Miblog: Homeless Nile

There is an old saying in Ethiopia that roughly translates as “Nile has no home of its own, and yet it carries much luggage with it.” That is to imply that, knowing nothing of its destination, it assumes the burden of additional responsibility.

No doubt an Egyptian would disagree with that. Yes, it is true that Nile carries so much luggage with it. While meandering through the rugged Ethiopian highlands, the Nile washes down the fertile volcanic soil that give it its peculiar dark brown color. The annual flooding of this rich water has formed the backbone of the ancient Egyptian river valley civilization. And yet, while the Nile carries much luggage, an Egyptian would say, it is nothing but homeless. Its home is the Mediterranean, Egypt.

I have always wished to visit Egypt, a dream that has not yet come true. But even without visiting it, it is easy to imagine the precarious dependence of this desert country on the Nile. Without the rich gush of water that streams from the Ethiopian mountains, Egypt is but a patch of uninhabitable wasteland. Thanks to the Nile, though, it is home of an amazing ancient civilization. Although upwards 85% of the Nile waters come from Ethiopia, in the end most of it goes to the service of Egyptians that remain at the mouth of the river. This is the case today, as it has been for thousands of years.

There is an increasing controversy about Ethiopia’s plans to dam the Nile river. This issue has been simmering for years, but now that the actual physical work has started, it has grown to outright confrontation. And the media is awash with opinions from both sides. The first thing that startled me about these opinions is that the majority from both sides claim full privilege over the river. Sitting at different ends of the Nile, it appears that both Ethiopians and Egyptians claim the whole river for themselves. But the fact remains that the Nile starts in Ethiopia and ends in Egypt. Unavoidably, the Nile is a shared river.

To say that Egypt has ‘historical right’ over the Nile is as true as saying that Ethiopia has a ‘physical right’ on the river. Both are totally true, but do not necessarily contradict with each other. Although the Nile has not been ‘historically’ used in Ethiopia, taming the unharnessed Nile has been a dream Ethiopians have long itched to write in their history books. Now that this is becoming a reality, a significant change in perspective is expected from Egypt, a country that has for centuries dominated the Nile river and seems, even today, to naively assume that it can continue to do so. In the meantime, Ethiopia too should recognize that the Nile is shared, and a physical control on its source is not tantamount to complete ownership.

This time seems a critical juncture in the relationship between these two countries that have been from the beginning tied by the umblicalcord of the Nile, although both have so far failed to appreciate this fact. Given the rapid population growth and potentially frequent draughts from climate change, every drop of the Nile will become more valuable in the coming century. The relationship between the two countries will head in two potential courses of direction in the coming decades. Hopefully, both countries will come to terms with the fact that the Nile is a shared river, which needs to be jointly managed and developed. However, there is another scenario that worries me as a likely development. Faced with polarized politics and extreme poverty at home, politicians from both sides could use the Nile as smoke screen to externalize their problems. I am afraid that the Ethiopian and the Egyptian, who for thousands of years drank from the river Nile, will fail to recognize the value of their joint possession, and fall victim to hatred and anger towards each other. I can only hope that time will prove this fear wrong.

June 7, 2013

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