As I continued to discuss what people saw as Acholi culture and changes that had taken place within it over the past years, it came to the fore that there was a strong ageist component to this. Even though people of different ages had concerns regarding the passing on of culture, it seemed that the older people had a stronger sense of losing the moral guidance that used to be provided by Acholi society. This concern was significant for them and often resulted in condescending views on the life of youth in Pabo. This caused a level of intergenerational friction as neither side would fully understand or approve of the other. Actually, this intergenerational friction can be seen as a side effect of anomie because the crisis that caused the state of anomie took place within the life span of these elderly people; they were able to compare what they saw in the past with what they saw in the present.
Many of the older people were especially concerned that the generations of younger people who were either born in the camp or grew up during the time of the camp were unaware of Acholi culture. Growing individualism was already emphasized in the previous section, but there were also other concerns. These concerns regarded the youth’s behavior, worldviews, and the way they would dress or dance. This came to the fore in the story of Francis’s family, where the parents’ relationship with their daughter who was born in the camp was very strenuous. Also Jane again had a strong opinion about this. As she put it: ‘The children of those days, if I compare with children of these days, there is a very big difference. The way how they think, the way how they do their things, and the way they talk, everything changed. […] They are spoiled. Their worldview is totally changed. They don’t see Acholi culture as something important to them. Being the reason of being in the camp.’
Others emphasized a change in lifestyle of the younger generations, saying that many young people were living an ‘indecent’ life. Walter, for example, told of how his children did not want to become farmers. Expressing an opinion shared by many others, he argued that the youth had become lazy; they had always lived from handouts and did not know what hard work was like. According to him, there was a big difference between those children who had spent a large share of their childhood in the village and those who did not. The ones who grew up in the camp were often said to ‘copy’ a bad lifestyle. As seen in the stories before, both Lucy and Susan saw problems of young people who would drink alcohol these days and linked this to behavior they had seen during the time of the camp.
Some of the influence in regard to lifestyle changes also came from the work that was done by development organizations present in the camps. For example, video halls were built where children could spend time watching movies and music videos. Some of the elderly held that even up until today, this meant that the traditional Acholi style of dancing was getting lost. This was actually a very strong point for many, as the different cultural dances were important rituals. Some of the interviewees remembered fondly how they used to dance the Ayije dance, a dance which had the aim of bringing unity among clans and creating an opportunity for young people who were of marrying-age to meet each other (Owot Samuel, personal communication, 2018). These days, however, the young people did not know these dances anymore because the elders did not get the chance to pass it on.
Another lifestyle change that was often mentioned – and that is perhaps also related to the decreased importance of cultural events such as the performance of the Ayije dance – was that sexual relations had become more casual. Actually, some would use the word ‘prostitute’ to refer to girls who would have sexual relations before marriage. As was shown in Francis’s story in the beginning, he even used this word to refer to his daughter. Additionally, the rules regarding marriage, living together, and abstaining from sexual relations had become more loose. According to some this was not only a cultural no-go or a Christian sin, but also contributed to the rampant spread of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases during and after the time of the camp.
Another change was that many found that the youth dressed inappropriately5. In a way it was no different from what my own grandma could have told me and my brothers when Jane commented on the way the youth in Pabo dressed:
‘So they were just copying this thing from the camp. For example the way they dress: you find a girl is putting on a miniskirt; find a man is putting on the jeans, instead of putting it right on the waist, he is just pulling it down. […] But that thing was not there during our days. And it is not there in Acholi culture.’
What was considered to go deeper, however, and was brought up by Oloo Isaac, a 55- year old Born Again priest, was that respect was less among the younger generation. Yet, he argued, respect had always been one of the core values of Acholi culture. As he put it:
‘Before, […] there was respect in Acholi. […] But because of that, I mean staying in camp, Acholi lose respect. Children now they don’t respect even elders. Especially the children who grew from camp, they lose respect totally.’
The fact that Isaac says that they do not ‘even’ respect the elders points at an important development: the decreased importance of traditional authority systems. It was an Acholi custom, as it is in many cultures, to respect the elderly people in society. As was also argued 5 An example of this was a young man I met in Pabo called Emanuel. He was a DJ and computer repair-guy as well as a bit of a gangster – on his Facebook page are many pictures of him with golden chains, new sneakers, and in sportscars that do not look like they were made for the rainy season in Uganda. With his tattoos, shiny jewelry, caps, and low-hanging pants, he was probably the embodiment of what many of the older people considered ‘inappropriate’ youth. At the same time, however, he was happy with who he was and he also attracted much admiration from other young people in Pabo.
in the previous chapter, the elders worked in congruence with ancestral spirits; these spirits were the protectors of morality and would interfere if one would defy morality. As clans became less tightly knit, shrines were no longer kept, and respect for the elderly decreased, it can definitely be argued that there was diminished social guidance – at least as the elderly in Pabo knew it.
As the ones who guard morality, the elderly were also responsible for passing on ‘culture’. As such, they could be seen as the ‘gatekeepers’ of Acholi society. A perfect example of how opportunities were lost to the elderly to pass on social norms was put forward by Mama Collins. According to her, much of Acholi tradition got lost during the time of the camp because there was no longer a possibility to pass on oral tradition. Before the time of the camp and in the villages, people would gather around a fire at 7 PM (the standard time of dawn because of Uganda’s location on the equator), and the elders would tell the children about proper ways to behave. Yet during the time of the camp, curfew would be at seven, and no one would be allowed outside of their house. As such, this tradition had come to perish, and an important way of passing on cultural knowledge was lost.
Another important factor in the loss of tradition and power of the elders was that many of the elderly people simply died. It was sometimes said that the LRA targeted the elders in particular, and it is also likely that the older people were more vulnerable to the diseases and malnutrition during the time of the camp. Intensifying this cultural loss, the war also made it more difficult to gather the attributes that were needed to perform certain rituals and dances, such as for example the leopard skin. As Charles summarized shortly and with regret: ‘The social breakdown in the lives of the people is the worst part of it. […] The war has disorganized the Acholi people completely’.