By Angelo Izama
Buried deep in the social consciousness is how most Ugandans see Karamoja. One says deep because in some ways, the impact on Karamoja of being viewed with the mental hyperopia of the community around them is not limited to the region even though its location, unique history has a lot to do with it. In Ugandan society today, the internal organs of the country in the form of its tribes, traditions and instincts are restrained or even constrained. Formal politics treats as prejudice the discussion of the clash in interests of various ethnic units where ethnicity is identified as the marker of such a conversation.
In the case of Karamoja, the cloak of political correctness thrown over public conversation about “tribal matters” has meant that when dealing with issues facing the region such as drought, cattle raiding, land dispossession or even mineral exploitation – cultural integrity is excised or pushed to the margins. It is acceptable to refer to culture in Karamoja in the context of “tourism” or some other new-fangled concept of “inclusion and sensitivity” but woe begone the voice that looks at Karimojong children begging on the streets of Kampala and wonders how a proud people so tied to their land, their cattle and rituals can come undone amidst the degradation of slums, the impatient stares of motorists and pedestrians who have come to accept them the way hopeless voyagers do to latest groups to join their doomed voyage.
So, in circumstances, nativity is viewed artificially, not much insight can be heard to improve our appreciation of the destruction of Karamoja as a society. It is impossible in fact simply because our view of ourselves as a society is malformed, misinformed and thus incapable of assembling the moral empathy to see social erosion in Karamoja as one of the most significant challenges to justice today. To put it differently, the destruction of Karamoja as a society is an indictment of our very capacity, in the context of independent Uganda, to build a just, peaceful and prosperous society.
