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(hade hizbi hade libi) a myth or reality? ON THE GATE OF THE TABOOLAND
I think I have once read in awate.com some hallucinations allege that the intention behind taking up the land question in Eritrea is to exorcize the Habash from the Gash where they had settled. I do not entertain such nave and simple black or white solutions. Neither do I fancy to chew over regrettable episodes in our history or scuff old wounds. Conversely, my purpose to reflect on some chapters, actors, victims and stakeholders can best be illustrated by Dr Y. Ligam`s splendid words, unless we discuss and reflect on what went wrong in the past, we will continue to run as a Head-less chicken. Thank you Ligam, it is as you stated A taboo subject but one that remains as a contributory factor to the delay of the outcome of the struggle and the squabble we have today. It is the remorseless injustices inflicted upon some of our people. It is injustices some of us do not want it to be mentioned because we insist to persist.
THE QUESTION OF LAND
Ecosystems and societies are interrelated through a series of infinitely different and changing relationships. Human societies draw resources and services from the environment. Environment has limited capability to sustain human actions. It can only sustain and endure a specific magnitude and style of extraction. Most pre-capitalist indigenous societies lived in harmony with their environments extracting resources for their livelihood in a sustainable system that was dictated by the environment, balancing human needs and nature. Their sustainable production systems and economic modes of production were adopted by accumulated knowledge of their environments and ecosystems. They extracted renewable natural resources in the most efficient and effective ways and systems. It is environmental provisions that made some people farmers while it forced others to adopt nomadic pastoral systems. It is by the same analogy that some people grow and consume taff, whereas others cultivate and eat sorghum or kassava. It is nave to attribute economic behaviours of production to culture and taste. Economic activities and culture, or even tastes, are dictated by the environment.
In arid and semi arid dry lands, where land tilling and crop production had been found unproductive and unsustainable, nomadic pastoralist systems were adopted. A sedentary peasant tilling a plot of land on such environment is susceptible to great risks of draught. His plot of land is also prone to declined fertility that makes him resort to moving from a plot to another using the slash and burn system rendering the land to mere desert. Nomadic pastoralists practiced risk aversion of drought by annual movement over a wide space of land depending on the distribution of rain and floods. Nomadic pastoralists use the land cover of grasses (a renewable resource) of a specific location, over a definite period of time, moving to the next and next while the first location has already recovered its full vegetation and biodiversity capacities when they return to it in the next season. It is a sound and healthy use of natural resources. Herders also use space to minimise risk in another way. They routinely keep some part of their herd in one place and other parts of it elsewhere. In case of disease, local drought, or raiding they have something to fall back on by employing the strategy of herd splitting. A common economic strategy employed by herders is herding different types of livestock. This strategy is useful in maximising the use of varied pasture and in combating heavy losses of one breed due to disease. Each type of animal has different grazing and watering requirements and different types of animals are grouped in to minimise labour requirements.
In this diminutive brainstorming article, I will not delve in other attributes of sustainable use of natural resources, which is beyond my capacity and the scope of this piece of writing but will exclusively deliberate on the question of land in my country. Land is the most important natural resource that sustains the livelihood of humans on earth. It could be considered as a renewable natural resource if well managed. The degree of its renewability depends on human use and management. Sustainable management of land includes:
1) Physical management of land (soil, soil cover trees, bushes and grasses and all categories of water) to ensure a stream of benefits for the present and future generations.
2) Sustainable Environmental management that keeps the balance between the human needs to extract a stream of benefits on the one hand and sound and healthy biodiversity and biosphere in nature on the other hand.
3) Land Policy and regulations oriented towards and aspires to achieve and safeguard:
A) Proper use of land and other natural resources to enhance production without jeopardizing the environment and the renewability of the vital resource, land.
B) To incorporate the use of the resource to the national economy and towards capital accumulation and development of the sector to effectively deliver its share into national income.
C) Ensure equitable distribution and equitable access to means of production and therefore equitable distribution of wealth.
D) To safeguard the identity, security (social, economical, ethical and political security), social cohesiveness and the general well being of the indigenous societies on their ancestral land, culture and social heritage.
E) To sustain, develop and incorporate the traditional knowledge and the traditional mode of economic production into a comprehensive national project for economic and social development.
F) Means to shun and solve conflicts in peaceful and consensus manner and to facilitate for peaceful co-existence and gradual natural integration based on mutual benefits and mutual respect.
Land issue does not embrace production systems, ecology and economic return only; nonetheless, it also embraces social dimensions of human interactions among themselves and with natural and built environments. Property rights regime over land has great implications on justice, distribution of wealth, democracy and above all on the sense of belongingness and affiliation. I mean on identity. If not handled properly, land issue could be promoted to a highly politically charged question.
The complex questions concerning the fit of citizens of different cultures, historical backgrounds and conflicting economic systems and modes of productions in a unified modern state require that we look at things from different perspective. Questions arise like: How best to fit what economic sector and what people, with a given occupation, and a given environment together? How do we develop an understanding of the working of the natural environment, the social and the political environment for peace, security, justice, unity, peaceful natural integration and social and economic development? How do we make decisions concerning the allocation and use of land, environmental services and our natural capital? It requires our concerned efforts to answer them.
One thing is for sure; it cannot be done within a system paradigm that only recognizes the needs and the benefits of one segment of society systems of valuation, on the ground that this segment acquired political power due to certain subjective and objective reasons. In Eritrea, it is high time now to question the reality created by the land policy, past and present, that results from some self-centred utility of value. Decisions concerning land allocation and property rights over land at the central or local scale and society require a valuation system free of ill-intended social engineering, chauvinism and political power motives or partisan bias.
To be continued |
