Report from Africa #645 -- East African Concepts of Land Ownership
David Zarembka
East African Concepts of Land Ownership
Report from Kenya #645 – March 5, 2021
If you want the URL for this report, contact me at davidz...@gmail.com
A view of Rulenge, Ngara District, Tanzania near where I taught Rwandan refugees in 1964-65. It is much more thickly populated than when I was there 56 years ago so shifting cultivation is no longer possible.
I recently read a book titled Land: How the Hunger for Ownership Shaped the Modern World by Simon Winchester. It was an interesting, good read except for his chapter on Africa which, as is common with British/American authors, was terribly biased and I would say “racist.” In the whole book, Winchester emphasizes one concept of land ownership, land owned by an individual or company with a title deed. Even as he is promoting more common land ownership, he assumes that the common land will be owned by a local or national entity with a title deed on the boundaries of the property.
Traditionally, as I will explain below, Africans have had different concepts of land ownership.
When I first went to Tanzania in 1964 in the remote northwestern border, there were few people and a lot of forests. At night I could sometimes hear the lions roar after they made their kill. Once I drove about 100 miles along a major road (for that area) and did not see any human inhabitation. Since tsetse flies – I was bitten by them seven times during my year there – lived in the forest, people and cows could not survive unless the bush and forest were cleared. One of my students died from sleeping sickness from a tsetse fly bite.
When there is so much land and few people, the farmers did what is called “shifting cultivation.” The farmer and his family would clear a plot and plant for a few years until the soil became worn out. The family would then abandon that land and move to a new plot which they cleared. The old land would quickly become forest again and over many years the fertility would build up again. In a sense this still happens. In 2007 we bought a small plot in a place called Lubao. We tried planting maize, sugar cane, bananas and other crops and none of them did well because the soil was clearly worn out from decades of cultivation. So instead we planted trees on the plot. In 25 years or so, the trees will be cut down and the soil fertility should be improved so that crops may be planted on it again. Nonetheless in Ngara District as the population and the area under cultivation increased, it was no longer possible to do shifting cultivation. So that no longer occurs in most of East Africa.
People therefore did not own their land under the shifting cultivation method. Rather they “used” the land and then moved on. Usually the elders of a community would assign plots to people depending upon the size and capabilities of the extended family. Since people moved every few years, their houses were of simple construction – mud and wattle with grass roofs. This concept has carried over until today. In Tanzania there is no private ownership of land as all land is owned by the state. People have “use” of land but do not own it. If a person does not “use” his land appropriately, it can and is given to someone else who will use it. Note that under this system no one can hold land for speculation since unused land can be taken away and given to others.
In Kenya which has private land ownership, there is still the legal custom that if a person inhabitants a piece of land for seven years or more, that person becomes the legal owner of the land. As could be expected this leads to a lot of disputes and court cases over the possession of pieces of land. There are millions of “squatters” in Kenya who live on land that they do not legally own. Some of this land is legally owned by the Kenyan government and these squatters can be evicted at any time. Sometimes when these squatters are evicted, the government allocates them other pieces of land.
A large herd of cows grazing on common land.
Yet most of Kenya is still controlled as common land held by a tribal/sub-tribal group. This is particularly true of the pastoral areas where people have to graze their cows, goats, sheep, and camels wherever there is good grass and water. If there is a drought in these pastoral areas, the pastoral people invade the better watered, greened agricultural areas. Since many pastoral people have guns, these incursions can be deadly.
These pastoral people, even as a group, do not have anything like a title deed for the area they use for grazing. Tribal groups often overlap in their grazing ranges. The cattle themselves are often owned communally and herds can include up to thousands of cows which the group of armed young morans (warriors) move about in search of water and grass.
The land though is common land since no single person lays claim to any particularly piece. Reflect on the violent enclosure movement in England, the dispossession of the land controlled by the Native Americans, the collectivization of land in Russia and the Ukraine, and land consolidation under the Great Leap forward in China. All of these consisted of taking the common land from people and turning it into private property for individuals or the state itself. This disposition of common land is still occurring in Kenya and elsewhere in Africa, usually with the need of state violence to remove the people from the land. History repeats itself as people living in those common lands resist removal.
If one considers as Winchester does, that land demarcated by set boundaries and a title deed is the only, best way of owning and using land, then turning common land into private property is beneficial. If on the hand, one considers that this has been the basis for the rise of the world’s wealthy elite and impoverishment of a large section of the human population, then one cannot consider this as the good normal. Other land holding alternatives need to be considered, legalized, and implemented.
Next week I will write about how the British private ownership of land with title deeds introduced by the colonial government has created chaos in Kenya.
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David Zarembka
Email: davidz...@gmail.com
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David Zarembka
It is with a heavy heart that we inform you that David Zarembka and his wife, Gladys Kamonya, recently passed away from COVID-19. On March 17th, David informed Judy Lumb, the editor of the "Report from Kenya" series, that he did not have the energy to write his weekly report and hoped to write again the following week. On March 21st, David was transported to the hospital, and on March 24th, Gladys was also brought to the hospital. By March 25th, Gladys had succumbed to her illness. Gladys was laid to rest on March 30th and David, now of broken body and broken heart, died on April 1, 2021.
They were buried side-by-side in front of their home in Lumakanda, Kenya under their avocado tree, as they requested.
A virtual memorial service for David Zarembka will be held here on Saturday, April 24, 2021 at 1:00 pm EDT.
A virtual celebration of the life, love and birthdays of Gladys Kamonya and David Zarembka will be held here on Saturday, May 8, 2021 at 10:00 am EDT/9:00 am CDT. An additional in-person memorial service will be held on the anniversary of their deaths in Kenya in 2022, travel restrictions notwithstanding.
Many people have asked how to donor to their ongoing legacy. Funds for the Zarembka-Kamonya Peace Fund are being collected here. If you have further thoughts and suggestions on how best to memorialize them, please email David's daughter, Joy, at joyza...@gmail.com.
For more details and a copy of David's obituary, please click here.
We look forward to seeing you virtually as we mourn these inconceivable losses.
[Please click the blue words above to be redirected to the correct links].
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DONATE
To make a tax-deductible (US) or gift aid eligible (UK) donation through GlobalGiving,
For Transforming Community for Social Change (TCSC), click on goto.gg/31755
To donate to TCSC by M-pesa go to Pay Bill: 891300, Account: GG31755
For the Friends Women’s Association (FWA), click on goto.gg/31891
To support Helping Girls and Young Women in Bujumbura Slum, click on goto.gg/38276.
To support Building FWA’s Maternity Ward, click on goto.gg/32980
For Innovations in Peacemaking – Burundi (IPB), click on goto.gg/49443
For HROC Center in Rwanda, click on goto.gg/44648.
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David Zarembka
Email: davidz...@gmail.com
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David Zarembka
Gladys Kamonya and David Zarembka Memorial Meeting
May 8th, 2021
Saturday, May 8, 2021
https://stlouisfriends-org.zoom.us/j/98988687053?pwd=ZElERTAwM0VISjY4OXdSaS9RSDR3UT09
From: David Zarembka <davidz...@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Apr 23, 2021 at 8:29 AM
Subject: Report from Africa (Final) -- The Passing of David Zarembka (COVID-19)
To: Joy Zarembka <joyza...@gmail.com>
It is with a heavy heart that we inform you that David Zarembka and his wife, Gladys Kamonya, recently passed away from COVID-19. On March 17th, David informed Judy Lumb, the editor of the "Report from Kenya" series, that he did not have the energy to write his weekly report and hoped to write again the following week. On March 21st, David was transported to the hospital, and on March 24th, Gladys was also brought to the hospital. By March 25th, Gladys had succumbed to her illness. Gladys was laid to rest on March 30th and David, now of broken body and broken heart, died on April 1, 2021.
They were buried side-by-side in front of their home in Lumakanda, Kenya under their avocado tree, as they requested.
A virtual memorial service for David Zarembka will be held here on Saturday, April 24, 2021 at 1:00 pm EDT.
CORRECTED LINK: A virtual celebration of the life, love and birthdays of Gladys Kamonya and David Zarembka will be held here on Saturday, May 8, 2021 at 10:00 am EDT/9:00 am CDT. An additional in-person memorial service will be held on the anniversary of their deaths in Kenya in 2022, travel restrictions notwithstanding.