Showing papers in "Peace Review in 2003"

Healing the roots of genocide in Rwanda

Abstract: (2003). Healing the roots of genocide in Rwanda. Peace Review: Vol. 15, No. 3, pp. 287-294.

The road to democracy in South Africa

Abstract: When it comes to a peaceful transition to a democratic society, no country compares to South Africa. Collectively, its people secured a firm place in history for realizing their vision of a just and inclusive democracy through reconciliation rather than retribution. The youth of South Africa played a key role in this process. That history does not “just happen.” Rather, historical change results from the collective choices of individuals and groups. We illustrate this point in two ways: first, by offering a brief history of the social movements that led to democracy in South Africa and by examining the psychological and political processes that shaped those movements; second, by drawing on focus groups and interviews we conducted in 2001 with a diverse group of black leaders in the new dispensation. These interviews are part of an ongoing program of work aimed at exploring the pathways by which individuals came to be leaders in community organizations, in government, or in religious institutions. Much has been written about the historical transition from apartheid to democracy and about prominent political leaders. We wanted to learn, from South African citizens who are currently active in making democracy work in their communities, what it was like to come of age in different historical periods. People who shared their stories came from governmental and non-governmental organizations, from rural and urban areas. Some were male, some female, some employed, others unemployed. What were the experiences that produced their current level of civic activism?

The evolution of gay rights in South Africa

Abstract: (2003). The evolution of gay rights in South Africa. Peace Review: Vol. 15, No. 3, pp. 301-307.

Rehabilitation programs for African child soldiers

Abstract: (2003). Rehabilitation programs for African child soldiers. Peace Review: Vol. 15, No. 3, pp. 279-285.

The Strange Case of Summary Execution by Predator Drone

Abstract: (2003). The Strange Case of Summary Execution by Predator Drone. Peace Review: Vol. 15, No. 2, pp. 209-214.

Asylum Seekers and "Border Panic" in Australia

Abstract: (2003). Asylum Seekers and 'Border Panic' in Australia. Peace Review: Vol. 15, No. 2, pp. 163-170.

Patriotism's a Bad Idea at a Dangerous Time

Abstract: In one of their “Campaign for Freedom” public-service television advertisements created after 9/11, the non-profit Ad Council captured the mood of a sizable segment of the American population. The ad begins with a shot of a row of average houses. In somber tones, the voiceover comes on: “On September 11, terrorists tried to change America forever.” The shot fades into a new picture of the same street, this time with U.S. flags flying from every home. “Well, they succeeded,” the voice concludes, followed by the slogan of the campaign: “Freedom. Appreciate it. Cherish it. Protect it.” For many, that was the patriotic equation: United States=Freedom=Flag. The conventional image was of a sleeping giant wakened, ready to assert itself in the world, its people brimming with a revitalized sense of patriotism. From every politician and pundit came such declarations. And also, to the surprise of some, from the anti-war movement: “Peace is patriotic.” In the struggle to avoid marginalization-in an attempt to.nd som...

Problems with Criminalizing Female Genital Cutting

Abstract: Female genital cutting (FGC) has become the most well-publicized and frequently debated issue affecting the lives of African women. Western feminists brought the issue to the forefront during the United Nations Women’s Decade of 1975–1985. Since then, several conferences and international plans of action have sought to eliminate this practice. At the 1995 United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, Hillary Rodham Clinton said, “It is a violation of human rights when young girls are brutalized by the painful and degrading practice of female genital mutilation.” In their joint statement, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations (UN) Children’s and Population Funds refer to these practices as “female genital mutilation.” They define this term to mean “all procedures involving partial or total removal of the external female genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs whether for cultural or other non-therapeutic reason.” The WHO/UN statement says the cutting predom...

Urban agriculture and sustainable livelihoods

Abstract: Since colonial times, Kenyan women have developed mechanisms to cope with their changing social and economic circumstances. Structural Adjustment Policies (SAPs), instituted by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank as a solution to the debt crisis in developing countries, prompted many women to move from their previous activities in subsistence farming to engage more in income-generating activities such as beer brewing, marketing food products, trading other commodities, and prostitution. The strategies used by women during the period between Kenya’s independence from colonial rule and the introduction of SAPs in the early 1980s are familiar in literature on Kenyan women. Additional mechanisms used by women to maintain their families over the last decade have also been poorly explored but they’re important to the contemporary context of Kenyan development. While maintaining established coping strategies, Kenyan women have also been innovative in their approaches to dealing with worsening economic conditions throughout the country. When one examines contemporary activities of Kenyan women, one particular strategy stands out but has not been examined in the literature. This coping mechanism, the proliferation of urban agricultural activities, will be examined in the context of Kenya’s current political economy.

The black bloc's ungovernable protest

Abstract: A yearlong government assault on civil liberties combined with a(nother) questionable invasion has led to the “rebirth” of a peace movement in the U.S. and a generalized discontent that recalls the social crisis of four decades ago. Or does it? The U.S. invasion of Iraq has been compared, often glibly, to the Vietnam War, but this comparison raises as many questions as it does answers. What might we learn from another look at the protests sparked by the invasion, and from the intellectual response to the breakdown of law and order in those places where the protests turned ungovernable? Unsurprisingly, San Francisco has been a maelstrom of discontent. For decades, the city has attracted progressives, nonconformists, and youth travelers, becoming a counter-cultural haven. Massive demonstrations shook its streets after the U.S. air campaign began in March 2003, and direct actions continued throughout the month of the invasion. (They continue even now, after the war, although the focus has shifted to corporations such as Bechtel and Lockheed Martin which are reaping the post-war profits.) The scale of the actions literally shut down large parts of the city, as demonstrators blocked busy streets and bridge access roads, interfered with businesses, and engaged in targeted acts of property destruction. Such actions had already become common during the months preceding the invasion, as bands of demonstrators “splintered” from the peaceful mass marches and spontaneously took over intersections, faced off police lines, broke store windows, and so forth. These actions are often associated with the Black Bloc, groups of black-clad anarchists who received media prominence after the uprising in Seattle in November 1999. In response to these protests, the city mobilized the most repressive police forces in years. Over 2,300 people, many innocent bystanders, were arrested in the first three days, at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars per day. Children were torn from their parents’ shoulders; a political “red squad” targeted local organizers; bicycles were overturned and their riders brutalized. If intellectuals have concerned themselves at all with this radical wing of the protest movement, it has only been to smear them with denunciations—not unlike the new mandarins of the 1960s. In what follows, I wish to explore the parallel between the intellectual response to the radical protest then and now, beginning with a look at some critical theorists at the center of the debate on tactics and social change during the Vietnam War era.

Patriotism and Progressivism

Abstract: Many Americans believe that the left is “anti-patriotic” (and even anti-American) whereas the political right truly expresses the American spirit and reveres its symbols. Particularly since the late 1960s-when the movement against U.S. intervention in Vietnam gained momentum-the terms “progressive” and “patriotism” have rarely been used in the same sentence, at least in the mainstream media. It has become conventional wisdom that conservatives wave the American flag while leftists burn it. Patriotic Americans display the flag on their homes; progressives turn it upside down to show contempt. Since the World Trade Center bombing on September 11, 2001, the U.S. has seen a dramatic increase in the number of Americans proudly displaying the Stars and Stripes on their cars, homes, businesses, T-shirts, caps, lapel pins and even tattoos, along with sales of CDs with patriotic songs. Retail stores have redesigned everything from coffee mugs to bikinis in red-white-and-blue. Since September 11, bills to make the ...

Images of Race and Nation after September 11

Abstract: September 11, 2001 is a moment in recent memory already loaded with images of historical significance. Indeed, the high discipline, the History of September 11, is already firmly established on the fertile terrain of the American cultural landscape. Some of the images of 9/11 became synonymous with the event itself; others are less well known. But these images, which began circulating almost instantly after the first plane struck the north tower of the World Trade Center, tell important stories about more than just the event, and they require careful scrutiny. We looked at every photo in issues of Time, Newsweek and U.S. News and World Report in the six weeks following the terrorist attacks. The magazines from September and October were a collage of firefighters, vigils and schoolchildren; there were rescue workers, representatives and civilians. We considered several different variables upon which to focus our analysis-portrayals of profession, of crowd shots, of religion, of politicians-before ultimatel...

The Duality of Patriotism

Abstract: The semantics of patriotism change across time and place. In seventeenth-century Britain, “patriots” referred to those who opposed the court or the king. In eighteenth-century America, “patriots” were those who battled against colonial Britain. In nineteenth-century America, they were partisans of either side in the Civil War. And in twentieth-century America, patriots were those who fervently supported the government in its foreign wars, most comfortably in World War II, less comfortably in World War I and Korea, and uncomfortably in Vietnam. In twenty-first-century American society, we wonder, “Who are today’s patriots?” Are patriots those who are for or against the governmental policies toward Iraq, or is it possible for those on both sides to be considered patriotic? We cannot answer this question definitively, because the struggles that will determine that answer have yet to be completed. Instead, we seek to identify the key dynamics that will shape the coming struggle, and thus deepen our understand...

The “War on Terror” and Non-alignment

Abstract: Against such an enemy, there can be no neutrality. —President George W. Bush, March 11, 2002 Two European Union countries—Ireland and Finland—could never be called “enemies” of America. Nevertheless, they remain, for historical and pragmatic reasons, outside any formal military alliances. Because of this non-alignment, they have been pressured since 9/11 to state exactly where they stand in relation to the U.S. and its “War on Terror.” Both are members of NATO's Partnership for Peace (PfP) initiative, and their positions are closer to what James Skelly has described as “impartial” rather than isolationist neutrality. Finnish soldiers have served with distinction in peace-keeping operations and their diplomats have been seen as honest brokers in Yugoslavia and Northern Ireland. Irish soldiers have helped to keep the fragile peace in Lebanon and East Timor, and Ireland has provided the UN with major.gures such as Mary Robinson and Dennis Halliday. The importance the citizens of these countries has given to ...

Localizing democracy and good governance

Abstract: Since 1989, a growing international consensus has claimed that democracy provides the best system of state governance. This trend shows itself in the widespread endorsement of a transnational “universal human rights” approach, which advocates civil liberties and equal political participation in international debates about state sovereignty, in international foreign aid funding criteria, and in the growing number of countries that now present themselves as democracies. Given the increasing importance of “democracy and good governance” in international donor decision-making, in the degree of support regimes receive from the broader international community, and in the stance of individual nation-states, some new questions must be addressed. What do these terms mean to different actors? What are the perceived outcomes of “democracy and good governance”? How is its use as a condition for aid and international acceptance affecting the political, social, economic, and cultural fabrics of new democracies? What can be done to alleviate some of the “unintended consequences” of democratization and liberalization programs now evident in new democracies? And what can these unintended consequences tell us about the possible weaknesses or dangers of current international models of democracy and good governance for global peace, prosperity, and health?

September 11 as a Theme for a Peace-Oriented Course

Abstract: In mid-2002, a new issue-oriented course on the causes and consequences of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks was presented at Washington University in St. Louis, in the Graduate Program in International Affairs. A peace education approach was chosen, among other reasons, to suggest the possibility of peaceseeking alternatives to retaliation and revenge. A democratic, deliberative discourse in small groups and in whole-class discussions was adopted, under the belief that classroom democracy would more likely promote peace themes, compared to an autocratic classroom atmosphere. Below, we provide a theoretical justification of the deliberative discourse methodology, and an analysis of the course design and findings. This course was developed in response to several research questions. First, how can peace education values (non-violence, conflict resolution, and so forth) be successfully infused into international affairs courses so that the depressing nature of current events will not dominate and persuade students that the situation is hopeless, and beyond diplomacy? Second, how can deliberative discourse be most effectively applied, so that a greater variety of views might come forward for consideration? Third, by what means can a teacher find out if there is daily movement in student comprehension of issues, away from simplistics and toward sophistication, as the course proceeds? And fourth, how might the non-traditional pedagogy of this course be adapted to other fields of scholarly study? We were advised by a consultant experienced in deliberative discourse and classroom democracy, who has joined us as a co-author of this paper (JWS). In her deliberative model, students help shape the discourse from the start. This model is rooted in John Dewey’s view of experience as inherently social. Dewey argued that reasoning does not occur in isolation but always in relation to others. So in the deliberative democracy model, teachers facilitate the learning process in ways that invite students to engage in thoughtful, responsible group inquiry.

The Israeli Peace Camp in Dark Times

Abstract: The title of this essay comes from Hannah Arendt’s book Men in Dark Times, a collection of essays describing the activities of men and women who provided a glimmer of light and hope during sinister periods. “Israeli Peace Camp in Dark Times” invokes the meaning Arendt ascribed to her title but also adds another dimension. It is not only that the Israeli peace camp is attempting to provide a light during times that—according to all accounts (right and left)—are dark. In addition it has recently experienced its own share of darkness. At the critical moment, the Israeli peace camp faltered: it remained silent when it should have cried out, it became complacent when it should have resisted, and it betrayed its partners when it should have expressed compassion and solidarity. Examining this second dimension, the darkness within the peace movement rather than the one surrounding it, will be our subject here.

Recasting the Bonds of Affection

Abstract: Americans tend to take their patriotism for granted. Come the Fourth of July, foreigners struggle to be festive as Americans indulge in earnest and heartfelt, though often sanctimonious and mercenary, celebrations of their nation’s “birthday.” Most Americans are blithely unaware that the patriotic symbols and rituals they regard as timeless expressions of the national spirit are in fact of very recent origin. While Memorial Day was first observed in 1868, it was not enshrined as a national holiday until 1971; the Pledge of Allegiance was not written until 1891; and the national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner,” was not approved until 1931. Presidential icons were even slower to be enshrined in the pantheon of national heroes—the Washington Memorial was finally completed in 1884, 36 years after construction began, after lack of funds delayed completion; the much vaunted Lincoln Memorial was not finished until May 1922; the Jefferson Memorial was dedicated by Franklin D. Roosevelt (F.D.R.) as recently as ...

What Does It Mean to Love One's Country?

Abstract: As a guest on radio talk shows, I have criticized aspects of U.S. foreign policy. On one such occasion, an irate listener called to ask me, “Don't you love your country?” Here was someone who saw fit to question my patriotism because I questioned the policies of U.S. leaders. The caller was manifesting a common symptom of what might be called “superpatriotism,” the tendency to place nationalistic pride and supremacy above every other public and ethical consideration, and the readiness to follow national leaders uncritically in their dealings with other countries, especially confrontations involving the use of U.S. military force and violence.

Patriotism versus Imperialism

Abstract: Patriotism has been a concern in all societies as citizens contemplate making special sacrifices for their nations. In existing literature, patriotism is usually understood as one's feeling for his or her community, devotion to the nation, or allegiance to the state. In general, patriotism can be interior or exterior depending on whether the commitment is for ensuring national progress internally or for protecting national interest from external forces. The exterior mode of patriotism often takes the form of nationalism, emphasizing the priority of collective national interest over fragmented individual or group interests. Although patriotism or nationalism in the former colonies became a means of liberation, in many instances it has been used as a pretext or rhetoric to suppress minorities, practice social exclusion, deny human rights, and dominate powerless nations. When nationalism is used to legitimize international domination, it often constitutes imperialism, which is rationalized as the duty of str...

Non-Violent Options for Palestinian Resistance

Abstract: The time was almost midnight, on September 20, 2001, when several satellite television stations interrupted their regular programming to announce that Israeli soldiers had warned Palestinians living near Yasser Arafat’s headquarters in Ramallah that the building would be blown up in 15 minutes if those inside it did not come out. During those tense minutes, the streets of Ramallah filled with ordinary Palestinians. Marchers, often led by women, increased in number as people trapped in their homes for days on end decided to shake off the injustice that had befallen them. Many demonstrated more in defense of their national honor than in support of Arafat. The popular uprising that began in the Ramallah neighborhood of Umm al Sharit quickly spread to Nablus, Tulkarem, Gaza, and Bethlehem. The next day, women and men came out with pots and pans and beat on their household utensils as a sign of anger and protest. The following day, a candlelight vigil was held as a way to break what people considered a repressive curfew. In 1987, Palestinians introduced the term Intifada into the international lexicon, when thousands of youths armed with nothing more than stones rose up against Israeli guns and tanks. In the fall of 2000, when rioting broke out following the visit of Ariel Sharon to the area around the al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, many called those protests the al Aqsa, or second Intifada. Now, after what happened on the evening of September 20, 2001 in Ramallah, we may be witnessing the birth of the third Intifada.

Gender, Patriotism and the Events of 9/11

Abstract: In the weeks after 9/11/2001, the events of that day were described in many ways. One of the most significant spins came from the government: initially the events were described as “a terrorist attack,” but not long after they became an “act of war.” We Americans were told that what occurred was not a crime to be addressed by punishing the perpetrators, but an attack on a nation-state, which requires us to take up arms against the enemy. Why does this shift in conceptualizing the events matter? Acts of war and acts of crime call for different responses: in war procedural safeguards (for example, innocent until proven guilty) are suspended, civil liberties are curtailed, the death of innocents is justified. Crimes against humanity unite us as human beings in response to the horrific acts of individuals. In contrast, attacks on nation-states call for an identification of “the enemy” as other nation-states, and we are called upon as patriots to defend our country. Since the fall of 2001, the U.S. continues t...

Engaged Resistance in American Indian Art, Literature and Film

Abstract: Early in the morning of November 20, 1969, a group of approximately 100 American Indian college students joined forces with a group of urban Indians from the San Francisco Bay Area and set out on three boats to claim Alcatraz Island as “Indian Land.” This new collective called itself “Indians of All Tribes,” and proceeded to occupy the windy, cold, abandoned Alcatraz facility for almost 18 months—the longest occupation of a federal facility in the history of the United States. Up until this time, Indian politics was largely tribal; however, because of the government’s Indian Removal policy that landed Indians from all over the country in the Bay Area and because of growing numbers of Indian college students advocating political action, a kind of pan-Indian resistance emerged. Although the occupation ended less glamorously than the occupiers may have hoped, they accomplished a great deal. Oddly sympathetic to Indian claims for land and reparations, President Richard Nixon returned thousands of acres of land to the Taos Indians and set aside lands and funds for what is now DQ University—an accredited tribal college in Davis, California. Most importantly, this Native resistance movement resulted in an end to policies of termination in favor of self-determination. While on the island, the occupiers wrote poems about survival and protest, took pictures of Indians working together and painted signs of Indian ownership and resistance on the weltered facades of the Alcatraz buildings. The central item for this protest was a proclamation claiming the island and justifying its occupation. It is rhetorical, funny, engaging. On the morning of December 29, 1890, another act of collective Native resistance was put into motion, though this would bring about an even more disturbing outcome. A Paiute shaman named Wovoka and his Ghost Dance religion had been spreading across the prairie for most of 1890. If performed well, Wovoka claimed the Ghost Dance would bring about a much needed cleansing, washing away the encroaching Anglo settlers under a new soil that would replenish the earth and return the Indian world to the way it was supposed to be. But an Indian agent stationed in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, frightened by the spectacle of hundreds of Ghost Dancing Indians, wired his superiors for help. The result was the Massacre at Wounded Knee: 300 dead Sioux and one mortally wounded Ghost Dance religion. Though these two narratives tell different stories, they embody important aspects of Native American reality—what I call “engaged resistance.” We see this

Bombings, Provocations and the Cycle of Violence

Abstract: Despite the clear cause-and-effect linkage in this case between Israel’s assassination and the subsequent Hamas suicide bombings, Israeli officials frequently deny any connection between their military operations and Palestinian suicide bombings. They reject the notion of a “cycle of violence,” claiming there is no “cycle” but that Israel merely responds to Palestinian terrorism. Israel has worked hard to portray suicide bombings as solely acts of mass murder against Jews, demanding that the media use the term “homicide bombings,” and thus limiting any political or contextual analysis of the nature and timing of such attacks. Yet an examination of the nearly 100 Palestinian suicide bombings since they began in April 1994 reveals that many of them follow a striking pattern of Israeli military violence and Palestinian retaliation. An almost predictable sequence emerges: Israeli attacks that cause substantial Palestinian civilian casualties and Israeli assassinations of important militant leaders are the most common triggers for suicide bombing cycles. A smaller number of suicide attacks have occurred during periods of widespread Palestinian outrage at aggressive Israeli actions, such as provocative settlement building in Jerusalem. A smaller number of suicide bombings appear to have no relationship to Israeli actions. This pattern has become intensified since Ariel Sharon became Prime Minister in February 2001. Escalated military assaults on Palestinian civilian areas have been met by a systematic assassination campaign by Palestinian militant leaders. Four times as many suicide bombings—around eighty—have occurred since Ariel Sharon became Prime Minister than in the seven previous years combined. By contrast, only two suicide bombings occurred between 1998 and 2000, during the Wye River Peace Accords and Israel’s election of Ehud Barak on a pro-peace platform. The cycle of Israeli military actions leading to suicide bombings raises troubling questions about Israel’s insistence that suicide bombings are simply random acts of mass murder and that its own actions are merely self-defense. It should also make us wonder about the true intentions of Ariel Sharon’s policies.

Patriotism and Its Double

Abstract: The patriot, someone once said with tongue in cheek, is a person who always stands ready to defend his or her country against its government. A few years ago, such a statement would have been a quip. Today, it takes on a sense of urgency and reality. A short list of critical governmental assaults on the U.S. “political quality of life’ would include the Patriot Act, Homeland Security policing, an unconscionable federal deficit, the unlimited incarceration of people without charges, legitimizing the torture of detainees, organizing networks of informers, complicity in corporate corruption and criminality (Enron, the power crisis, and so forth), a presidential election that violated federal law (the Voting Rights Act of 1965), and a proposed computerization of elections that promises to be fraudulent (there is no monitoring of or accountability for its proprietary software). Internationally, the U.S. government exhibits a recklessness and criminality that indirectly assaults its citizens by alienating them ...

A call for peace and unity in Africa

Abstract: At independence in the 1950s and 1960s, African societies faced acute social, economic, and political problems including underdevelopment, ethnic/civil wars, and political instability. Africans had anticipated independence ushering in a period of growth, contentment, and peace. But deepening poverty and social and political decay have since overshadowed such dreams. The emergence of globalization in the 1990s, with the global economy and the creation of a new world order, has added to the many problems of African societies and their peoples. Globalization has turned African societies into international markets and eroded almost all the achievements of de-colonization, including state sovereignty, due to the rising powers of the transnational companies of the industrialized nations. How does Africa achieve equal partnership within the new world order? The negative impact of globalization on Africa and its peoples, within the new world order, should form the catalyst for the pursuit of regional and continental (global) peace and unity. This goal can be achieved only by creating the conditions for peace on the African continent.

Outsider on the Inside

Abstract: George Orwell claimed that the inherent political criticism in his work was “determined by the age he lives in.” This is partially true. While his work is ostensibly “determined” by the political developments of the 1930s and 1940s, it is overwhelmingly subjective, influenced by his own experiences and his emotional reactions to them. It might be more accurate to say the content of his work is determined by “how he lives” in the age he lives in. Orwell’s five-year stint as an Imperial Policeman in Burma immeasurably influenced his career as a writer. Besides giving him a first-hand look at the effects of imperial policy on native populations, Orwell’s job left him with a guilty conscience. His first explicitly political work, The Road to Wigan Pier, represents his attempt to exorcise his guilt, to atone for the wrong he believed he had committed as an agent of imperialism. The relationship between Orwell’s imperial service and The Road to Wigan Pier illustrates the degree to which successful political art can combine the personal life of the author with universal political aims. Indeed, the success of this specific work owes much to Orwell’s ability to integrate his feelings about his time in Burma into his political argument about class relations and England and the Socialist Party’s failure to repair them.