One World, Many Peaces

The Nile Treaty, Water Security and the Future of Peace in Africa

The Nile Cooperative Framework Agreement (or Nile Treaty, under the auspices of the Nile Basin Initiative, NBI) seeks the establishment of a permanent Nile River Basin Commission through which member countries will act together to manage and develop the resources of the Nile, the world's longest river. To many who visit, the Nile and its fertile valleys are a beautiful backdrop for a cruise or vacation. But for those who live around and depend upon the river, it is that and the source of their physical survival and cultural heritage.

Formally launched in February 1999, the NBI provides an institutional mechanism, a shared vision, and a set of agreed policy guidelines to provide a basinwide framework for cooperative action, according to the Nile Basin Initiative website. The initiative's policy guidelines define the following as the primary objectives of the NBI:

•To develop the Nile Basin water resources in a sustainable and equitable way to ensure
•Prosperity, security, and peace for all its peoples
•To ensure efficient water management and the optimal use of the resources
•To ensure cooperation and joint action between the riparian countries, seeking win-win gains
•To target poverty eradication and promote economic integration
•To ensure that the program results in a move from planning to action.

The NBI's Strategic Action Program represents Nile riparian concerted approach to achieving sustainable socioeconomic development in the basin through “equitable utilization of, and benefit from, the common Nile Basin water resources.” The Strategic Action Program provides the means for translating this shared vision into concrete activities through a two-fold, complementary approach:

•Lay the groundwork for cooperative action through a regional program to build confidence and capacity throughout the basin (the Shared Vision Program)
•Pursue, simultaneously, cooperative development opportunities to realize physical investments and tangible results through sub-basin activities (Subsidiary action programs) in the Eastern Nile and the Nile Equatorial Lakes regions.

So far, five countries have signed the Nile Treaty: Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and most recently, Kenya. However, two countries key to the viability of the whole project, Egypt and Sudan, have so far vehemently opposed the Nile Treaty on the grounds that it will detract from their economic interests in the river. 

Nonetheless, Egypt, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda belonged to the Technical Co-operation Committee for the Promotion of the Development and Environmental Protection of the Nile Basin (TECCONILE), founded in 1992, a forerunner to the NBI.

As the African population grows with the rise of industrialism, and bigger cities replacing villages, water security and agriculture will be of paramount importance. The Nile Treaty gives reason to hope that these potential conflicts will not turn violent, but no guarantee.

The Nile remains a current event after thousands of years of human dependency on it, and will create a future of peace only if humans can work their problems out before they become violent. 

War Don Don: New Documentary Film Explores Sierra Leone War Crimes Trial, Offers Hope

After ten years of violent civil war, Sierra Leoneans were relieved in 2002 when the brutal war was over (exclaimed as “war don don” in the Krio language), but the painful memories of murder, systematic rape and dismemberment remained.  WAR DON DON, directed by first-time filmmaker Rebecca Richman Cohen, follows the war crimes trial of Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebel leader Issa Sesay, exploring the complex relationship between individual accountability, collective reconciliation and the limits of international justice.

The documentary debuts Wednesday, September 29 (8:00-9:30 p.m. ET/PT) and Sept. 30 (2:30 p.m.) on HBO2. Cohen will be making a special appearance at the Chicago screening at Facets for an audience Q&A on October 8-9. Here's an overview of the context, and content, of a brilliant and contstuctively troubling film.

From 1991 to 2001, the RUF fought to overthrow the ruling government of Sierra Leone.  In 2003, after the end of the war, the United Nations and the government of Sierra Leone spent more than $200 million building a Special Court to seek justice and reconciliation, setting up the world’s first international war crimes “hybrid tribunal.”

Three years in the making, WAR DON DON draws on unprecedented access to the inner workings of the defense and prosecution in Issa Sesay’s trial, including access to Sesay himself, exploring the contradictions of a man who dealt in blood diamonds, commanded child soldiers and was blamed for mass atrocities against civilians, while also being credited by some with single-handedly ending the war.

The prosecution, led by Stephen Rapp (who was recently appointed Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues by President Obama), argues that the trial is supposed to assess the guilt of those at the top, who routinely turned a blind eye to the misdeeds of men under their command.  Wayne Jordash, Sesay’s lead defense lawyer, counters that his client was an uneducated young man who was coerced into fighting.  Moreover, he says, “Any process which isn’t prepared to examine itself is fundamentally flawed.  You [the Special Court] have such an impetus towards convicting everybody before the Court, and that doesn’t lend itself to a truth-finding process.”  Saying that he believes the Special Court has an important place, Sesay offers his own version of the war.

While the trial is underway in Sierra Leone’s capital of Freetown, the Outreach Group of the Special Court visits rural communities to answer questions and show videotape of the proceedings. While some people feel the trial is positive and a step towards the country’s reconciliation, others are angry, believing some of the millions of dollars it cost to build the Special Court would have been better allocated to citizens to alleviate the immediate damage of the war.

During the trial, the prosecution has former RUF soldiers testify against Sesay, sometimes paying their expenses and relocating them for their protection.  Prosecutor David Crane admits that testimony from former RUF soldiers is problematic but necessary, likening it to “dancing with the devil.”

With conviction looming, the defense lays out what it considers Sesay’s mitigating circumstances.  When RUF leader Foday Sankoh was arrested and imprisoned at the end of the war, Sesay became the interim leader.  Pressured by principals of neighboring West African countries to disarm the RUF, he ended the civil war without further bloodshed – and without negotiating a deal for his own amnesty.  The Special Court subsequently sentences Sesay to 52 years in prison.

Following his own trial and the conclusion of WAR DON DON, Sesay has been in the news again, testifying at The Hague (along with Naomi Campbell and Mia Farrow, among others) in the trial of former Liberian president Charles Taylor.  In his testimony, Sesay continues to attempt to assert his voice as the Special Court writes a history of the Sierra Leone conflict.

Today, Sierra Leone is a peaceful nation, but after two successful democratic elections, it remains the third-poorest country in the world.

Rebecca Richman Cohen, who is a Harvard Law School graduate and has a background in human rights and criminal defense, was a legal intern for the defense team on another case in the Special Court of Sierra Leone during the trial of Issa Sesay.  She says, “I hope WAR DON DON offers an insider’s view about the complex moral, political and legal questions that issue from rebuilding lawless and war-torn nations – and will inspire thoughtful debate about the future of international criminal justice.”

WAR DON DON is directed and produced by Rebecca Richman Cohen; produced and edited by Francisco Bello; executive produced by Jim Butterworth and David Menschel; co-producer, Daniel Chalfen; composer, Max Avery Lichtenstein.

Visit the official website of War Don Don.

World Report on the Decade for a Culture of Peace Submitted to U.N. Secretary General

Capping the United Nations' Decade for a Culture of Peace (2001-2010) efforts to catalogue ongoing peace work globally, the World Report on the Decade for a Culture of Peace has been submitted to the U.N. Secretary General for a General Assembly debate in October. We are proud to say that One World, Many Peaces was included in the report for its pioneering peace journalism.

Over 1,000 peace organizations worldwide contributed to the final report, according to David Addams, leader of the global youth team who helped prepare it. According to Ambassador Anwarul Chowdhury, who begins the report with a foreword:

"The adoption in 1999 by the United Nations General Assembly of the Declaration and Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace was a watershed event. Nine months of negotiations, which I had the honor to chair, led to the adoption of this historic, norm-setting document now considered one of the most significant and enduring legacies of the United Nations.

During the last ten years, the UN’s work in this area has been particularly spearheaded by the broad-based advocacy and activism of numerous non-governmental organizations throughout the globe. The International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-violence for the Children of the World (2001-2010), which was proclaimed by the United Nations, is galvanizing a global movement for the culture of peace."

The movement for a "Culture of Peace" was originally spearheaded by peace activist and scholar Elise Boulding, who just recently passed away. More about Elise Boulding is available from One World, Many Peaces in an article remembering her pioneering work. The Culture of Peace Working Group of the NGO Committee on Spirituality, Values and Global Concerns, a Committee of the Conferences of NGOs in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations (CSVGC NY) has sponsored this Report "in the name of all civil society organizations worldwide," notes Chowdhury.

But as Antony Adolf has recently showed in a major new article, "Globalizations of Cultural Criticism and the Transformative Roles of Critics," there are serious problems with trying to establish a single, dominant "culture of peace" when peace cultures always exist and are the result of plural peace traditions, and there are one billion starving people worldwide.  He argues that only the combined efforts of cultural critics and peacebuilders can bring about cultures of peace.

The World Report on the Culture of Peace members include Marcos Estrada (Brazil), Meghann Villanueva (Philippines), Cécile Barbeito (Spain), Lillian Solheim (Norway), Mayte Roitenburd (Mexico), Johanna Ospina (Colombia), Nikki Delfin (Philippines), Shreya Jani (India), Oliver Rizzi Carlson (Switzerland) and Himali Jinadasa (Sri Lanka). Support was provided by Alicia Cabezudo, the Associação Brasileira dos Organizadores de Festivais de Folclore e Artes Populares (ABrasOFFA), the United Network of Young Peacebuilders (UNOY), the Centre Unesco de Catalunya (UNESCOCAT), the Fundación Cultura de Paz, the Escola de Cultura de Pau of the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, Fundació Privada Catalunya Voluntària and Generation Peace Youth Network among others.

Anti-War Activists: Stop Panicking, Start Thinking Critically and Acting Strategically

"Panicked thinking was shared by many of us then, and it led to the kind of disastrous short-term actions that began to characterize the antiwar movement." So writes the legendary anti-Vietnam War, pro-women's liberation activist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz in her monumental memoir, Outlaw Woman: A Memoir of the War Years, 1960-1975. Unfortunately, not much has changed in the few decades since her, her entourage and their supporters worldwide nonetheless made considerable headway in turning the tide of public opinion. Unfortunately, they and we have failed today even if we need not to in the future

The Afghanistan War is now the United State's longest military engagement, ever. The war in Iraq is rapidly approaching second place after it, too. The burst of anti-war energy that soon fizzled first in 2001 with the Afghan, then the so-called "Summer of Peace" with Iraq in 2003, has never been regained. This is not a eulogy, it's a reproach and recommendation to those who led and participated in those protests globally, thinking they would make a difference in doing so, then went back to their complacent daily lives and let the two wars continue, costing hundreds of thousands of lives and trillions of dollars.

What is "panicking" in an anti-war context and why should it be stopped? Exactly what and why Dunbar-Ortiz claimed it is:  disastrous short-term actions. What's so disastrous about panicking? Aside from that it has achieved absolutely nothing in regards to ending the wars, it has also alienated a lot of the people who would have otherwise worked to end it, while giving those who do it a false sense of accomplishment in the self-centered, self-satisfaction of acting like an angry teenager, or worse yet a two year old in their "terrible phase." As such, it needs to be stopped, but stopping without doing anything different would be like not stopping at all.

We propose two alternatives. First, thinking critically. Not in the sense of armchair philosophizing, but deeply scrutinizing the following, among other things: Why we want the wars to end; why others might want them to end too and why they should join us; it means learning from the long history of peace and anti-war activism dating back centuries, rather than reinventing the wheel; what has worked in the past and can be repeated effectively today; what has not worked in the past and should not be repeated today; how to take advantage of resources like social media that were not previously available;  how to build bridges (not burn them) with related organizations. These last two bring us to the second alternative.

Start acting strategically. If there's an opposite to panicking, this is it. Anti-war strategizing includes planning in the short, medium and long terms; it takes the shape of coordinating the human, economic and technological resources that are already in place, not competing; it means setting egos aside to make the causes succeed;  it requires reaching out to opponents and potential partners to come up and implement solutions that make sense. Anti-war panicking is a deadly disease; critical thinking and acting strategically are its cures and, with them, an end to the war epidemic.

Global Relations Lessons From South Africa's World Cup

Spain's victory over the Netherlands wasn't just a matter of national pride or world glory. Despite being a game that made even the announcers apologize for its boringness, the players on each team made clear two very different styles of trying to win that can teach us a lot about global relations, as can the World Cup media coverage.

A striking parallel can be drawn with the recent Stanley Cup victory of the Chicago Blackhawks over the Philadelphia Flyers, a series of games which was whatever the polar opposite of boring is. Going into the final, the Flyers were known as the "bullies" of the league, and the young Chicago team was known for its finesse and skills. (Disclosure: I live in Chicago and grew up with hockey as a quasi-religion in Canada.)  As you can guess, finesse trumped bullying in the end, which is one part of the moral of this story as it related to global relations.

Soccer players are famous for the on-field drama, but when the Spanish player got kicked in the chest by the Dutch, I felt pain, and not just in my metaphoric heart. Let's leave aside the complex political nuances of the "Orange" (Dutch, after their jersey color) playing near what was once the Orange Free State of Dutch settlers later called Boers and who carried out Apartheid. I'm no soccer/football buff by any means, but I know when I see too many yellow cards and too few shots on goal. That's called bullying, just as it is in hockey. And the Dutch rightfully lost, making Spain's win righteous. Unfortunately, that's not how it always works in global relations even if it should.

South Africa did a tremendous job in hosting the world's largest sporting event, giving the continent its rightful place amongst the rest when it comes to prestige potential. However, the media coverage did a despicable job of reporting on the country and its people, say compared to what was done for China during its recent Olympics, using euphemisms like "troubled past" to gloss over the super-human struggles of South Africans still alive today. Nelson Mandela's name popped up a few times, but rarely was what made the World Cup possible to begin with-- the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) headed by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Desmond Tutu-- ever mentioned. This is the kind of travesty of omission mainstream media commits everyday to the detriment of global relations.

Neither was Apartheid ever faced head on, as a problem or with its triumphal solutions, ostensibly not to mix politics and sports (sorry, that's impossible), actually pushing them below the surface so that they exploded for anyone in the least in the know. The situation in Israel/Palestine is the parallel here. Even a Spanish-born announcer said that his country's team victory was political because it unites Spaniards of different linguistic and cultural backgrounds in ways that have never been done.  Did you notice how few Blacks were in the stadium for the final? Did you know that local vendors were prohibited from being within two miles of the stadium so that major multinational corporations could take the stage?

So in addition to the lessons that skill and finesse beat bullying in sports as they should in international relations, here are two others: Don't erase or suppress the past because doing so creates an un-understandable present that can only lead to a undesired future. Do acknowledge the connections between both sports and politics as part of culture for constructive and destructive purposes alike. And, finally, prestige can never replace collaborative prosperity in domestic or global relations.

Photo credit: babasteve

International Cooperation and Local Development: A Perspective from Mali

By Genevieve Hamel

Cooperation, development and international solidarity, you know these words? You hear them everywhere, so sometimes you wonder what they really mean ... All international cooperation agencies do not work the same way, although their goal is often the same: to try to improve living conditions of the poor around the world. Easy to say! But when you see the magnitude of the task, lack of access to clean water, food or political insecurity, illiteracy, AIDS or malaria, one really wonders if the challenge is not a little too big for just non-governmental organizations (NGOs). This implies a somewhat worrying question: who actually benefits the thousands of dollars invested in this "international cooperation"?

For a dozen years, I worked in developing countries for different NGOs based inthe Canadian province of Quebec: Burkina Faso, Haiti, Senegal and most recently ... Mali. I just returned, still breathless from three weeks of work at a dizzying pace. Each time I take the opportunity to go see for myself what is happening there, how people survive and live and, more importantly, what they think of us and about “international cooperation.”

So, I find myself in Bamako, the Mali capital, as a journalist and photographer, accompanying my director-cameraman, a young intern barely 18 years old, and a logistician. The team is sent by a foundation L'OEUVRE LÉGER (www.leger.org) which funds many Malian organizations working directly with the poorest populations. We have before us 18 days to "capture" images and words that will describe the challenges and successes of this country, ranked 178th out of 182 in the Human Development Index (www.unpd.org). The ultimate goal: to produce several communication tools to raise awareness and convince Quebec to the importance of supporting a country like Mali.

From Zantiébougou to Soy, and through Sansanding Kolongo, we scoured the remotest villages, the very embodiment of all the stereotypes in our collective imagination: no running water (just a well), no electricity, small mud houses with their thatched roofs, children playing barefoot in the dirt, girls 15 years with their baby attached to the back, men in fields and under the old baobab tree. Rarely a small school or a literacy center. And when there was a health center, is still seeking a nurse or midwife. Yet everywhere, strangely, we met people more courageous, generous and optimistic than it is possible to imagine.

Through ceremonies, traditional dances, shared meals on the floor or the official speeches, it is also filming, photographing and interviewing the villagers, who have much to say about development projects in their community. To achieve this, the conditions are harsh, as you may imagine. Even under mango trees, it is between 35 and 40 degrees Celsius, the wind blows full of dust and sand, the sun makes the light too harsh, the sky too white: the devices get dirty at the speed of lightning, they "cook" in nothing less than our hands full of sweat ... But no matter. Before us, the villagers hold together while munching on some peanuts, proud that we have come far to see how they fare.

Before our Westerners’ eyes, the situation may seem catastrophic. We ask lots of questions first ... How can farmers feed a family, a whole country, with a simple wooden spade to grow huge crops, often threatened by drought? Where do women get the strength to rise before dawn to fetch water, gather shea butter, pound millet, clean the house, then go work in the fields too, or the market? Why would children go to school, knowing that they must walk over 6 miles without having eating? The more you observe, the less you smile. And we wonder, when an organization reaches a certain village, where can it start?

Most of the communities we visited have benefited from a proven approach, the so-called "local development" strategy. The history of this approach in the mid-1980s and is the result of very particular twinning between the village of Sanankoroba and that of St. Elizabeth, Quebec. The project has snowballed, and now benefits more than one hundred villages. Since 1992, the local development approach was systematized by the organization Solidarité Union Coopération (SUCO), which now receives both financial and ideological support from L'OEUVRE LÉGER. What distinguishes this type of development? Several features, but especially the placing at the project’s heart of its only possible engine of change: the community.

If there is one thing you realize very quickly when traveling in countries such as Mali, it’s that they are far from an individualistic system like ours. So if one wishes to make any change in a collective system, it cannot be achieved by attempting to impose the only model we know.

By putting communities at the hub of the whole process, the local development approach meets many goals: local ownership of objectives, greater adherence to values and culture unique to each environment, a stronger civil society. But the villages who choose to engage in this process are also choosing to sacrifice certain traditions ... The village chief loses some of his power in favor of participatory democracy, patriarchy weakens in the face of gender equity and learns to give its voice to women. Changes that may seem trivial, but are in themselves small revolutions.

Thus, the world changes a little, slowly but surely. I could give you a ton of figures, statistics on the results of all these projects. Tell you that the villagers provide their food security, they are more likely to be literate, they repay the loans and make 200% profit. It's true. That’s international development? Yes. But for me it is also all Malians who have shaken hands, who told me thank you ... and wanted one thing: that we can still “work together.”

Photo credit: Genevieve Hamel

Global Peace Index 2010 Points to a Less Peaceful World This Year

By Liz Ford

The world has become less peaceful over the last year, despite a drop in the number of armed conflicts, according to this year’s Global Peace Index (GPI).

Figures published today show homicide rates and violent crime had increased around the world, particularly in Latin America, where levels of peacefulness showed the biggest slip over the past 12 months.

The GPI has been published annually for the last four years by the Institute for Economics and Peace, a global thinktank that researches the relationship between economics, business and peace. The rankings, compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit, are calculated using 23 indicators, such as violent crime, political stability and military expenditure, correlated against a number of social development indicators such as corruption, freedom of the press, respect for human rights and school enrolment rates.

Figures show that Africa has become the most improved region of the world for peacefulness over the last four years. The continent has experienced fewer conflicts, less military spending and improved cross-border relations. However, sub-Saharan Africa still remains one of the planet’s least peaceful areas, with nine states featuring in the bottom 20 countries listed.

The Middle East has also shown improvements in its levels of peacefulness since 2006, largely through decreasing military spending and improved relations between states.
However, South Asia has become the most volatile area over the last four years, mainly due to increased involvement in conflicts and human rights abuses. This year, Pakistan was ranked 145 out of the 149 states listed and India ranked 129, evidence, says Steve Killelea, founder of the GPI, of the impact of the war on terror.

Levels of peace

For the second year running, New Zealand is rated the most peaceful country in the world, with Iceland climbing back up to second place, after dropping from the top slot in 2008 to fourth place last year. Japan ranked third. Fifteen of the top 20 countries are western or central European states and all Scandinavian countries are listed in the top 10, suggesting that small, stable, democratic countries are the most peaceful. The UK was ranked 31, one of the few countries to improve positions, while the US dropped two places to 85, largely due to its military expenditure, high prison population and increasing rates of violent crime and homicide.

For the fourth year running, Iraq was found to be the least peaceful country, followed by Somalia, Afghanistan and Sudan. Russia ranked 143.

This year, five extra countries were added to the index – Armenia, Gambia, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Swaziland, which ranked 113, 63, 99, 53 and 73 respectively.

In a sense, the GPI make a case for peace – putting a monetary value on peace in terms of business growth and economic development. The index authors estimate that the total economic impact of an end to violence could have been US$28.2tr between 2006 and 2009. A 25% reduction in global violence would add an annual $1.85tr to the global economy. Killelea said these amounts could pay off Greece’s debts, meet the yearly requirements needed to hit the Millennium Development Goals and pay for the EU’s carbon reduction programme, and still leave change.

Aid thoughts

The rankings could provide useful backing to donor governments rethinking their aid strategies. The UK government is currently reviewing the countries to which it gives aid and has set up a National Security Council to pull together plans for development and defence. In a speech last week, the international development secretary, Andrew Mitchell, spoke of the importance of building “peaceful and stable societies abroad”, with particular reference to Afghanistan.

“It’s highly appropriate to look at the index and review how we go about giving aid. In the past, a lot of it was giving on a political whim, to prop up some government,” said Killelea. “You need the right resources and approaches to build a well functioning government and make sure resources are spread around the people.” A government would also save “hundreds of billions of dollars” in military expenditure.

Africa, he added, had experienced significant economic growth over the last decade, which had resulted in improved GDP across the continent, a drop in armed conflict and improvements in child mortality and education rates. But Killelea the continent still had a long way to go. “We don’t want to lose sight that Africa is the most violent region in the world”, he said.

The highest ranked country in Africa is Botswana, at 33. Uganda ranked 100 this year, an improvement on last year. However, Killelea noted that while the country had clearly improved in a number of areas, particularly in terms of economic growth, political instability, a worsening respect for human rights and an increasing number of deaths from organised crime remained major problems.

Photo Credit: syvwlh

Is the International Criminal Court Working?

Among major world bodies, new and old, none holds the place of the International Criminal Court (ICC), sometimes mistakenly called the World Court. Speaking in Uganda this past week, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon sang the ICC's praises, seemingly oblivious to the serious shortcomings its critics have been pointing out since its inception.

As of March 2010, 111 states are members of the Court, and a further 37 countries have signed but not ratified the Rome Statute. However, a number of states, including China, India, Russia and the United States, are critical of the court and have not joined. Clearly the ICC isn't without problems, but what of the solutions it offers?

As the ICC's website relates:

"In the 1990s after the end of the Cold War, tribunals like the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda were the result of consensus that impunity is unacceptable. However, because they were established to try crimes committed only within a specific time-frame and during a specific conflict, there was general agreement that an independent, permanent criminal court was needed. On 17 July 1998, the international community reached an historic milestone when 120 States adopted the Rome Statute, the legal basis for establishing the permanent International Criminal Court."

Article 5 of the Rome Statute grants the court jurisdiction over four groups of crimes, which it refers to as the “most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole”: the crime of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression. The countries that have not joined generally contend that doing so would impinge on their sovereignty as states, but also are among the most militaristic on the planet.

The statute defines each of these crimes except for aggression: it provides that the court will not exercise its jurisdiction over the crime of aggression until such time as the states parties agree on a definition of the crime and set out the conditions under which it may be prosecuted. So far, the ICC has almost exclusively focused on crimes committed in Africa, almost as if they were never committed elsewhere.

Nevertheless, Ban Ki Moon had nothing but nice things to say: "Few would have believed then that this court would spring so vigorously into life, fully operational, investigating and prosecuting war crimes and crimes against humanity," he told the delegates to a conference, AFP news agency reports.

"In this new age of accountability, those who commit the worst of human crimes will be held responsible." Strangely, those countries who are responsible for other of the worst human crimes are not being held responsible, including states and their leader who have refused to become members.

As a current event creating the future, the International Criminal Court is at best a necessary evil, and at worst a world body which turns a blind eye to evil itself.

A Tale of Two Neo-Colonialisms: China and the U.S. in Africa

There's a new "Scramble for Africa" taking place as you read this, one that rivals that which gripped and stripped the people and resources of the continent in the hands of Europeans in the late nineteenth century. But now, it's being waged in unprecedented twenty-first century ways that build upon those of the late twentieth, with two main players not a handful as before: China and the U.S.

Taking a closer look at what's been happening since the waves of supposed decolonization of the 1950s-1970s makes it clear that there are two very different kinds of neo-colonialism making inroads now, and they're not shaping up to be what you may expect from the two superpowers, the one old, the other even older.

This U.S. neo-colonialism actually being in the early 1800s, shortly after Americans through off the British yoke they tried to impose their own by supporting the nascent Liberia. The pattern has repeated itself innumerable times since: remain sovereign in name, while we supply you with capital, ideology and military support. During the Cold War, programs like the Peace Corps put a palatable veneer on what was then called neoliberalism in the next few decades, code name for the exportation of capitalism and democracy, whether the receiving country likes it or not.

The results have been mixed at best, and totally off target at worse, causing some of the worst humanitarian crises in human history while the upper classes of the oil-rich countries benefit and the lower classes continue to suffer, as they always have. Meanwhile purportedly global financial institutions, actually the U.S. and its allies in disguise, like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) lend African countries sums and at rates they cannot possibly repay just as they "give" them foreign aid that gets sucked dry by men with guns supplied by the U.S. off before it reaches its most desperate targets.

As U.S. neo-colonialism began, China was doing its best not to be colonized by the West, only to be so by the Japanese in the early and mid twentieth century, often considered worse than Nazi occupation. By the time the Communist takeover was complete in the 1950s, China had such serious internal problems that looking outside its borders was practically impossible, let alone doing something. That situation changed when the toil and trouble of the billion or so Chinese made their country a manufacturing, and now middle class consumer, global powerhouse.

Ironically, for the past two decades, China has been anything but communist or neoliberal in its neo-colonialism, instead preferring to make huge direct investments in the infrastructure and resources of dozens of African countries without the pretenses and airs of democracy and military security (at least so far for the latter) Americans like to put on in doing exactly the same thing.

Together, American and Chinese neo-colonialism in Africa are likely to dominate Africa for the foreseeable future, or until such time as they come into conflict with one another. When they do, it will not be a battle of ideology that takes place, but a battle of the businesses and organizations that each country has and will put in place on the continent. That is, unless the pitiable African Union shapes itself up to be the continental leadership it can be and itself throw off all yokes, once and for all.

Or, better yet, keep the yokes that work as current events, make them their own and then disappear, and discard those that don't, at which point we will be in a future created by U.S. and Chinese neo-colonialism in Africa which cannot yet be predicted.

Troubling Terms: Muslim, Islamist, Arab... All the Same, Right? Wrong

Few words are used more often with less scrutiny than those referring to the followers of Mohammed's Qur'an, and this in an age when what's left of political correctness (quantitatively and qualitatively) is just enough to prohibit progressives from speaking at ease and conservatives the sick joy of contraventions. What one of the latter, the leader of the British National Party (BNP), said in a live radio session that was also televised really went out his way to make the terminology political… and politically incorrect (depending on your views).

In response to a caller accusing him of anti-Muslim sentiment, ultra-conservative (a nice way to say racist bigot) BNP leader Nick Griffin politely stated he had read the Koran and believed it to be 'not a religious book, but a manual for conquering other people's countries', which it decidedly is not. He is not anti-Muslim, he started off by saying, but he is anti-Islam. The facetious point he was making is that there is a difference between being against a religion and being against people who belong to that religion. Splitting hairs, maybe, but here are some of the terms being used and abused:

Islamist: Usually used in reference to actively fighting soldiers, guerillas, insurgents or resistance fighters (and not necessarily terrorist, see below) who adhere to Islam and who may or may not be fighting in its name, which gives the peaceful a bad one.
 
Muslim: By far the most widely used word referring to adherents of Islam, and generally considered the most neutral term; the literal translation of the word aslama is "one who submits or surrenders," i.e. to Allah's/God's will as expressed in the Qur'an.

Mohammedan: Rarely used today, this term can still be found in works of literature, news and Western government reports that date from about 1400s to the 1930s; among the other historical and more derogatory or ambiguous terms are Turk, barbarian and heathen.

Black Muslim: Although Muslims who have black or dark brown skin live throughout Africa and the world, the term is usually used with specific reference to African-American Muslims who belong to the Nation of Islam, like Malcolm X.

Arab: Although the majority of those the West here about outside of Pakistan and India are of this racial origin (which perhaps ironically has the same antecedents as Semitics, or "racially Jewish"), it only has to do with Islam insofar as implied or explicit associations are made, and no more.

Fundamentalist: Contrary to popular belief based on media portrayals, not all Muslims are fundamentalists, any more so than Christians are; the term tends to be used in reference to people who live in places where religion is all they can cling to, from poverty or abundance.

Terrorist: Again contrary to popular belief based on media portrayals, only a tiny fraction of the Muslim population worldwide is involved with terrorism, and even fewer commit terrorist acts, which are in any case not limited to this religion but have been done in the name of all.

The point here is not to be politically correct when you refer to adherents of Islam, but to be accurate and assured that the words you use are a current event creating a world in which words hurt less and help more.

Photo credit: Bird Eye