Importance of the Nile River for North Africa - Essay Example

?While Was the River Nile Important for the Rise of Successful s in North Africa? Introduction River Nile is the longest in the world – 6 825 kilometers – whose catchment basin covers about a tenth of the African continent, with an area of over three million square kilometers; as of 1995 and 2005, the total population of the countries of the Nile basin has been estimated at 287 million people (Martinon 53). It’s noteworthy that over the half of this population is believed to be dependent on the Nile waters (Martinon 53). The river’s main tributaries – the White Nile, which originates in the East African highlands, and the Blue Nile, which rises in Ethiopia, merge into one some 320 kilometers north of Khartoum, where the Atbara river joins it; from there River Nile sets off for the rest its journey to the Mediterranean without receiving any additional water (Martinon 53). The river is not only thought to have meant different things to the different countries of its basin, but also to have deeply intrigued the wider world. On the one hand it’s widely perceived as “Egypt’s lifeline” ever since the days of the earliest Pharaohs, which is best described by the well-known statement of the Greek historian Herodotus – “Egypt is the gift of the Nile” – uttered in 460 BC (Martinon 53). On the other hand, the Nile plays a crucial economic, political and cultural role nowadays, and its importance is considered greater than ever, with over 300 million people depending on the river for drinking water, irrigation, etc. (Tvedt 1). The Importance of Nile for the Nile Basin States and Societies As Tvedt points out, water has been the principal concern of humanity ever since the dawn of civilization, with most of the population living on the banks of large rivers, like Euphrates and Tigris, Ganges, Indus, Nile, etc.; not surprisingly therefore, the consecutive societies have been fundamentally shaped by that fact since the times of Sumer (2). No international river basin, however, has more complex and eventful history, either in terms of water politics and their impact on the respective societies or in terms of actors involved, than the Nile’s valley (Tvedt 3). On the other hand, it was the twentieth century, or the period of European imperialism, with its rapid technological and scientific advance that actually brought about a revolution in the conceptualization planning and use of Nile’s waters, and had far-reaching implications for the development of the Nile basin region. Being home to many polities, including “a number of kingdoms of various degrees of stability and forms of administrative machinery”, the Nile valley was both culturally and religiously diverse when the British took control over it (Tvedt 5). In northern and central Sudan – under the Mahdi’s rule – the irrigated agriculture had played rather modest role of economic importance, as against trade; while to the southeast, the islands of Lake Tana housed one of the world centers of the Coptic Church (Tvedt 6). Thus, according to Tvedt, there had not been processes of economic and cultural homogenization, but rather, the various Nile environments framed, although partly, many different “special patterns of man-river relationships and forms of regional identification” (6). The Importance of Nile for the Transformation of Egypt into a Modern State Although being a relatively short period in the overall history of the Nile, the years of the British colonial expansion into the Nile valley could be considered the first time when the river became conceptualized as a political and hydrological planning unit (Tvedt 7). During that period various actors, besides the British imperial system, got involved in what Tvedt calls “a great drama of Nile politics and river-valley development” – Egyptian kings and nationalists, Ethiopian emperors and priests, Nilotic cattle herders, Mussolini, Eisenhower, Gamal Abdel Nasser, etc. (7). Insofar as the British played the major role, it’s important to articulate their motives and driving force behind the “Nile discourse” that influenced British policies concerning the Nile region development; the system encompassed different imperial actors, including the Foreign Office, the high-commissioners in Cairo, the colonial governors in Uganda, the diplomats in Addis Ababa, the Sudan Political Service, the cotton lobby, and the British water engineers, as well as one overriding concern – to secure the British interests (Tvedt 7). The British colonial expansion and exploitation of the Nile basin brought about the possibility policy-makers and water-planners to interact with the Nile system, which process, in turn, is thought to have changed not only the environment, but also, and more importantly, the society (Tvedt 12). There are two aspects that should be taken into consideration in regard to the process of that development – the cultural one, or the different perceptions of Nile, which developed in the context of interactions between society, the river environment and the history of river control, thus creating different ‘Nile worlds’; and the technological aspect, which inter alia made colonialism much more efficient in controlling not only human subjects but also the nature (Tvedt 12). The latter considerably influenced the stability and growth in Egypt, however, as the British understood and envisaged it. As Tvedt points out, the British came to a country where certain technological innovation had already begun – known as the Delta Barrage – which had been introduced during the reign of Muhammad Ali in Egypt; nevertheless, due to financial problems and the uprisings of the late 1870s and early 1880s made the irrigation system largely ineffective (20). Having realized not only that the Nile is at the center of public life of the Egypt’s society, but also Egypt’s potential for agricultural production and development, the British administration mad water development a central task (Tvedt 20-1). Thus, imperial profits, national prosperity and political legitimacy were inextricably linked with the water supplies; and perhaps not surprisingly, the population nearly doubled in the course of just a few decades – having reached almost 10 million people in 1897 – making Egypt “one of the most densely populated countries in the world (Tvedt 21). According to Tvedt, the British basin-wide Nile control plan, which had been published in 1904, not only summarized the “nature and character” of the particular British ‘Nile world’ – in other words the British perspective on the development of the region – but also came to have a profound, fundamental and long-lasting impact on the historical development of all the states of the Nile basin (14). The various internal and external forces that gradually disintegrated this strategy and planning concept within the decades to come, in turn, produced their own impact on the development of the region; thus, contribution to the formation of the modern states of the Nile basin. Following the collapse of the British Empire, the Anglo-American policies and rivalry in Egypt, along with Nasser’s Aswan High Dam project that had been expected to turn Egypt into Japan of Africa, eventually led to the Suez Canal crisis, with its later repercussions (Tvedt 15). The nationalization of the Suez Canal in 1956 marked the beginning of the end for the British rule in the Nile basin and engendered a lot of hopes and dreams for the Egyptian future. Consequently, the emergence of the independent Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Burundi, Ruanda, etc., in the 1960s, resulted in new players involved in regional hydropolitcs, which additionally complicated the already existing conflicts over the Nile waters; as Tvedt points out, such conflicts neither began with the colonial rule nor ended with the demise of the imperial power (16). The legacy, however, i.e. the dams built by the colonial power, water technology, settlement patterns, economic structures and social-environmental constructions, etc., is still relevant and still taking part in the area of Nile control and Nile sharing, hence in the development of the Nile basin region (Tvedt 16). Conclusion - The Importance of Water Nowadays According to Tvedt, the importance of the Nile nowadays is greater than ever (1); others point out that the total population of its basin is estimated to reach 597 million people by the year 2025 (Martinon 53). Currently, the ten Nile-basin countries widely vary in their interests, perceptions, and expectations of the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI), while the water resources are unevenly distributed and used (Martinon 53-4). Although NBI is generally seen as a positive development, Ethiopia is rather skeptical of the intentions of Egypt and calls into question Egypt’s commitment to actual cooperation (Martinon 55). The 1959 bilateral agreement between Egypt and Sudan is seen by the Ethiopian authorities as a major impediment to meaningful and effective cooperation, whereas Egypt insists that it’s heavily dependent on the Nile waters, which is considered a national security issue (Martinon 55). Eritrea, a relatively newly-independent state as of 1993, which is interested in development of irrigation and hydropower, joined the Nile basin cooperation as an observer; Sudan, on the other hand, is identified as the “Master in the Middle” mainly due to its position, is greatly restricted by the 1959 agreement with Egypt, dealing with the quantity of Nile water this country can use (Martinon 55). Given the degree of economic development and advance of each of the countries listed above, although all the four are not by any means a true success story, actually underlines the importance of the Nile for the rise of a successful state in the region. Works Cited Tvedt, T., The River Nile in the Age of the British: Political Ecology & the Quest for Economic Power. New York: I. B. Taurus & Co Ltd, 2004. Print Martinon, C.A. Mumma, “Nile Basin Initiative: A Possibility of Turning Conflicts into Opportunities”. Shared Waters, Shared Opportunities: Hydropolitics in East Africa. Eds. Bernard Calas & C.A. Mumma Martinon. Dar es Salam, Tanzania, Nairobi, Kenya: Mkuki na Nyota Publishers Ltd, IFRA (French Institute for Research in Africa), JHC (Jesuit Hakimani Centre), 2010. Print Read More