One World, Many Peaces

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.

'If I Had a Trillion Dollars' Video Contest Seeks Better Uses for Current U.S. War Funding

By September 30, 2010, taxpayers in the United States will have paid $1 trillion (most of it borrowed from other countries, like China) for total Iraq and Afghanistan war spending since 2001, not including possible supplemental funding attached to the Afghanistan “surge” authorized by the Obama Administration.

While 57% of the federal budget is spent on the military, 48 out of 50 states face significant deficits, which are projected to increase in 2011. This has triggered deep cuts in funding to already stretched and underfunded programs and initiatives.

The 'If I Had a Trillion Dollars' video project asks young people from across the country what they value. What would you do with $1 trillion – for yourselves, your families and your communities?

For the same amount of money, the following could have been provided for people in the US:

308,396,946 People with Health Care for One Year OR
22,599,968 Public Safety Officers for One year OR
17,944,326 Music and Arts Teachers for One Year OR
161,777,753 Scholarships for University Students for One Year OR
188,536,667 Students receiving Pell Grants of $5,550 OR
8,139,680 Affordable Housing Units OR
461,193,337 Children with Health Care for One Year OR
143,595,239 Head Start Places for One Year OR
17,188,969 Elementary School Teachers for One Year OR
1,083,271,391 Homes with Renewable Electricity for One Year

Contest rules include:

• Each entry must be produced by young people ages 13-23. Middle and High School aged participants will compete in one group and College aged entrants in another group.
• Each entry must run only 1-3 minutes.
• Each entry must be a reflection or reaction to the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan reaching $1 trillion.
• Each 2G maximum entry must be uploaded to the contest site by July 31, 2010. (Contact mzerkel@afsc.org for info on how to upload).

For full video contest rules, visit the special site set up by the American Friends Service Committee and National Priorities Project.

China and India Uplift Millions from Slums as U.S. Inequality Grows

Think it's impossible to lift millions of people out of desperate poverty in a matter of years? Think again. India and China have together uplifted at least 125 million people from slums since 2000, and have improved the lives of slum dwellers more than any other countries, according to a new U.N. report. Meanwhile, the U.S. is quickly securing the distinction of being the most unequal country on earth.

India has lifted 59.7 million people out of slum conditions since 2000, where slum prevalence fell from 41.5 per cent in 1990 to 28.1 per cent in 2010, according the State of the World’s Cities report. China's urban population living in slums fell from 37.3 per cent in 2000 to some 28 per cent in 2010, a relative decrease of 25 per cent.  China has made the greatest progress on this front with improvements to the daily living conditions of 65.3 million urban residents. Overall,  227 million people worldwide have moved out of slum conditions since 2000. This didn't happen accidentally, of course, but is the result of superb planning and even more notable execution on the parts of the Indian and Chinese governments.

The report outlines four major steps to uplifting people out of slums. First is to build the skills of the urban poor and encourage them starting micro-businesses of their own choosing, funded by micro-credit. Second is to improve the provision of basic services from nutrition and sanitation within slum settlements. Third is to provide land tenure security to poor families living in unauthorized settlements, improving their access to low-cost housing and subsidized housing finance. These steps correspond exactly to the first level of the Pyramid of Peace in Antony Adolf's Peace: A World History.

The US has emerged as one of the most unequal societies with cities like New York, Chicago and Washington less equal than places like Brazzaville in Congo-Brazzaville, Managua in Nicaragua and Davao City in the Phillippines. Overall, however, the U.N. report warns that the number of people living in slums has risen from 777 million in 2000 to 830 million in 2010, and unless urgent steps similar to those taken by India and China are taken that number could rise to 900 million by 2020.

Photo credit: meanestindian

Highlights of the International Peace Film Festival

The second annual Peace on Earth Film Festival is about to get under way this weekend in the hometown of the first US President to win a Nobel Peace Prize: Chicago. If you can’t make it to the ‘Windy City’ for the unique event, here are some of the highlights:

Peaceable Kingdom: The Journey Home, Directed by  Jenny Stein: Combining the gripping testimony of farmers breaking a long-held code of silence with rare footage demonstrating the rich emotional lives of farm animals, this new documentary from the award-winning filmmakers of THE WITNESS invites viewers on an epic journey of awakening conscience.

Marathon Beirut, Directed by Deborah Harse: Neither the Israeli/Lebanon War of 2006, the assassination of a Government Minster (Pierre Gemayel) nor the calling by Hezbollah for the overthrow of the Lebanese Gov. could stop Marathon Beirut from hosting 22,000 runners in a run “…for the Love of Lebanon."

Nico’s Challenge, Directed by Steve Audette: A story of a 13 year-old boy who faces special challenges as he climbs mount Kilimanjaro, the worlds highest freestanding mountain. His goal, to raise money and deliver free wheelchairs to the people of Tanzania. This coming of age adventure has some unexpected twists that push this child to his limits.

Dive, Directed by Jeremy Seifert: Follow the filmmaker and his circle of friends as they dumpster dive in the back alleys and gated garbage receptacles of L.A.'s supermarkets. In the process they uncover thousands of dollars worth of good food and an ugly truth about waste in America: grocery stores know they are wasting and most refuse to do anything about it.

Ape Trouble, Directed by Scott Dikkers: Gorillas have it rough. At a very young age Billy the Gorilla is snatched from his mother and placed inside the Taylor-Cornelius Primate Research Center for testing and education. Upon his release into the cold and bitter city, he finds that there is one lesson his lab-coated schoolmasters neglected to teach him.

You can watch the trailers for these and all the peace-themed films here.

The Second Annual Peace On Earth Film Festival, hosted by the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs will open Friday, February 26, and run through Sunday, February 28, 2010, in the historic Chicago Cultural Center’s Claudia Cassidy Theater, 78 E. Washington Street, Chicago, IL 60602. Admission is free and open to the public.

Corporate Peace Activism or Peace Profiteering? Victoria’s Secret, Gap and Zazzle Lead in ‘Peace Merchandise’

The well-known, though relatively recent, symbol of peace was in the 1960s and 70s a sign of rebellion, resistance and idealism. What it means now that giant US retailers are putting it on clothing, swimsuits and even underwear is challenging to make out but vital to understanding how both corporations and consumers are seeking to make peace a profitable product, literally. Is this an extension of the UN’s “culture of peace” initiative or a betrayal of it?

It is nothing short of surprising that major US corporations are for the first time churning out peace-themed products at a time when the country is still involved in two wars abroad and a war on terror globally. Their motives for doing so can hardly be called activist or even peace-motivated because they seem to be exclusively profit-motivated. Yet, there may be something to be said about seeing so many people wearing peace signs in so many different contexts.

Take, for example, Victoria’s secret current lines of peace-themed lingerie, swimsuits and accessories. Difficult as it may be to take one’s eyes of the models, oops, we mean merchandise, to what extent do they both trivialize what the peace symbol used to stand for? But another way to look at the situation altogether is that peace has become part of mainstream US commercial culture in a way that it never has, and how can that be all bad?

Or, perhaps even more surprising, take Gap’s TV commercial plug-in that it will donate to its peace cause for every purchase of a peace-themed product. Gap also has a body lotion called the ‘Peace Train’, which makes one wonder if the company bought the rights to Cat Stevens’ classic peace anthem. Just months after Peace: A World History was released, I started noticing the symbol and word on earrings, sweaters and shoes, to the point where I thought I was going peace crazy. It turns out I wasn’t, or was I?

One of the few place you can still find the original spirit of the peace symbol in products is on Zazzle, where independent designers with strong convictions and superb creativity have an array of anti-war and pro-peace gifts and gear available. So consider getting your next present to someone or yourself in a way that promotes peace and makes the profit do what you want it to. Whether seen as corporate peace activism or peace profiteering, peace products are a current event creating a future in which peace is popular and profitable.

New Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem Triggers its Opposites, Calling Notion's Validity into Question

Construction of the new Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem hasn’t even started yet, but already people are protesting because its site lies on an 11th-century cemetery turned parking lot. Prominent Muslim professors and professionals from around the world and Palestinian families whose ancestors lie there have formally protested against the building to the United Nation. The Israeli state and the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish rights organization, plan to go ahead with the Museum despite the serious setbacks it has suffered so far.

World-renowned architect Frank Gehry recently withdrew from the project, citing over-commitments rather than politics as motive, the New York Times reports. Among the foremost supporters of the project are Rabbi Marvin Hier, the dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and the Israeli government. Among its high-profile protestors are Adnan Husseini, the Palestinian Authority governor of Jerusalem, Israeli peace activist Ahmad Natour and Rashid Khalidi, a professor of Arab studies at Columbia University.
 
Conflict resolution scholars like Mark Howard Ross have not been shy to point out the abuses of historical sites and artifacts by the Israeli government and its foreign supporters, used to justify Jewish primacy over locations. According to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Museum of Tolerance is intended to confront issues like “global anti-Semitism, extremism, hate, human dignity and responsibility, and promoting unity and respect among Jews and people of all faiths.” No mention is made of the Palestinian population in and around Israel, oppressed let alone tolerated by the state.
 
Ironically, the Museum has a dual name of Center for Human Dignity, which must mean only for peoples of certain descent and not those of the deceased of the Mamilla Cemetery (Ma’man Allah in Arabic), making the building itself betray what it stands for. In the end, the controversy calls into question the validity of the principle of tolerance as the basis of policy because it does not require understanding, acceptance nor accommodations of others, but merely distanced if benign acknowledgment. You can tolerate a pest, someone unwanted, but toleration's underlying indifference paves the way for externmination once pests become threats preceisely because they were just tolerated. Creating the future with a museum that is a current event for such reasons is a perilous enterprise despite, or because of, the critical engagement it interpolates. 

New Awards from Google, "Breaking Borders," Honors Web Projects' Freedom of Expression, Shows PR Strategy in Place Before China Row

 

Just before Google went public in 2004, founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin circulated a letter to users and stakeholders highlighting their company's motto: "Don't be evil." Whatever it meant, two years later the company shocked users and stakeholders when it designed a special version of its software containing censorship parameters for use in China. Flip flopping once again, this week Google oddly became the champion of freedom of expression and sticking it to the man once again when it threatened to pull out of China after censorial hacker attacks. But a week earlier, Google announced the launch of the Breaking Borders Awards to honor web projects displaying courage in support of freedom of expression, making it difficult to hold that the China row was an unexpected isolated event.

 

"As part of Google's mission to organise the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful, we want to commend online actors that are making the public aware of some of the social and political challenges we continue to face today," Google and its partners, Global Voices and Thompson Reuters, say on the website giving information about the Awards and how to nominate web projects.  The announcement came from Rachel Whetstone, Vice President Global Communications and Public Affairs, first on Google's Public Policy blog (perhaps confusing it with 'public relations'?), then on the company's official blog. The release date was January 6, and the China row occurred days later, implying that Google was already trying to change its image back to the "good guy" of the internet. Meanwhile, China has defended its position under pretenses of just requiring all companies to obey the law.

 

This appears to be Google's last gasp as the Robin Hood of internet and media companies. It has become a monolithic monstrosity with several of its services suffering, and Awards and standoffs with governments are flashy but futile arrows aimed at distracting customers-supporters from this fact. The litigation surrounding its copyright violations of book publishers is one issue it may be trying to smokescreen. In any case, by 2013, about 840 million Chinese will be surfing the Web at least once a month, predicts research firm eMarketer Inc., compared to between 330 million and 400 million Chinese who regularly use the internet now. Google cannot meet its self-stated goal of making the world's information universally accessible if China's population, about a fifth of the world's, does not have access to it. Moreover, shareholders focused on quarterly numbers will quickly find a company that will tap the market if Google refuses to for whatever reason. Google is without a doubt a current event creating the future, but it should think a bit more of its own.

Hot Off the Press-- 2009: The Year in Review from One World, Many Peaces with Antony Adolf

 

 

What was 2009 all about — or was but you didn’t hear about it? How will 2010 and beyond take shape? 2009: The Year in Review is One World, Many Peaces’ answer. Antony Adolf, author of Peace: A World History, shares the stories he covered throughout the year as “Current Events Creating the Future” — Ours.

Includes three new essays by Antony Adolf published together for the first time:

•Buyers and Buy-Nots: The New Economics of Poverty and Affluence
•Post-Islamophobia: How Cultural Integration Can Prevent Terrorism and Build Peace
•A Missile Shield by Any Other Name: Is Obama's Global Military Strategy Taking Shape in Eastern Europe?

One World, Many Peaces: The Blog and Podcast will start anew on January 5. Thank you for a great year and have a safe and happy New Year!

 

Two Major Intellectuals, Levi-Strauss and Ayala, Die; What the World Has Gained

"Loss" is a word commonly heard when someone dies, as in "a loss to us" or "the world's loss." But what about what we and the world have gained because someone has lived? This may be the more inspiring and pragmatic question to ask of everyone, but especially in noting the passing of two of the great 20th century intellectuals today as centenarians: Claude Levis-Strauss at 100, the French anthropologist and a founder of the widely influential structuralist school of critical analysis; and Francisco Ayala at 103, the paradigmatic anti-fascists sociologist and novelist. The following is less of a tribute than a well-deserved acknowledgment.

Trained as a philosopher in France, Claude Levi-Strauss taught in Brazil from 1935 and came to prominence with his landmark Tristes Tropiques (trans. A World on the Wane), which has since become a classic. In it he proposed that so-called "primitive" mythologies are structurally analyzable in the same way as "civilized" ones, calling into question two centuries of "progressive" thinking. The work had a profound influence not only in anthropology, but also in sociology, philosophy, political science, history and literary criticism, among other fields. He became a member France's prestigious Academie, which rushed to pay homage to him today. Just recently, Levi-Strauss expressed contempt at dying in a world he "does not love," and remarked that the purpose of structuralism was a "search for unsuspected harmonies" by drawing parallels and analogies between otherwise unrelated thought and social systems.  The next-generation of French intellectuals (including Jaques Derrida and Michel Foucault) are often called post-structuralists because they focused on changes in structures over time, in deference.

The Spanish intellectual Francisco Ayala coincidentally followed a similar trajectory as Levi-Strauss, spendinghis early career in South America before return to his home country, where accolades eventually followed. After receiving his doctorate in law from Madrid University in 1930, he went on a lecture tour in Argentina, when the fascist Franco took power back in Spain (1936). In Buenos Aires, he taught sociology and founded the literary journal Reality, where the works of Jorge Luis Borges were first published, among other literati. After moving to Puerto Rico in 1950, he taught at several premier university in the U.S. (including Princeton and the University of Chicago) before returning to Spain in 1975, the year Franco died. His key works include The Usurpers and The Lamb's Head, each of which critically examines the relations between individual consciences, social consciousness and the state. He was awarded the prestigious Cervantes Award in 1991 and the Prince of Asturias Award in 1998.

While it is safe to say that Levi-Strauss' influence on Western intellectual history is more pronounced than that of Ayala, the latter was a catalytic figure in Latin American literature and thought as well as the epitome of anti-fascist writers in exile. It is also safe to say that the worldwide intellectual landscape of the 21st century, of which I and we are all a part, would not be what it is without them. In death as in life, Levi-Strauss and Ayala are turning point current events that have brought us to a better understanding of the past and present so as to create a better future.

Criminal CIA Probe is a Copout but there's Hope Elsewhere...

The criminal probe announced by US Attorney General Eric Holder into CIA agents who interrogated "inhumanely" is a copout move for the Obama administration, who should have gone after those who ordered and supervised them too. Might as well have been satisfied with getting Nazi infantry rather than going after Hitler and his close circle. Or better yet continue, as the White House has on the issue since Obama took office, talking lots and doing nothing. But never fear, The 99 are here!

There is a paradox of peace at the core of every superhero: they uphold values of peace by breaking them as they see fit. This paradox applies equally to heads of states as to our favorite DC and Marvel comic book superheroes,  reinterpreted like Greek tragedies over and over again by Hollywood studios: Batman, Iron Man, Superman and my favorite, Hale Berry as Cat Woman, to name a few. Each of them uses all the violence they can to prevent violence being done or to right wrongs. Kapow!

Enter The 99: explicitly Islam-based superheroes who do exactly the same thing for different reasons. Or are they?  Each character mirrors an attribute of Allah: one, Jabbar, is reminiscent of the Hulk except he is Saudi Arabian; Darr the Afflicter is a paraplegic American who can cause pain with his mind alone; and then there is the character in a burka, Batina the Hidden. Forbes named The 99 one of the top twenty trends sweeping the world, from Morocco to Indonesia. They'll get'm.

The irony is that The 99 basically represent the same values of peace as their Western counterparts, but from a different source. Which brings us back to the copout criminal CIA probes. Just as what differentiates Western and Islamic superheroes is not so much what they do or how they do it, but the source which gives them authority to do so, likewise with carrying out military or other state maneuvers:  these fictional current events thus can inform the creation of our actual future.