and social responsibility), which was innovated long after Leopold’s work, should be a worthwhile entrenchment of his (Leopold’s) guidance in the quest for respect of our interdependence and interconnectedness with all natural systems that we can only assault at our own long-term peril. Lovelock believes Gaia is a form of planetary medicine similar to the folk medicine of the pre-scientific era [such as that of the Basoga]. O’riordan (1995) has written thus:

“Keeping a healthy Planet with an equitable climate is as complicated as maintaining a healthy body from disease. The Gaian idea is to design a mode of existence to let the earth live in a healthy fashion, where possible, to let nature be the guide and the gyroscope of homeostasis. To ignore Gaia may mean that humans will have to live for ever in a form of environmental conscription – looking after the Planet as if it were on a kidney machine – functioning, but always circumscribed…. Gaia means keeping a planetary healthy life…”

For that matter, building dams to pursue the illusion of monetary richness or conquest of nature is conquering us instead, not nature. This is a warning. Government has said Nalubaale dam will be decommissioned in 15 years’ time. At the moment, Ugandans have never been any poorer (in terms of incomes) since independence and income poverty is on the rise, which means its (Nalubaale’s) 50-year existence has not helped us to fight poverty of the broad masses of our people. Neither can we boast that through Nalubaale we have been able to conquer nature since the dam has ended up being a white elephant and now has developed cracks turning it into a disaster waiting to happen unless it is judiciously and quickly removed.

However, removing a dam is more expensive than building a new one. The proposal in the discredited AES Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), preserved and updated by a foreign Uganda government Consultant, Scott Wilson Piesold, that the cultural and spiritual site at Bujagali could be translocated by humans to another site caused a lot of concern among the clans of Busoga because it is a big lie. They were even more concerned because those who pursued Bujagali dam project did not want to recognise that the Basoga clans existed and that they must have been genuinely consulted or allowed to participate fully in the Bujagali dam decision-making process. They hated to hear that their spiritual and cultural interests were being dealt with by the erroneous reference to the largely cosmopolitan migrant population that settled in the once tsetse fly infested area around the banks of River Nile.

When, therefore, government and its accomplices said that the spiritual and cultural issues of the Basoga had been resolved, they never provided evidence of consent by the clans of Busoga because they had never sought this consent from clan leaders. This was a blind spot in the Bujagali dam decision-making process, which seriously challenged its legitimacy.

It is, therefore, important to record that unless environmental justice was put on the national and global political agenda, proponents of dams would continue to float lies that the silent, environmentally, culturally and spiritually tortured and discriminated against poor needy would continue to be misrepresented in development and to be taken as objects to be “developed”. What mattered was to integrate the principles of environmental justices in governance of any kind – political, environmental or development, to name but a few.

The principles of environmental justice, which must have been respected, pursued and implemented in environment and development in the Bujagali dam, are:

• Affirm the sacredness of Mother Earth, ecological unity, integrity and interdependence of all species as well as the right to be free from cultural, ecological, spiritual and environmental destruction and imperialism
• Stress the unity between culture, environment, spirituality and conservation
• Demand that law and public policy making be based on mutual respect and justice for all people free from any form of discrimination or bias
• Mandate the right to ethical, balanced and responsible uses of land and renewable resources in the interest of a sustainable Planet Earth for humans and other occupants – living and non-living.

For God and My Country

• A Tell report / By Oweyegha-Afunaduula / Environmental Historian and Conservationist Centre for Critical Thinking and Alternative Analysis (CCTAA), Seeta, Mukono, Uganda.

About the Centre for Critical Thinking and Alternative Analysis (CCTAA)

The CCTAA was innovated by Hyuha Mukwanason, Oweyegha-Afunaduula and Mahir Balunywa in 2019 to the rising decline in the capacity of graduates in Uganda and beyond to engage in critical thinking and reason coherently besides excellence in academics and academic production. The three scholars were convinced that after academic achievement the world outside the ivory tower needed graduates that can think critically and reason coherently towards making society and the environment better for human gratification. They reasoned between themselves and reached the conclusion that disciplinary education did not only narrow the thinking and reasoning of those exposed to it but restricted the opportunity to excel in critical thinking and reasoning, which are the ultimate aim of education. They were dismayed by the truism that the products of disciplinary education find it difficult to tick outside the boundaries of their disciplines; that when they provide solutions to problems that do not recognise the artificial boundaries between knowledges, their solutions become the new problems. They decided that the answer was a new and different medium of learning and innovating, which they characterised as “The Centre for Critical Thinking and Alternative Analysis” (CCTAA). They saw their innovation as a new opportunity to demystify disciplinary education and open up academia and society to new, interlinked knowledge and solutions to complex or wicked problems that disciplinary education cannot solve. To this end, the CCTAA promotes linking of knowledge through the knowledge production systems of Interdisciplinarity, Crossdisciplinarity, Transdisciplinarity and Extradisciplinarity (or non-disciplinarity), which allow for multistakeholder team knowledge production instead of individualised knowledge production, which glorifies individual knowledge production, achievement and glorification.

The issue of alternative analysis towards deconstruction and reconstruction of knowledge is taken seriously at the CCTAA. Most recorded knowledge needs deconstruction and reconstruction within the context of new and different knowledge production systems listed here in. Therefore, instead of disciplinary academics, scholars or professionals, we can begin to produce new ones. We can, for example have professors of interdisciplinarity, crossdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity and extradisciplinarity or non-disciplinarity. Besides, academics, scholars and/or professionals, civil servants, researchers, etc can choose to reorient themselves via the CCTAA and become enhanced learners via the new and different knowledge systems.

It is attitudinal change to thinking, reasoning and practice in knowledge production and use towards solving simple and complex problems! We are all learning beings, and by virtue of the construction of our brains we are supposed to continuously learn and to be good at thinking correctly and reasoning effectively.  As learners who can engage in critical thinking and alternative analysis, we become more open to change and alternatives to development, transformation and progress of society, embrace change, imagine possibilities, learn through the activity of experience, and rejuvenate ourselves and ourselves continuously. The CCTAA is committed to enabling this to happen. It does not abhor resistance but creates opportunities for meaningful resistance that opens opportunities for all.