Broken Holiday Breaks

Some two years ago unusual noises came out of Tanzania in an area named Loliondo, not a famous place except that it was home to the famed Maasai of the Serengeti.

It was an unusual piece of news and social media clips showed Maasai men distraught after being driven from grazing their animals in Loliondo, a place that had been designated National Nature Reserve, and they were being prohibited from grazing there the way they were accustomed to since time immemorial.

A month or two later social media snippets seemed to indicate a dialogue had begun between the Maasai and the government authorities but there were cracks showing up. Decision makers were adamant that development of the Tourism attraction should forge ahead.

Reference to one Thompson Travels kept coming up and that officers of government seemed to be protective of the investments into Tourism the company was making. Apparently a middle-Eastern concern.

Some seemed to indicate that the stand-off was long-standing and that administration after administration of the ruling party government failed to stem the marginalisation of the Maasai communities.

A news analyst at the time also remarked that the Maasai population in Tanzania had ballooned because of the southern migration of refugees of their Kenyan counterparts whose eviction from the Kenyan Serengeti was complete; and that pressure was now on the Tanzanian Maasai communities.

Eventually community advocates and legal representatives began disappearing and the climate for them turned dire as news out of Loliondo slowly petered out but there still seemed to be hope.

At least until today 18 August 2024, where Maasai clans from many villages surrounding the highway converged at the main tourism highway in the Serengeti to bring their plight to the attention of Tourists on their holiday breaks and for them to alert the World of their plight.

One such tour group - perhaps of German tourists - managed to capture and hear of the local goings on from one of the participants who spoke to them in English.

What transpired there speaks for itself.

Postscript 20th August 2024

Having added a news update comment since this article first posted the gravity and utter #bestial_pathology of this tourist industry as led by middle-east financing. I cannot just make satire when the slow grind suffering continues to happen as we speak, fueled by this Tourist rush lust. Yes I know a full course meal for less than say, 10 USD has it's rush. Governments get their ForEx Rushes. Tree huggers in Bali harvest rivers of throwaway plastic enough to replace nuclear plants; and that's all sustainable and forgivable.

But extermination is not!

To put this in Perspective.

Australia once had less than two centuries ago bounty on aborigine heads, shot dead Aborigines, that is.

Not until 1936, Barely 90 years ago today the British headed Government of the Union South Africa still had in its books, and regularly issued hunting license for the Kalagadi Qwaqwa people (aka Kalahari bush man).

So today you take a break to pay hot USD tourist Premium for an overhead Flight seat final curtain show whose poster on 'X"' characterizes as forgiving #Racist whereas it is in concert with Genocidal Bestiopathy?

Your Tourism as now revealed is not Conscionable; definitely.