Phrases and images concerning the Batwa

Carl Soderbergh, MRG’s Director of Policy and Communications, reflects on a visit to a Batwa community in Uganda

As the plane circled over London, preparing to land, and I peered bleary-eyed over the web of streets below, my thoughts turned to the encounters and conversations of the past week. My MRG colleagues Eva, Kathryn, Paul and I had visited southern Uganda in order to conduct a gender training for members of Batwa communities in the Great Lakes region. What came back to me in my jet-lagged state were stray comments that reflected much of what the Batwa confront today.

We had spent a day visiting Rwamahano, a Batwa settlement lying at the end of a breath-taking drive along a narrow dirt track winding around wooded ridges followed by a hike straight up a hill-side. The village comprised approximately 60 families: Batwa who had been forcibly evicted when the Echuya forest reserve was established in 1991.  As a constant reminder of what the Batwa have lost, the forest begins just on the other side of the road we had been driving along, a seemingly impenetrable tangle of green. The settlement had been established on a strip of land purchased by a charity and MRG partner organization, AICM.

The visit was a real eye-opener for me. I recalled the thrill, as a keen teen-aged zoology buff, of watching films in the 1970’s about mountain gorillas. To me then it seemed self-evident that their fragile ecosystem had to be preserved. Now I could see and hear about the considerable human cost at which this has been attempted.

Batwa elder, Simako

While other elders were gathering to sing and dance, I spoke with Simako, a Batwa elder. Simako explained that the eviction orders had already been passed in the 1960’s, but were only implemented in 1991. Ugandan security personnel arrived with no prior notice and used force to push Batwa out of the forest. The Batwa received no compensation, nor had any land been set aside for them. Ousted from the forest, the Batwa had no means of subsistence and were forced to beg, often being refused by members of other ethnic groups who would reply that, “We can’t eat from the same place.” Simako said that they were especially stigmatized because they had yet to wear anything other than the animal skins they had used in the forest.  Later, I heard another elder add, “We were not considered human.”

I asked Simako whether anyone had been injured or killed during the evictions. This did not appear to be the case. Simako said, however, that “colleagues” had been killed during another time: “There had been a war.” In those few words, he encapsulated what must surely have been a terrifying time.

Simako said that the segregation had lessened over the years. Now there are even cases of inter-marriage between Batwa and individuals of other ethnic groups. However, lack of land is still a problem. And as the community do not have a history in the area, they do not always know where exactly the boundaries of others’ property go. Thus, Batwa often end up in bitter land disputes, facing particular difficulties as they do not have the money to work the legal system or pay the necessary fees.

Later, Timothy, who heads the local AICM office, said something that I also recalled when I sat in the plane, watching London spiralling beneath me. In the gender workshop, he said that men of other ethnic groups had taken to raping Batwa women, as “this is considered a cure for back-ache.” I could not believe that he actually meant that, so I asked Timothy if this really was the case.  He assured me that it is. The phrase remains with me still, as a particularly horrible form of double discrimination.

We learned during the course of the workshop how the situation of the Batwa varies from country to country. One participant, a soft-spoken man whom I will call K, had come from South Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo. He described how he had received a text message one day during the past spring: “Your house has been burned down. Your brother has been kidnapped.”

It was the Interahamwe who were behind this, and K’s own personal tragedy was only one of many instances where Batwa now being caught in the cross-fire between the Hutu extremists and the Congolese army. K had been in Bukavu at the time. He rushed home only to find that all this had indeed happened and then to try to secure his brother’s release. Thankfully, after about a month, the brother managed to use his knowledge of the forest to escape at night from his captors. But the two men remain internally displaced, living in the offices of K’s organization in Bukavu.

Singers and dancers whose music described what life had been like in the forest

Timothy explained that the singers were describing what life had been like in the forest:  the greenery, the animals and the wild fruits which they used to gather. Their last song, Timothy said, was one about hope, because the families of Rwamahano still remain positive about the future. I was struck by the inward gaze of the singers and the dancers.  It became clear that the visitors were not the sole beneficiaries of this performance.  The music and the songs – including that message of hope – were of course also directed at themselves.

‘The media is part of the problem, not the solution!’

Ara Iskanderian, a British-Armenian interning in MRG’s publications department, reflects on the media’s influence on racist attitudes

It’s a rare hot, sunny day in Sheffield, United Kingdom. Young delegates representing organizations from across the length and breadth of Europe are taking their seats ahead of the afternoon’s plenary session. This is the bi-annual United conference, an opportunity for European anti-racism activists to network and share strategies with which to combat the far right. This afternoon’s topic: “How does the media contribute to combating racist attitudes?”.

Everyone’s a little tired, but the first guest speaker immediately rouses us as he declares loudly, “The media is part of the problem, not the solution!” His passionate speech sits people up straight in their seats. Around the room people from countries ranging from France to Georgia start nodding in agreement.

The speaker, who preferred not to be identified, was fresh from campaigning against the far right British National Party (BNP) in the run up to the June 2009 European elections. Frustrated with what he termed “sloppy” reportage by mainstream media outlets he called for a return to forceful investigative journalism. Against which the far right’s assertions don’t hold up.

Take the recent BNP electoral pamphlet I recently had shoved through my letterbox. Photos of ‘genuine’ British workers complaining about job losses turned out to be American models posing as the real thing. Similarly, spitfire airplanes used in the same pamphlet to protest against immigrants coming from Eastern Europe in fact belonged to a Polish RAF squadron. These discrepancies were eventually picked up by the mainstream British media, but the actual research had been carried out by anti-racism activists like our speaker, and not by journalists.

I find myself joining the chorus of nodding heads. As an ethnic minority, a British-Armenian, I feel let down by the media in Britain. I often read pieces where journalists rather emptily use words such as ‘multiculturalism’ and ‘diversity’ as stand alone terms, failing to elaborate what they mean by them. The result being that whilst multiculturalism is celebrated, not enough time is spent explaining as to why it should be.

When the speaker emphatically declares, “We need to realize that we are on the defensive against the far right”, I find my mind racing. Personally I would like to see journalists proactively challenging racist opinions with solid, well-researched articles that provide balanced images of minorities. This would certainly attach more weight to the concept of multiculturalism.

Merely reporting facts isn’t enough. However, time and space restraints often dictate this to be the case. In such instances issues become simplified. For example there is an inadequate separation of issues such as immigration and job security. When in 2003, following Poland’s entry to the EU, thousands of Poles migrated to the United Kingdom it was reported as threatening British jobs, more often than not though Poles were filling areas of labour shortages.

When these issues are linked with commentaries on “Britishness” it’s a little hard as an ethnic minority to not feel as though what’s occurring is really veiled criticism of minorities in general. Journalists argue that what’s occurring is in fact a legitimate debate about immigration to Britain. But how can it be described as a ‘debate’ when those journalists conducting it are not representative of the communities themselves? There is a distinct lack of ethnic minority journalists commenting in the British print media.

As an ethnic minority reader it’s easy to feel a little bit ignored and unrepresented. What’s worse however is the tenuous connection made in some papers between immigration, job security and ‘Britishness’ – and it’s not difficult for the far right to play upon these links to its political advantage.

The speaker finishes up and receives a standing ovation. He looks humbled by the response.

In the proceeding comments one delegate suggests establishing media monitoring agencies. I don’t think regulation is a solution, its too open to criticisms of restricting free speech. Part of the problem is that media outlets lack accountability, so monitoring their impact is difficult. It’s equally difficult to know whether the media creates or reflects an issue. Can journalistic styles change, though? Balanced reporting should be the goal.

Delegates in a workshop at the United conference

We break for coffee. Conversations start amongst people from countries across Europe as they share their incredulity at the state of affairs in Britain. But it seems the British experience is far from unique.

A tap upon the microphone hurried us back to our seats. The next two speakers chart similar situations, but this time showing how sloppy reporting on ethnic minorities and their issues spiraled into violence in their countries. I sat there, in the stuffy warmth of a Sheffield conference hall, rather alarmed at the comparison I was able to draw between the initial stages of these last two speakers’ experiences of alienation and my own. But getting together to discuss these experiences and hear examples of what should and can be done to make a difference, left me hopeful and with plenty of food for thought.